Practice Teaching and Technology Center (summary)

 

Summarizing What the Center is All About

• The Practice Teaching and Technology Center is a place where faculty and professional staff at Illinois can develop educational technologies for the classroom and the web in a fully supportive environment, with the aid of staff from CITES Educational Technologies and Classroom Technologies. The goal of the Center is to facilitate the development of best practices and models that integrate traditional media, emerging web technologies, and classroom technologies into cohesive and practical applications suitable for widespread adoption.

 

• The Center would have studios for recording instructional presentations, workstations for receiving the audio and video, a reception area for incoming teachers to sit and work in a comfortable atmosphere, and a demonstration area for new and emerging technologies.

 

• One room will be a practice classroom facility, allowing faculty to use their tools and content in a space that closely approximates an ITS classroom. Again, with EdTech and ClassTech assistance, faculty will have the opportunity to try out innovative and creative uses of technology.

 

• The Center will partner with campus units such as ATLAS and the Center for Teaching Excellence to assist faculty in designing projects. Some of the projects that might be implemented would address such questions as how can multimedia and emerging technologies facilitate moving traditional classes into a blended or hybrid format? What are the best uses of emerging technologies for capturing lectures? What are the effects of using podcasts? Hi-tech student presentations? Interactive games?

 

• Some of the resources that would be needed consist of a staff presence between 8 am and 5:00 pm Monday thru Friday, as well as some evening hours and weekends; digital video cameras; digital still cameras; tablet PCs; video and audio editing software and equipment; portable audio and video capture equipment; studio equipment resources such as soundproofing, lighting, and microphones; an inexpensive synthesizer for simple sound effects and music cues; couches, chairs and tables for a comfortable and inviting reception and work area; an espresso machine, and a small browsing/borrowing library of edtech books and magazines.

 

 

Philosophy & Goals of the Practice Teaching and Technology Center

• The Innovations Center is a proving grounds where professional staff and faculty at Illinois can work informally in pilot partnerships that explore uses of educational technologies in the classroom and on the web. More could be done on this campus in trying to develop practices and models that integrate and wisely exploit traditional media (photography, video, audio production), emerging web technologies (blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasting) and classroom technologies (projection & playback, class polling systems) into cohesive and practical applications suitable for widespread adoption across the disciplines.

 

• Provide Access to Technology-Enhanced Classroom for practice, testing, experimentation, including mock run-throughs which CITES staff can assist with

 

• Provide Access to Emerging Technologies (podcasting, RSS, web 2.0 social software)

 

• Provide a sampling of consumer- and professional-grade hardware and software that faculty might need for occasional use or ultimately purchase on their own if they could take a "test drive" or do some limited production work that was successful

 

• Create a space where CITES staff can work closely with faculty before, during, and after production of learning materials

 

• Collaborations with other support groups would also be encouraged, and joint seminars and workshops could be offered. Media experts from technology centers such as ATLAS, OET in Education, Beckman's Visualizations Lab, as well as pedagogy and evaluation experts from like The Center for Teaching Excellence could assist.

 

Critical Features-- Factors Necessary for Success

 

• The presentation equipment, chairs, and tables, will all be mobile, allowing for a dynamically flexible space that can accommodate public presentations, practice teaching scenarios, and experimentation with educational technologies.

 

• At least 4 spaces, including an open classroom area, a reception area, an open computer lab for demonstrations and collaboration, and a small studio for recording.

 

• An experienced, professional staff needs to be present and available at all times when the doors are open.

 

• The location needs to be convenient and easy-to-find. An office hidden away will not be frequented by faculty.

 

• It needs to be an inviting location. Old furniture, high temperatures, cast-off or hand-me-down computers, stained carpeting, will turn away instructors rather than welcome them. Furniture should be flexible and adaptable to accomodate the multitude of ways the facility will be used.

 

Staffing

• To begin, The Center will be open from 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, with at least one staff person from ClassTech or EdTech present in the demonstration area, ready to receive walk-in clients or meet with people on a scheduled basis. We anticipate the need to eventually expand our hours into the early evenings and perhaps weekends to accommodate faculty and teaching assistant schedules and are ready to adjust staffing accordingly based on demand.

 

• If demand is expected to be high during critical periods (prior to the start of semesters), additional ClassTech and EdTech staff will be available.

 

Example Research Questions

• Can multimedia and emerging technologies facilitate traditional courses that move toward a model of reduced face-to-face class time? Can hybrid courses equal or improve on the course work and learning typical of the 3- and 2-per-week face-to-face meeting model?

 

• What are the best uses of multimedia and emerging technologies for capturing the live lecture for online playback?

 

• What are the best uses of multimedia and emerging technologies for non-lecture forms of teaching and learning (3 minute movies or podcasts; meta comments from instructors; student presentations or summaries; interactive games; etc.)?

 

Coalition of Potential Partners

There are a number of groups on campus who support instructional technologies as their mission. It would be beneficial for campus technology professionals and the campus at large to have a physical space where meetings could take place and seminars and workshops could be co-sponsored.

Campus Tech Groups	Colleges	Departmental
Library (Learning Commons)	OET, College of Education	FAA Writing With Video
Center for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science	GSLIS	Dept of Computer Science
Beckman Visualization Lab	ATLAS, College of LAS
Educational Media Group	ITCS, College of ACES
Illini Media Apple Store	LAS Global Studies Initiative

 

What Other Big Ten Universities Are Doing

• All the other Big Ten universities have a "media center" for assisting faculty with developing digital instructional media. These are often walk-in centers where one-on-one assistance is provided for free. Several universities have classrooms dedicated for technology training. We have visited nearly all of these centers:

Indiana University http://www.indiana.edu/~tltl/	University of Iowa http://at.its.uiowa.edu/
University of Michigan http://www.lib.umich.edu/exploratory/about.html	Michigan State University http://www.msu.edu/unit/imc/
University of Minnesota http://dmc.umn.edu/	Northwestern University http://www.it.northwestern.edu/about/departments/at/index.html
Ohio State University http://digitalunion.osu.edu/	Penn State University http://tlt.its.psu.edu/
Purdue University http://www.itap.purdue.edu/learning/	University of Wisconsin http://www.doit.wisc.edu/new_media_centers/

 

Possible Services, Programs, & Events

Definite	Likely	Possible
Smart Classroom Orientations	lecture recording/taping	summer tech retreats for teaching academies
Educational technology brown bag sessions	showcase of faculty projects	faculty-initiated student presentation practice facility
Media capture	usability testing	IT Minor for Grads/Undergrads
podcasting studio		IT Certificate for Faculty
hardware/software vendor demonstrations
Educational DVDs
Streaming media
campus tech training sessions
campus tech conferences & events site
Video conferencing

 

Space and Technical Features

mini podcasting studio	video cameras
digital still cameras	tablet PCs
video and audio editing	portable audio and video capture equipment
simple blue/green screen effects	comfy couches
espresso machine	small browsing/borrowing library of edtech books and magazines
a synthesizer for sound fx and music cues	rich media capture station