Tag Archives: Curricular Technology

Help us improve the LIS Website!

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The LIS Website team has set up four quick tests to see if we’ve placed links to resources and information in the right place on the page and used the correct labels. For each test, you’ll be asked 5 questions like, “Where would you click to find out when the next Cookie Night will be?” You can click anywhere on the screenshot and can leave multiple clicks for each question. To add a comment to one of your clicks like, “I’d click here, but only because I know to find Cookie Night information on the blog…” you can click the plus (+) sign above and to the right of your placemark.

We’ve created one test for each of the four areas of the LIS Website. Each test has a different set of five questions. A test should only take 1-2 minutes to complete. Thanks for your help!

LIS Homepage

Library Homepage

Helpdesk Homepage

Curricular Technology Homepage

Segue from Segue Update

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The Curricular Technology Team has been focused nearly exclusively on the Segue from Segue project for the last few months.  A Segue from Segue Advisory group consisting of faculty and students has been formed to help the team engage the College community and the LIS Area Directors have also provided input and guidance.

In March, the team ran focus group sessions to find out more about how faculty are currently using technology, what technologies they would like to have and what technologies they feel do not meet their needs.  Focus group topics included “online discussion”, “assignments and assessment” and “websites and media.”

These focus group sessions helped the team draft surveys for both faculty and students.  The faculty survey has already been distributed and will remain active until the end of April.  We will be sending out a student survey sometime next week and will publish a report once all responses are in.

The team is committed to making initial recommendations for alternatives to Segue by the end of the spring semester and final recommendations in late August after gathering information about technology usage by the Language Schools and Breadloaf.  For updates on the project, see: Segue from Segue

New Teaching with Technology Case Studies

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Carrie Macfarlane has recently added two new posts to the Teaching with Technology blog on case studies she has done with faculty in the Biology department.  The first is on an evolution simulation model developed by Matt Landis for his course on “Ecology and Evolution” (BIOL0140).  The other is on the use of wireless projection by Chris Watters in his class on “Human Nutrition from an Evolutionary Perspective” (BIOL0222).

Curricular Technologies: Ideas and Suggestions

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In an effort to tap into the collective wisdom of the Middlebury community, the Curricular Technology team has set up a Google Moderator “series” for Curricular Technology Ideas/Suggestions.  Check it out and add your ideas or vote on existing ideas.

For those of you who can’t keep up with all the tools and services Google has out there, Moderator is a site where you can aggregate input from a large number of people, similar to UserVoice, a site LIS has used to brainstorm on a number of topics.

I first discovered Moderator in a Google Buzz post about How to Fix Google Buzz, set up by a former Google employee (see: Ex-Googler Creates Voting Site: “How to Fix Google Buzz”, Read Write Web, 2/17/2010).

Strategies for Selecting Technologies

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As the Curricular Technology team has been researching platforms to replace Segue, we have been trying to define some strategies for selecting technologies and then making the case for a particular selection criteria.   The first strategy we have published is related to open source and open standards.

In a nutshell, the team has taken the position that we favor “open source technologies because they allow LIS designers and developers to integrate such technologies with other systems on campus including other open source projects.”  As well, the team has taken the position that it favors “technologies that use open standards because they help to prevent lock in to a given application or vendor.”

Its important to note that this preference for open source and open standards does not preclude the use of proprietary software or formats, particularly if proprietary solutions better meet the needs of the college community.  Find out more at:

Segue from Segue » Technology Sources and Standards

Curricular Technology Usage Analysis: Audio Capture

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Have just published another curricular technology usage analysis on the Segue from Segue blog, this one on audio capture.  Audio recording is frequently used in language study.  There are also a few examples of podcasting including lectures on International Political Economy by James Morrison (Political Science), discussions of digital audio by students in Jason Mittell’s Media Technology & Culture course.   For more details, see:

Curricular Technology Usage Analysis » Audio Capture

Segue from Segue: Focus Groups Sessions

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The Curricular Technology team in consultation with the Faculty LIS Advisory Committee has organized a number of curricular technology focus group sessions for faculty.   The goal of these focus groups is to understand how faculty teach and how they use the technologies currently available to them at Middlebury and beyond.

To ensure focus group discussions are manageable and productive, each session will be limited to 8-10 participants and session registration is required.  For more information, as well as a link to the session registration form, see:

Segue from Segue > Focus Group Sessions