News from Component I

Jon Lewis and Ethel Ragland presented "Advising Matters- Strengthening Student Services Through Technology" at the Noel-Levitz Title III and V Symposium in Denver, April 16th. The presentation described the creation of the Advising Matters website.

The big news over summer was the upgrade to Peoplesoft version 8.0, which will allow us to move forward with on-line advising. This version is web enabled so we can start rolling out web based student services. Plans are to have the Student Portfolio module available this fall. On-line registration will be piloted in December with graduate students, and will be available to all students by Spring 2005. On-line Degree Audit will be implemented by October 2005.

Geography Modules

One of the grant's objectives is to permit students to meet Liberal Arts core goals via the web. Over the summer, several faculty collaborated to produce a series of online geography modules allowing students to meet core goals 3 ("acquire a knowledge of the history and heritage of western civilization") and 4 ("develop an understanding of global society: cultural diversity, mutual relationships, interdependence of peoples and nations") assigned to the required Cultural Heritage course sequence. Currently being piloted for two of the four Cultural Heritage courses, the geography modules may provide a useful design for additional online modules covering core goals in artistic heritage. To see a sample of narrated video clips used in the modules, including a flyover of the Nile River, a map overlay of Vasco de Gama's voyage to India and an animation of the spread of the Black Death, click here.

Open House

Faculty projects were displayed at the annual Title III Open House, held April 7. In the photo Jon Lewis is shown demonstrating the Flyover software that was used in developing the geography modules.

Faculty Projects

Four faculty were supported by Title III with release time to pursue a variety of projects. Summaries of their end-of-semester reports follow.

Manu Kaur continued her work on the calculus quiz project that was described in the previous issue of this newsletter. The project goal was to create a WebCT database of quiz questions to be used in Calculus with Analytics I. Manu selected Maple mathematics software for use in her project because of its sophisticated programming and graphics capabilities.

During the spring semester Manu created and administered quizzes in her calculus class. Many of her students were new to online quizzing, so it took a few weeks for them to become totally comfortable with the process. Manu made appropriate adjustments, such as allowing multiple attempts at a quiz. Soon the process was streamlined, and the students knew what to expect. On an end-of-semester feedback form students indicated that the quizzes were useful since they kept them up-to-date with the class. Comparing with other semester when Manu taught this course, she reports that this class did much better on the one-hour exams.

Manu will now share the quiz creation techniques she developed with other members of her department. She is also working to get the Math Placement Tests into WebCT.

Joel Ostrow continued his work on a project that was also described in our last newsletter. His main goal was to develop an integrated and user-friendly web experience for the Model United Nations class, one that the student leaders could manage and that the students would find useful in their preparations for the conference.

During the Fall term Joel developed the framework for the MUN page. He also arranged for WebCT training for the MUN student leaders so they could work over the break to prepare the site for the Spring term.

Joel spent the remainder of the year focused on the content of the MUN page. Half the page is a permanent set-up, with the country part changing from year to year depending on the University's assignment. The objective was largely achieved, as Joel feels he has a very user-friendly site that can be of extreme benefit to the students who use it, and is in a format that the student leaders can easily learn and work with.

Joel has found that most students will visit the site to get what is required of them, but will not make use of or even look for things that can help them to excel, such as exploring the various links and discussion threads available. Joel sees his next task as discovering ways to motivate students to connect their curiosity with these materials and in doing so maximize their learning. In that regard, he's joining a nationwide effort undertaken by faculty seeking to use new teaching technologies not just to improve student learning but to expand it.

Elizabeth Kubek's project involves the development and implementation of a web site designed to serve English Language and Literature majors, especially those with Secondary Education minors. This site will be used specifically in two LITR courses (LITR 399, Senior Seminar, and LITR 307, Modern English); the first is required of all ELL majors and the second of English/Education students. The site will improve articulation between the ELL and Education programs and will help bring the BU program into better alignment with Illinois State Board of Education certification requirements.

The courses currently both have WebCT sites, which will be linked to allow students to work collaboratively on editing writing projects. Students and the instructor are currently exploring the various features of WebCT as well as its potential for interfunctionality with other applications such as Lectora (portfolio software) and Visio (for drawing sentence diagrams). Students are thus helping construct the sites and discovering the inner workings of classroom software, as well as evaluating on-line and publishers' resources for teachers.

Students will also help develop web pages containing various elements for the use of those interested in teaching and research in English at secondary and post-secondary levels. One particular focus of the site will be resources for language skills instruction. The finished site will include links to useful sites, with annotated entries to be created by students; a page for links to individual students' and teachers' materials that they wish to share; a link to state and Benedictine Education sites and information; and a resources page listing suggested materials of use to teachers and students in English.

The purpose of Pete Nelson's project was to enrich Biol/Phys 323 - Introduction to Biophysics, with computer-based interactive materials. Lying at the interface between Biology, Chemistry and Physics, Biophysics provides a unique opportunity to implement many key aspects of the National Research Council's BIO2010 report. The purpose of the course is to introduce students to quantitative modeling concepts, examples, and techniques from mathematics, and the physical and information sciences. The course concentrates on fundamental quantitative modeling techniques currently used in biophysical and biomedical research.

In the Fall 2003 semester Pete investigated various programming languages and environments and began developing modules for student programming assignments for use in class in Spring 2004. Various programming environments were investigated including Microsoft Excel, Visual Basic, Javascript, Java, and Microsoft .NET. From a pedagogical perspective Excel has the advantage that students do not find this computational environment to be threatening. In addition, implementation of the numerical method is straightforward, and visualization of the numerical solution can be accomplished directly from the spreadsheet using the chart wizard. Using Excel as a compute engine limits the scale and complexity of the programming opportunities, but has the significant advantage of allowing the students to develop their own methods "from scratch".

By the end of the spring semester Pete had developed eleven Excel modules. These modules are "programming" assignments that implement the Monte Carlo simulation method of statistical physics and the finite-difference numerical method to model molecular and atomic processes in biological physics. The modules were delivered to the students as Adobe Acrobat files on the course WebCT page. Pete believes that, on the whole, the course and the new material developed with the aid of the Title III release were a great success.

Summer Workshops

Back by popular demand, the Title III grant once again sponsored a number of different early summer faculty workshops. The first week of all day sessions offered an introduction to copyright issues, digital imaging, Lectora, PowerPoint, Excel, Dreamweaver and WebCT. The second week targeted faculty who already had some experience using computer technology in their courses. Second week sessions offered advanced topics in Lectora and WebCT, as well as Windows MovieMaker and Tegrity. A total of 23 faculty attended these workshops. Questionnaires distributed at the end of the week elicited comments such as "It was great fun and I learned a lot ..." and "Great - we MUST keep having these workshops...".