September Faculty
Technology Showcase

 

Tuesday's Presentors

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Dr. Albert Van Helden (HIST)
The Galileo Project

Al's award-winning Galileo Project is one of the best known instructional technology projects on the Rice campus. With the aid of a grant, Al set out to present a large body of work about Galileo online to serve as the main text for one of his history courses. He had students add to this project by publishing their own projects on the world wide web. When he began, few people had heard of the web or knew what HTML was. Listen to this early adopter talk about his plans and expectations and how those have changed in the six year since his project began.

Dr. Arjendu Pattanayak (PHYS)
PHYS 101: Calculus-based Introductory Physics

When Arjendu was hired to re-energize the first year physics program, he came with many ideas about the way he wanted to teach physics and the ways in which he wanted students to learn. He has used technology both to help alleviate some of the tedious aspects of teaching a large introductory course (by employing online quizzing and grading) and to get immediate feedback in the classroom from the students about what they understand and what they don't. A small technology grant from Rice allowed Arjendu to outfit the Physics Amphitheater with input devices which allows him to pose a question to his students and have them respond electronically. Find out how well it has worked and how it has effected the way he teaches.

Dr. Tracy Volz (The Cain Project)
ENGL 307: Medical Communication

Tracy has taught communication courses in the Symonds Teaching Lab for the past several years. This immersive environment has allowed her to expand the boundaries of the traditional classroom by integrating video, web-based resources, and videoconferencing. She also has taken what has long been thought of as a very individualized process (writing) and turned it in to a collaborative exercise in which students jointly write, edit, and respond to texts. Taking the fixed medium of the printed word on paper and moving it to the much more dynamic medium of transient text on a video display has transformed the way students approach writing. Listen to Tracy talk about how teaching in the Symonds Lab has changed her role in the classroom and allowed her to create an interactive, student-centered learning environment.

Dr. Alan Thornhill (BIOS)
Teaching Interests

Alan's interest in technology is both as an instructor in the biological sciences and as an enabler of technology for other instructors. He is currently an instructor and the director of the Data Applications Center at Rice University. As an instructor, he has used technology to carry class discussions beyond the walls of the classroom and to provide dynamic, up-to-the-minute information on his classes. He has used technology to enhance data collection and to provide students with larger data sets than they might be able to acquire on their own. As an enabler of technology for his teaching peers, he has also sought to find ways to make it easier for faculty to use technology. Through the Data Applications Center he has also automated processes like teaching evaluations to allow faculty to get immediate feedback on their teaching.

Dr. John Polking (MATH)
MATH 211: Ordinary Differential Equations and Linear Algebra

For many, using computers in math courses might seem like a very logical and natural fit. After all, computers have made it possible to evaluate and graph complex equations and formulas very quickly, allowing students to learn visually and to quickly test ideas they have about the math world. On the other hand, though, mathematical symbols and equations which can quickly be drawn by hand must be tediously coded on computers in non-intuitive ways - a quick equation rendered on a blackboard or overhead projector is no longer an easy task in the digital world. Balancing these two sides of the equation (so to speak), has been a challenge for John who has incorporated technology in his teaching for a number of years. Listen to him talk about the challenges he has faced, how he does it, and what the pay offs and failings have been.

Wednesday's Presentors

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Dr. Michael Byrne (PSYC)
COGN 410: Computational Modeling of Human Cognitive Processes, PSYC 502: Statistics

Mike has been using internet-based technologies for teaching for about a year, particularly the web. Using such technologies has presented several opportunities for him, though it also presents challenges. For example, he makes all of his course notes available on the web and, since they are published electronically, he also prepares his lectures in PowerPoint. He plans to discuss the following:

• How to make course Web pages usable and efficient to both students and instructors.
• The pros and cons of lecturing from PowerPoint and giving away the notes before class, and tips to make this work better.
• Technology limitations and how to help overcome them.
• The pros and cons of class newsgroups.

Dr. Patricia Seed (HIST)
The Latitude Project, HIST 424: Latitude 2000 History of Cartography and Navigation (student work), HIST 327: Spanish and Portuguese Expansion in Games, "Connecting to the Public: History through the Internet"

Pat's Latitudes Project and innovative uses of technology have earned her international praise. An early adopter of technology, she uses a variety of media in the classroom and has found creative ways of repurposing software titles written for different applications into instructional media. She has used technology to increase communication within her classes and amongst other history instructors around the world. By incorporating media sources she has collected during her travels, she is able to bring foreign lands and cultures into her classroom and help simulate the environments and situations found by early explorers.

Dr. David Lane (PSYC)
Rice Virtual Lab in Statistics, PSYC 339: Intro to Psychological Statistics

David's Stats Lab has been a major undertaking supported by a National Science Foundation grant which has substantially changed the way in which students learn and understand statistics. It is only one of several ways that David uses technology in his teaching and research in human computer interaction. The Stats Lab is a learning environment built on a series of java applets that allow students to dynamically interact with statistical equations and learn about the subject in a visual way. Hear David speak about the ways that he has used technology in his teaching and the impact it has had.

Dr. Joan Strassmann (BIOS)
BIOS 321: Animal Behavior

Until recently, presentations about animal behavior have been limited to slides and verbal descriptions. Joan has found exciting ways of presenting her research and other educational content to her students using technology both in the classroom and on the web. Another early adopter, for years she has provided digital images, video clips and data sets giving her students immediate access to information and allowing them to study behaviors closely and on demand. The abundance of online information lets students pose their own questions and construct their own knowledge of the animal world.

Dr. James Pomerantz (PSYC)
Neurosciences at Rice, "How Technology Fits the University"

Jim's experience with technology in teaching is both as an instructor at some of the nation's premier universities and as an administrator. He served as Provost of Brown University for five years and lectured on the topic of technology in the university at Snowmass in 1998. More recently, he has been involved in the establishment of a Neurosciences initiative at Rice taught in conjunction with the Baylor College of Medicine. This joint teaching process has benefited greatly from the use of streaming video to bridge geographic distance as well as schedule differences between the two institutions' academic calendars. Jim is currently involved in creating a web-based textbook in behavioral neuroscience that uses java-based modules to teach what conventional texts cannot.

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For further information contact:
Shisha van Horn Classroom Technology Services Information Technology http://cts.rice.edu/ shisha@rice.edu	Lisa Spiro Electronic Text Center Fondren Library http://www.rice.edu/Fondren/ETC/ lspiro@rice.edu
This page last updated: September 19, 2000