UP Tech Talk Podcast

Teaching from “among” students rather than teaching “to” them is one of the core concepts behind Academic Technology Services & Innovation’s “Untethered in the Classroom” project.  Faculty are free to roam throughout the classroom while teaching instead of being chained to the podium at the front of the room.  Better yet, students can review all of the class interactions anytime they want — everything is recorded.  Because they’re not furiously taking notes, students feel less stressed and more focused.  That’s the feedback so far, says Dr. Lorretta Krautscheid, interim Associate Dean of UP’s School of Nursing and our guest on this episode of Tech Talk.

Social Media seems to pervade every aspect of life and often consumes many waking hours for lots of people.  Something with such a large footprint deserves a serious look.  Peter Pappas, of UP’s School of Education, has put a spotlight on the topic of where social media has taken us. Once enthusiastic about the promise of this communication tool, Pappas is a little more hesitant these days.In this roundtable-style podcast, we bushwhack through a lot of philosophical terrain from Orwellian outcomes and conspiracy theories to Troll farms and seatbelts for Twitter.

Theology professors face a big challenge. How do you make the words spoken a few thousand years ago talk to young people today? One way is to combine the multisensory stimuli of media with the connectivity of the web and add in a large dose of community building. That’s what Dr. Rebecca Gaudino does to bring the lives of her 21rst Century students into dialogue with ancient prophets and scribes.

Dr. Rebecca Smith of UP's School of Education decided to make assessments more fun.  How? By having her MAT students take quizzes.  What, that doesn't sound fun to you? Ah, but these are not your grandmother's quizzes. Using quiz making apps like Socrative and Kahoot takes quiz making to the next level with fun interactive features that promote collaborative learning.

The ISTE standards (International Society for Technology in Education) for students are designed to empower students to become global, innovative, creative learners by leveraging technology in the process of learning, collaborating and problem-solving. In this podcast with Drs. Eric Anctil and Randy Hetherington from UP’s School of Education, we discuss the role the ISTE standards play in addressing 21st-century skills in learning.

Getting students up to speed with hands on technical skills can be challenging, especially when students are coming to class with a wide variety of experience levels.  For engineering students, fundamentals like using a multimeter are basic skills needed to move on to bigger projects.  Dr. Shaz  Vijlee, Assistant Professor of Engineering, decided to make a series of videos for students, teaching them the core technical skills in a self-paced format that has enabled students to tackle new ground in a user-friendly format.

Bootcamps are usually designed to get participants up and running quickly with a new skillset provided they're willing to use plenty of elbow grease.  Imagine, if you will, a kinder, gentler bootcamp.  That's what Dr. Lindsay Benes and Dr. Joanne Olsen had in mind when they teamed up with Instructional Design & Technology Specialist Ben Kahn (who is the co-host of this podcast) last summer to create a professional development opportunity for School of Nursing graduate faculty.

Peter Pappas designs learning experiences that provoke reflection. The UP School of Education adjunct instructor is known for pairing tech tools with creative assignments that lead to students having an external audience for their work, working as professionals do in a more public environment. In this podcast, Pappas talks about project based learning and some of the other ideas that have helped to shape his current style of education. Listen to this intriguing discussion about student engagement and more.

Dr. Bonnie Stachowiak is the Director of Teaching Excellence and Digital Pedagogy at Vanguard University in Anaheim, CA. She hosts the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast and regularly covers cutting-edge topics in teaching and technology on her show. She gave a recent presentation at the Lily Conference in Anaheim on increasing learner agency in the classroom and graciously joined us via Skype to share some tips on incorporating new assignment types into the classroom.

This week Dr. Randy Hetherington joins the Techtalk crew to discuss lessons learned in his thirty-two-year career as a teacher and administrator who has seen multiple waves on new technologies come and go.For Dr. Hetherington, the key to ensuring that the enhancements technology can bring to teaching and learning reach all students is to build individual relationships with all teachers, whether they are tech-savvy or tech-averse.

We welcome Hala Jadid al Kash to the podcast. Hala is a faculty member with IES Abroad in Granada, Spain, who teaches courses on Arabic language, social media, and Islamic culture to American study abroad students.

What does it mean to be a human being? Answering the big questions starts with paying attention to the little things like how we use technology, says theologian and scholar Dr. David Turnbloom. It’s the little things that create a foundation for ethical behavior.

Reading ancient writings takes practice. A lot of practice. Theology Professor Rebecca Gaudino wanted to give her students a chance get some serious practice but to do that, she needed to free up time in class traditionally spent on lecture. Culling an archive of lectures, she made visual recordings of the ones she wanted to keep and decided to move quizzes online

Professional futurist Lee Shupp spends a lot of time thinking about what people will be doing ten or twenty years from now. While humans aren't usually very good at long-term and abstract planning, Shupp's background in systems thinking and his boundless curiosity provide a good platform to stand on while peeling back the curtain for a sneak peak at what may lie ahead.

