Project Cycles Beginning & Ending
Another cycle of Innovation in Teaching projects have been completed, and the new project cycle has begun development.
A faculty comment about the program…
“The whole experience was great and the impact long lived. We can expose students to material they would get no other way in lecture.”
In the past year, projects focused on using collaborative tools, such as blogs & wiki’s, webcasting and more complex collaborative systems. Several projects used blogs in new ways for teaching, and the development team implemented several expansions to our current blog service. One outcome of the FIT program is that it informs, and in this case enhances our services — which then is of benefit to the entire campus.
A new area of exploration for projects in the past year is the use of mapping & virtual technology to enable students to explore spaces in different ways. In addition, these projects engage the students through interactive assignments where students contribute to the content and development of the sites.
The complete cycle projects developed new digital teaching materials or implemented new technologies such as:
- Online tutorials
- Document repositories
- Virtual Worlds
- Interactive Video’s
- Collaborative document creation and writing
- Writing simulations
- Implementation of a complex Video & Webcasting system
- Student generated content
When asked about project outcomes and program impact faculty participants in the FIT program reported that…
“I’m very grateful for the FIT project because it enabled me to now teach my course in a way that is not only more interesting and motivational for the students; but it is also much more rewarding for me since the considerable time I spend on lecture preparation is rewarded by having happy, interested students.”
The program also implements a project evaluation process that informs the program about the “success” of the project as it is being used in a course, as well as looking at how the technology may impact learning.
Future blog postings will report on project outcomes and findings.