Instructional Technologies and Presented at Southeast Regional Conferences

The phone rings. The caller begins with the familiar, “I’ve been thinking...” and the rest of the conversation centers on how to pilot an emerging instructional technology. Faculty who are early adopters of technology are experimenters and risk-takers; they broaden the landscape of effective teaching and learning with technology. Yes, they push the envelope, but they also offer partnership for identifying what’s scalable and sustainable for broader use. Our panelists will share their campus perspectives on adopting emerging technologies from Web 2.0 to virtual worlds, their successes and challenges, and the partnerships they’ve formed.

Do you have a program or class at your institution that needs to be refreshed and revitalized? Could you sharpen your students' critical thinking skills by incorporating active learning techniques, information literacy competencies, and fresh, new technologies? If you can answer "yes" to either of these questions, then our program can help both you and your colleagues. Come learn how we breathed new life into our old standard of instruction by collaborating through three distinctively different groups: First Year Programs, the academic library, and teaching faculty. The result was a more contemporary yet engaging learning experience for all involved.

This session will describe lessons learned from the perspective of a public institution's creation of a "new" academic technologist role. The process included the willingness of IT leadership to innovate to improve teaching and learning, paying attention to best practices, promoting assessment to inform decision making, and nourishing a collaborative culture in support of faculty development. We will share our early experiences with defining and implementing the directorship.

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 presentation will discuss the impact of iPods in the college classroom. Two English composition classes taught the same curricula, using the same course objectives. One class was given iPods to keep class notes, assignments, supplemental information, and syllabus. The non-iPod class used traditional handouts, notes, and the Internet.

The use of iPods and similar devices is growing in education, but do students see the iPod as an educational tool or as "their" space, not to be invaded? Results from a yearlong study show that students may not want educational content on their "fun" media.