Gary Gereffi, Sociology, Arts & Sciences

Project Description

In Gereffi’s Marketing and Management capstone course, undergraduate students collect and analyze data involving several key North Carolina industries, helping Gereffi and his team (the Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness) create visualizations like value chains and maps for the public and highly-visible North Carolina and the Global Economy website.

CIT is providing funding and support to help Gereffi and his team develop interactive representations of value chains using tools like Flash, and to explore the use of mapping tools like Google Earth to rethink the way industry data can be presented visually in a more global context. The resulting developments will in turn create more and varied projects for undergraduate students in Gereffi’s capstone course.

Project Started: May 4, 2007
Funding: $11,000

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Trudi Abel, History, Arts & Sciences

Project Description

CIT is providing Trudi Abel with funding and student support to create and integrate several historical maps of Durham into a set of Google Earth files that will increase the integration of real-world research into her courses. Additional development will be done on Google Earth files to prepare them for students to add audio pieces (collected via iPods, many of which have already been created as a result of a DDI project) and create geotagged photography with standard GPS equipment, digital cameras, and geotagging software.

Abel also plans to incorporate the resulting developments into the Digital Durham website/project, Ultimately, Abel would like to see several old maps of Durham (including several fire maps) located in Google Earth and presented in a timeline/tour to illustrate the changes/changing of Durham. For more on Digital Durham, see this Duke article.

Project Started: May 4, 2007
Funding: $1650

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Victoria Szabo, Program Director for Information Science + Information Studies, Arts & Sciences

Project description

This project will support the development and exploration of teaching and learning in Second Life. Objects are being developed and explored during the summer for use in Fall courses. In the Fall, Second Life will be used in Focus 99.09: Special Topics in Focus: Virtual Realities. Students will explore the tool to build a gallery environment consisting of work done in the four courses of the cluster. In the course of this project, the value of Second Life as a teaching and learning tool will be assessing in three specific areas:

• Second Life’s effectiveness as a project display medium
• Second Life’s value as a hands-on exploration of metaverses and virtual worlds
• Second Life’s as agent for collaborative work among students.

The Second Life environment for the class will be demonstrated to the Parent and Students Weekend fair in the Bryan Center and available as a semi-permanent gallery space for others to visit when the semester ends. Second Life will continue to be explored in several courses during Spring 2008.

Project start date: 5/4/2007
Funding awarded: $ 2,500

More information:

Focus Cluster on Virtual Realities

Course descriptions

Project wiki

Second Life at Duke

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Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom, Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Professor of Neurobiology, Professor of Biological Psychiatry Director, Undergraduate Studies in Pharmacology, Director, RISE (Raising Interest in Science Education)
Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, School of Medicine

Project Description

The objective of this project is to develop a 3D virtual model of drug action at the molecular level that can be used in teaching undergraduates in Pharmacology 150. An interdisciplinary team of undergraduate students will work together to develop a molecular model of a basic pharmacologic principle such as drug action at a receptor-gated ion channel (an appropriate example could be alcohol binding at the GABA-gated chloride channel to produce intoxication). They will use the Visualization Lab and DiVE Tank to create a virtual 3D model as well as a 3D web-based version that can be used online.

The interdisciplinary team will also learn how to apply evaluation methodologies to assess the effectiveness of the instructional tool on student learning.

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

Additional information:

Duke University Visualization Technology Group

DiVE Tank

RISE (Raising Interest in Science Education)

Other projects by Pharmacology 150

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Kenneth E. Glander, Professor and DGS
Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Arts & Sciences

Project description

To introduce authentic research methods and give students practice in research, students in the Methods Primate Field Ecology course will use a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit and accelerometer unit to track primates at the Duke University Lemur Center. The data will be collected and analyzed, and students will producing visual representation of time and space occupation of wild animals.   Current technology is being developed to be able to track the lemurs using collars to record position and acceleration.  When results are obtained, students will present the project both at Duke University and professional meetings.

The research experience will continue benefit the students, as they are gaining first hand experience in the challenges of field work and cutting edge technology.  When the visualizations are complete, they will encourage other students to participate in research experiences.

Project start date: 5/4/2007
Funding awarded: $3,200

The Center for Instructional Technology Web site has more information about visualizations and Google earth

Duke University Lemur Center

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