Mark Hine Joins Instructional Technology Team

As the latest member of the instructional technology team, introductions are in order. My name is Mark Hine and it is my pleasure to join the academic support team at Colgate. I am transitioning from Ithaca College, where I served as the Digital Media Coordinator for just over three years. Prior to that, I served ten years at SUNY Oneonta supporting instruction and serving as a media production specialist with the Creative Media Services group.

My background is in media production, live television, digital design, classroom technology support and web programming. For fourteen years I operated a consulting firm that provided digital design and web development. My clients included Brewery Ommegang, Vanberg & DeWulf, Bassett Healthcare, General Mills, the Chicago White Sox and many others.

My hope is to serve as a resource for the Colgate community including: the support of design tools, such as the Adobe suite (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Flash), video editing applications, presentation applications,  and web development tools. In addition, I have designed and deployed hundreds of web based resources using PHP, MySQL, Perl, JavaScript, JQuery, Linux, Apache, ActonScript and others. At Ithaca College, I led projects to bring digital signage, streaming video and lecture capture to the campus.

As a digital designer, I have experience with layout, print design and user interface design. I am intrigued by design challenges and devising methods of communicating ideas and knowledge to students.

At Colgate, in addition to other duties, I will be working with Dan Wheeler, assisting him with and serving as a back up administrator for Moodle.  I will be managing AxisTV, Colgate's digital signage software implementation. Most importantly, I am here to assist faculty with their classroom and content needs.

I can be reached at 315-228-7116 or by e-mail at mhine@colgate.edu. I look forward to working with you!

And what would an instructional technology blog be without some meaningful content! Below is a great video I've used in training called Podcasting in Plain English. Enjoy!

LMS Alternatives

Colgate's Moodle learning management system (LMS) isn't the only way to work with a class. An LMS is designed to provide management, control, content, and educational features in a single platform, but some of its features will be lacking in comparison to other tools. For example, Moodle provides a built-in wiki activity, but one that doesn't provide all the features and usability of MediaWiki (WikiPedia's software) or PBWorks (a free, on-line wiki service). Furthermore, the LMS control features create "silos" based on courses and semesters which are sometimes counterproductive to an individual's educational process. So why not try something else?

One basic trade-off when deciding to use an alternative to Moodle is functionality versus management and control. With an LMS you know that you can add content and conduct activities with access and participation limited to your students. That control is built into the system, and we provide the enrollments so you need not manage the participants. But if you are willing to take on more of that management role, there are tremendous collaborative features available in Google Docs, Google Sites, PBWorks, Blogger, and other "cloud" platforms that might improve your interactions with students.

Another trade-off with these alternatives is the consistency provided by a standard LMS. When you use another, better tool, your students will not necessarily be familiar with the features and use of that software. They may require some specialized support, much of which will fall on you.

With all this in mind, ITS is working on tools which make it easier for a professor to manage external resources. For instance, we soon hope to be able to easily create Google Groups for your classes; Groups can be used to make sharing of Google resources, such as Docs and Sites, much simpler for professor and student. Also in the planning stages are tools to let you create class lists which can make it easier for you to share other on-line resources with your current students. In the support area, we may be able to create specialized student documentation or instruction for alternatives to Moodle (e.g., we already have some basic instructions for using Google Docs for class assignments).

Instructional technologists are happy to work with you on creating and managing collaborative environments outside the LMS. Alternatives to Moodle might include:

• document submission, markup, and return using Google Docs
• class writing and response using Blogger
• collaborative knowledge creation and exchange using Google Sites or wikis
• creation of a simple, collaborative class web presence using Google Sites

...dan wheeler
lead instructional technologist
moodle system administrator

Michael Coyle: Airplay + AppleTV + iPad = Instant Jazz

Airplay is Apple's proprietary wireless networking platform that allows users to wirelessly stream music to a pair of speakers connected to an AppleTV, configured on the same wireless network.  The music is streamed directly from most iPhone, iPad, or iMacs via the wireless network, through the AppleTV and finally through stereo speakers connected to this fantastic $99 AppleTV.

Since Michael expressed a need to move around the classroom while still having control of the AV equipment in the room, IT installed an AppleTV with a pair of speakers in Lawrence 310.  To test the system, Professor Coyle was issued an iPad 2 and was encouraged to experiment and play Jazz music in an ad-hoc fashion while teaching his course.

The experiment has been a success so far, but that's not to say that our testing is complete.  We are still unsure of how Apple's proprietary wireless platform will impact Colgate's wireless infrastructure, as more users learn about this technology.  But enough of the details - let's see what Prof. Michael Coyle had to say:

Using Webex to Extend the Classroom

Webex is an online meeting tool. It supports 25 simultaneous video/audio connections and provides the ability to share individual user's applications and multimedia files. At Colgate we host meetings, academic classes, and office hours with Webex. We do not want to replace face time but for those times that you are away and still want to hold a class this tool is very useful. Here is a video of Professor Burnett using it for office hours.


If you want to know more about it contact itshelp@colgate.edu or visit your instructional technologist during office hours. Office hour Schedule.

Flipping/Inverting the College Classroom

Inverting the classroom is a form of blended learning which encompasses any use of Internet technology to leverage the learning in a classroom, so a teacher can spend more time interacting with students instead of lecturing. This is most commonly being done using teacher created videos that students view outside of class time.

The traditional pattern of college education has been to have classroom lectures, in which the professor explains a topic, followed by homework, in which the student does exercises. In flipped or inverted teaching, the student first studies the topic by himself, typically using video lessons created by the professor or shared by another educator, such as those provided by the Khan Academy.

In the classroom, the pupil then tries to apply the knowledge by solving problems and doing practical work.  The role of the professor is then to tutor the student when they become stuck, rather than to impart the initial lesson. This allows time inside the class to be used for additional learning-based activities.

Inverting the classroom allows more hands-on time with the instructor guiding the students, allowing them to assist the students when they are assimilating information and creating new ideas (upper end of Bloom's Taxonomy).


Robert Talbert, PhD, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Grand Valley State University presents a seminar on how he implements the inverted classroom.  "AMATYC Webinar: Flipping the College Classroom"

Watch in YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nRCeZh0sMQ

Social Networks for Academics Proliferate

The Chronicle of Higher Education posted an article on April 29, 2012 titled "Social Networks for Academics Proliferate, Despite Some Doubts". The social networks mentioned are:

Academia.edu, "The profile ... includes far more information than a university's Web page could accommodate, including links to research papers, books, blogs, and forthcoming talks. It lets people know what he's working on and helps him connect with others in his field."

Mendeley.com, "is a program for managing and sharing research papers that includes both a desktop application and a social-networking site."

ResearchGate.net, "allows scholars to share research papers."

Zotero.org, "offers similar technical tools for researchers in other disciplines, including many in the humanities. The free system helps researchers collect, organize, share, and cite research sources."

FacultyRow.com "provides online forums so scholars can link up through text or video chats."

Using Clickers to Engage Students - Doug Johnson

Psychology Professor Doug Johnson discusses how he is using clicker technology to improve student engagement, generate classroom discussion, and give a voice to an otherwise quiet or shy student.