Winter 2007 Did you know that...
there are practical software programs out there that you can add to your toolkit and they won’t cost you and your students a thing?
The Canadian website Clean Energy Project features software that can be used to evaluate the energy production and savings, life-cycle costs, emission reductions, financial viability and risk for various types of energy. In addition, it hosts product, cost, and climate databases. This site works in conjunction with NASA, UNEP and GEF, and has multi-language support. If you are interested in knowing more about these free programs follow this link to the original article: http://www.techlearning. com/showArticle.php?articleID=196513456
Visit the web site of the Program for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (PETAL) for the full schedule of Winter events, teaching tips and links to web resources www.southalabama.edu/petal
Advanced Registration by phone or email is required for all events. Phone: 461-1563 FAX: 460-6884 email: PETAL@usouthal.edu
PETAL Winter 2007 Events
January 23 1 pm - 3 pm January 24 1 pm - 3 pm January 30 10 am - 12 pm January 31 3 pm - 5 pm February 7 1pm - 3pm February 8 3 pm - 5pm Februar y 14 1 pm - 2 pm February 28 1 pm - 3 pm March 1 3 pm - 5 pm
Katmar Software and EngNet are engineer conversion calculators. Engineering Power Tools is a converter with additional tables and reference charts packed under the menu headings of Math, HVAC, Mechanical, Electrical, Materials, and Structural. Evaluation Downloads is a sheet layout optimizer for your projects, while Equation Illustrator can annotate a formula into a program. Machine Shop offers free CAD software and the company can actually make the part after you design it (for a fee of course). ThermoAnalytics and AutoFEA are finite element analysis software programs which can also model and import. HoverDesk is a screen capture program and St. Clair is a screen shot program for Mac people.
Course Design & Development Rm 181 Litchfield Course Design & Development Rm 181 Litchfield Grade Book in Excel Rm 123 Zakharova Grade Book in Excel Rm 123 Zakharova Motivating Students Rm 181 Litchfield Motivating Students Rm 181 Litchfield “ThePowerofAuthenticity:Showing DocumentariesinClass” Roundtable Rm 181 Husain Class Management & Plagairism Rm 181 Zakharova Class Management & Plagairism Rm 181 Zakharova
Live Broadcast Increase Enrollment, Retention and Student Success with Web-Based Class Capture Thursday, January 25, 2007 - 9:00 to 10:00 am Room 181, University Library
Learn how St. Mary’s University is putting their students on the path to success in this free, one hour webinar sponsored The f by Tegrity. Campus Technology’s senior editor Matt Villano talks with St. Mary’s president, academic dean and director of instructional technology about how they are using Tegrity’s web-based classroom capture solution to boost enrollment, increase performance levels, and reduce attrition rates. Takeaways include: •Enhancing and supporting the learning process •Securing faculty buy-in •Attracting new students Come armed with questions for the panelists for a QA session following the live presentation. Registration: 461-1563 email: petal@usouthal.edu
Living with Digital Natives and their Technologies
10 ‘Worthwhile Considerations’ for Improving Lectures
We are surrounded by not only new technology but a new lingo - in fact, there are even labels for those who know the lingo - (students are “Digital Natives”) and those who are learning the lingo (“Digital Immigrants” - yikes!).
In his article “Are Lectures a Thing of the Past?”, Conin Jones asserts that “presenting an effective lecture is like writing a good drama - you must have a worthwhile story to tell and tell it in an interesting way.” (p. 454) He suggests the lecturers keep in mind the following considerations:
Which are you? Can you identify these terms?
1. Active Student Involvement - “Sitting for an hour and taking in new infromation is difficult, even for the most internally motivated college student.” (p.454) Interactive components need to be present in all lectures, even those delivered to 500 students.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5: 6. 7.
Nintendo DS MySpace.com Flickr.com YouTube.com RSS Skype iPod
iPod: Not just about music anymore, it’s a digital library of images, video, addresses, maps, podcasts, etc. Can record digital audio for your own podcasts too! Skype: PC software that allows you to call any Skype user for free using a mic and Internet. A new craze worldwide with college students who want to stay connected but avoid the pinch of phone bills. RSS: Really Simple Syndication. With so many news and info-tainment web diaries (blogs) and podcasts being published, you can paste in the RSS address and set your computer to automatically download the blog or podcast entries as they are published. YouTube.com is the video-sharing version of flickr. Your videos are rated and instantly have access to a potential audience of over 35 million users. So called “street journalists” post videos of important events, speeches and the like to be viewed instantly across the globe. Flickr.com is a free photo-sharing site where you can search for images on any topic imaginable. With a staggering breadth of images available, and many millions of members, you can comment on photos you like, see how often your photos have been viewed, and add friends, join groups based around themes and send internal emails to other members. MySpace.com is an all in one webpage serivce with more than 50 million users worldwide, provides a free homepage where you can have a blog, photo gallery, and songs to listen to. It’s a community unto itself where one can easily get in contact with others who have the same tastes in music or the same hobbies, and users can view other people’s profiles and add someone as a “friend.” Nintendo DS: Tends to have less-violent characters than the standard shoot-em games, opens like a clam-shell, has dual screens, a built in microphone and a PDA-like stylus. It has wireless capabilities for messaging other users, and sells for around $180. Abridged from an article by Jonathan Nalder in TechLearning, January 1, 2007. http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604072.
2. Relevance - Students taking large courses often do not understand why they need to know the Kreb cycle or phases of meiosis. To those outside the discipline it is not generally obvious. 3. Interest - It is difficult to hold students’ attention for an entire lecture. Don’t underestimate how difficult it is. Use various strategies to support your efforts to do so. Maybe you can wear costumes or use props, but if that isn’t your style, opt for interesting facts and intriguing details. 4. Expert/Novice Difference - We all know who’s the expert and who’s the novice in the classroom, but what the experts often fail to realize is that students process course content at different rates and in different ways. What helps all learners process new information is linking it to what they already know, connecting abstract concepts to more concrete ideas, and moving from simple facts to more complex generalities. 5. Cognitive Overload - Information-dense lectures lead to cognitive overload. Students’ minds shut down and their eyes glaze over. If you continue, you are proceeding without them. Stop - provide a brief review, take time for a question, or introduce a colorful example. 6. Scientific Jargon - Science is not the only field with lots of jargon-this applies to every discipline. Sometimes it’s both a new word and a new concept. Other times the words are familiar but refer to new meanings. 7. Mental Lapses - Sometimes students just don’t get it in a lecture. They need to hear you say it in a totally different way, or they need examples, maybe a metaphor. Take a short break so that they can discuss, explore, and explain it to the person sitting next to them. 8. Note-Taking Skills - Not all students have good ones. Help students learn what they need to write down. Sometimes an outline or guide distributed early in the course can help reinforce this lesson. 9. Confounding Misconceptions - Students can memorize right answers, regurgitate them on an exam, and leave the class with their original thinking still unchallenged. Be aware of the common misconceptions students bring to a course and tackle them head on. Don’t let students leave a course with their thinking undisturbed. 10. Learning Modalities - We live in a visual society and many students are visual learners. Lecturers need to reckon with these facts and make use of the wide array of visual supports now available - demonstrations, videos, computer animations, even the venerable overhead transparency. Abridged from Conin Jones, L.L. (2002). Are lectures a thing of the past? Journal of College Science Teaching, 32 (7), 453-457.