Teach [+] Tech [=] Nexus

Not just any buttons, but the right buttons in the proper sequence will make all the difference in a smart classroom. Carol McKenzie (English) stopped by to reduce the confusion of multimedia by practicing in LRC 121. This is an older "smart classroom" and your mileage may vary when using other multimedia carts or classrooms.

First, identify all the available remote controls. For the projector, the remote has a Source button to switch between videotape, DVD and the computer. The remote for the DVD player will probably be different that your home remotes, so look for the Menu, Play and Fast Forward buttons.

Some DVDs have extra resources that are not available when playing the disc on a television with a DVD player. When you play the disc on a computer then live links to web sites or documents might also be available. Usually the back of the package indicates these special online features.

Frank Zamora (Art Department) has received a sabbatical to prepare a video textbook for his drawing class. He is working with Rob Gore (Theatre) and Bob Bickley (Media Productions) to plan his approach to this project. Over the Spring and Summer 2007 semesters the team has tested the production and editing process. The final product will be five or six DVDs and the electronic textbook will be an Adobe Acrobat document.

The goal of the project is to create an affordable textbook for his students. But in using video and etext, Frank is creating a rich multimedia project.

Before the 1985, we could count on two constants: "death and taxes". Now we have to include a third: "technology upgrades."

Some of the most exciting upgrades are rolled together into the "Web 2.0" moniker. Where the first generation of the web was a "read-only" medium, the current web is now a "read-write" medium. Some of the tools your colleagues are beginning to explore include: web logs (blogs), video web logs (vlogs), news subscriptions (rss), podcasts, video podcasts (vodcasts), wikis and social networking.

Some of the Web 2.0 tools include del.icio.us, YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, iTunes and wikipedia.

Sac City is currently re-designing our campus web site and some of the Web 2.0 technologies will be included to improve our communication to students, community and staff.

Bill Doonan (Anthropology) stopped by with an old flyer describing Clickers - hand-held infra-red keypads - for student input during a Powerpoint lecture. His textb0ok publisher offered this interactive technology and he has made the leap for Fall 2007. The clicker will be bundled with the textbook for his classes.

The instructor will create and embed survey slides with several possible answers into Powerpoint lectures. In class, students will use their Clicker to respond with the best answer. In realtime, student responses are displayed on the survey slide.

JoinIn - Turning Point is offered by Thomson publishing.

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Just found another site featuring Clickers, the Library at the University of Iowa's Arcade Classroom has two sets. They use the Quizdom system with ActionPoint software.