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FCS > Gallery of Faculty Innovators
Tech Tools
Break Down Class Walls
By Judith Tabron
Many Hofstra faculty are taking advantage of technology to expand the walls of their classrooms. By using technology tools that let students learn anytime and anywhere, these faculty have freed up class time for discussion and explanation. Students come to class more prepared to tackle the topic of the day, and can also review key material at their leisure as many times as they like. Class time can then be devoted to the type of student-instructor interaction for which Hofstra students select this university.
Here's a small sample of the ways your colleagues are putting technology to work: |
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| Video quotes.
Richard Cavello from Computer Science has just finished
working with Faculty Computing Services (FCS) to digitize "video
quotes" that he uses in his class. To highlight the meaning
of technology in society, Prof. Cavello uses a number of small
pieces of video from television and film. Rather than juggling
DVDs or VHS cassettes, he can store key selections digitally
and bring them up in class in seconds. He can also put links
to the video clips in his Blackboard course so that students
can review them before they come to class. |
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Students can access relevant video
clips directly from Professor Cavello's Blackboard course. |
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| Podcasting. Nancy Kaplan in Audio-Video-Film is one of our trailblazing podcasters. Any faculty member can, at any time, make an MP3 sound file and save it in their Blackboard course where their students can download and listen to it. But in true podcasting, a faculty member produces periodic sound or video files on a regular basis and students subscribe to the "feed," always automatically receiving the most recent file. This spring, with help from FCS, Prof. Kaplan will record a series of audio tours of complex pieces of equipment that students can review on their own time. By subscribing to the class podcast, students will always have the latest information. |
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Students record their presentations
and submit them to Professor Kaplan for posting in Blackboard
and podcasting. |
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| Pre-quizzes. Steve Lawrence in Physics uses Blackboard to give his students pre-class quizzes on the homework. The Blackboard upgrade completed in summer '06 gives faculty new quiz and question types. There are many more types of questions than just multiple choice, and quizzes can be adaptive, selecting questions to present to students based on their performance on previous questions. Prof. Lawrence monitors how well his students keep up with and understand their homework with regular, required pre-class quizzes in Blackboard, so he knows how to focus his lectures before he even arrives in class, based on what students are absorbing and understanding. |
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Professor Lawrence modifies his upcoming
lectures based on the results of out-of-class Blackboard quizzes. |
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Learning objects. Andrew Spieler in the Finance department has just completed a learning object, or a small multimedia instructional module (containing text, graphics, animation, audio or video) that can be used many times in different learning contexts, showing students how to use a financial calculator. Students who need to use a financial calculator - which includes most students in the business school - can review the explanation over and over again whenever they please.
Learning objects can be as simple as pure audio, audio with video, or, as in this instance, audio with video, PowerPoint slides, and searchable text. Learning objects usually try to convey core concepts that students will need throughout a course or throughout an entire degree program. |
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Professor Spieler offers students
a digital opportunity to study the basic operation of a financial
calculator. |
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| Technology boot camp. And Ethna Lay in the English department participated in the University's first Catalyst Boot Camp, a week-long intensive discussion of instructional technologies and their pedagogical uses. Prof. Lay has gone from being rather unsure about how to use computers in teaching to using them at every level, from freshman courses to graduate. And she will be presenting a paper on using social software in the medieval studies classroom at the 42nd International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 2007), the largest medieval studies conference in the country. Prof. Lay now utilizes technology in all of her classes. She even has students complete their in-class writing assignments on their own laptops and turn them in via the wireless network right there in the classroom, using Blackboard to collect them!The first Boot Camp involved faculty from HCLAS; a second Boot Camp is scheduled in January for faculty in the School of Communication. |
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Professor Lay incorporates multiple
technologies into her class, including the Sympodium/SMART Board
and wireless internet-connected student laptops. |
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To learn more about what these and other Hofstra professors are doing in the classroom with Hofstra's technology resources, drop by the Faculty Support Center, McEwen 215, any time between 9 and 5 weekdays. You can also reach FCS by just picking up the phone and calling 516-463-6894, or emailing us at fcshelp@hofstra.edu.
Judith Tabron is director of Faculty Computing Services. |
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