3 Steps to an Infographic

Over the past few months several people have expressed an interest in learning more about how to create infographics. We’ve broken it down into a three step process that consists of:

  1. Collecting your data
  2. Working with the data
  3. Creating & sharing the infographic

We hope the video below will offer a brief snapshot of some tools and tricks to help you get started, but please feel free to contact me (hstafford@middlebury.edu) if you’d like to learn more! We are also considering offering a workshop over j-term, so let us know if this would be of interest to you as well.

Hint: Excel pivot tables are a great way to manipulate data quickly. They are not covered in this video, but you can get more info via an entire Lynda course devoted to the topic here. (Sign in with your Middlebury credentials to access.)

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Multimedia Stories

Several classes at Middlebury create multimedia stories as a part of their curriculum. Want to see what students create? Check out the work of the students in Peter Lourie’s 2014 Adventure Writing J-term class here. Watch the video below to learn more about how the digital media tutors and curricular technology staff can assist with these types of projects.

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Annotating Texts to Deepen Meaning

CV Starr Professor of Russian & East European Studies Tom Beyer is no stranger to utilizing technology in the classroom. During the summer of 2013 Tom approached the digital media tutor program to see if we could assist with transitioning content from an existing Wetpaint site to another platform.

See the video below to learn more about the project and process involved.

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Converting a Web Site Into WordPress

In the summer of 2013 Professor of History Jim Ralph approached the digital media tutor program to ask if we could assist with the updating of a Drupal site created about the Chicago Freedom Movement. Professor Ralph shared the history of this site and how it came to be.

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Course Hub Review

The Course Hub is a meta-platform for aggregating resources for a given course across a variety of platforms including WordPress and Moodle.  Below is a screencast showing how the Course Hub has been used in courses this fall.

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Integrating Moodle and WordPress

Louisa Stein is an assistant professor of Film and Media Culture who used both Moodle and WordPress in the spring of 2011 for a course on the “Aesthetics of the Moving Image.”  Prof. Stein used WordPress for the public face of this course and Moodle for the weekly outline of readings, online discussion and assignment submissions.  Watch the screencast below for more details. Continue reading “Integrating Moodle and WordPress”

Clickers in a large lecture class – Catherine Combelles

What: Clickers (personal polling devices) in a large lecture class

Who: Catherine Combelles, Assistant Professor of Biology

Class: BIOL0145 Cell Biology and Genetics

Technology Used: Personal Polling Devices (Clickers)

Number of students: approx. 70

Learning objective: To monitor the students’ understanding of concepts covered in lecture and promote peer learning and discussion.

Description of use: Catherine used the clickers for every lecture from day 1 to the last day of classes, and throughout the duration of each lecture. At the beginning of each lecure, she started with a question that tested their understanding of concepts from the past lecture or on their readings for the day. She would then pose between 3-4 more questions depending on the lecture content that day. Continue reading “Clickers in a large lecture class – Catherine Combelles”

Wikipedia for Chemistry – Jeff Byers

What: Authoring and editing Wikipedia entries as an assignment in a senior elective course

Who: Jeff Byers, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Class: CHEM0442, Advanced Organic Chemistry.  This is a special topics course taken mostly by seniors, with some juniors, most of whom are chemistry or biochemistry majors.

Number of students: 9

Reason for using the technology: Most Senior Elective courses in the sciences culminate with some sort of final paper or project.  This project typically involves each student writing a detailed review paper on an interesting and advanced topic of their choice.  This is a worthwhile exercise, as each student learns an astonishing amount of detail on one specific topic.  These papers do not, in any way, reflect the important collaborative nature of science.  Jeff also believes that a senior elective course should also generate content of use to the entire chemistry community, unlike research papers which, after grading, rarely surface again. Continue reading “Wikipedia for Chemistry – Jeff Byers”