News

Posted April 6, 2009 Registration for the 2009 Summer Faculty Institute—the premier event for faculty who want an in-depth, hands-on opportunity to work on their technical skills and address their classroom and online instruction needs—is open until midnight Wednesday, April 15.

The Institute will be held June 1-5 in 104 Gore Hall. Online registration will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. The Institute is open to all full- and part-time faculty as well as participants from previous Institutes.

This year, the Institute has been redesigned to accommodate busy faculty schedules. In place of full-day activities, the program consists of a week of half-day topic tracks.

Each track reflects the need for substantive educational research and an awareness of the challenging economy to help you make prudent instructional technology choices.

Five tracks are being offered. You can sign up for a morning track, an afternoon track or both. Participants will work within one track with one lead instructor all week.

• Develop a personal learning network for you and your students
• Make the most of Microsoft Office for your teaching needs
• Connect real-life teaching applications using Second Life
• Your Sakai@UD course: Design it, build it, be ready for fall
• Integrate a multimedia production assignment into your course

For complete track descriptions and online registration, please visit the Summer Faculty Institute web site.

Posted March 13, 2009

The PRESENT site has relocated to 201 East Hall.

Consultations will be held at this location. Contact us via e-mail to present-site@udel.edu or call 302.831.0640 to make an appointment.

We look forward to serving you from this new location.

Posted March 6, 2009

Campus Technology published "Second Life: Engaging Virtual Campuses" as a profile of efforts in Second Life's multi-user virtual environment. Here's what they had to say about the University of Delaware's two islands.

"The University of Delaware uses one of the easiest and most effective tools in Second Life to tell the story of their campus--an automated tour. Visitors who opt to take the tour are taken on a 5-and-a-half-minute virtual fly-over of the campus. As the tour arrives at key areas, text appears on the screen explaining the section and how it is used. During this quick tour, one learns that they have a number of classrooms in varying sizes, from small areas that seat a dozen or so people to an outdoor classroom that seats 60. There are video and PowerPoint screens available for instructors and presenters, areas for students to build projects, and sections where faculty can meet. The University of Delaware also has an observatory that, according to the tour, will feature a working telescope for viewing the latest astronomy discoveries. The university even pays homage to Delaware's role in World War II with a replica of a lookout tower."

Read the full article, "Second Life: Engaging Virtual Campuses."

Posted February 27, 2009

For ITUE Fellows attending today's session, here are the three web page links you'll need:

1. The outline for today's session.
2. Get an account at MindMeister.
3. Get an account at Diigo.

Posted February 26, 2009 Please consider applying for the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award and/or encouraging your colleagues to apply. The deadline is this coming Monday at midnight GMT--that's 7 p.m. EST.

To apply, visit: http://openedpractices.org/twsia

There are a number of benefits for winners:

• You will be asked to present your course at the International Sakai Conference in Boston in July
• You receive a lot of publicity and offers of speaking engagements
• You will become connected with the vibrant Sakai community

If you are not a winner, there are still a number of benefits:

• If you give permission when applying, you will share your story on our OpenEdPractices.org repository. This could lead to contacts with others in your discipline across the globe.
• You can review the repository and get new ideas for others are enhancing learning with Sakai.
• You can use our self-scoring rubric to identify areas in your course where you might want to make some improvements.

Looking forward to seeing your entries online! Entries won't be published until after the judging is complete.

Posted February 24, 2009 University of Delaware Information Technologies has announced that faculty and staff can now create “project” sites on Sakai@UD -- the UD-supported learning management system.

Project sites are non-course sites. Faculty and staff can create project sites in Sakai@UD to accommodate a small or large number of participants.

Because project sites reside inside Sakai@UD, users will find it convenient to access them within the same system as their courses, without having to log in to a different system. And project sites offer the same array of tools as course sites, so users will not need to learn a new system if they already have experience using Sakai.

For more information, read the full article at UDaily.