Teaching, Learning & Technology in Higher Education : Software

InkSurvey - Try Real-Time Graphical Response, for Free!

jgvanides — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:14:00 GMT

For those of you following my blog, you know I'm a fan of "graphical response" systems that provide rapid feedback and increase student engagement in class. One of my favorite FREE tools for enabling graphical response is InkSurvey, a beta web application from the Colorado School of Mines. The good news is that the newest beta version of InkSurvey is now available to try... ...(read more)

"Math in Your Hands" Maple, DyKnow, and Wireless Tablet PCs

jgvanides — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:43:00 GMT

Joshua Holden (Rose-Hulman, mathematics faculty) presented a very interesting poster at WIPTE this year, "Math in Your Hands: Integrating the Use of Maple with the Collaborative Use of Wireless Tablet PCs"......(read more)

Classroom Presenter Honored with 2008 Premier Courseware Award

jgvanides — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:49:00 GMT

Last Thursday, at the Frontiers in Education Conference, Richard Anderson and the team from the University of Washington received well deserved honors - the 2008 Premier Courseware Award from Engineering Pathway... ...(read more)

Classroom Presenter - Now Available in Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese!

jgvanides — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:42:00 GMT

Thanks to Richard Anderson and his team at the University of Washington, Classroom Presenter keeps getting better - and with its growing popularity around the world, new language versions are on the way......(read more)

Making Classrooms More Interactive Improves Learning Outcomes at Elizabeth City State U

jgvanides — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:12:00 GMT

Dr. Kuldeep Rawat has been the Principal Investigator for a 2007 HP Technology for Teaching grant at Elizabeth City State University (North Carolina, USA). Their goals was to enhance student learning by increasing the "interactivity" of courses such as Engineering Technology, Circuits, and Analog Electronics. The results were impressive - and well documented by Dr. Rawat... ...(read more)

DyKnow Improves Computer Science Courses at Farleigh Dickenson University

jgvanides — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:30:00 GMT

Dr. Kiron Sharma, professor at Farleigh Dickenson University, received an HP Technology for Teaching grant in 2007. The computer science faculty are using DyKnow software - and the project team made a short video describing their experience. In Dr. Sharma's own words, "DyKnow basically makes teaching fun... it's active learning - students are actually involved in the process of their learning". Check out the video to hear what students have to say, too... ...(read more)

Tablet PC Software to Enhance Classroom Interaction

jgvanides — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:00:00 GMT

I often get asked what type of Tablet PC software is available for use by faculty and students. Though I posted similar information nearly two years ago (see ""Clickers on Steroids"), I thought it's too important a topic NOT to repeat. Here's a sampling of what is being used by HP Technology for Teaching grant recipients for real-time "graphical response" in the classroom... ...(read more)

Lawrence University of Wisconsin - the power of digital ink

jgvanides — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:41:00 GMT

Jeff Clark at Lawrence University of Wisconsin is leading an HP Technology for Teaching project that is redesigning courses in Environmental Science. The participating faculty and students are using Tablet PCs in the field, and Classroom Presenter software http://classroompresenter.cs.washington.edu/ in the classroom. Jeff reports that how Classroom Presenter has unlocked the power of digital ink and "revolutionized the classroom"......(read more)

Enhancing Distributed Learning Environments at Georgia Tech Savannah

jgvanides — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:14:00 GMT

With support from an HP Technology for Teaching grant, Professors Monson Hayes and Elliot Moore at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Savannah, are leading a project entitled "Enhancing Distributed Learning Environments through Tablet PC Technology." The participating faculty are using DyKnow software and tablet PCs to create an active learning environment in a distributed learning setting. The student comments are fantastic......(read more)

Sometimes Simple is Simply Better – Try “Pen Attention” by Kenrick Mock (U. of Alaska)

jgvanides — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:10:00 GMT

I’m always amazed at how powerful simple innovations can be. Kenrick Mock from the University of Alaska in Anchorage is an HP Technology for Teaching grant recipient and avid Tablet PC user – and has created a simple (and free!) applet that highlights your cursor while making presentations so everyone can see WHERE you are about to draw…

The applet is called “Pen Attention”, and it changes the ink pointer from a nearly invisible “dot” to a highlighted dot or one of two visible icons. Kenrick mentioned it in a comment to my March posting about ZoomIt, but I thought I would highlight it here, just in case you missed it.

It’s free! Give it a try by going to Kenrick's blog, http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~afkjm/techteach/?q=node/52. Then let us know what you think!

Thanks for the great (and simple) contribution, Kenrick!

Jim Vanides, B.S.M.E, M.Ed.
Program Manager - Worldwide Higher Education Philanthropy
Hewlett-Packard

For information about the HP Technology for Teaching philanthropy initiative in higher education, visit www.hp.com/go/hpteach-hied

Mobile Mapping Software – Vassar College Shares Their Approach to GPS & GIS

jgvanides — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:09:00 GMT

If you’re looking for software that supports student mapping and data collection, take a look at the blog from Professor Meg Stewart at Vassar College...

Meg is the PI for a 2004 HP Technology for Teaching grant received by Vassar. The project, Mobile Mapping Using Tablet PCs and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Field-based College Courses, is a great example of field data collection using GPS, GIS, and Tablet PCs. You can read more about their project(s) at http://www.cfkeep.org/html/snapshot.php?id=71791110627159.

Her blog posting about the software they’ve been using is located at http://gisatvassar.blogspot.com/2008/02/software-for-mobile-mapping-lab-tablets.html .

