Community-Driven Projects - Digital Design: Courses and/as Technologies

Project name: Digital Design: Courses and/as Technologies

Project lead: Diane E. Boyd, Instructional Development Consultant-Humanities, Center for Teaching and Engaged Learning, Furman University

Key collaborators:

• John Armstrong, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, Furman University
• Lloyd Benson, Professor, History, Furman University
• Debbielee Landi, University Archives and Special Collections, Furman University
• Jane Love, Collaboratory for Creative Learning and Communication, Furman University
• Andrew Mansbach, Digicenter Alumni Fellow, Furman University
• Pongracz Sennyey, Associate Director of Libraries, Furman University

Summary: A series of collaborative learning events designed to promote course redesign by rethinking learning goals through technologies. Furman's faculty, librarians, technologists, and staff will benefit from their collaboration during these programs as a result of their shared wisdom, their theoretical exploration of asynchronous content delivery, and their hands-on experiences in learning new technologies to support enhanced learning through outcomes-driven course design.
An important feature of the events is that they will themselves integrate the technologies under discussion, primarily through our development of a dedicated website, www.56to42.com. While the idea for these events springs from situational factors here at Furman, we believe that our approach to teaching with technologies will be useful to other NITLE institutions. This website will not only provide both synchronous and asynchronous connectivity for remote participation in the proposed events; it will also provide an ongoing venue for NITLE faculty to explore the technology of course design and the design of course technology.

Key audience: Faculty, librarians, technologists, and staff with an eye to incorporating sound course design principles with technological, digital applications and asynchronous delivery of content.

Intended outcomes:

• Faculty will achieve better learning outcomes in fewer contact hours with no sacrifice of content. Students will engage more fully with their courses. Faculty and technologists will collaborate to enhance student learning.
• Digital repository collections will be used as teaching tools, with digital resource development merging with course development.
• The website will host a multi-institutional scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project as a measure of its impact and as feedback for ongoing development.

Project timeline:

• Planning committee selection and website construction began in January, and the core planning group will continue to meet monthly through June.
• Keynote speaker selection will be finalized in February.
• Teaching and Learning Showcase with keynote address will be held May 29, 2008.
• Workshop events to be held June 16-20.
• Asynchronous posting of final projects will be posted by the end of June, with a closing event to be held on Friday, June 27.