Project Description:

Dr. Peter Haff’s class used Google Earth for their final project in the American Southwest (EOS 181S.01). They took a field trip to the Mojave Desert in October to study geologic features, including volcanism, tectonics, soils and weathering, paleo-lakes, wind-blown sand and dust, landslides, and alluvial fans. Prior to the field trip, the students selected biological, geological and astronomical topics to prepare for presentations in the field. At the end of the semester, students took the Earth and Ocean Sciences department (and me) on a virtual tour of their field trip using Google Earth. We followed the track of the trip to see the geological features and embedded photos and information supplied by the students. The students took turns explaining the features illustrated in Google Earth and their photos, including dunes, granite outcrops, vegetation zoning, desert pavement, dry lakes, badlands, bighorn sheep, craters, fault scarps, petroglyphs, a borax mine, relic shorelines, lava tubes and alien fresh jerky.

The students and Dr. Haff collaborated to create the Google Earth file, pooling their pictures and information. The students found that using Google Earth enhanced their learning because it provided:

• a sense of scale
• the ability to make measurements
• an overview of the area
• context for what they were seeing
• orientation.

Read more about this course in Duke Magazine.

More information, examples and tutorials about Google Earth can be found on their website; or, contact CIT for help incorporating Google Earth into your course.

Project start date: 8/25/2008

Project Description:

Currently, archiving of dance performance for study by students is done on an ad-hoc basis with limited impact.  While video has been used to some extent, a two dimensional representation of dance has limited value when multiple performers are involved or when the views recorded do not provide essential information for students to study certain types of movement.

This project will create the initial stage of a prototype archive of basic ballet vocabulary using 3-D dance recording and archiving.  RFID tags, accelerometers, infrared emitters, and stereo video are among the technologies that will be explored for recording.  The use of virtual reality environments for archive access will be investigated, along with conversion to formal dance notation.

Tyler Walters, using advanced students in Dance at Duke, will collaborate with undergraduate students of Martin Brooke in the ECE undergraduate project class ECE 51, where the students will assemble the basic technologies for capturing and generating the dance data.  The initial prototype of the archive, first using video and later 3d representations, will be used as a teaching aid for Ballet Fundamentals, Ballet I, and Ballet II.

The Center for Instructional Technology is providing funding for the project in addition to loaning four high definition hard drive camcorders that will be used in the dance data capture process.

Project start date: 1/12/2009

Funding awarded:  $6,300

Caroline Bruzelius and faculty colleagues Mark Olson, Rachael Brady, Raquel Salvatella de Prada, and Sheila Dillon have developed a new gateway course, “Wired!”, that will integrate new technologies into the teaching of historical disciplines to prepare advanced undergraduates and graduate students to actively engage with and create new media in their scholarly work.  Students in the course will collaborate with faculty at Duke in Computer Science, Engineering and historical disciplines, as well as staff at the Nasher Museum and partners at an archaeological site in Italy to create projects that integrate scholarly research with multimedia documentation and presentation of their work.  The course will be taught for the first time in Spring 2009, with plans to make the course a regular part of the Visual Studies curriculum.

As part of the Strategic Initiative grants program, the Center for Instructional Technology is providing funding to purchase licenses for Strata Foto 3d software for use in the course.  In addition, the CIT is loaning the instructors a professional level SLR digital camera for the class.

Project start date:  1/12/2009

Funding awarded: $1,826

Project Description

The major goal of the project was to develop an immersive 3D virtual model to teach students chemical oxidation using a context that is relevant to students—alcohol metabolism. The model, developed for the DiVE, shows how alcohol is oxidized by 2 forms of the same liver enzyme, ADH. One form increases the risk of alcoholism, and another form decreases the risk. To carry out the project, 5 undergraduate students of different majors took Pharmacology 197/198 (Independent Study in Science Education). Working together the students developed the molecular models of alcohol and the enzymes according to their published structures, and built an interactive virtual reality experience, in the form of several games. The complete program takes about 35 minutes, and is also available in a web-based form. A separate group of students developed a tutorial for use by teachers interested in using the program in their chemistry classes.

Three different assessments were carried out during the funding period to assess content knowledge learned and student attitudes about the program. The first two provided formative data, and the third was a pilot study for a major grant. The first assessment targeted high school students, who demonstrated a significant increase in knowledge of chemical oxidation after viewing a preliminary version of the program in the DiVE. The second assessment, carried out in a Duke Pharmacology course (Pharm 150) during Fall 2008, showed that the interactive component of the program did not improve knowledge of oxidation compared to a non-interactive version. The small sample size (n=22) may have prevented detection of any significant differences. The third assessment was carried out in an accelerated intro chemistry course at Duke (Chem 23L) during the Spring 2009. ([The assessment was carried out as a senior thesis project by a Duke chemistry student (Dave McMullen)]. In this pilot study, students (n=121) were randomized into 3 groups to learn about alcohol oxidation; 1) a typical paper handout, 2) the DiVE program, and 3) a web-based version of the DiVE program (non-immersive), in the Duke LINK classrooms. Several outcomes were measured. There was no difference in the knowledge about oxidation among the 3 groups. It is possible that the immediate assessment (within 15 minutes of the intervention), or the single short exposure, did not allow the students to consolidate knowledge. However, the students in the DiVE group
expressed a greater interest in the content compared to the other groups, and they thought that they had a better understanding of oxidation (even though they did not demonstrate this). The pilot data will be used to write a major grant to carry out a more thorough assessment of the impact of the program on learning.

A summary of the program was presented at the IEEE Virtual Reality meeting in March, 2009 (abstract), and in January 2009 at the Visualization Friday Forum at Duke.   Finally, the webbased program will be made available to the public at http://www.rise.duke.edu/dive-adh (currently password-protected) and it will be submitted in September 2009 to the NSF-Science Visualization Challenge competition.

photo credit:  Les Todd

Project start date: 5/4/2007
Funding awarded: $ 6,500

Additional information:

Duke University Visualization Technology Group

RISE (Raising Interest in Science Education)

Other projects by Pharmacology 150

Duke Center for Science Education

Description of project in Duke Research Blog

Project Description

Portier-Young applied to the CIT for funding to adapt a publicly available 3D model of the ancient Israelite Tabernacle and Temple for for viewing in the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE), by students in her course “Introduction to Old Testament Interpretation.” Portier-Young wanted students to better understand the design of the site and its use in worship activities by seeing the site on a full scale “virtual” tour.

The Virtual Tabernacle is a model of a key worship site used by the ancient Israelites; the model allows the user to see the layout of the site and explore it as a “walkthrough.” Since there is only minimal evidence in original texts about the site’s layout and construction, the model provided a starting point for discussions about interpretation of Old Testament texts.

Student assistants working with the DiVE director adapted the existing 3D model for the display equipment in the facility. In addition, funding was provided for a student assistant to handle the logistics of testing the model and taking the 170 students in the course on the tour in small groups.

All of the students in Portier-Young’s class viewed the tour and several faculty from the Divinity School examined the model to consider using it in their own courses. Portier-Young developed a survey instrument for individuals who viewed the model. The survey results indicated that the students felt the model increased their comprehension of the ancient site and how it was used; viewing the model in an immersive environment allowed the students to see the actual scale of the site and gain a deeper understanding of the site’s components and explore open questions about how worship would have been conducted, based on evidence in the Old Testament texts.

Project start date: 1/25/2007
Funding awarded: $3,325