On Wednesday March 30, the T&D team held its fourth Laptop Lunch: A Faculty Technology Showcase in the Faculty Dining Room, Beatty Hall. Several volunteers from the Faculty Mentoring Program shared theirs skills and experiences. It was a great opportunity for faculty to talk informally with colleagues who are teaching online and hybrid courses about strategies and tools for teaching in new formats.

The T+D team hosted this hands-on introduction to some of the new devices and softwares available to Wentworth faculty.

• Flip video cameras: a simple way for anyone to make their own video. They are small enought in fit in your pocket, but can generate high quality movie files.
• Wacom Cintiq tablets: a graphics tablet that incorporates an LCD into the digitizing tablet itself, allowing the user to draw directly "on" the display surface. It can be used for writing out equations, drawing 2 and 3-dimensional objects and marking up graphics.
• The Livescribe Smartpen: a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digital audio recorder. When used with special paper, it records what it writes for later uploading to a computer, and synchronizes those notes with any audio it has recorded.
• Camtasia Studio: captures the action and sound from any part of a Windows desktop and saves it to a file. Camtasia files can then be edited,enhanced, or used as is. Depending on the size of the file, this screenrecording can then be shared on a web site and linked to Blackboard, or distributed via email.
• Adobe Connect: software used for online classes, web conferencing and user desktop sharing.

This informal event took place in the Faculty-Staff Lounge in Beatty Hall on Wednesday, November 9 from 12 noon to 1 pm.

Mary Wilkins Jordan, PhD
March 3, 12 pm-1 pm
Mary Wilkins Jordan comes to Simmons GSLIS from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill where she is completing the doctoral program in the School of Information and Library Science. At UNC, Wilkins Jordan taught in the areas of Management and International and Cross Cultural Perspectives.

The CONNECT Team inititated a series of informal rountable discussions in March. All events took place at 12:00 pm in the Faculty-Staff Dining Room in Beattty Hall.

• Reaching Out to Students Struggling in the Classroom
  12:00 pm-1:00 pm
  
  
• Intellectual Property Basics De-Brief
  Friday, March 5
  
  
• Horizon Report 2010
  Thursday, March 18
  The annual Horizon Report is a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education.
  
  
• Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States
  Tuesday, March 30
  The Sloan Consortium is an institutional and professional leadership organization dedicated to integrating online education into the mainstream of higher education. Learning on Demand: Online Education in the United States, an annual survey, is one of the leading barometers of online learning in the United States.
  

On March 25, Training & Development held its fourth Laptop Lunch: Faculty Technology Showcase.
The theme for this showcase is Online Education.
Faculty presenters included:
James Lee, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environment
Cindy Stevens, Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Management
Amanda Hattaway, Department of Applied Mathematics and Sciences
Douglas Dow, Department of Electronics and Mechanical
Phil Comeau, Department of Architecture
David Rilett, Department of Computer Science and Systems

On Monday, October20, 2009, the CONNECT team welcomed Michael Horn, co-author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns to the Wentworth campus. He discussed the themes of his highly-regarded book on the future of education. The book outlines how disruptive innovations, specifically innovations in e-learning, can transform the educational system into one that effectively educates all students.

Download Audio (mp3)

On November 4th, 2009, Training & Development held its third Laptop Lunch: Faculty Technology Showcase. The theme of this showcase was Web 2.0 applications. This is a great opportunity to see different ways your colleagues are integrating Web 2.0 tools into their class activities. The event will be informal and you’ll have the chance to talk with presenters individually about what they are using and how it has enhanced the learning opportunities for their students.
Faculty presenters included:
James Lee, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environment
Gloria Monaghan, Department of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Management
Paloma Valverde, Department of Applied Mathematics and Sciences
Jeff Michaels, Department of Design and Facilities
Joe Santacroce, Department of Electronics and Mechanical
Tony Kurneta, Department of Architecture

Karen Janowski, Simmons College
Do you have students who are struggling in your courses? Would you like to better understand the unique learning styles of some of your students and learn how to meet their needs? This session will address innovative ways to help your students succeed using a number of free online resources.

About the speaker:
Karen Janowski is on the faculty in the Assistive Special Education Technology graduate program at Simmons College in Boston, MA. She has 30 years of experience as an occupational therapist, for the past 18 years in K-16 education and previously in clinical settings in Philadelphia and Boston. She speaks nationally on a variety of topics related to emerging technologies, strategies for struggling learners and assistive technologies. She is the owner of EdTech Solutions, LLC and provides consultations, trainings and evaluations to school districts throughout the greater Boston area. She serves on the Assistive Technology Act Advisory Council and is a School Committee member in her community. Karen maintains a blog at http://teachingeverystudent.blogspot.com, and has created a wiki about Universal Design for Learning technology at http://udltechtoolkit.wikispaces.com/.