eLL in Stager Hall Prototype classroom and digital media lab opening in November An exciting new teaching and learning space is opening in Stager Hall this month. The eLearning Laboratory, or eLL, is a prototype classroom and digital media laboratory that supports flexible teaching styles and collaborative student learning. e•learn•ing lab•o•ra•tory noun : an experimental environment, enhanced with technology, that promotes exploration of electronic tools and materials that support education; also: classroom 2.0 The eLL, located in Stager Hall 029, provides students and faculty access to innovative digital instructional media construction, creation, collaboration, and presentation tools, and internet-based telecommunications technologies. Franklin & Marshall faculty can explore and experiment with new teaching and learning technologies that will help guide the design of future teaching and learning spaces at the College. The eLL provides interdisciplinary support for all academic departments and disciplines and is supported by IET professional staff as well as by specially-trained student instructional media consultants. Environments, whether physical or virtual, can have a significant impact on learning. The goal of the eLearning Laboratory is to explore and experiment with new learning environments. The eLearning Laboratory focuses on how learner expectations influence such spaces, the principles and activities that facilitate learning, and the role of technology from the perspective of those who create and use learning environments: faculty, students, learning technologists, and administrators. Information technology has brought unique capabilities to learning spaces, whether stimulating greater interaction through the use of collaborative tools, videoconferencing with international experts, or opening virtual worlds for exploration. The eLearning Laboratory represents an ongoing exploration as we bring together space, technology, and pedagogy to ensure learner success. Join IET staff for the eLL Open House on November 16 from 9 AM to 3 PM and experience the possibilities this new space has to offer! The Salamanca Blogger Reflections on using blogging to enhance off-campus study What happens when you send a student abroad as a "fummer correspondent" and ask him to blog about his experiences?  The Salamanca Blogger, an online chronicle of the study abroad adventures of Spanish Major Andrew Martin '08. Written in English and Spanish, the blog features commentaries of Martin's experiences peppered with insights into Spanish culture and highlighted by dozens of pictures. It is a virtual scrapbook that was shared with family and friends, along with students, faculty and administrators at F&M while Martin was living in Spain this past summer. The pilot project, sponsored by the International Studies Program and the Language Studies Council, was designed to bring the study abroad experience back to the campus in real time in an effort to keep students abroad and at F&M connected with obvious benefits for both. While campus-bound fummers can participate vicariously in study abroad, fummers abroad reflect more profoundly on the experience via their writing. When asked about the experience, Martin commented; "I think the blog project was a great way to connect students to my experience abroad.  Aside from postcards, there's seldom effective communication between students abroad and their community back home. By doing the blog, I felt connected to my family, friends, and school. I believed I was helping to educate them about the culture first-hand. Updating the blog just about every day also forced me to think deeply about what I was experiencing, how it affected me, and what I could learn from it." Given the success of the summer pilot, Professor Armstrong is enthusiastic about expanding it to the academic year. "We can imagine selected students working as a virtual preceptor for an F&M class. While they are sharing their experiences they can also be an onsite investigator for the class. Used thoughtfully, "virtual precepting" could be a powerful tool for engaging students at home and abroad." Professor Armstrong is Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Linguistics, Chair of the Language Studies Council, and Chair of the Committee on Academic Technology. Drew Martin '08, a senior and Spanish major, spent the month of August in Salamanca, Spain. Clickers in the Classroom Student response systems can facilitate student interaction and engagement They're called Student Response Systems (SRS), Audience Response Systems (ARS), and/or Personal Response Systems (PRS). Whatever the acronym, these little electronic "clickers" provide instant feedback to questions and polls in the classroom. Each person has a remote control with which selections can be made. Each remote communicates with a computer via receivers located around the room. After a set time - or when all participants have answered - the system shuts off and tabulates the results. The results can be made instantly available to the participants via a bar graph displayed on the screen. Interaction and engagement are often limited by class size and human dynamics (a few students may dominate the conversation while most avoid interaction). Interaction and engagement, both important learning principles, can be facilitated with clickers. Clickers can also facilitate discipline-specific discussions, small work-group cooperation, and student-student interactions. Clickers, plus well-designed questions, provide an easy-to-implement mechanism for enhancing interaction. Clicker technology enables effective, efficient, and engaging education. For more information on clickers in higher education, see the EDUCAUSE Series: 7 Things You Should Know About Clickers. Join IET staff and trainers from eInstruction for demonstrations on November 6 and learn how these devices