About the Series

The CITES Academic Technology Services "Teaching with Technology" Brown Bag Series features award-winning faculty from across the disciplines discussing how they have successfully integrated web-based technologies into their teaching. This free and lively forum focuses on the intersection between innovative uses of new and emerging technologies and best practices in teaching and learning.

The Brown Bag series runs through the Fall and Spring semesters.

All events are held in 23 Illini Hall from 12 until 1pm. Refreshments served.

Spring 2013

February 06 - Team-Based Learning: More Learning, and Less Labor

Christopher Burns (Medicine)
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Team-Based Learning (TBL) is an active learning method that teaches students to prepare outside the classroom ahead of time in order to participate in higher-order and collaborative learning activities during class time. In this brown bag session, Chris Burns will lead us through a hands-on TBL exercise while discussing the practical benefits and pitfalls of implementing TBL in the classroom.

This twelve minute video will help you learn more about the method

February 20 - Collaboration in the Scholar Learning Environment

Bill Cope (Education)
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Scholar is a web-based writing and learning environment which brings together formative assessment (diagnosis and feedback) and summative assessment (measuring student progress over time and in comparison with other learners). The Scholar team has been working with instructors in a variety of settings to field-test the product, build new features, and develop a greater understanding of social media and computer-supported learning environments. Bring your laptop and join Bill Cope for a detailed tour of the Scholar learning environment.

More information at: http://learning.cgscholar.com/about-scholar

March 06 - Using McGraw-Hill Connect with Compass to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Melanie Waters (Spanish, Italian and Portuguese), Aaron Ebata, and Sarah Curtiss (Human &Community Development)
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This informative panel discussion will focus on McGraw-Hill products used in conjunction with Illinois Compass 2g. Aaron Ebata and Sarah Curtiss will describe how they integrate Connect with their teaching strategies in different courses, and what students have told them about using Connect over the past few years. Melanie Waters will demonstrate the wide variety of question types that Connect offers for foreign language instruction, and how she uses Connect in her multi-section hybrid course. She will also highlight the features of LearnSmart, an adaptive learning tool within Connect.

April 03 - eText: The Future of the Textbook

Milind Basole and Yury Borukhovich (CITES Academic Technology Services)

eText@Illinois is an ideal platform for building multimedia-rich online course content (original authored content, course packs, or published textbooks) that can be viewed from any device with a web browser. Offerings on eText@Illinois are also fully accessible to students with visual, auditory, and motor impairments making this program a frontrunner in the national electronic textbook movement. Since the inception of eText@Illinois, over 7500 students have used an eText in place of a traditional textbook, saving them money and significantly improving their textbook user experience. Join us for an inside look as Milind Basole and Yury Borukhovich showcase the power of eText@Illinois.

More information at: https://etext.illinois.edu/

April 17 - The iPad in the History of Communication

Bonnie Mak and Julia Pollack (Library & Information Science)

Through a fascinating display of visuals, this presentation explores the use of the iPad as a vehicle to interrogate the long history of reading and writing technologies. Comparing the iPad with the wax tablet of antiquity and the illuminated manuscript of the Middle Ages, Bonnie Mak and Julia Pollack expose surprising similarities across diverse technologies, and show how the iPad itself has become the focus of critical inquiry in its emergent role in the shaping of knowledge in the 21st century. Join us for a lively discussion about how the iPad can aid the investigation of millennia-old questions about the communication of information.

Fall 2012

September 19 - Simulcasting and Blended Courses: Working with Live and Online Students Simultaneously

Mike Evans, Chemistry
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Rich, synchronous communication tools can vastly expand the reach of the modern classroom. During a live class session, an instructor can use Blackboard Collaborate to teach live and online students simultaneously. But while the use of "simulcasting" can make the classroom more open and accessible, juggling the needs of both live and online students can be very challenging. In this session, Mike Evans will share some best practices he developed while teaching with this approach over the past year, and invite attendees to brainstorm positive strategies for engaging "simulcast" classrooms across the disciplines.

