Instructional Technologies and Learning

Many college students today are comfortable communicating through digital media. Simultaneously, faculty members are increasingly cognizant of the pedagogical benefits of digital technologies. This presentation will explore whether Apple's iTunes U can provide an effective way for faculty and students to produce, store, access, and distribute digital content. We will describe how faculty from the music, foreign languages, and economics departments collaborated with the Educational Technology Center to pilot iTunesU. Can this "cool" technology meet our institution's digital needs, or will this content-hungry application turn us into Looney Tunes U?

This session will demonstrate how a redesign in overhead slides can create presentations that foster a more learner-centric rather than teacher-centric model. A change in emphasis from verbal to visual promotes active learning and increases comprehension, encourages deductive reasoning, and improves retention.

Podcasts solve some leaner-centered problems typical of adult learners. We will describe how we designed several types of podcasts to deliver portable audio and video content to aid nursing students in learning procedural and conceptual knowledge using mobile devices as well as in more static contexts.

Critique_It is an online virtual classroom critique system originally developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Croquet and ported to Second Life. The critique is a rudimentary instructional methodology in the arts that can be applied to most other disciplines. Critique_It provides an environment for simulating authentic learning strategies and allowing the possibility for feedback from peers and experts from outside the campus.

How can we bring authentic learning, with real-world outcomes and assessments, into the history/social science classroom? This session will discuss the presenter's efforts to design and teach digital history seminars in partnership with museum professionals at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Monticello.

PrimaryAccess (www.primaryaccess.org) www.primaryaccess.org is a Web 2.0 digital tool developed at the University of Virginia's Center for Technology and Teacher Education that allows teachers to integrate primary source documents into the curriculum through student-created digital documentaries. This session will demonstrate the tool and discuss its use in the K–12 classroom to stimulate participant ideas for transferability to higher education.

Current theories suggest that learning is facilitated when embedded in the context in which it will be used, but the constraints of the traditional classroom make implementing this difficult to impossible. This session will focus on exploring how new technologies such as virtual environments can situate learning in a "real" virtual context, motivate students while helping them develop scientific habits of mind, and support teachers in leading complex scientific inquiries.

An online virtual case-based management system was developed to provide an interactive learning portal using simulated case scenarios, collaborative learning, decision support, and real-time assessment of student motivation and decision skills. Learn how to dynamically create and implement online case scenarios using virtual characters, speech, and other media-rich content.

WordPress, an open source content management platform, can be used to implement Web 2.0 learning initiatives without the need for a team of programmers. We will demonstrate how Yale is using WordPress for collaborative script analysis, audience driven theater events, and courses where students contribute images and podcasts.

Electronic response systems and web-based educational software systems use response pads, PDAs, laptops, and tablet PCs to encourage active learning. This overview will describe available mobile and wireless technologies; identify their capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses; and offer examples of how they are used to enhance and assess student engagement and learning.