December 5, 2007
Upcoming events: Workshops on Second Life, Wimba and language technologies
Setting priorities for instructional technology support (CIT focus groups for faculty)
Tablet PC users group meetings
Science Blogging Conference (Jan 2008)
Service or program spotlight: CIT announces new grants for faculty
Teaching resource of the month: Science video sites SciVee, LabAction, and JoVE
New and cool: Amazon's Kindle wireless reading device
Project profile: CIT seeks information about your technology needs with faculty focus groups
Upcoming events
Workshops on Second Life, Wimba and language technologies
http://cit.duke.edu/help/events/eventsreg.do
Second Life for second language - opportunities and challenges of virtual environments
Thu Dec 6, 2007 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Tablet PC users group
Thu, Dec 6, 2007 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
OR Wed, Dec 12, 2007 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Introduction to Wimba: Fast, easy and built-in audio recording in Blackboard
Fri, Dec 7, 2007 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Electronically submitted dissertations
Mon, Dec 10, 2007 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Technology-enhanced strategies for assessing student language production
Mon, Dec 10, 2007 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Teaching using Second Life: Practical Suggestions
Tue, Dec 11, 2007 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Enhancing collaboration in and beyond the classroom
Tue, Dec 11, 2007 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Setting priorities for instructional technology support: Let us hear from you!
Wed, Dec 12, 2007 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
Is there a workshop topic you wuold like, but don't see? We can custom design any session for you - just ask us! cit@duke.edu.
-->Science Blogging Conference: Saturday January 19, 2008
http://scienceblogging.com/
Register now to reserve your place to discuss the future of science communication. The conference addresses a variety of issues and perspectives on science communication, including science literacy, the popularization of science, science in classrooms and in homes, debunking pseudoscience, using blogs as tools for presenting scientific research, writing about science, and health and medicine.
Service or program spotlight
CIT announces new faculty grantshttp://cit.duke.edu/help/grants
CIT has just announced new grant opportunities for Duke faculty and instructors.
Strategic Initiative Grants support instructional innovations with technology, tied to Duke's strategic plan "Making a Difference" (http://stratplan.duke.edu/plan.html). In particular, Chapter 4 of the plan "Academic Goals and Strategies to Build Distinction" focuses on academic and instructionally-related goals which CIT would like to support, such as interdisciplinarity, student engagement in real-world issues, providing engaging and challenging learning experiences for students, transforming the arts, supporting our graduate students, and innovation in creation and delivery of scholarly resources. Information about the grant and examples of potential projects are linked above.
Due date: January 31, 2008.
Blackboard Great Ideas Mini-grant seeks submissions of Bb uses which work well from all disciplines, in order to create examples and models for other Duke faculty. If you use one or more Blackboard tools in a way which works for you and your course, your colleagues would like to know!
Due date: January 31, 2008.
In addition, CIT continues to offer Jump Start Mini-grants and Faculty Fellowships, as well as non-funding support such as consulting, help with materials development and training. Visit our website for more information.
Teaching resource of the month
Science video sites SciVee, LabAction and JoVE
http://cit.duke.edu/blog/2007/12/04/new-video-sites-for-science/
Three sites for finding videos on scientific subjects may be useful not only for scientists and faculty, but also for people interested in current events and public policy to help visualize the human genome, stem cells, or simply see how scientists work.
SciVee offers “pubcasts," which are videos of scientists speaking about a paper they have just published, as well as videos on scientific topics, from pushing a styrofoam cup through a box to an animation of exploring the moon, to organic chemistry lab videos, to mapping ear wax genes onto human migration patterns across the globe.
LabAction is a community driven free video resource for information on biotechnology, cloning, human genetics, genetic disorders, stem cell research and marine biology.
JoVE, the Journal of Visualized Experiments, is an online video-publication for biological research "employing visualization to increase reproducibility and transparency in biological sciences."
New and cool
Amazon's Kindle wireless reading device
http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983/page/1
The Kindle is the newest entrant into the market of devices using E Ink technology to render printed materials electronically on a small, portable device. Unlike some other devices, Kindle includes a type of wireless for loading materials onto the device from Amazon's site, and allows searching, annotation and bookmarking of materials. At present Kindle doesn't easily support pdf format but its other features have made it popular enough that the first batch sold out rapidly. The article above describes the Kindle, and provides thoughts about the future of the book, authorship, and the process of reading.
Project profile
CIT seeks information about your technology needs with faculty focus groups
"Setting priorities for instructional technology support"
http://cit.duke.edu/help/events/event.do?eventid=531
Duke faculty and instructors: CIT wants to buy you lunch! Please sign up to attend one of three sessions specifically aimed at getting your input on what CIT's priorities for faculty instructional technology support should be in the coming year. We've scheduled three lunches between now and mid-January in Perkins Library, in Carr (East Campus), and in LSRC (the first session is next Wednesday 12/12 and is linked above ). We welcome input from all faculty and instructors, so please plan to attend (all participants will receive a free USB flash drive!)
