December 2004

By Greg Rosenthal
Special to FYI Online

Susan Pollack, digital communication specialist, with Theodore Stone, assistant provost and director of UMUC’s Center for the Virtual University.

Ducking into a faculty lounge for a cup of coffee or to share a few ideas with colleagues might seem a bit impractical at a worldwide, online university like UMUC, but according to Theodore Stone, assistant provost and director of UMUC’s Center for the Virtual University (CVU), it’s still an important facet of academic life. That concept served as the motivation for the CVU to create a virtual version of a faculty lounge—minus the coffee—called the Faculty Innovators Web site, where professors can demonstrate how they use technology to enrich their WebTycho classrooms.

“When we see faculty making [technical] innovations, we want to capture it and make it available for faculty worldwide,” Stone said.

Susan Pollack, digital communication specialist, took over after Stone presented the idea, working to develop and implement it. One of the primary challenges, she said, was getting faculty to talk about technology in terms of its pedagogical value.

“Most of them are happy to discuss its ease of use or the ‘neat’ factor,” said Pollack, “but those alone are not reason enough to use technology to teach. Sometimes I had to ask the same question three different ways!”

Her persistence paid off, though, and the first faculty members featured on the Web site showcased some truly innovative uses of technology in the virtual classroom. Wayne Smith, for instance, an undergraduate history professor, scanned a series of letters between a Civil War soldier and his family, and saved the images to a PDF file. This allowed students to view actual historical documents via WebTycho—and to struggle, as do historians working with primary sources, to decipher handwritten documents from generations ago.

Another faculty member, Stella Porto, whose work is featured on the site, prepared online video lectures for her “Computer Concepts” (MSIT 620) course. Porto, an information technology program director in UMUC’s Graduate School of Management and Technology, used audio, video, diagrams (captured from a mimeo white board that digitally records anything drawn on the board, including ink color), and animation in her presentations, which included an illustrated computer data flow model.

Pollack, whose undergraduate training was in writing, said that she enjoyed the opportunity to write and develop content for the Web from the ground up, since most of her work involves creating and updating Web pages from pre-existing content. A student in UMUC’s Master of Distance Education program, she added that the project also coordinated with the subject matter she is studying.

“I enjoy talking with faculty about the work they’re doing,” said Pollack, “and I am often intrigued with what they have done. I think it’s great that we are highlighting innovative uses of technology so that faculty can learn from their colleagues and explore even more ways to teach and facilitate learning creatively.”