2000-2002 Technology for Teaching Projects

Faculty Development Projects

These projects supported activities to help St. Lawrence faculty increase their technology knowledge and proficiency.

  • Faculty Technology Festival (TechFest) —Mellon Foundation TTP grant funds were used in January 2002 to help support TechFest, a new program developed by Instructional Technology to provide faculty with comprehensive technology training during the University’s winter break. In January 2003, the second annual TechFest offered faculty four days of workshops by both faculty and outside experts in video editing, GIS technology, and the use of animation and images relevant to the classroom. In addition, in 2003, a daylong program planned by the library focused on plagiarism, the University’s Honor Council, and other issues related to technology.
  • Ilia Casanova (Modern Languages & Literatures) attended a two-day, pre-conference technology workshop before attending the 2002 conference of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. This afforded Casanova the opportunity to learn how other language instructors implement various technologies into their courses.
  • Bart Harloe (Library) implemented a significant project to increase faculty awareness and use of online data resources both in the classroom and for use in student projects. TTP funding provided support to organize a series of faculty seminars.
  • Richard Jenseth (Writing Program, English) used Mellon Foundation funds to visit several institutions that have programs similar to St. Lawrence’s TTA Program, which will be instituted in its pilot phase this coming spring. During these site visits, Jenseth gathered information and ideas that were used to shape and implement our proposed TTA Program. He also attended a student-organized conference on technology and teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
  • Aileen O’Donoghue (Physics) attended two Red Hat Linux courses in an effort to gain the technology skills she needs to participate more fully in astronomical research and to engage students in this research. With her newly developed expertise, O’Donoghue is now ready to install the necessary optical data analysis programs that advanced students can use to analyze data acquired at optical observatories.
  • Karen O’Neil (Sociology) attended two workshops to strengthen her skills in Adobe GoLive and PhotoShop software. She will incorporate her work with these programs into her Visual Sociology course and use her knowledge of the software to integrate Web pages into other courses she teaches, including an upper-level sociology seminar on Northern Ireland. The Sociology department has been working with GoLive and PhotoShop for several years in its own dedicated computer lab.
  • Stephen Papson (Sociology) presented a paper on “Web Design as Pedagogy” at the Social Science Conference sponsored by the National Social Science Association. The conference was organized around the theme of “blending technology and the social sciences.” Papson also used TTP funds to attend a training session in QuickTime streaming video and advanced workshops in PhotoShop and GoLive.
Information Resources and Research Projects

These projects were designed to help increase faculty awareness of issues related to the appropriate academic uses of technology and to enhance faculty and student access to various technology resources for scholarly research.

  • Research Literacy (Library) — Addressing one of the main issues raised in our original TTP grant proposal to the Mellon Foundation, this extensive and successful project has brought together faculty, library and IT staff, and visiting experts to deal with the issues of integrating electronically formatted scholarly information into the research process. In 2001-02, library staff worked with the TTP Steering Committee and CTL to sponsor a series of workshops covering such topics as plagiarism on the Internet, using non-textual material available online, copyright and intellectual property concerns for teaching faculty, and building online bibliographies. These workshops will continue this year, focused on additional topics related to research literacy.
Student Centered Projects

These projects enhanced student learning and technological competence by involving them in the development of curriculum resources and providing them with opportunities to assist other students in the use of technology.