Theologian David Turnbloom is a big fan of the link sharing online community Reddit. Dr. Turnbloom invited his theology students to join him online in a micro community (called a subreddit) on Catholic theology as they read through parts of the chapter of Genesis in class.

Dr. Tisha Morrell knew she had a good thing with a STEM professional development workshop for middle school teachers - and used technology to connect with distance learners online.

This time on TechTalk, co-hosts Ben Kahn and Maria Erb take a look at the time-honored content delivery vehicle of the lecture.

We're back with a new season! Join Ben Kahn & Maria Erb from UP Acedmic Tech Services as we talk about updates to faculty resources for creating instructional media.

AR, VR and AI are discussed in relation to education as Dr. Eric Anctil joins the podcast for a lively discussion. Dr. Anctil’s scholarly work centers on the nexus of media, technology, innovation, and the curriculum.

In this podcast, Melanie Gangle and Christa Hill from Accessible Education Services, discuss the wide range of tools and techniques available for making the learning environment more accessible for all students. From captioning for video to simple strategies like ensuring that faculty are facing the class when speaking and even when notating while using an ELMO or a tablet.

When Pat Thompson found out about Voicethread, an online communication tool that allows users to share and discuss documents, presentations, images, audio files and videos, she jumped on the chance to communicate in a much more authentic way with candidates that are in the midst of graduate work and their practicum experience. Pat's project will focus on investigative research and implementation of Voicethread within curriculum for the coming year.

Do leaders have to be bullies to get results? Can a strong leader be strong and effective but still exceptionally nice? Curt Pederson, the University of Portland’s CIO. is a savvy negotiator, skilled manager, key relationship builder and all of the other things you’d expect someone who’s held major leadership positions throughout the state for the past several decades to be. But he’s also the one at the office who remembers everyone’s birthday.

Dr. Tammy VanDeGrift and Niki Schulz both know what it's like to teach a classroom of engineering students and wonder how much actually sinks in with students. Now there's a way to find out. Both have been experimenting with recording class material on video and asking students to watch before coming to class. As a result, class time can be used for small group collaborative exercises in problem solving. Students get to interact with each other and Schulz and VanDeGrift get to find out how well students are grasping new concepts and putting them into practice.

Gwynn Klobes wants students to answer a fundamental question before launching out into the world of business. “Who Am I?” is one of life’s most perplexing questions but Junior year business students have an opportunity to explore some answers while working through a unique process of scripting and shooting a “Brand Identity” video

While it's easier than ever to find great visuals, awesome music, and video excerpts that are perfect for your presentation or project, it's also more problematic than ever to use them. New laws, licensing, and other restrictions present a complicated landscape to navigate when you're just trying to finish a PowerPoint. Here to decipher some of the more confusing aspects of what you can and cannot use is Heidi Senior, Reference & Instruction Librarian with the Clark Library.

University of Portland recently expanded it's study-abroad options for Engineering majors from a week summer term only to also allow for a full Spring semester in Salzburg, Austria, offering students a chance for "greater cultural and language immersion". Today we are joined by Niki Shulz, an Instructor with the Shiley School of Engineering, who spoke with us about using state of the art web conferencing software to offer tutoring and support to Engineering majors half a world away.

Preparing teacher candidates to handle the landscape of the 21rst century classroom is one of the many tasks in front of UP’s Dr. John Watzke, Dean of the School of Education. Dr. Watzke talked with us about the gaps that exist in schools and current efforts to address them.

Dr. Jennette Lovejoy, Assistant Professor of Communications, explored this idea recently through a semester long experiment that required students to complete a project with their classmates without ever meeting face to face. In this podcast, she talks about why she wanted students to work this way and also discusses her decision process around introducing new technologies into her classes.

This week our guest is Dr. Susan Stillwell, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the UP School of Nursing. Dr. Stillwell discusses a research project introducing Digital iPad Lab activities into her pharmacology course that yielded surprising reactions from her students.

Dr. Ellyn Arwood, professor in the School of Education, is designing online courses for the new postmaster’s program in Neuroeducation. The courses will take advantage of new lecture capture technology that allows learners to view lectures and materials from multiple viewpoints. According to Dr. Arwood, the majority of learners today, even adults, are visual thinkers and need to be able to see an instructor’s face when she’s speaking, see concepts illustrated visually, and cross reference written materials with visuals to integrate concepts fully.

As a new professor at UP, Dr. Alice Gates,Assistant Professor in Sociology & Social Work, liked the fact that her students didn’t automatically hide behind laptops in class and many took notes with paper and pen. But she started to feel as if her position of “no technology in the classroom” was not very well informed. She became curious enough to explore the use of video in her Social Welfare and Policy class.

Dr. Karen Eifler, professor of Education at the University of Portland, is the co-director of the Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life and American Culture. On this podcast, she talks about the versatility and reach of the Garaventa Center reflected in the many events, lectures, and media sponsored by or produced by the Center. One of the popular offerings for the UP campus community is Visio Divina or “Divine Seeing” which reoccurs twice each year during Lent and Advent and offers a quiet space to reflect on the images of the St John’s Bible.