ETS Engagement Project

The Faculty Engagement Initiative was designed to give faculty an opportunity to work with ETS staff to explore emerging technologies that have the potential to impact teaching and learning at Penn State. Throughout the year, new technologies will be selected for further investigation, and a Call for Proposals will be made for a limited number of projects. Once a proposal is accepted, TLT staff time and facilities will be dedicated to the development and successful implementation of the project.

By combining ideas and innovative spirit with expertise in academic thought, we can work collaboratively to appropriately apply emerging technologies for teaching and learning. Currently ETS is seeking faculty and students who would be interested in working with us in the following areas:

  • Course Redesign – We are interested in collaboratively exploring new models to integrate technology into learning environments. We are particularly interested in high enrollment courses or large multi-section opportunities. Our redesign efforts typically look to integrate the technologies we are currently promoting and working to better understand.
  • Blogs at Penn State – We are interested in collaboratively exploring novel uses of blogs particularly in the areas of blogs for teaching, personal content management, research, and portfolio creation/management. We also very interested in using the Blogs at Penn State as an eLearning design, development, and delivery platform.
  • Podcasts at Penn State – We are interested in collaboratively exploring novel uses of podcasts to support teaching, study practice, and outreach. We are also interested in working to utilize podcasts and the Blogs at Penn State in a mashed up environment.
  • Social Ratings and Content Aggregation – We are interested in collaboratively exploring how aggregation and social ratings can impact teaching and learning.
  • Serious Game and Virtual Worlds – We are interested in collaboratively exploring novel uses of games for teaching and learning purposes. As a component of this, we are interested in working to establish learning environments within virtual worlds.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Cole Camplese, ETS Director. Below you will find a sampling of outcomes from the ETS Engagement Initiative. Clicking the title of any of the projects below will provide more details.

Schreyer Honors College Blogging Project

ETS is working with the Schreyer Honors College (SHC) to investigate the use of the Penn State blogging platform to support student portfolios and ongoing reflection. As part of this initiative, members of ETS will support SHC scholars as we jointly explore the impact of personal publishing on academic advising, personal reflection, and personal content management. Scholars will be asked to maintain a blog (powered by the Blogs@Penn State) to track reflections of their experiences. Categories will be used to help better organize reflections and to align them with SHC programmatic goals and outcomes. Additionally, SHC scholars’ faculty advisors will be asked to participate by periodically tracking scholar progress via their blogs.

As of the spring 2009 semester, there are nine SHC bloggers taking part in the pilot program. ETS representatives meet with them approximately once a month to discuss the project and form ideas to move forward. Christian Brady, Dean of the Schreyer Honors College, has included setting up Web space as part of FTCAP and creating blogs during the freshmen orientation training for incoming SHC students this August. While not mandating, Dean Brady will highly encourage all incoming SHC freshmen to set up their portfolios and maintain a blog.

To keep up with the pilot group and their blog postings, you can look at or subscribe to the PSUHonors tag.  Other categories (tags) that are being used in this project are: academic excellence, civic engagement, global perspective, honor, integrity, and leadership.

English 202C Redesign

ETS is working with Dr. Stuart Selber to redesign English 202C. Our goal is to ensure that Penn State’s composition program be brought into the 21st Century. In the past, very little technology has been used beyond word processing. Currently, the six paper assignments in the course are disconnected. They neither build upon each other nor allow for the application of composition principles that are discussed throughout the course. Faculty who teach these courses realized that the current format was not preparing students for working in the Digital Age. Employers expect their employees to be able to do more than submit paper reports.

The English 202 faculty would like to transform the course to a digital format. This will involve publishing student assignments online through students’ personal Web space, making multimedia versions of certain assignments, and having students work in teams.

As of Spring 2009, we are piloting a new course design in eight sections of English 202C. In these sections, we have updated five of the traditional paper assignments to a digital format. Early reports from the instructors indicate that while the students need additional help learning the blogging platform, they are getting more out of their experience and the assignments are “much more rich than in the way the course was previously taught.” If all goes well, the redesigned course will be implemented in all sections of English 202C in Fall 2009.

In addition to the redesign, ETS will assist with obtaining the technology required for successful implementation of the pilot project. We are working to integrate both the Blogs at Penn State and Digital Commons into this and future English courses. This project has started with a focus on English 202C with the intention of making similar changes in English 202A, B, and D, as well as English 15 and 30.

Communication 180 Redesign

ETS is currently working with Dr. Matt Jackson to redesign components of the Communication 180 course taught at University Park. This course is an introduction to electronic media and telecommunications and their consequences for society and the economy. Until a few years ago, this primarily meant over-the-air television, radio, cable TV, and traditional telephone service. With the rapid advancement of technology, the field now includes a wide variety of broadcast, wire-based and wireless forms of video, data and voice communications, as well as Internet-based media. Since the way that we communicate has changed so radically, our approach to this type of course should change as well. By incorporating new media into the course, we will create a consistency between the content and the mode of discussion.

At the moment, the focus is on the integration of student blogging into the course flow. As we progress, we will examine several core learning activities, integrate digital media, and enhance discussions related to new forms of public media. The exciting thing about this project is that Comm 180 is a large-enrollment course, with about 350 students per section. Our challenge is to integrate blogging and digital media production (via the Digital Commons) while not producing any increased load on Dr. Jackson or his TAs.

As of the Spring 2009 semester, students are required to submit new entries, comments, and/or new resources to the Comm. 180 Class Blog. These posts determine the class participation grade for the semester. Students can also choose to maintain their own blog (with a minimum of one reflective entry per week) for extra credit. By the Fall 2009 semester, Dr. Jackson hopes to do away with the course textbook and rely solely on resources generated by the class and posted to the blogs. This will accomplish his goal to create an “open classroom” for students both inside and outside of Penn State.

Guitar Hero World Tour and Music 112

Staff from our Education Gaming Commons team have been working with Dr. Ann Clements and Dr. Tom Cody (School of Music) on a way to incorporate Guitar Hero World Tour into a section of Music 112 (Into Guitar Techniques). The result of this collaboration is a 3 week Guitar Hero project in which the class is divided into teams and tasked with using the in game music composer to play and record a simple song. Not only should the song be proof of some of the information learned in class, but it should also be structured in such a way that it can be used as an instructional tool for future students. In addition to their playable Guitar Hero song, each team will also be required to develop a learning plan on how, as a music teacher (a job many of them will go on to take), such a tool could be used in the classroom.

At the beginning of the project, a short survey was given to all students and each Guitar Hero class session (as well as optional, after class Guitar Hero tutorial sessions) are being recorded as a part of a research agenda associated with the project. Assuming all goes well, the hope is to develop the project into a larger part of the course in the Fall, as well as potentially expanding it into the more advanced guitar techniques courses. The head of the music composition program, Paul Barsom, has also expressed interest in possibly incorporating the music games into his class in the future.

McKeesport Podcasting Engagement Project

Podcasting SmallThis semester ETS has started the Engagement Initiative. It is designed as an evolving set of opportunities to engage faculty, staff, and students in the use of emerging technologies for teaching, learning, and research. One of the first projects to emerge from the program is with Kathleen Brown to help redesign her journalism course. Chris Millet posted some pictures of his trip to McKeesport to setup the podcasting studio.