Author Archives: Carrie Macfarlane

About Carrie Macfarlane

Director of Research & Instruction.

Capturing Video from Google Earth Pro for Visualization of Landscape Development – Chris Fastie, Visiting Research Scholar

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Technology Used: Google Earth Pro, GPS, digital video camera, Adobe Premiere Pro
Course: Environmental Studies 1011 – Reading Nature’s Winter Landscape
Number of students: 15

Photo by Carrie Macfarlane
Text by  Chris Fastie and Carrie Macfarlane

For ten years, Chris Fastie, Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Biology, had been laboring to map the geomorphology of a four-mile stretch of Upper Plains Road in Salisbury, Vermont. As time allowed, he would venture out to survey the landscape, and sketch his findings on aerial photos. Last summer, he used a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver to map some newly discovered kame terraces, installed Google Earth Pro on his computer and learned that there was finally an effective way to share his findings with others. When he received a request to lecture for a Winter Term course at Middlebury, technology and opportunity had merged to give new impetus to the mapping project. Continue reading →

Facebook in Large Lecture Courses – Professor Jeff Byers

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Technology Used: Facebook
Courses: Organic Chemistry 2  (implemented twice), and Advanced General Chemistry (implemented once)
Number of students: Approximately 70 in Organic Chemistry 2, and approximately 25 in Advanced General Chemistry

Photo by Carrie Macfarlane

When Professor Jeff Byers, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was looking for an online discussion tool for Organic Chemistry 2 (Chem 242) and Advanced General Chemistry (Chem 107), he wanted to find a tool that was student-centric.  “I did not want this to be ‘top down’ — the students get enough of me,” he says.  His students were already on Facebook, so he opened a forum there (see Middlebury Orgo Spring 2009). Continue reading →