Fourth Annual Teaching with Technology Forum
Vassar College
April 21, 2006
Making Connections: Videoconferencing in the Classroom
Silke von der Emde and Jeff Schneider (German Studies)
Vassar’s new videoconferencing system allows an individual or a group to converse, “face to face,” with individuals or groups around the world. Profs. Jeff Schneider and Silke von der Emde explain how they used this new technology to bring scholars and students from Germany into their classroom.
War Talk: A Writing Class Begins to Blog
Ami Kumar (English)
Students in Prof. Amitava Kumar’s “Travel Writing” course participated in the course’s blog, “War Talk.” Prof. Kumar discussed the experience of using Vassar’s first course-based blog to support his teaching.
Production of Instructional Videos for a Chemistry Laboratory Course,\
Scott Allen (Chemistry)
As chemistry lab instructor, Scott Allen thought that students might be more efficient in their lab assignments if they were able to preview the procedures before class. He worked with ACS to create high-quality videos of each procedure.
ARTstor for Teaching
Sarah Goldstein (Library)
ARTstor is a non-profit organization that has developed a digital library of images of art, architecture and archeology. With the Artstor tools, you can search, analyze, compare and make presentations of high quality art images.
Virtual Costumes: The Use of Digital Resources for Students of Costume Design and Fashion History
Holly Hummel and Arden Kirkland (Drama)
Taking full advantage of Vassar’s unique collection of historical costumes to teach with, this project enables students to study more closely the Vassar collection and discover new understandings of the history of design and fashion. An extensive database of digital images and other data about of the collection is used to teach in several of the Costume Design program as well the development of authentic costumes for stage productions at the Center for Drama and Film.
Andiamo In Italia & Ritorniamo In Italia: A Multi-Media, Interactive Journey
Roberta Antognini, Eugenio Giusti (Italian)
Won’t have a chance to travel abroad and improve your Italian? The problem has been solved by these extensive multimedia resources used to teach 1st and 2nd year Italian. Using vocabulary and grammar instruction Andiamo in Italia introduces first year students to the sights and scenery of Italy’s many regions. Building on this multi-media foundation, Ritorniamo in Italia introduces 2nd year students to the dialect and cultural differences across Italy.
Motion Analysis and Athlete Training
Jesup C. Szatkowski & James A. McCowan (Physical Education)
Creating Instructional Pedagogy for Emerging Areas in the Chemical and Life Sciences: Using a Content Management System and Institutional Academic Teams to Seamlessly Promote Excellence in Writing and Scholarship in the Next Generation of Researchers
Eric Eberhardt (Chemsitry)
A team of faculty, technologists, librarians, and writing specialists explored the use of the Plone content management system as a tool for collaborative writing in a senior-level science course. Prof. Eberhardt presented an assessment of the experience.
Tablet PCs and Mathematics: A Match Made in Heaven
Bert Wachsmuth, Seton Hall University
Teaching math effectively requires effective interaction among and between students and faculty during lectures. By using tablet pcs, problem solving by one can become learning by all. Work on one tablet can be shared quickly and easily explanations are projected for all to see. The ability to use the tablet as an active writing tool to solve problems in the past best done by hand, has been a transformational tool in Mathematics.