Teaching with Technology Day 2008 - Biggest TWT Event Ever

August 2008

On April 29th over 120 Northeastern faculty, and guests from other local universities, attended Northeastern’s Teaching with Technology Day 2008, sponsored by the EdTech Center, The Center for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CIETL), Information Services (IS), College of Professional Studies (CPS) and University Libraries.

Alicia Russell, Director of the EdTech Center, kicked off the day with an overview of some new technologies that are beginning to impact education, including a “talking reader,” created by Perkins School for the Blind assistive technology group. The device is essentially a cell phone that takes a picture of any document, converts it to text, then reads it out loud. See http://www.perkins.org/assistive-technology/
Northeastern's Executive Vice Provost and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Susan Powers-Lee introduced keynote speaker Katie Salen, game developer, author and one of the architects of a new high school based on game design, which will open in New York City. See http://www.instituteofplay.com/node/103 for a description of the school.

The rest of the morning’s program comprised presentations by Northeastern faculty incorporating technology into their teaching practices. Debra Mandel, who heads up the Snell Library’s Digital Media Design Studio, introduced a panel entitled "Facilitating Media-based Assignments." Thomas Bary, the library’s Media Materials Specialist, showed a video featuring work of students with whom he has worked. English Professor Patrick Mullen discussed ways he is encouraging students to create media for assignments. Seth Merriam demonstrated ways his students collaborate in his visual arts classes. Next, Kostia Bergam, Faculty Director of CIETL, moderated the faculty panel, "Using Clickers in Large and Small Classes." Biology Professor Veronica Godoy-Carter brought “clickers” and invited the audience to participate as she demonstrated how she uses a personal response system to engage students in her biology classes. Professor Michael Gonyeau described his research on the use of clickers with pharmacy students. Finally, Jay Laird, CEO of Metaversal Studios and Assistant Director of Northeastern’s Game Design program, described the stages involved in creating the game, "Shortfall," developed with Engineering Professor Jacqueline Isaacs with funding from the NSF.

During the lunch break, interactive poster sessions were offered by staff from the EdTech Center, IS, and CPS. The posters featured new trends in technology including Wimba, Northeastern’s YouTube project and iTunes U, Podcasting and Webcasting, Educational Wikis and Blogs, ePortfolios, Integrating Collaborative Media, and Mashups, Citizen Journalism, Collective Intelligence and Google Earth. The lunch hour also featured a YouTube film festival highlighting EdTech, IS and Library staff favorite educational YouTube clips.

During afternoon breakout sessions, participants toured the University Library's Digital Media Design Studio as well as the virtual world of Second Life. The Digital Media Design Studio staff offered workshops on planning and editing video projects. EdTech multimedia designer Seth Merriam provided a sneak peek at a virtual version of the new EdTech Center and Center for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning, which he has created in Second Life,. The “real life” location is slated to open in the Library in August.

If you were not able to attend a session, check out the EdTech website for podcasts of the event via Northeastern’s iTunes U. See http://edtech.neu.edu/news_events/?id=50&type=Archived

You may also read excellent blog entries about the event by Peter Hess, Faculty Liaison for the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) (See http://edumatic.wordpress.com/) and Denis Saulnier, Assistant Director of Educational Technology in the Higher Education Group at Harvard Business School Publishing (See http://saulnier.typepad.com/learning_technology/2008/05/games-learning.html)