The Curricular Technology Team has drafted a list of the functional requirements for any platform or collection of platforms that would replace Segue, see:
Segue from Segue » Functional Requirements for Segue Replacements
If there are features or functionality in Segue that we have left out in this list, please let us know.
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).
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
The LIS web application development group has created a new online course catalog. Below is a screencast describing how to use it.
[middmedia E966CA341E9D26A5EA67ECDE36E4C402 achapin course-catalog04.mp4]
Adam Franco was the lead developer of this project. Comments/feedback/suggestions welcome.
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:
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:
Part of the Segue from Segue project involves analyzing how faculty and students at Middlebury have used technology for teaching, learning and research. Last week, I published an overview of Segue Usage. This week I have compiled notes on my review of curricular resources that the Language Schools and departments have developed with Segue and other tools, see:
Jason Mittell (Film & Media Culture), James Morrison (Political Science) and myself lead a workshop for faculty on taking notes and grading digital documents yesterday that was well attended (see: Moving Away from Paper: Useful Practices for Electronic Note-taking and Grading Assignments).
Jason and James described how they assigned and collected students papers. Both used email as the primary means of collecting assignments from students for the following reasons:
James and Jason differed in the format they required their students to submit assignments and the tool they used to annotate and grade these assignments. Read more about their annotation and grading workflow on the Teaching with Technology blog (see: Moving Away from Paper: Annotating and Grading Digital Documents – Jason Mittell & James Morrison)
Both James and Jason have also had their student use Google Docs for collaborative projects. Unfortunately Google Docs does not support footnotes so that is cannot be used as a tools for writing scholarly papers. That said, Google Docs may be a good tool for creative writing classes or for language classes.