Louisa Stein is an assistant professor of Film and Media Culture who used both Moodle and WordPress in the spring of 2011 for a course on the “Aesthetics of the Moving Image.” Prof. Stein used WordPress for the public face of this course and Moodle for the weekly outline of readings, online discussion and assignment submissions. Watch the screencast below for more details.
Prof. Stein used WordPress for general information about the course including assignment descriptions (see: Assignments > Montage vs Long Take Wars). These assignment descriptions then contained links to Moodle assignment “activities” where students could submit their assignments. The WordPress site was also used as a place where students could blog about projects and share the videos they produced as part of their course work (see: Categories > Montage)
Prof. Stein used Moodle to distribute readings, collect assignment submissions and as a place for online discussion and used Moodle’s grading functionality to grade assignments and forum posts.
This screencast is the first in a series based on an interview Alex Chapin did with Louisa Stein in the spring of 2011.
What: Clickers (personal polling devices) in a large lecture class
Who: Catherine Combelles, Assistant Professor of Biology
Class: BIOL0145 Cell Biology and Genetics
Technology Used: Personal Polling Devices (Clickers)
Number of students: approx. 70
Learning objective: To monitor the students’ understanding of concepts covered in lecture and promote peer learning and discussion.
Description of use: Catherine used the clickers for every lecture from day 1 to the last day of classes, and throughout the duration of each lecture. At the beginning of each lecure, she started with a question that tested their understanding of concepts from the past lecture or on their readings for the day. She would then pose between 3-4 more questions depending on the lecture content that day. Continue reading
Technology used: Wireless Video Presentation System II by BlackBox
Course: BIOL0222A Human Nutrition from an Evolutionary Perspective (Winter 2010)
Reason for using the technology: This was a seminar course, and Chris wanted students to be able to present from their own laptops.
Received assistance from: LIS HelpDesk and Media Services
The BlackBox Wireless Video Presentation System allowed the nine students in Professor Chris Watters’ Human Nutrition class to share their work as peers rather than as presenters at a podium. Discussion continued seamlessly through PowerPoint presentations that students ran from their own laptops.
Chris can envision other uses for this technology, including collaboration and peer review, and more simply, large projector presentations. He first saw the BlackBox server in action at an international visualization conference in 2005. A group would demonstrate a project, take feedback, make revisions, and present again. When Chris learned that the server was available in the US, he mentioned it to Dean Cadoret. Dean found the server and helped configure it with other LIS staff.
Full configuration remained difficult despite adjustments to the server, the network, and even the students’ laptops. Some of Chris’ objectives couldn’t be met (he had hoped students would be able to pull up nutrition web pages and evaluate them as a group), but overall Chris found this experiment with new technology worthwhile.