Category Archives: Venture Fund

Teaching from Abroad using Voice-over in PowerPoint

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Instructor: Rich Kremer, History

Project: Quick Start Program

I propose to create voice-over PowerPoint lectures to supply two lectures while traveling abroad in Spring 2009. These presentations will be placed in Blackboard, with discussion board used for questions and feedback to ensure that students view the lectures when scheduled on the course syllabus. Other uses of the tool for teaching will be explored.

The project will include written feedback on process of creating the voice over lectures and utilizing this methodology for teaching. I propose to ask students in the Blackboard discussion Board (or survey tool) what they think about the voice-over lectures.

Creating More Interactive Learning Experiences

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Instructor: Professor Sharon McDonnell, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School

Project: ECS 153 and 154 (Social and Behavioral Determinants of Health), required classes for the Masters of Public Health (MPH) graduate program at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Care Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI), are being extensively redesigned. Our curricular goals are to (1) facilitate experiential learning with a more creative and personalized approach, and (2) to create a more interactive, multimedia-teaching environment that will include virtual or on-line learning options to reduce the time students are passively sitting in classrooms. By utilizing video and multimedia technology, as well as digital story-telling techniques, we aim to create a more interactive, student driven and created learning experience and explore creative and compelling methods of public health communication.

Using GIS and Spatial Analysis in the Curriculum

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Instructor: Jonathan Chipman, Departments of Geography and Earth Sciences

Project: The primary obstacles to wider adoption of geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis within the curriculum include limited knowledge of and experience with this technology on the part of instructors; few good models or examples of the use of GIS in the curriculum, outside of geography courses; inherent complexity of the technology. This project is designed to address these obstacles and to help expand the use of spatial information in courses across the College. First, it will enable multiple faculty members to address specific educational goals through the development of course-specific GIS-based activities. Second, it will be broadly applicable, including courses in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Third, it will provide several innovative models to demonstrate the applicability of GIS and spatial analysis in different types of courses across campus. The courses for the coming year include: GEOG 1 and GEOG 59 (Fall 2008), EARS 63 (Spring 2009).

Digital Game Studies: Surprising Ourselves

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Instructor: Aden Evens, English

Overview: This project attempts to leverage student expertise to explore creative gaming. The project calls upon students to propose experiments, to be conducted by the class, as a way of exposing the creative limits of digital gaming and possibly also expanding those limits. Funds will be used to implement these experiments, which may involve the purchase of software, memberships, materials, electronic resources, or other supplies or services essential to the experiments. Typically, an experiment in digital gaming might involve the purchase of multiple copies of a multi-player game along with multiple subscriptions (or accounts) on the game’s servers. But as the aim of this project is to take advantage of student expertise, there are no presuppositions as to what shape the experiments will take, and they might involve relatively obscure technologies (for example, a special input device), travel (to the corporate headquarters of a game development firm), contracting (of programmers or a viral marketing firm), etc.

Lecture Capture

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Client: Academic Computing, Student Assembly, DCAL

Project: Lecture recording represents a major paradigm shift for instructors and, ultimately, for education. Indeed, lecture recording may be to education what other innovative capture technologies, such as print and audio and video recording, were to storytelling and live performances — disruptive of old methods, and yet immeasurably enabling. But we need to understand what is gained by recording lectures, and what is lost. One thing is certain: access is improved when learners can view and review course lectures. However, several questions must be answered before we see widespread adoption of lecture recording. For instance, does access to recorded lectures improve learning? Does access to recorded lectures affect attendance? And, on a practical level, how do different recording methods measure up (e.g., audio only, audio and slides, synchronized audio and slides)?

We plan to run a Podcasting Pilot Program during the 2007-2008 academic year to being to determine the strengths and weaknesses of podcasting using iPods in different classroom situations. We seek funding through the Computing Technology Venture Fund to purchase 10 iPods to be distributed to faculty across campus. Each will be trained and supported by Academic Computing staff in the use of the technology. Each faculty member will also work with DCAL to assess the impact of lecture recording on their course. In this way we will gain experience with the technology and also measure its impact on the course experience.