can be used in the classroom! In Context with an Instructional Technologist Unique learning opportunities for Franklin & Marshall faculty members Have you ever wanted to convert your overhead transparencies and 35mm slides to PowerPoint slides? Are you interested in expanding your use of Blackboard to include the online gradebook and electronic discussion boards? Perhaps you want your students to create a class weblog or podcast, but don't know how to get started. How does one learn about the possibilities for augmenting and enhancing instruction in the classroom? Workshops, manuals, online resources, one-on-one training have been staples for the past decade or more. As varied as these options are, they are not always best for everyone. So IET is pilot testing a different kind of learning opportunity for Franklin & Marshall faculty - contextualized training! While IET will continue to offer a menu of specific learning opportunities, the idea behind contextualized training is to embed an instructional technologist with a faculty member for an entire semester. Together, the team will select the course or courses on which to focus, establish a set of goals for the semester, and determine the course of action to implement. Some teams may meet weekly, others monthly. Some may include student instruction, others may utilize IET student instructional media consultants to work on specific projects. Each partnership will be unique. IET is interested in identifying six to eight faculty with whom to work during the Spring 2008 semester on this pilot project. If this sounds interesting and/or you'd like more information on the program and how to participate, please contact Oscar Retterer at X4169. Around the Web A snapshot of what's going on around the World Wide Web New Network Will Make It Easier for Some Humanities Scholars to Share Work in Progress It's about to get a lot easier for philosophers, classicists, and literary scholars to share work in progress. The Social Science Research Network, an online clearinghouse for current research popular among social scientists, has created a Humanities Research Network along the same model. Initially, the new network will cover three areas - philosophy, classics, and English and American literature - broken down into detailed subcategories. More disciplines will be added in the coming months. Social Science Research Network Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' goes online in high definition Can't get to Milan to see Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper?" On October 27, 2007, all you need is an Internet connection. Officials put online an image of the "Last Supper" at 16 billion pixels — 1,600 times stronger than the images taken with the typical 10 million pixel digital camera. The high resolution will allow experts to examine details of the 15th century wall painting that they otherwise could not — including traces of drawings Leonardo put down before painting. International Herald Tribune

eLL in Stager Hall The Salamanca Blogger Clickers in the Classroom In Context with an Instructional Technologist Around the Web Who is using Blackboard at the College this semester? 113 professors teaching 253 courses with 1,430 students. Source: Blackboard @ F&M What's the eLL? Faculty utilization, sample projects, hardware, and software available in the eLearning Lab. IET QuickStarts are designed to provide short, concise instructions for using hardware, software, and facilities managed by IET. Featured Podcast: Smithsonian Global Sound Producer: Smithsonian Institution Smithsonian Global Sound is an international network of music audio archives and an educational resource that delivers the world?s diverse cultural expressions in an informative way via digital media. Download and learn about traditional music from all around the world. iPod compatible, open format, MP3 and FLAC files available for purchase. Support local musicians and archives. Podcasting, a portmanteau of Apple's "iPod" and "broadcasting", is a method of publishing files to the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files automatically by subscription, usually at no cost. It first became popular in late 2004, used largely for audio files. Do you have a favorite podcast you'd like to share? Finding Where the © and ™ Symbols Live on a Macintosh Which key combination on your Macintosh keyboard produces a font's special characters? Stuff like ©, £, ¢, etc.? You can find out in a couple of ways: (1) From within Mac OS X business apps (like Mail, TextEdit, Stickies, etc.), just go under Edit and choose Special Characters or click on the Actions pop-up menu at the bottom of the Font Panel and choose Characters; (2) add Character Palette access to your menu bar, so you can access it when you're working in other applications (like Microsoft Word). You do this by going to the System Preferences in the Apple menu, under International, and clicking on the Input Menu tab. Turn on the checkbox for Character Palette and it will appear in the menu bar along the right side. Technology Demonstration "Clickers" - Student Response Systems Vendor demonstration November 6 eLL Open House Visit the eLearning Lab, a state-of-the-art prototype working classroom and digital media laboratory November 16 Technology Workshop Wimba Voice Tools - Faculty training December 10 More information about upcoming IET Events is available online. Click to view larger image and description... Professor Boubakary Diakite, French, directs students in the use of Wimba's online digital voice tools.  Professor Diakite makes frequent use of a variety of digital media in his courses. IET eNews November, 2007 Volume 3, Issue 3 Tips, techniques, and tools for using technology to enhance teaching, learning, and research IET eNews is published by the Office of Instructional and Emerging Technologies. http://ats.fandm.edu/enews/