  • Brad Baldwin (Biology) collaborated with a student assistant to prepare PowerPoint presentations that incorporated still and video images created by students in several of his courses. An Invertebrate Biology course Website was created with still and video images.
  • Erika Barthelmess (Biology) received grant funding to advance the Biology Department’s ability to integrate digital video into its laboratory and classrooms and to produce a variety of course-related materials. A workstation for video editing was provided, and a number of biology faculty and students were trained in video editing.
  • Linda Baughman (Fine Arts) had students in her Rhetoric and Public Speaking course use digital video cameras to record their speeches. In the past, students had been loathe to watch their own videotapes, but placing the files on the courses’ shared network drive enabled them to conduct projects related to their speeches and those of other students in the course. In her Internet and Culture course, Baughman worked with a student collaborator to teach the students Dreamweaver software and help them build their required Web pages.
  • Carol Budd (Biology) continued her project to prepare an imaging analysis lab manual for use in General Biology. Budd worked with a student assistant for several years and has already begun to test the manual with students conducting General Biology independent projects. Her student assistant also received support to attend several imaging workshops, and, as a result, became a useful campus resource for imaging projects.
  • Paul Connett (Chemistry) had students in his Environmental Chemistry course conduct extensive video recording during their numerous field trips, particularly in one Canadian community that has been significantly impacted by chemical pollution. Connett planned to combine the video footage produced by his students in the past with new footage, and then send this video project and accompanying student essays to the community to show support for the citizens’ efforts to improve their lives.
  • Rebecca Daniels (Speech and Theatre) received a series of TTP grants that enabled her to carry out several video-related projects in her theatre courses and her First Year Seminar. Each of these projects resulted in student accomplishments at a more advanced level. In 2000-01, Daniels initiated a new video-journalizing project with her First Year Seminar, in which students created self-reflective video essays related to diversity and cultural identity. Daniels has incorporated video and video editing projects into her First Year Seminar for the past three years, learning the software programs and working with a student collaborator. Last year, she initiated a pilot turn-key project to train her First Year Seminar students to use Premiere software.
  • James DeFranza (Mathematics), following up on a previous grant for writing in mathematics courses, produced a manual for mathematical writing in the department’s bridge course and developed a series of group writing exercises for this course. He also conducted an experiment in Calculus I classes on the effects of using writing to learn mathematics.
  • Paul Doty (Library) collaborated with Cathy Tedford, curator and director of the University’s art gallery, to organize a Website “show” in conjunction with a gallery exhibit on digital art. Doty invited two artists to speak with the campus community about working in and with digital media. The project benefited students in several fine arts classes.
  • Kerry Grant (English) worked with a student collaborator to help students in his Culture and Context First Year Seminar use Dreamweaver to create their own personal Websites. Grant was one of a number of faculty who have had students create Websites in connection with their courses.
  • Stephen Papson (Sociology) initiated a project that made his extensive library of television advertising samples available to students in an accessible digital format. Papson’s project significantly enriched students’ opportunities to use these materials for analysis and comparison.
  • Artur Poczwardowski (Psychology) used digitized media—both video and audio—in his Sports Psychology class to illustrate various relaxation techniques and their results. For this project, he worked with a student collaborator to make video and sound resources available to students in the class. Poczwardowski also received another grant to collaborate with one of his students to adapt his Introduction to Psychology course materials to PowerPoint.
  • James Shuman (Education) received TTP funding to work with Esther Oey (Education) on a project to help Education majors compile electronic portfolios of their work—including documentary and video samples—onto CDs. Through another TTP grant project, Shuman and the Education Department used video photography and editing to teach students some of the technology skills they will need as teachers and to enable the department to create video portfolios that are useful for evaluating student achievement and assessing the program’s effectiveness in meeting state and national standards. The work of a student technology assistant was the key aspect of this most recent grant.
  • Natalia Singer (English) received grant funding over the past three years to use technology in her First Year Seminar to create a photo documentary essay focusing on North Country and regional issues. Her goal was to build a library of original images representing regional life, which can be used in web-based and PowerPoint presentations. In the first year of this project, with the help of a student assistant, Singer and her students used a digital camera and scanner to acquire and process North Country images and incorporate them into a modest website and other presentation formats. During the second year, a student trained in Dreamweaver helped Singer’s seminar group produce a more advanced Website. In the third phase of the project, Singer worked with another student assistant to teach Dreamweaver to her seminar students and help them prepare a Website that incorporates the lessons learned from the previous projects. This project incorporated the use of sound and video as well as still images.
  • Melissa Schulenberg (Fine Arts) introduced her students to digital and photographic forms of printmaking as part of her effort to create a digital component to the Fine Arts Department’s printmaking curriculum. Schulenberg’s project expands the potential for continued non-toxic forms of printmaking and helps merge the study of traditional photography and printmaking.
  • Sid Sondergard (English) implemented the use of scriptwriting software in his Screenwriting class, in order to provide a more professional experience for his students.
  • Tom Thornton (Global Studies) worked with a student collaborator to help his students create a digital archive of locally generated video images related to major issues in Global Studies (e.g. trade, migration, food, ecology, cultural identity). This archive was used in several Global Studies courses.
Tools and Pedagogical Development Projects

This group of projects involved building and/or using online tools that are new to the courses involved, together with developing the associated pedagogies.

  • Bill Casey (Biology) oversaw the introduction of CD-ROM dissection guides as a companion and reference for conducting “wet dissections” in the General Biology laboratory. Through the use of these guides, the department intended to reduce the sacrifice of animals and provide students with access to interactive guides to cover a variety of organisms in addition to those dissected by the students.
  • Brian Ladd (Mathematics), in an effort to more effectively engage students in computer science courses, developed a project to build a physical manifestation of virtual Robogames robots that interact with real-world objects. The department was already using Robogames simulations, but Ladd’s project resulted in the creation of physical robots to run the same code that students write for their assignments.
  • Marina Llorente (Modern Languages) worked with a student assistant to search for images on the Web and CD-ROMs and develop PowerPoint presentations on various aspects of Spanish culture for use in her courses. Llorente also initiated ongoing use of a digital camera for the University study abroad program in Madrid, with the goal of having students on the Madrid program acquire images to be used in a variety of on-campus courses.
  • The Department of Modern Languages & Literatures added songs that were digitized by student assistants into the department’s VirtuaLab system. Student assistants synchronized the lyrics and music for several French and Russian songs and created activities for the songs under the guidance of the faculty members involved.
  • Library staff initiated a Web of Science project to support the use of a bibliographic database produced by the Institute for Scientific Information. This grant project also supported workshops, in-class instruction, and course development opportunities to increase faculty and student use of this resource. Web of Science provided broad coverage of all the natural sciences, and it is especially valuable to students working in interdisciplinary fields such as neuroscience and biochemistry. Web of Science became the bibliographic database most often requested by the St. Lawrence faculty.
  • The highly successful Digital Atlas Project was launched with TTP funding in 1998, and originally initiated to collect, process, and provide access to geospatial data for the local environs. The digital atlas has been used by hundreds of St. Lawrence students in more that 30 courses and has made a significant curricular impact on our campus and at the other Associated Colleges of the St. Lawrence Valley. Our five-person GIS team is now working to update both the data and the software for the digital atlas.