by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies “How do I easily and quickly share files with my students in a seminar setting?” As the faculty technology liaison for Arts and Sciences, this is the most common question put to me over the first few weeks of the fall 2015 semester. There a a lot of possible answers to this question, but the one people are most attracted to is UA+Box. UA+Box is a really flexible tool that you can put to use […]
Category: Integrating Technology
Altman Teaches Intro Course with Twitter
by Jessica Porter, Office of Educational Technology (eTech) Michael Altman, an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, explains how he incorporated Twitter in his large, 150-student Introduction to Religious Studies course, and he offers advice for those considering using Twitter in their own courses. What were you goals for using Twitter? I was trying to find a way to shrink the feel of the class. I thought that if I could find a lot of ways for students to interact or […]
Teaching with Mathematica
Mathematica is a software program designed to help math, science, and engineering students explore and grasp mathematical concepts. It also gives faculty the tools needed to easily create supporting course materials, assignments, and presentations. Robert Nelson, an English professor, and Marco Bonizzoni, a chemistry professor, share how they use Mathematica in their research and teaching: Teaching with Mathematica: Robert Nelson Teaching with Mathematica: Marco Bonizzoni Interested in teaching with Mathematica? The Office of Information Technology (OIT) offers a variety of tutorials […]
What’s the Best Length for a Tegrity Recording?
Faculty can use Tegrity, the lecture capture tool licensed by the University of Alabama, to record their in-class lectures or provide supplementary videos that automatically upload to Blackboard. The in-class lecture recordings, as you might imagine, tend to last about an hour or more. But research shows that for best results, videos should be less than 10 minutes long, ideally lasting only about 6 minutes. According to research conducted by Dr. Phillip Guo, a visiting research scientist at EdX (a provider […]
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Tegrity and the Muddiest Point
The “muddiest point” is an assessment technique used to gauge student understanding of material presented in class or in assigned readings. Ann Carlson of Western Washington University’s Teaching and Learning Center has a great explanation of how this technique can be used. At the end of class, ask your students to write down on a piece of paper or an index card what they may not have understood from the day’s class — what points are still not clear. Make sure that students […]
Turnitin for Teacher Self-Assessment
by Jessica Kidd, Department of English I’ve become a big fan of grading within Turnitin, so much so that I sometimes forget its additional purpose as a plagiarism prevention tool. The grading is convenient since I don’t have to lug around piles of papers and fast because rubrics can be built into the grading tool. These features are also useful from an assessment standpoint. Because I’ve been using Turnitin for a few semesters now, I have access to all these […]
Turnitin is a Process Writing Tool, Not a Panacea
by Jessica Kidd, Department of English On September 7, The Chronicle of Higher Education published the article “Could Professors’ Dependence on Turnitin Lead to More Plagiarism?” On September 9, Inside Higher Ed published “Plagiarism Betrayal?” a more in-depth look at the same subject: Turnitin’s role in the fight against plagiarism. At first glance, these are troubling articles. “Plagiarism Betrayal?” is full of bellicose diction; The Chronicle’s piece uses a shoplifting metaphor. They both grapple with whether or not Turnitin’s parent […]
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Think-Pair-Share with Clickers
by Patrick Frantom, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Collaborative learning is usually interpreted as ed-speak for working in small groups outside of class to accomplish a project of some significance. These types of exercises require that instructors assign groups, determine how to grade the group if members contribute unevenly, and commit significant time to a single project. However, collaborative learning exercises can be efficiently employed as in-class exercises, even in large lecture sections, with the help of clickers. Think-Pair-Share One […]