//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.
[middmedia E966CA341E9D26A5EA67ECDE36E4C402 achapin course-hub-case-studies01.mp4 width:400 height:254]
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What: Middlebury Trailrunner Blog
Who: Jeff Byers, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Technologies used: Hardware: GPS watch, digital camera. Software: Google Earth, WordPress, Garmin software (allows seamless connection to Google Earth). When posting an altitude profile, Jeff does a screen shot off of the Garmin software and pastes it into MS Word. Then he uses a shareware program called “Doc to Jpeg Converter” and crops it with Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Continue reading “Middlebury Trailrunner Blog – Jeff Byers”
//Jason Mittell (Film & Media Culture) and James Morrison (Political Science) are faculty at Middlebury who are moving towards completely paperless teaching and research. Both cite similar reasons for preferring electronic versions of papers, articles and even books. Digital documents are simply easier to organize and access when everything else you do is on your laptop. Having your students submit electronic versions of their assignments means that you can retain a definitive copy of all your students’ work which is handy when you need to write references, find model essays from past classes to guide your current students or search for evidence of plagiarism. This case study will focus on receiving and grading electronic versions of student papers.
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Technology Used: Podcasting
Course: PS0304 International Political Economy (Spring 2009)
Number of Students: 31
Objectives: To better serve the students and democratize education.
Anticipated Learning Outcomes: Better retention and understanding
Actual Learning Outcomes: Some on both fronts
Summary of Poster Session: James Morrison explained how he uses podcasts to record his lectures so that after class, students can review the lectures. “Students can double check difficult, complicated concepts; Overcome language barriers; Get Missed Material. ** Note: My podcasting had no noticeable influence on lecture attendance! **“. Continue reading “Podcasting Lectures – Prof. James Morrison”
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Technologies Used: Second Life; Blogs, Wikis.
Course:
Political Science 103: Intro to Comparative Politics
Number of Students: 50
Objectives: “Provide a political simulation experience for my students, and conduct an experiment to determine if it was possible to create a virtual state in which people would actively participate.”
Summary of Poster Session: Quinn Mecham and Alex Russo (a student from his course) demonstrated how they used Second Life as one of their tools to simulate how political parties and governments form. Students had avatars (simulated characters) in Second Life that could interact with each other and campaign, form parties, propose legislation, and experience how politics play out. A blog and wiki connected to their virtual space was also used to allow proposals to be vetted. Continue reading “Using Second Life for Political Simulation – Prof. Quinn Mecham”
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Technologies Used: website: www.SouthChinaSea.org, Google Earth, Google Map, Google News Search, CD
Course: PSCI 214 – International Environmental Politics
Number of Students: 45
Objectives: “To integrate research and teaching, to promote student-faculty collaboration.”
Summary of Poster Session: David Rosenberg and several of his students showed the website that is a resource for students in David’s class as well as the world. Students helped identify content to link to and contributed content themselves, such as maps. Continue reading “South China Sea WWW Virtual Library – Prof. David Rosenberg”