Technology Day: April 25

Teaching and Learning in Four

 Dimensions

All Faculty Roundtables to be held in the John E. Reeves Great Hall

 

"Blogging in Italian 132"

For an advanced language and culture course I taught in Florence last summer, I decided to make blogs an integral part of my students’ activities. Students’ blogs were linked to my class-blog, which functioned both as a central hub and a repository for content to our cultural explorations (museum visits, cultural and literary tours), practical information about Florence, etc. Blogs were used throughout the course in Florence as electronic “learning/experience journals” to stimulate the students’ reflection on the course content and to make the students more explicitly aware of their own Italian experiences and learning. These blogs offered students also the opportunity to save and share with one another a significant body of knowledge and experience, and to keep their families back at home informed on a regular basis of their experiences and progress abroad.

Leslie Blum
Assistant Professor
Communication Design;

Nancy Deihl
Instructor
Textile/Surface Design
and Graduate Studies

&

Gordon Frey
Instructor
Interior Design
Fashion Institute of Technology

"Conversations about Design"

As three faculty members at FIT in different departments, we teach the history of our respective fields from our individual perspective: fashion/textiles, interior design/architecture and graphic design/advertising. The goal of this project was to explore and develop one approach that can blur the disciplinary boundaries that normally exist in our classes, and consequently broaden the way in which students view design history.

Sharing images and ideas, we recorded conversations illustrating important design movements with examples of the motifs, techniques and philosophical underpinnings of design in the mid-1800s, the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau. Our objective was to create slideshows of objects that exemplify specific design movements enabling students to easily recognize particular styles. 

We produced three ten/twelve-minute presentations in GarageBand.  This allowed us to edit the audio afterward, preserving the spontaneity of a conversation format. The files can be exported and viewed as QuickTime movies, which are currently posted on a FIT website so that they can be accessed by the three faculty members and their students.

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Daria Dorosh
Professor Emeritus, Fashion Design Art Ph.D Candidate, SMARTlab, New Media Institute, University of East London

“Education: Product and/or Process?”

Since the emergence of ‘desktop culture’ in the 1990s, both material and virtual world coexists. However, there is no going back to a pre-digital way of thinking. Participants will be led in an exercise to analyze the ‘digital toolkit’ and use it to project the NEXT university, while reflecting on the following:Is change inherent in the digital tools or is it in the process of ‘being digital’?
What is the role of an educational institution in a digital information age?

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 & Beth Ritter-Guth
Lehigh Carbon Community College

"A Second Life for the Classroom?"

Second Life has been available to educators now for a few years. There have been some great success stories that surround Second Life and its use in the classroom. Come see what some Second Life pioneers and evangelists have been doing with their students and institutions.

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"Virtual Astronomy for Hybrid Courses in the Physical Science"

In a 15-mintute presentation with time for questions and discussion, I will demonstrate a virtual astronomy laboratory exercise "The Revolution of the Moons of Jupiter"  can be part of a hybrid (blended) course in Physical Science (SC111) Earth Science (SC 112), and Descriptive Astronomy (Sc 261) in the Department of Science and Mathematics. The exercise is designed to be done online in or out of the classroom and draws on the visual learning skills of students at FIT. 

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"Online Teaching and Learning
in Spanish: Hablemos de Modas"

I will explore Spanish lessons through online sources.  The main purpose is to expand vocabulary and grammar accordingly to the different careers  that students study at FIT.  

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Karen Pearson
Assistant Professor
Science and Math
Fashion Institute of Technology

and
 
Calvin Williamson
Assistant Professor
Science and Math
Fashion Institute of Technology

"Having Technical Discussions Online"

Advances in technology have made it possible to communicate both synchronously and asynchronously with students in online courses in ways that are different from the traditional classroom.  Guiding students through topics using text together with multimedia provides endless possibilities for faculty and students to communicate.  But having purely technical discussions with students in the online environment is still a challenge for both the student and faculty. We will share techniques including but not limited the use of interactive demonstrations, drawing applications, video and voice over applications, digital images and use of wikis to communicate with students in the areas of science and mathematics. These techniques however are not limited to the areas of science and mathematics and can be incorporated in many disciplines to enhance the curriculum. 

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"Web2.0: Distributed Creativity and       Framing Group Thought"

What's so special about Web2.0 and tools for shared knowledge? Can it truly offer students new ways to express and shape what they see and experience? In this roundtable, elements that make up Web2.0 tools will be discussed, along with a case study on the use of one such tool, Mindmeister, and how it offers students real-time collaboration in organizing, filtering and building on their ideas through graphical topology or thought maps, in a genuinely interactive learning environment.
 

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"FRI Community Gateway for the Apparel Industry in Second Life"

Prepare yourself for the future of fashion design! Virtual worlds are the next big thing in disruptive technologies, and in three years they will be ubiquitous, just like the Web.  And just like the Web, if you don't know how to use this new technology, you'll be behind the learning curve and not as attractive as an job candidate who can use it. In this brief overview, Shenlei Winkler, CEO of the Fashion Research Institute, demonstrates the FRI Community Gateway for the apparel industry in the virtual world Second Life.  The gateway was developed specifically for apparel industry personnel and it is designed specifically to help get you up to speed faster.

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"The Information Dimension of the FIT Library – Getting Information You Need!"

The challenge of information is that it is not a single concept.  In the fast paced ever changing world that relies on access to the latest information where do you go to find answers?  FIT Faculty can both assist their students and broaden their study of subjects through exploring and exploiting current resources and Library services.  Stop by the “FIT Library Five Dimensions of Information” and see how our Library Team can assist you in harnessing the “Information Dimension”!  Various Library faculty and staff will be demonstrating and providing guidance and information about new resources and services.

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