If you happen to be attending the Northeast Regional Computing Program Annual Conference next week, feel free to drop by her presentation: https://www.educause.edu/NC08/Program/13921?PRODUCT_CODE=NC08/SESS10

Thanks for sending me the weblinks, Meg!

Digital Ink on any application using ZoomIt

jgvanides — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:36:00 GMT

As I prepare to record a video introduction to my online course, I was searching for a way to record a guided tour of my online "classroom". I have Camtasia to do the recording, but I didn't know how to add temporary ink annotations to a webpage. A free application called ZoomIt does a great job - and has some other handy features for presenters...

ZoomIt is a free download from Microsoft, available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Miscellaneous/ZoomIt.mspx. I found it by doing a search of the Tablet PC Review forum discussions (www.tabletpcreview.com). Published recently (last November) by Mark Russinovich, ZoomIt is a clever application that enables four very handy functions:

Draw on top of any open windows (it's like adding a transparent ink layer to your desktop - just press CTL-2)
Zoom in to where your mouse (or pen) is pointing, then begin annotating (CTL-1)
Blank the screen (black or white) to create a temporary drawing board (CTL-2, then "w" or "k")
Blank the screen and display a countdown timer (CTL-3), good for breaks between presentations, or use it on a second machine facing the presenter to make sure they don't run over their allotted time.

The annotations are temporary, vanishing when you hit Escape to return to normal mouse/pen navigation mode.

They say it runs on any version of Windows, but of course using it with a digital pen on a Tablet PC is even easier - if you don't mind leaving the keyboard exposed so you can toggle between "annotation mode" and normal mode.

If you know of other free applications like this, please post a comment and let us all know!

2 Days – Amazing Possibilities: 2008 Worldwide Conference Highlights

jgvanides — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:37:00 GMT

What do you get when you take 138 faculty from 103 colleges and universities in 21 countries and you all meet for 2 days to share about teaching and learning with technology? You get:

A) excited by the possibilities

B) energized by the people

C) exhausted by the intensity

D) all of the above

For me, the recent 2008 HP Technology for Teaching Worldwide Higher Education Conference, sponsored by HP and hosted by ISTE, was definitely “all of the above”…

My head is still spinning with the variety of exciting projects being shared by faculty from around the world, most of whom are using notebook pcs with digital inking (tablet pcs) to redesign their courses. I will be blogging about some of the examples I saw in the weeks to come, and hopefully we’ll be posting the videos of the presentations soon. In the meantime, l’m thrilled to see that there is no shortage of innovation and enthusiasm for helping students learn better.

As I flip through the posters that were presented during the two poster sessions, I see many projects where GPS enabled tablets and GIS mapping software give students an opportunity to do real science in the field, from urban ecology to characterizing the migration of wildlife through semi-urban corridors.

Numerous projects address how mathematics is taught, with a common theme of letting students talk and work together. Moving from pure lecture to studio style instruction is enhanced by using tablets to enable rapid sharing of solutions and questions. The result is rich discussions are now occurring, and student success is increasing.

Faculty are using a variety of software solutions to support their course redesign efforts:

DyKnow, Classroom Presenter, and Ubiquitous Presenter for interactive presentations and note-taking
NetSupport School for desktop monitoring
Moodle and Blackboard to support hybrid and online coursework
Stella and Mathematica for modeling
Camtasia and ePresence for podcasting and vodcasting presentations
Cmap for concept mapping
Google Earth and ArcGIS for mapping data
Microsoft OneNote for electronic science notebooks and general note-taking
… the list goes on!

I know it’s not the same as being there, but we do have some photos from the event that you can view, if you’re interested. Perhaps you can join us next year? Stay tuned to my blog for announcements.

Congratulations to everyone who participated! Keep up the great work. In the meantime, I think I’ll unplug and catch my breath…

More Tablet PC Tips: Virginia Western and the University of Dayton

jgvanides — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:10:00 GMT

As more faculty explore the benefits of Tablet PCs, I am hearing about more “Tablet PC Tips” being made available to help accelerate their effective use. I thought you might be interested in seeing what Virginia Western Community College and the University of Dayton have created – and I suspect there are more hidden gems out there…

Diane Wolff, Professor of Information Technology at Virginia Western Community College, has been busy creating Tablet PC tips for her colleagues. Step-by-step instructions, such as “Using Tablet to Edit Text Documents” and “Techsmith’s SnagIt Tool” are downloadable in PDF format at http://virginiawestern.edu/istgrants/tablettips.html. (Nice job, Diane!)

At the University of Dayton, they have created some basic tablet pc tips that are presented in the form of Flash movies created using Camtasia software. The movie clips explain how to use basic “digital pen” functions and use some commonly available applications like MS Journal, MS Ink Flash Cards, and MS OneNote. Visit http://learn.udayton.edu/tablets/studentResources.jsp for more information.

If you have any Tablet PC tips online that you would like me to share with the world, post a comment with a link! The community welcomes your assistance and contribution…

Math System for Tablet PCs – Carnegie Mellon inviting K-8 / Primary Teachers to pilot test

jgvanides — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:14:00 GMT

Ananda Gunawardena, HP Technology for Teaching Principal Investigator for the Adaptive Book project at Carnegie Mellon, has developed a fascinating tablet-enabled math system. If you know any tablet-using teachers in the primary grades (K-8), anywhere in the world, feel free to let them know they are invited to participate in the pilot testing…

Early reports are that students really enjoying practicing their math using this tablet-enabled system. As the website says, “the kids are doing math and don't even know it" - mt. Lebanon”

To participate or learn more, go to http://srv01.pragma.cs.cmu.edu:1400/

Nice job, Ananda!