Welcome to the proceedings blog of the EdTech Conference of May 17, 2007. We are especially excited about the enthusiastic response to this event by 74 faculty and staff participants representing 35 academic departments and programs. We hope that these proceedings will encourage dialogue among IT and academic departments about how we can work together to use innovative technology tools.
Many thanks to the presenters who have graciously allowed us to capture their sessions electronically on this site. We invite you to post your comments and
questions about any of the session proceedings on this blog as a way to continue the conversations that were started during the conference.
With your support, we hope to make this conference an annual event.
Sincerely,
Apurva Mehta
Director of Educational Technology and Learning Commons
Got a comment? Scroll down to the bottom of the page to leave your message!
- Click here to view this events Podcasting page.
- Click here to view Conference web site
Keynote Address: Technology Literacy and Emerging Technologies David Gray, University of Massachusetts CIO & Vice President of Information Services: CEO UMass Online
View PowerPoint Presentation and Video below
Technology Literacy and Emerging Technologies
View Streaming Media of Keynote by David Gray
Nested Technologies from the Healey Library: Breeze within Wikispace
Presenter: George Hart, Joanne Riley, Healey Library
Using Wikispace, PowerPoint, and Adobe’s Breeze program, you can communicate more effectively with your students. These simple tools help you record and publish your insights, resources and suggestions clearly; and your students can return to your recordings as often as they need. This session recorded a professor’s thought’s regarding a specific line of research and inquiry. We also recorded a librarian’s insights and tips.
These recordings are published in Wikispace where students can view, try out and comment on the ideas and resources
View PowerPoint Presentation below
Nested Technologies from the Healey Library: Breeze within Wikispace Presentation
Giving all Students a Voice in Large Classes: Personal Response System
Presenter: Brian White, Biology
Large lecture classes can often be impersonal and lack interaction between teacher and students. Several different companies have developed “clickers”-personal transmitters that each student uses to communicate with the lecturer during class. Typically, students beam in answers to questions posed by the teacher. The teachers can then respond to the correct and incorrect answers given and adapt his or her presentation to meet the students’ needs. This presentation explores the different versions of this technology and their applications in the classroom.
Click here to Listen to the audio presentation
View PowerPoint Presentation below
Personal Response System Presentation
Using Two Web-based Tools for Effective Writing: TurnITIN/Refworks
Presenter: Frances Schlesinger, Healey Library
Students committed to major term papers, theses and dissertations can benefit from two web-based programs that are licensed by UMass Boston. RefWorks provides a web-hosted personal database of citations uncovered during your literature search. This database imports directly from many online indexes. It also features an add-on to Microsoft Word that lets you insert footnotes and automatically create bibliographies in the format of your discipline. Web-based, your personal database can be shared with colleagues and advisors. Turnitin is another web-based application that lets you check a paper for clean paraphrasing and pro forma citation before you turn it in. Often marketed to teachers as a way to detect plagiarism, this application may be used to prevent inadvertent wording and fatigued citing. Combine the two for sharper, efficient research and writing.
View Presentation Handouts below
Refworks Handout
Turnitin Handout
The Word on Word of Mouth and Social Media Marketing .
Presenter: John Bigay, BzzAgent, Inc. and Brian Cavoli, TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony
Word of mouth and social media are having a significant impact on businesses today. Honest opinions are more powerful than interruptive marketing messages and new social media sites are making it easier than ever before for consumers to connect with each other and share their product opinions, suggestions and experiences with many others. This session explores how this is changing marketing and what companies are doing to harness this new influence.
Click here to Listen to the audio presentation
Enabling all Computer Users with Adaptive Technologies
Presenter: Valerie Claire Haven
Institutions of higher education continue to become more diverse with respect to the range of students they serve. Students with learning disabilities and physical disabilities make up two such groups whose populations continue to grow in our classrooms. This session will address various technological means and design recommendations by which the needs of these (and in many cases all) students might be best met. This session explores and discuss software, hardware, and universal design principles that provide learning opportunities for this growing body of students.
