Teaching Innovation Award Announcement

The following announcement was posted in OpenEd practices. Since the collaboration and course management tools in OWL-Space are powered by Sakai, this should be of interest to the Rice instructional community.

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Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award

Attention faculty: Are you excited about new ways in which you have been able to engage your students using Sakai? If you believe that your course transforms the learning experience, we want to hear from you. We are looking for teachers whose courses best exemplify excellent teaching practices combined with innovative solutions. Please share your story with us and with other faculty around the world by applying for the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award. Check out our self-scoring rubric today to see how your course stacks up.

If you are the winner, you will be awarded a modest cash prize, and a trip to Paris to participate in the 9th Sakai Conference, July 1-3. There you will be recognized at an award ceremony and invited to showcase your course. If you are the winner and unable to travel to Paris, an honorarium will be awarded and we will work with you to provide an electronic presence at the conference.

Teaching Innovation

Although there are many ways in which technology, and in particular Sakai, can making the teaching process more efficient or productive, innovative technology applications truly transform the educational experience. The intent of this award is ti highlight examples of educational applications of Sakai which fall into this innovative or transformative category.

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For more information visit opened practices

Teaching With Technology Brown Bags Presents Second Life

On March 12, 2008, the Teaching with Technology Brown Bag Series, hosted in collaboration by Educational Technologies and Fondren Libraries Digital Media Center, presented invited Phil Montgomery to talk about Second Life. Phil discussed what Second Life is, as well as its history, demographics, and Rice's participation in it. Faculty present at the event presented questions and observations in a variety of areas including:

• Using this as a recruitment tool
• How this tool can be used in education ?
• How does the construction and scripting process work?
• Would you teach a class in Second Life and:
• Be able to control access to the space?
• Make it an open class?
• What are the front loading requirements for course preparation?

Rice's recent experiences in hosting conferences in Second Life were also presented. Aspects such as fostering distributed participation and interactivity were also discussed, along with efforts to host future Rice events in Second Life.

The presentation is stored in OWL-Space and is downloadable from the Teaching with Technology site. This is a joinable site. Please contact EdTEch for further information.

Rice Faculty Members Talk About Audience Response Systems

As Rice University continues to evaluate solutions for a campus wide deployment of audience response systems, we set out to talk with faculty members and students that currently use ARS in the classroom. This video shows Dr. Paul Padley (Physics and Astronomy), and Dr. Rachel Kimbro (Sociology), along with their students, talking you through their experiences and impressions, as they teach and learn with Audience Response Systems.

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