U-TELL

Language Center iTeach Workshop:

Cuaderno: Online Notebook and Writing Portfolio
Tuesday, November 18, 12:20-1:10 p.m.
Jones 35

Presenters: Frances Matos-Schultz, Pablo Viedma, and Jose Fernandez

The Spanish department has developed Cuaderno, a system for creating and managing web-based writing portfolios. Cuaderno is designed and programmed to be flexible and adaptable to different writing tasks and projects which both the instructor and learner are able to manipulate in a secure environment. Learners have access to multiple tools that enhance and facilitate their writing, such as multimedia, rubrics, tutorials and templates. The Cuaderno system is self-populating and scalable and requires minimal administrative intervention. Though initially developed for Spanish, the Cuaderno tools can accommodate different languages and levels. Come to this presentation to learn more about Cuaderno and how it might be useful in your language program!

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 13, 2008
Dear Professor, Students Want to Chat With You

When asked what kind of educational technology they wanted most, students—replete with iPods, laptops, and social-network pages on Facebook—say the thing they don’t have and wish for most is an online chat with their professors.

In a survey released today by CDW-G, the technology vendor, 39 percent of college students say they want regular online chats with faculty. The surveyors contacted 401 students to get this information.

The students are likely to be disappointed, according to the report. Only 23 percent of IT staff surveyed—there were 301 of them—said their campus offered that kind of electronic faculty-student contact.—Josh Fischman

Do any of you chat with your students? I have set up online office hours before, but more often than not spent the time surfing, emailing, or facebooking while waiting for students to contact me.

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just posted a blog entry on my Digital Media Center Faculty Fellowship blog, Conversations about Emerging Learning Environments, about our meeting last week about 3D immersive learning environments. You can find that post here.

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the CLA Language Center:

Wimba VoiceTools on Moodle
Thursday, September 18,
10:10 a.m.
Room 30

Three of the Wimba Voice Tools are now available on the University Moodle course management system. They are Voice Board, Voice Presentation and Podcaster. Sign up for one of the three small group training sessions to learn how to set up and use these tools in your language class. (also offered on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 12:20pm and Friday, Oct. 24, 3:35pm)

To attend this workshop please RSVP to Jian Wu at wuxxx015@umn.edu.

Using Authentic Audio and Video in Your Language Class
Tuesday, October 7
3:35 – 4:25 p.m.
Jones 35

Presenter: Beth Kautz

With satellite TV and the internet, resources for authentic audio and video are abound! The question is, how can you effectively use them in your (beginning, intermediate, advanced) language classes? In this session, we will
• focus on creating level-appropriate tasks
• learn techniques for practicing both receptive and productive skills
• suggest various pre-viewing, viewing and post-viewing activities
• explore methods for unpacking the cultural richness of the visual and audio content

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am currently in a meeting of the DMC Faculty Fellowship Program where we are going to learn about Croquet, a 3-D virtual environment (similar to SecondLife?) and how it can be used in teaching in learning. I am sure I will find out a lot more and I will report on our meeting here.

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wiki about using wikis in education. It would be nice if this were available under a Creative Commons license; however, you can read a couple of the chapters for free.

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The University of Minnesota Libraries present a special workshop series on ARTstor, a digital library of nearly 550,000 images from a range of disciplines—art, architecture, humanities, and social sciences. ARTstor includes images of sculpture, paintings, photography, drawings, decorative arts, and design and covers a range cultures and time periods. ARTstor is used worldwide by educators, scholars, and students at universities, museums, public libraries, and K-12 schools for research, presentations, and image sharing.

Students, faculty, and staff have free access to ARTstor through the University of Minnesota's site-wide license. Users can search, view, download, organize, group, and share images. Users can also upload personal visual collections to combine with ARTstor's collections.

The workshops are this week, Thursday and Friday. Click here for more details.

Posted by Amy Garrett Dikkers at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)