Lynne O’Brien (Director, CIT) and Samantha Earp (Director, Academic Services, OIT) will describe the 2008-09 Duke Digital Initiative (DDI) programs and their outcomes briefly, and then will present an overview of the programs being supported through DDI in 2009-2010.

Todd Stabley,   OIT Academic Services

With over 60 classrooms hard-wired for capture on campus, and with multiple streaming, download, and podcasting options available through DukeStream, there are many choices available for instructors and presenters at Duke who wish to capture their classes and events and make them available for later viewing. In this session we will outline a number of these options, focusing on what purposes they serve and why you might want to select one over the other. Additionally, we will look at key enhancements on the horizon for these services as well as related ad-hoc options such as Duke on YouTube that are emerging as technology evolves.

Liliana Paredes, Romance Studies

The Spanish language program at the elementary and intermediate levels follows a task based approach to teaching (TBLT) and learning a second language.  One of the fundamentals for an effective second language acquisition class based on the TBLT approach is collaborative work and interaction of students. Peer work and group work is not only required, but is the basis for the onset of the acquisition process. However, neither students nor new instructors are completely sure of how to face the many challenges of group work.
The use of flip cameras in graduate student teacher training is meta-methodological in that it helps us reflect on our understanding of group work and its implications within the TBLT approach. Graduate students were recorded with the flip camera while doing group work for the methods class. Then, we used these recording to discuss the implementation of group work successfully to accomplish the task assigned to each group. Upon this reflection, graduate student instructors adjusted their expectations and understanding of collaborative work and group interaction. Ultimately, graduate student instructors associate second language acquisition principles with the approach used in the Spanish program.

Brenda Neece, Music

The teaching and learning of organology, or material musicology (the study of the physical artifacts of music-making, in particular musical instruments), lends itself to the use of video technology. This semester students taking Music 150S, the introductory course to Western musical instruments, used video technology in interactive assignments about musical instruments. Students have created individual and group video projects to explore and share with their classmates aspects of instrument technology, history, and performance. This presentation is a discussion of the pros and cons of using video technology in the classroom, with particular attention to the software and hardware used, problems encountered, and the overall outstanding results (with examples) produced by the students.

Laura Florand and Anne O’Neil-Henry, Romance Studies

In a multi-section fourth-semester language course thematically centered around film, students produced both short and long creative videos in order to build language skills and enhance understanding of writing, cinematography and important French film-makers. During the first half of the semester, students worked individually to create one-minute videos that integrated with their written work and invited reflection on films and techniques studied, while challenging language skills in a creative way. They interacted with each other’s work via wikis and VoiceThread. Then, over a period of three weeks during the second half of the semester, students collaborated in groups to write, produce, and act in a longer scene that engaged creatively with the films and texts studied during the course.

Sandra Valnes Quammen, Romance Studies

During the Spring 2009 semester, two third-semester French classes used VoiceThread to implement a three-part video journal project designed to enhance students’ skills in listening comprehension, oral expression, and their understanding of aspects of French culture. Over the course of the semester, students studied short French language video clips on topics related to the course curriculum (education, transportation, and cinema) and then used VoiceThread and webcams provided by a DDI grant to record their reactions to this material and to view contributions from their classmates. In this presentation, I’ll share examples of prompts and student work as well as student and instructor feedback on the project. I’ll also discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the VoiceThread tool for this project.

Susan Wynn,  Program in Education

Today’s students create, consume, and share information using an array of technologies. This is true for both university students and students in K-12 schools. Undergraduate and graduate students in the teaching licensure program explored a variety of ways to integrate technology into instruction. This session specifically focuses on storytelling through the use of digital video editing software. Users can synchronize images and sound and add special effects with iMovie. I will share the process for getting started with digital storytelling, showcase some sample stories students created, and provide some resources for those interested in further exploring this technology.

Julie Reynolds, Biology

One of the most significant challenges of working with student writers is communicating the subtleties of how their writing is perceived and understood by readers. In this presentation, I will demonstrate some of the ways in which I have tried to address this challenge. I will demonstrate our use of FlipVideos to record interviews of faculty discussing what makes an honors thesis exceptional, and I will discuss how we used these videos in class to deepen our understanding of readers’ expectations. I will also demonstrate how we used the software Voicethreads and Jing to respond to student writing, and describe how these technologies gave reviewers an efficient way to explain some of the nuances of their comments. Finally, I will present preliminary results of a study in which I examine the effectiveness of these technologies at improving students’ understanding of the feedback offered by faculty and peer reviewers.