October 10 - Lights! Camera! Research! Building an Infrastructure for Multimedia Student Learning

Karen Rodriguez'G, Ethnography of the University Initiative
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For ten years, the Ethnography of the University Initiative (EUI) at UIUC has sponsored over 130 courses across 6 colleges. Through affiliated courses, students use a variety of ethnographic, archival, and related methods to examine the university in relation to their communities and larger national and global contexts. From its inception, EUI has provided an innovative approach to teaching and learning, evolving to include more complex technologies and sophisticated infrastructures for student learning. Join us for this close up look as Rodriguez’G explores the original impetus behind EUI, the challenges of building a technology infrastructure for student research, and the lessons learned from incorporating technology into syllabi, courses, and the broader university culture.

October 24 - The Amateur Video Hour: Home-grown Flicks for the Classroom

Walter Hurley, Animal Sciences
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The use of videos for transmitting information related to course content is a well-established, and often-used, pedagogical approach. Are there other ways that video may enrich the learning environment of a course? Join us as Walt Hurley discusses a variety of approaches where videos produced by the instructor, and by the students, are integrated with course content to increase engagement, enhance comprehension, and enrich the students’ overall learning experience.

November 7 - Engaging Students in the Process of Learning to Learn

Chris Schmitz, Engineering
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Chris Schmitz teaches Digital Information Technology (ECE101) which combines several facets of study: concepts of the internet, programming for the internet, audio-image-video processing, and digital logic, as well as problem solving and engineering design based on these concepts. Such a course must teach students to learn how to learn by engaging them in hands-on and reflective activities. Schmitz will discuss the process of designing a course that helps students master the tools of the trade, while building self-awareness of the learning process. Two of his students will briefly discuss their experiences with the course.

December 5 - Flipped! The Process and Results of Flipping the Classroom

Bill Simmons, Crop Sciences
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The flipped classroom model is all over the news lately, but many of the concepts and practices have been around for quite a while. Join us for an inside look at the process of designing and managing a flipped classroom. Bill Simmons will discuss the planning, development, and classroom logistics of redesigning his course, and why he’s gone from simply trying something new to becoming a full-fledged fan. A fun and interesting presentation to finish out the Fall semester.

Spring 2012

February 08 - Illinois Compass 2g: Showcase of Teaching Tools

Panel of Selected Faculty and Staff
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The second generation of Illinois Compass offers many new features designed to enhance teaching and learning. In this showcase presentation, a panel of Compass 2g users will highlight particular tools and demonstrate how they are used in teaching. Presenters include Darin Eastburn (Crop Sciences) discussing learning modules; Norma Scagnoli and Jill Moore (Business) discussing embedded media; Laura Hill (Spanish, Italian, & Portuguese) discussing blended learning, and Virginia Peterson (Online and Continuing Education) discussing group assignments and group projects. Join us for an informative look at these second generation teaching tools.

February 22 - The Many Faces of Facebook:  Enhancing the Academic Experience

Kathryn Anthony, Architecture
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Can a social networking tool like Facebook enhance the academic experiences of students, faculty, and alumni?  As an active Facebook user with over 600 friends, Kathryn Anthony has been exploring the use of Facebook as a teaching supplement in six different courses during the last four semesters.  Join us for an in-depth look at her research on best practices, the benefits and disadvantages of Facebook in the classroom, and the innovative use of Facebook to reach out to alumni. A few students from her courses will be on hand to describe their experiences and offer different perspectives on the teaching and learning process.

March 07 - The Maps on Our Backs:  Teaching with Google Maps

Ashwini Chhatre, Geography
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Your home contains a world map of exported clothing and electronics. Based on an exercise originally developed by Professor Tom Bassett from Geography, students in Chhatre’s Geography of Developing Countries course record the countries of origin from all the garments and electronic goods in their homes. The data is pooled together and students generate detailed maps showing the stark differences between countries that export electronics and those that export garments. Join us for a look at how Chhatre integrates freely available software like Google Maps, Google Fusion Tables, and Google Public Data Explorer in this course, and others, to enhance student understanding and ability.

