Presentation Abstracts

8:40 - 9:20 am | 9:30 - 10:10 am | 10:20 am - 11:00 pm |
11:15 - 12:30 pm | 12:15 - 1:15 pm | 1:15 - 2:30 pm

8:40 - 9:20 am

Cool New Interactive Visualization Tools to Help Students Learn
Andrea Novicki Academic Technology Consultant, Center for Instructional Technology
 Randy Riddle Academic Technology Consultant, Center for Instructional Technology
Cynthia Varkey Digital Projects Consultant, Duke University Libraries
Von Canon A

Interactive visualization tools help students picture processes, see patterns and understand concepts and contexts. These tools allow students to be actively involved with data, information and text, and provide methods for them to engage with course material by manipulating, adjusting and controlling content presentation; supporting better learning. Interactive visualization tools can help answer questions, support analyses, and spur discussion in your class, and may also help generate excellent student projects. In this session, CIT staff will demonstrate several visualization tools, including Google Earth/Google Maps, Tag Crowd, Timelines and Gap Minder. Participants will discuss how these tools could be useful in teaching.

Using Tablet PCs to Enhance Learning and Engage Students
Linda Franzoni Professor of Practice, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, Pratt School of Engineering
Jeffrey Forbes Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Computer Science
Lisa Huettel Assistant Professor of the Practice, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Robert Malkin Professor of the Practice, Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Joseph Nadeau Associate Professor of the Practice, Civil Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Kathryn Nightingale Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Gary Ybarra Professor of Practice, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering
Von Canon B

Traditional instructional methods present a number of obstacles to effective teaching and learning. These obstacles include a reliance on text-based or static mediums (e.g., the blackboard or a PowerPoint presentation), a disconnect between theoretical lecture presentations and applied laboratory or homework exercises, and difficulty in promoting collaborative activities in the classroom. Additionally, learning is hampered when students are not actively engaged in the learning process or when instructors cannot accurately gauge student understanding. To address some of these challenges, a team of engineering and computer science faculty has explored ways in which Tablet PCs can be used to enhance teaching and more effectively engage students in the classroom. This wide-ranging collaboration has encompassed courses that range from introductory to advanced level and that include both lecture and laboratory components. In some courses, Tablet PCs have been used by the instructor only; in others, each individual or group of students has been provided a Tablet PC. Specific goals and objectives for using Tablet PCs included: 1) to incorporate active learning techniques into the classroom, 2) to obtain more frequent feedback on student understanding of material, 3) to provide in-class demonstrations and simulations of theoretical material, and 4) to more closely integrate lecture and laboratory material. In this panel discussion, the faculty involved in this project will describe the tools and techniques they have used to achieve these goals, as well as some of the challenges they have faced.

Copyright law is often perceived as an obstacle to many teaching activities, especially those that involve using video and images in the classroom and in course management systems.  This presentation will look at each of the teaching exceptions to discern how it authorizes or limits those activities, as well as the impact of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems.  We will examine the recently enacted (and other proposed) educational exceptions to anti-circumvention rules and attempt to arrive at a comprehensive vision of what can be done to teach with images and video.  The presentation will include a discussion of the Creative Commons and a demonstration of how to locate images released under CC licenses that can be freely used for educational purposes.  

9:30 - 10:10 am

Incorporating Video Technology into Clinical Legal Education
Moderator: Randy Riddle Academic Technology Consultant, Center for Instructional Technology
Jane Wettach Clinical Professor of Law, Duke Law School
Andrew Foster Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Duke Law School, Director of Community Enterprise Clinic
Alan Weinberg Director, Low Income Taxpayer Clinic
Von Canon A

The panel members, all Clinical Instructors at Duke Law School, were selected as CIT Fellows to work as a group to incorporate video technology into their teaching. This project grew out of the construction of new teaching space at the law school that was equipped with cameras and monitors. In particular, the video equipment allows clinical instructors to monitor, from their own desks, client interviews conducted by law students in nearby interview rooms. The faculty can then provide feedback to students without having been present during the student's interview. The equipment also allows the students to create a DVD of the interview. They can then perform a self-assessment of the interview, using a "rubric" developed by the faculty to allow for such self-evaluation.

Helping Students Visualize Science in Three Dimensions Using Virtual Reality
Jeremy Block Biochemistry, Program in Structural Biology & Biophysics, Program in Computational Sciences Engineering & Medicine, Duke University Medical Center
Scott Huettel Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Co-Director, Center for Neuroeconomic Studies
Michael Platt Associate Professor of Neurobiology, Co-Director, Center for Neuroeconomic Studies
Von Canon B

The Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (DiVE) facilitates three dimensional visualization such that the user can interact with the computer-simulated environment . The panelists will discuss their use of the DiVE in two different areas; (1) teaching human brain anatomy and (2) teaching introductory macromolecular structure. Interactions currently implemented include functionality for students to easily rotate objects, rescale them, represent different surfaces and boundaries to relate deeper structures to one another, six-degree-of-freedom alignment for superpositioning, and the ability to spot identify areas of interest. This suite of interactions has further enabled a novel mechanism for teaching students about neuroanatomical features and macromolecular structure features that are necessarily complex and require understandable and accessible spatial representations.

