Key Points
- Theme: Information, Communication, and Technology Literacy
- Communities of Practice: 2
- Number of Participants: 14
- Notable Technology: 3D Printing, Web-hosting, Virtual Reality, Student Generated Media, Project Management
Participant List
Featured Faculty Projects
Leslie Knecht, Chemistry
Designing and printing 3D platforms for analytical analysis
I plan to implement a final project that incorporates 3D printing into my lab. Currently, in this course students are introduced to various instruments used to perform chemical analysis and separations including fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy, Infrared spectroscopy, High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Mass spectrometry, etc. I have already implemented a lab where students use a free iPhone application that, based on color intensities, can give similar results to a UV-Vis spectrometer. I want students to use this app-based technology along with their own design of a 3D analytical platform to perform an assay. The results of this assay will be compared with the results when traditional techniques are used. In this project, the student will learn about the design of analytical platforms, how to plan for detection of multiple analytes at once, how to account for controls in an experiment, and how to be aware of certain factors such as fluid flow. This activity should make them think more like a scientist and really understand the intricacies of making a viable analytical platform. To perform this task, the students will become familiar with a 3D design software, will read the literature to get ideas on what components are needed to fulfill the task at hand, and be able to see something that is their creation come to life and be implemented in a chemistry lab. In the future, it may be interesting to have students collaborate with engineering students to design and build these platforms.
Linda Mays, Nursing
Interdisciplinary partnership between Nursing and Theatre Arts
Final project submission coming soon.
Chelsea Skelley, English
Using virtual reality technology to enhance fieldwork and spatial analysis
This Faculty Learning Community project builds upon an existing ENG 105 assignment: Spatial Analysis of an Exhibit Space. Using principles of spatial rhetoric and ethnographic fieldwork, this assignment requires students to conduct observations of an exhibit space in the Lowe Museum, analyze these detailed observations, and then make an argumentative claim about how the space rhetorically works. However, to deepen students’ analysis and enhance their abilities to substantiate their claims with evidence, I have incorporated multimedia by requiring students to use either a personal smartphone or a GoPro camera (from the library) to shoot a panorama of the space to serve as evidence. Further, these analyses will be published on WordPress. This project, then, expands the typical analytical skills for ENG 105 courses. First, students will understand the detailed work involved in qualitative research by conducting fieldwork observations, analyzing observation notes, and implementing inductive reasoning to develop an argument. Second, students will explore how using technology in the space shapes their experience and how they incorporate multimedia evidence into their spatial analysis claims. Third, in publishing their work on WordPress instead of in the traditional academic essay genre, students will explore the importance of digital rhetoric—how the media used to compose offers specific affordances and constraints to the writer’s ability to effectively communicate and persuade and how these shape their persuasive and communicative praxes. All of these instill a deeper level of analysis into the work conducted in ENG 105 by fostering digital literacy.
Elton Skendaj, Political Science
Leveraging Weebly to foster an online community for Nonviolent Movements
I participated in FLC workshops during Spring 2016, where I was exposed to various digital tools to document and enhance student learning. I decided to revise my Nonviolent Citizen Activism course to include a class website which contain research summarized into infographics, timelines, and reflections. After participating in the FLC, I am more confident about using digital tools in my teaching. I can reach out to an interdisciplinary community of faculty that cares about increasing the digital literacy of the students. After changing the nonviolence course, I would like to explore using ePortfolios in other courses, transforming courses to be more interdisciplinary or include more problem-based projects/thinking. I hope that students can take my nonviolence course and use historical, anthropological, and design lens to analyze various types of social movements.
Institutional Repository
To view more faculty projects and learn about the exposure, learning, and impact that the faculty learning community has on the university, visit the insitutional repository. Coming soon.