View PowerPoint Presentation below
Click here to Listen to the audio presentation
Enhancing Communication with Voice and Video Chat
Presenter: Susan Mraz and Luis Alonso-Ovalle, Hispanic Studies
A major objective for online courses has been to increase and improve collaboration and to provide enough support for students and faculty to facilitate their learning using group communication. Programs such as Skype and Mac iChat offer students a virtual classroom with an opportunity to engage in real-life communication. They also provide students with a collaborative learning space that empowers them to construct meaning, explore and reflect, and learn through discourse with each other and with their instructors or tutors.
Click here to Listen to the audio presentation
View Presentation Handouts below
Enhancing Communication with Voice and Video Chat
Introduction to Mashing Web 2.0 Content into BLS/WebCT Vista Courses
Presenters: Eileen McMahon, IT, LMS; Irene Yukhananov, IT, GRC; Gene Shwalb, IT: Ellen Hume, Communication Studies
A variety of online applications and devices from flickr to Google map and across to RSS feeds are being combined to create a seamless and integrated learning experience for students beyond e-mail and basic websites. This session presents examples of how new software tools are being mixed and mashed together by faculty to combine tools to enhance learning content, create interpersonal networking, and personalize teaching and learning.
View Presentation Handouts below
ePortfolio:Technology Linking Assessment, Learning, and Career Development
Presenters: Mary Brady, GCE; Cynthia Jahn, Academic Support; Oscar Gutierrez, Management Information Systems; Christian Pulver, IT consultant
Comparative analysis of Open Source Portfolio (OSP) and Vista ePortfolio platforms focusing on evaluating tool features that
UMass Boston faculty and staff deem as important for usability and that meet program needs and standards. In what ways do these different ePortfolio tools provide students, faculty and departments with the opportunity to gather, reflect, share and provide feedback on academic work? Does the ePortfolio provide a secure environment for the collection and exchange of work? This session discuss’s how the ePortfolio changes how we think about portfolios in education and address ways to effectively incorporate it into the classroom and/or program objectives.
View Presentation Handouts below
ePortfolio: Technology Linking Assessment, Learning and Career Development
ePortfolio: Technology Linking Assessment, Learning and Career Development (PDF)
What’s New with Online Teaching and Learning-BLS/WebCT Vista 4
Presenters: Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Counseling & School Psych, GCE and / Raymond Melcher, IT trainer
Early adopters of instructional technologies who have been involved in investigating and implementing instructional technologies and faculty already pursuing and implementing some form of Web-enhanced instruction in the courses will learn about the tools that WebCT Vista 4 integrates into their online instruction opening up new options for instruction and social collaboration.
View Presentation Handouts below
What’s New with Online Teaching & Learning-BLS/WebCT Vista4
iTunes University Demo- Lunch Break Presentation
Presenters: Stephen Ragalevsky
iTunes U is an innovative, easy-to-use service that lets students—or the public at large—gain access to audio and video course materials anytime, anyplace.
It all happens via the iTunes Store, already the most widely used online source for music and movies. Half of the nation’s Top 500 universities are already on board. iTunes U adds a whole new dimension to higher education.
http://www.apple.com/education/hed/
Click here to Listen to the audio presentation
Acknowledgments
Division of Educational Technology Conference
UMASS Boston
We deeply appreciate the contributions of the following groups and individuals and everyone listed below who made this conference possible
Guest Speakers:
Paul Fonteyn, Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, UMass Boston
David Gray, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO; CEO, UMassOnline
Program Committee:
Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Counseling and School Psychology
Deborah Boisvert, BATEC
Mary Brady, Chair-Faculty Academic Technology Advisory Committee to the Associate Provost, GCOE
Caroline Cappuccio, IT
Kitty Galaitsis, CCDE
Apurva Mehta, IT
Dirk Messelaar, CCDE
David Patterson, Music Department
Mary Simone, IT
Brian White, Biology Department
Conference Committee:
Katherine Ananis, Communications/ PowerPoint
Angela Caretta and Amal Elmi, Registration and Logistics
Caroline Cappuccio, Conference management and Program coordinator
Jessica Downa, Podcasting and Blog design and production
John Jessoe and John Potter, AV tech support and and video production
Carlos Lobato, Marketing and publications design and production
Apurva Mehta, Program coordinator and manager
Mary Simone, Website and blog content writer, survey production, program coordinator
Jim Wyse, Web design
Corporate Sponsors:
Jay McSweeney, Apple, Inc
Kim Livosi, Dell Computers