In 2009-10, Duke’s elearning Roadmap Committee is actively gathering input from Duke instructors and students about tools they use for teaching and learning. The Committee will assess the needs of the campus community to identify tools, support and infrastructure that should be centrally provided. Whether you use blogs or wikis, Blackboard or VoiceThread, Micrograde or Maple TA, Second Life or Flickr, the Committee needs your insight and ideas about what’s most important for the Duke community. What works well for the kind of courses you teach? What could be improved?  What’s missing? Learn about the Committee’s process, findings and ways to get involved and share your ideas at a new web site, http://elearning.duke.edu. At this site, you can…

• learn more about events we’re sponsoring and ways you can participate in the conversation (Get Involved), including an event for faculty coming up soon on Thursday, November 12 (register)
• stay in touch with (and comment on!) what we’re hearing from members of the campus community (Your Feedback)
• monitor our activities for the 2009-2010 academic year (Our Goal and Our Timeline)

The Department of Chemistry at Duke University invites you, your students and families to the 5th Annual Evening of Chemistry Demonstration Program.

Explore the chemistry of fire on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 (Oct. 1 Rain Date) from 7:15 to 8:30 PM on the front lawn of the French Family Science Center, 124 Science Drive.
Parking is available in the Chemistry Lot off of Circuit Drive.
Contact  Dr. Ken Lyle for more information.
Learn more about how the Department of Chemistry  shares Chemistry with the community

And, if you can’t get enough Chemistry,  Meet the Elements in this video from They Might Be Giants.

Join us in Bostock Library on September 23–24 for “Flattening the Classroom: Building Collaborative Learning Environments,” the 2009 Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) Online Fall Focus Session.

The sessions will explore how to increase student learning by collaboration, an approach to learning that engages students in the active construction of collective knowledge, empowering them to build meaning together, and challenging them to examine issues from multiple perspectives. The various sessions will:

• discuss what it means to effectively collaborate in the classroom,
• describe a framework for the design of meaningful and purposeful activities in the classroom,
• reflect on the potential for social learning to promote critical thinking and spark student discussion,
• explore emerging practices for designing collaborative environments in physical spaces and virtual environments, and
• consider assessment strategies for collaborative activities.

Register to join us for any of these sessions.  We’ll broadcast the web conference in Bostock Library room 039; we’ll listen to the online sessions and then follow up most sessions with discussion among local attendees.

It’s hard to go anywhere or listen to anything without hearing something about Twitter these days, but how does it apply in an academic setting? Can the same technology that was used to communicate during Iranian political protests, following their presidential election, be used to help students learn?

You and several other faculty members can explore that topic during monthly brown bag lunch sessions. We’ll talk about ideas of how Twitter can be used in your course and look at tools that can make using Twitter for teaching easier. The first one will be on September 10th at 12pm. Sign up to join us!

Read more about this year’s Duke Digital Initiative programs.

Librarians hold the keys to a wealth of resources and techniques that can help faculty with teaching and research, and they’re sharing their knowledge in several workshops in a series titled “Beyond the Stacks.” Faculty are invited to learn more about Refworks (8/26) and Endnote (9/2), data and GIS resources at the Library (9/3), finding images and securing copyright (9/10) and making use of digitized and physical primary sources (9/14). All sessions are held in Bostock Library 023, and registration is requested.

Join Adobe at Duke University, where you will learn about Adobe’s tools to help you create, collaborate and connect with students and peers across  campus. Participate in person or virtually (via Adobe Connect) in a Summer Adobe Day @ Duke.

Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Location: Duke Law School or Online via Adobe Connect. (Sessions will be recorded).

Morning Sessions (Concurrent): 9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Session A: Electronic Document Publishing
Session B: Video Production and Distribution

Afternoon Sessions (Concurrent):  1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Session A: Communication and Collaboration
Session B: Web and Application Development

Registration for this event is free; however, seating is limited to the room capacity. All participants must register. If you select that you will be participating via Adobe Connect, you will receive the connection information in an email from Adobe.

Lunch and snacks will not be provided.

Questions?
Contact Christine Vucinich

CIT is offering our annual series of workshops for faculty and GSIs, May 6-12, 2009. These are shifted a little later than usual, to allow us to include some workshops on the new Blackboard 8 system, after it’s upgraded on May 10.

Themes of our 20 workshops this year include:

• teaching and learning with visuals (PowerPoint, digital storytelling, VoiceThread),
• classroom techniques (using student groups, lecturing effectively, teaching in flexible classrooms),
• digital media projects (using Flip video cameras, intro to digital video and iMovie),
• library resources for research and teaching (in Public Policy, Political Science, Women’s Studies, and using images in academic work),
• Blackboard 8 and its tools (intro sessions for new users, Wimba Voice Tools, Bb 8 new features).

A lunch “technology buffet” will allow registrants to choose two of three short show-n-tell sessions focused on Web 2.0 tools, designed to give you a taste of what these tools are about (Twitter, flickr, blogs, online bookmark tools, YouTube….and more!)

There are still spaces available, so register now!
Registration and more information at http://cit.duke.edu/events/may2009.html.

Want to catch up with sessions you missed?  The 2009 Center for Instructional Technology Showcase site is still available, and some of the presenters have shared their materials, which we’ve linked to the the session descriptions.  Find out what people were tweeting about during the Showcase, and continue the conversation.   Got some new ideas for your course?  Call us to talk about them!

Caroline Bruzelius, Sheila Dillon, Mark Olson, Rachael Brady, and Raquel Salvatella will discuss their experiences from this spring in teaching the course “Wired: New Representation Technologies for Historical Materials” and how the course model can be extended for future courses or programs.

The presentation will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29 at the Smith Warehouse, 2nd floor Bay 11, (enter through Bay 12).

You can find more information about their course at their website.  The course also received funding from the CIT as part of our 2009 Strategic Initiative Grant program and was profiled on the CIT’s Project Examples blog.

OIT’s Academic Services group will hold a series of four faculty and student focus groups to obtain feedback on current OIT digital media services. All sessions are in Perkins 217:

• Friday, April 10th 2009: 2:00PM – 4:00PM (light refreshments will be served)
• Wednesday, April 15th, 2009: 2:00PM – 4:00PM (light refreshments will be served)
• Thursday, April 16th, 2009: 12:00PM – 2:00PM (light lunch will be served)
• Friday, April 17th, 2009: 7:00PM – 9:00PM (pizza will be served)

We encourage faculty to register, and to pass this on to their students!

Sign up for these sessions here: http://oit.duke.edu/dms/rsvp.html.