Sept 20

Planning for the new CTLR

Jim Ralph
The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research has embarked on a strategic planning process that will define its mission for the years ahead.  Jim Ralph, the director of CTLR, will introduce new programs and initiatives under discussion in order to hear reactions to these proposals, to solicit fresh ideas, and to discuss potential collaborations.

Oct 4

Digital Media Tutor Highlights

LIS Staff Members Joe Antonioli, Heather Stafford, and Faculty Members James Davis, Jessica Holmes, Peter Lourie, and Tatiana Smorodinska

Each summer, LIS hires students to help faculty prepare curricular materials for upcoming courses and projects.  The Digital Media Tutor program offers faculty an opportunity to collaborate with a tutor and other people in LIS.

Projects have included:

• One on one instruction in a variety of software applications, including, but not limited to: images and document creation (including posters and diagrams); audio (podcasting, voiceovers); video (digital stories, other video applications); and social software (blogs, wikis, LMS).

• Consultations to to discuss what is possible, and help you decide what technologies would best suit your needs

• Development of course web sites in WordPress or Moodle

• Digitization of audio or video for use in a course or series of courses

• 3D simulations and virtual worlds

• Conversations and planning around innovative ideas you may have

This Academic Roundtable will feature projects from Summer 2013, including websites for Privilege and Poverty ( http://sites.middlebury.edu/privilegeandpoverty/ ), Russian Short Stories ( http://sites.middlebury.edu/russianshortstories/ ), and the Chicago Freedom Movement ( http://sites.middlebury.edu/chicagofreedommovement/ )

Oct 18

Digital Humanities, Digital Scholarship, & the Digital Liberal Arts 

Anne Knowles, Jason Mittell, Mike Roy, and Rebekah Irwin
Nearly every academic discipline is experiencing transformations in research methods and presentational modes in the digital era, with tools like GIS and text mining databases, platforms like open access publishing and digital archives, and emerging interdisciplinary movements like digital humanities. Anne Knowles, Jason Mittell, Rebekah Irwin, and Mike Roy will discuss current and future initiatives at Middlebury, followed by a conversation with the audience devoted to how we can best support and encourage such innovative work across the curriculum.

Of possible interest for background reading: William Pannapacker’s article, “Stop Calling It ‘Digital Humanities’: And 9 Other Strategies to Help Liberal-Arts Colleges Join the Movement” published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Febrary 2013.

Nov 1

Adventures in Curricular Technology

Join the members of the Task Force on Academic Technologies in a wide-ranging discussion about curricular technology on campus. Help us learn what’s working well, what’s missing, and what ideas you might have about how we can best support faculty efforts to innovate in the classroom.

Nov 15

Helping Students Develop Research and Technology Skills

We’ve been tracking the research and technology skills of our incoming students for the past few years. Most students need guidance on finding, evaluating and integrating sources into research papers and projects. They don’t know what a “scholarly” journal is (some think Newsweek is scholarly), they are unsure of when to cite sources,  and their technology skills are varied. What can you do about this? In this session, we’ll hear from faculty who have developed assignments for first-year seminars and other classes that help students hone their research and technology skills.

• Shawna Shapiro – Research paper assignment that divides the process into steps—from proposal to revised draft. For WRPR 0101 Writing Workshop.
• Pat Manley – Poster sessions for GEOL 0142 Ocean Floor, Winter Term Geology of National Parks, and GEOL 0170 Dynamic Earth; and research paper assignment that includes workshop and consultations with a librarian, for FYSE 1374 The Champlain Basin.
• Allison DiBianca Fasoli – Assignment based on hypothetical research project that culminates in a full-length report with literature review, methods, results and references, etc. For PSYC 0202 Introduction to Research Methods.
• Tom Beyer – Tech and research assignment that has students annotate an online text with definitions of terms. Students also have a written research paper and accompanying multimedia presentation on a topic related to Dante’s or Brown’s Inferno. For FYSE 1286 The Keys to Dan Brown’s Inferno.
• Jeff Byers – Tech and research assignment that has students create and edit Wikipedia articles. (Description from 2010 at Teaching with Technology.) For CHEM 0442 Advanced Organic Chemistry.
• Rebecca Tiger – Tech and reading assignment that has students tweet and blog about readings related to class topics. For FYSE 1401 Bad Kids.

Dec 6

On-line Pedagogy Working Group Report

Susan Baldridge and members of the working group

Members of the On-line Pedagogy Working Group will discuss their recently completed report that lays out a set of recommendations for how Middlebury should engage the fast-moving world of on-line education. The report will be posted in advance of this session.