April 04 - Teaching a Large Class Online: A Case Study from Chemistry

Nick Llewellyn, Chemistry
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Join us for an inside look at an Organic Chemistry service course with 550 - 700 students per semester. Dissatisfied with some of the online course management tools available, Llewellyn and colleagues Jeff Moore and Mike Evans set out to explore the pros and cons of using various teaching technologies to improve presentations, discussions, and evaluation. Their experiences with Wiki, Compass, Lon-Capa, and ACE Organic will surprise and inform anyone who is interested in developing or enhancing the online teaching and learning experience. View the Fall 2011 course site at: https://wiki.cites.uiuc.edu/wiki/display/chem232fa11/Home

April 18 - Effective Teaching Tools in a Large Enrollment Classroom

Julia Shapland, Accountancy
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Keeping students focused and interested in large enrollment classrooms presents a variety of challenges. Join us for an in-depth look at the arsenal of tech tools and teaching methods Shapland uses in her ACCY 202 course (with 550 students) each semester to present content, increase engagement, and minimize cheating. Shapland will discuss a variety of high-tech tools including tablet PCs, media-rich online content, and i>clickers, as well as no- or low-tech methods for delivering and managing instruction.

Fall 2011

September 28 – Your Research Rights: Managing Your Copyrights

Sarah Shreeves, IDEALS Coordinator and Scholarly Commons Coordinator
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What copyrights do you hold? What can you do with your work? Did you know that you own the copyright on your work until you transfer those rights to a publisher? Most authors don’t know that they need to retain certain rights in order to include an article, or reuse a chart, in another publication or on the web. In this informative brownbag Sarah Shreeves will help you understand your rights as an author, and offer suggestions for negotiating with publishers for the rights you need to retain. Visit the website at: http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/services/scholarly_communications/index.html

October 12 – Sneak a Little Science into their Day: Blogs in Teaching

Kathryn Clancy, Anthropology
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Many course materials offer little in the way of two-way communication to introductory students, particularly the casual style they’re used to. But when blog posts are required reading, students will engage far more with the content than they intended to. Upper-level students need less prompting to engage with the reading, but may instead need to develop confidence in their writing. Join Kate Clancy for an informative look at how she uses blogs to build scientific communities for her students and for herself. See also: http://lee-anthro.blogspot.com

October 26 – Engaged Scholarship and Digital Storytelling

Martin Wolske, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
view the recorded video of this presentation | view part two

Stories are used to entertain and educate us, and to define and preserve our cultural history. Initiatives such as the Center for Digital Storytelling, the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative, and Story Corps have brought new attention to the value of digital storytelling by extending the reach of the storytellers and enhancing their use of new media. Join Martin Wolske for a thoughtful look at the ways in which digital storytelling has been combined with engaged scholarship as part of research and teaching at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

November 02 – Do-It-Yourself Instructional Video

Sanjay Patel, Electrical and Computer Engineering
no video available for this presentation

Video content enables instructors to connect with digital-savvy college students. But creating video-based lecture content can be a cumbersome process. Nuvixa StagePresence, developed by UI faculty and students, is a tool that captures a complete presentation-- content, voice, and video --from a computer in any setting. Join Sanjay Patel for a first-hand look at this exciting tool as he demonstrates its ease of use through a variety of case studies. Interested members of the university community are invited to join the pilot program as beta users.

November 30 – Teaching and Learning with Twitter

Joanne Manaster and Tracey Hickox, Integrative Biology
no video available for this presentation

How are instructors teaching with Twitter? And are there best practices for integrating Twitter into classroom and online settings? While this powerful tool has become indispensable for some it remains a mystery to others. Join Joanne Manaster and Tracey Hickox as they share insights and suggestions for utilizing the vast potential of Twitter as a pedagogical and professional resource.