This semester, I have been teaching ANT 297/298 Anthropologists Abroad. This is a new course for the Department of Anthropology designed to help our students make the most of their study away experiences. In essence, we want them to be anthropologists critical of their surroundings and engaged in intellectual thought while they are away. In…
Category: Technology Fellows
Faculty Development
As we all push through the end of the spring semester, I want to share information about an institutional resource that offers faculty multiple ways to navigate the multiple demands of our work. Connecticut College joined the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) as an institutional member in November 2016. The NCFDD is…
Moodle OR Google?
In this post I would like to build on Ariella Rotramel’s and Anthony Graesh’s posts on course management systems and describe how I use Google Sites to deliver content and manage students’ assignments. What is Google Sites? Google Sites is the website building application in the G Suite productivity suite. The application allows you to…
Why I Allow Technology in My Classroom
This January, the Center for Teaching & Learning teamed up with the Instructional Technology team here at Connecticut College to put on a Talking Teaching event called “Digital Devices in the Classroom.” I was fortunate to attend the event; I had admittedly been thinking a lot about devices in the classroom this semester. Traditionally, I…
Can Virtual Discussions Inform Face-To-Face Discussions?
My Technology Fellows project involved developing a framework for digital discussions. My main goals were to make my classes “snowday-proof” and find a way to hold class if emergency or travel prevented me from getting to campus. After a lackluster small-group discussion session in one of my courses, I am now thinking about whether it…
Another Semester Winds Down – Time for Reading!
We hope you had a great semester, and are able to spend time with loved ones, relaxing, and reading. To help you with the latter, this is a list of the semester’s posts organized by topic. Please enjoy! We will see you in 2018! Innovative Teaching from the Technology Fellows An ever-popular topic on the…
Searching for native speakers for video-chats with students: Free and risky or costly and safe?
Previous posts in this blog have reported on the use of videoconferencing in foreign language classes in order to provide students with authentic experiences that can bring a completely new dimension to the language learning process. See my previous post and Luis Gonzalez’s post for details. When video-conferencing is used with the main purpose of providing…
Using Google Drive for Peer Review
In ANT 320 Anthropology of Sexuality and Gender, students work in pairs to compose posters that address an issue on campus or in a workplace related to sexualty and/or gender. For example, one pair of students is writing about intimate partner violence and bystander intervention. Another pair is writing about the erasure of queer people…
Virtual Discussion: Take 1
In my last post, I described how, from a hotel room across the world, I was getting ready to launch my “virtual discussion” in class the next day. Students had to complete an assigned reading before class and then spend class time in a Google Hangout (1) addressing a set of initial prompts in an…
Teaching with Wikipedia, the Fall 2017 Edition
This fall I am again working with Wikipedia in my Feminist Theory course (check out: Why You And Your Students Should Work To Improve Wikipedia, Feminist Praxis and Wikipedia in the Classroom, and Adding Voices to Scholarship: Wikipedia Editing). It’s the second time that I’m mixing the Wiki Education Foundation’s online dashboard with our Linda Lear Center’s…
