Project Description:

Five Duke faculty teach voice lessons at Duke and requested hard-drive based camcorders to explore the impact of recording audio and video of voice lessons, classes and performances for immediate or later review by the student and faculty. The voice faculty currently use iPods to record lessons so that students can hear their work for evaluation, but the addition of video would allow faculty to discuss performance problems that have to do with body mechanics, performance, language and communication skills that are manifested in both aural and visual form.

The CIT loaned three hard-drive based camcorders to the faculty to use in voice lessons and preparations for Spring student recitals in courses Music 95, Voice Lessons (50 students); Music 79B, Class Voice (12 students); and Music 179, Advanced Study: Vocal Performance (12 students). The hard-drive based camcorder allowed faculty to randomly access material for playback for discussions with students, in contrast to a traditional tape-based camcorder that would be more cumbersome for these purposes.

Linnartz said that using the camcorder for feedback saved time during lessons, allowing the students to directly see performance issues and how they could improve. “Having video feedback available for immediate student viewing during lessons drastically increased the students’ receptivity to instruction, speeded up their ownership of both the problem and solutions, and created a quicker and more long-lasting change in both technique and performance,” Linnartz noted.

Since the test use of the camcorders proved successful and promising for future work, the faculty are exploring how to obtain a set of camcorders through their department for permanent use in their courses.

Project start date: 2/27/2008
Funding awarded: equipment loan

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Project Description

Julie Reynolds and research associate David Shiffman will compare ARC GIS and Google Earth for use in undergraduate research projects for publication. David will do a literature review of the uses of the two products in education and then conduct and report on side-by-side comparisons, using data generated by student research projects. The results of this study will be used to guide future undergraduate research projects.

Project start date: 4/1/2008
Funding awarded: $1800

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Project description

This project will develop series of short video lectures taped via a desk-top, Flip-video on a tiny tripod. A “Video Workbook” will be created for the N220: Nursing Care of the Childbearing Family, upon finishing all recordings.

These recordings will be uploaded to Blackboard, iTunes U, or other media for students to view and download to their iPods. Students will receive a designed workbook with objectives, lecture highlights and worksheets and directed to the lectures which will be numbered on Bb, iTunes U, or other media. Students then can load the lecture on a video iPod for mobile studying, or view the lecture online. This will accompany the regular course materials. But instead of the course coordinator lecturing via PP slides, class room time can be spent processing critical nursing content as it relates to nursing care of the childbearing family.

Helen Gordon foresees how the project makes different: “I spend HOURS lecturing on small segments of content that consume valuable class time. Now students will spend this time, hearing me and seeing me via video mini-lectures. They will have the satisfaction of receiving the content they want….and I will have the class time back to focus on nursing actions of the material… This format will appeal to the audio learning styles of many of the students. The organization and creation of the workbook will be a key shift in how I have taught this before.”

By the end of the summer 2008 semester, Helen Gordon will randomly select about 7 representative students from her over 60 students to form a focus group for evaluating the project.

Project start date: 2/1/2008
Funding awarded: $ 500

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