“Talk to Larry” is the common response when asked who incorporates new participatory technologies in their teaching. Long considered a technology innovator, Larry has recently adopted the use of Twitter, blogs, and Skype into his teaching practice and found that his students are reaping the benefits. Guiding the adoption of such tools, Larry points to the opportunity for students to participate in global conversations: “…the underlying principle that goes along with this (adoption) is openness and participation and that all of these are tools that allow our students to talk with a larger audience to get their ideas out across the globe and, more importantly, gives them an opportunity to think about things from their classes outside of the classroom.”

Listen to the conversation between Larry, Danielle, Matt, and Jenny who discuss how their use of technology has broadened their learning opportunities:

Using Twitter, Skype, and blogs in the classroom from Jenny on Vimeo.

Teaching outside your expertise is not as unusual as you might think, according to Therese Huston, author of Teaching What You Don’t Know.  Most college faculty routinely teach courses outside their field of expertise or even outside their discipline.

How can you do that and minimize the stress involved?
Since confidence is key,  Professor  Huston offers these suggestions to boost your confidence level:

1. Take control of the choices that you do have.  Start the course from the core of your experience.
2.  Frame what you know and what you don’t know and then talk about it with someone, an ally or supportive colleague.
3. View your role as more than a “knowledge dispenser”.  Set goals like “get students to ask good questions” or “train students to think like a ___”

To help you get a handle on what to teach Huston suggests starting by brainstorming a list of the “Big Questions.”  Then find a question that intrigues you.

Finally, as a way to organize and prioritize, slot everything you want to teach into Must Know, Should Know and Nice to Know.

Believe it or not there are some advantages to teaching a course in which you are a “content novice” (Huston’s term.)

•    You will have more realistic estimates of how much time an assignment takes than an expert does.

•    You will offer more concrete examples than an expert normally would

•    You will have the fervor of the newly converted.

CELT has a copy of the book to loan.  Stop by our office on the first floor of Rhodes to borrow it.

How does a blind music student complete music assignments involving written music scores? With a team of dedicated and persistent faculty and disability counselors, a student worker, two software programs and a Braille printer.

When Alex Krauth started her freshman year at Keene State in September 2009 it wasn’t clear how to help her get her music assignments into  a format that she could work with. “We hadn’t ever accommodated this need,” said Jane Warner, Director of Disability Services, “but we were confident we could do it.  We purchased the music editing program Sibelius, and Dancing Dots, which converts music notation to Braille, and dove in.”

“Working with the Music department  and professor Heather Gilligian, we created a process that involves translating the score into Braille and printing out a Braille copy. Then Alex works with a student worker to make changes to the score and sends the product back to the professor.”

Seeing Alex and student worker Lisa Henkel working together recently, disability counselor Wayne Harvey realized that they had created something special. “We need to capture this,” he thought. He asked the Center for Engagement Learning & Teaching (CELT) for some advice.

After explaining the capabilities and limitation of screen capture software, it became clear that Wayne needed to shoot some video of people.  “We lent him a Flip cam and he was off,” said Judy Brophy, Academic Technology, CELT.  “Wayne had the process clear in his mind and he went about documenting it. Then we met and I helped him edit it into a short presentation.”  The video was shown to the University System Board of Trustees on April 29 and was well received.

Wayne was so intrigued with the Flip Cam he bought one for himself.  He plans to do more videos illustrating the services available to students who require some kind of accommodation.

Last year over 700 Keene State students worked 17,000 hours in the community.  Mary McEntee, Coordinator of the Community Service office, captures all that information.

Mary McEntee

Until recently students reported their hours by printing out a form from the website, completing it and handing it in monthly. Then student workers keyed in the information. The process was slow and labor intensive.

This month, Community Service switched to an online form they created using Google docs. Students now fill out the form whenever they want and the data they enter is automatically entered into a spreadsheet. “This way students can complete the form anytime, 24-7,” said Mary. “They can submit a from each time they volunteer so they won’t forget.” In the first two weeks of use there have been over 800 entries logging over 15,500 service hours.

“I expect we will get an even better response now that students don’t have to look for a printer and carry their form to the office. Plus, there is no delay. We see the data as soon as it’s entered. ”

Creating the form was simple according to Mary. “CELT led us through the process and it was done in a half hour.  I would not have known who to ask to help me with this task but Judy Brophy followed up on an unrelated question and we got together.”

“It’s important to be able to accurately report this very positive data to the community,” said Mary, “and now we can do it more quickly and easily.”

For more information see Using Google Forms to Gather Survey Data.