Mashing the Nasher: The ISIS Virtual "Gnasher" Project
Victoria Szabo Program Director, Information Science + Information Studies
Zack Pogue Office of the Jenkins Chair of New Technologies and Society
Von Canon C

Students in the Fall 2006 ISIS course 'How They Got Game,' recreated Duke's famous Nasher Museum in the 3D digital world of Second Life. They set up the space both to experiment with a popular virtual world-building environment, and to display their multimedia-based final projects for the class (which itself explored the history of video games). Though the course culminated with a final project event in Second Life, students and guests can continue to visit the museum with their avatar forms at any time. In keeping with our collaborative, project-based orientation, the ISIS program plans to build on this project in next year's ISIS Focus cluster "Virtual Realities," as well as to explore more broadly how 3D spaces can enhance teaching and research practices, especially in cases where new media forms become both the object of study and a new way to communicate research. ISIS is also exploring ways to partner with the "first life" Nasher to display student work and other projects best suited to a digital form.

iPods and Podcasts and YouTube, Oh My!
Student Perspectives on Technology Use in Coursework, Research and Community Engagement
Moderator:Kirk Griffin Multimedia Academic Technology Consultant, Center for Instructional Technology
Student Panelists: Chris Bryant, Sam Hill, Beatriz Mogollòn, Andrew Tutt, Melissa Wiesner
Griffith Film Theater

View Presentation

From iTunes to Blackboard to MySpace and beyond, today's students have a dizzying array of technology tools available to them in their personal and academic lives. In this session, a panel of Duke undergraduates will talk about the value of these tools, the technology projects they've created while at Duke, and their recommendations for academic technology use in coursework, research and community engagement.

 

10:20 am - 11:00 am

Elluminate Live!
Ben Rogers, Digital Media Engineer, Digital Media Solutions, OIT
Jane Blood-Siegfried, Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Nursing
George Turner, Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Nursing
Robert Healy, Professor, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
David Hinton, Professor, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
Von Canon A

Duke recently licensed Elluminate Live! to provide feature-rich, cross-platform web conferencing for Duke University and Duke University Health System. Soon, all Duke faculty and staff will be able to self-schedule Elluminate meetings/sessions to meet their needs. In this panel, faculty who participated in a pilot program using Elluminate during the spring semester will offer examples of what Elluminate can do, and share their experiences using Elluminate in effective ways for their teaching and research.

Teaching with Tablet PCs
Connel Fullenkamp Associate Professor of the Practice, Economics
Jane Gaines Professor, Literature
Ann Motten Instructor, Chemistry
Von Canon B

The participants have used tablet PCs to facilitate flexibility in lecture and discussion classes. Dr. Fullenkamp wrote on the tablet during his presentations as though it were a whiteboard, and then shared the resulting files with his students in several formats. Dr. Gaines annotated images and text to promote understanding and retention during class. Dr. Motten's class used tablets to engage students by sharing student writing as well as to annotate presentations. This session will include demonstrations and lessons learned.

An iPod for Books? Results of the Library-CIT Sony Reader Trial
Anne Langley Chemistry Librarian and Coordinator of Public Services Assessment, Duke Libraries
Randy Riddle Academic Technology Consultant, Humanities, CIT
Von Canon C

In this presentation, staff of the Center for Instructional Technology and Perkins Library discuss a three-month trial of the Sony reader, a portable ebook reader that uses paper-like display technology. A summary of the trial, including possible uses for the device in the Duke environment, will be presented.

Electronic Teaching Portfolios for Graduate Student Instructors
Hugh Crumley, Instructional Technology Specialist, The Graduate School & Center for Instructional Technology
Ingeborg Walther, Director, German Language Program
Rosemary Thorne, Director, Master of Arts in Teaching Program
Griffith Film Theater

View presentation

Electronic teaching portfolios are an increasingly utilized method for both pre- and in-service instructors to demonstrate their development as teachers. In this presentation, three programs that train instructors and require them to develop electronic teaching portfolios will be described. The programsÕ use of portfolios range from relatively low-stakes use to the use of an electronic teaching portfolio for final evaluation for awarding a degree. The presentation will also include participation by students who have recently completed a portfolio for the Master of Arts in Teaching program.

11:15 - 12:30 pm

Keynote : Teaching in Flexible Learning Spaces: Opportunities and Challenges
Malcolm Brown
Griffith Film Theater
View Teaching in Flexible Learning Spaces: Opportunities and Challenges presentation

12:15 - 1:15 pm

Lunch
Von Canon C

1:15 - 2:30 pm

Poster Session
Von Canon A/B

Duke faculty and staff will present posters showcasing instructional technology use on campus.