In Autumn 2010, Profweb’s pages were graced by an impressive collection of accounts of IT derring-do whose perusal should begin the new year with enthusiasm and inspiration. Reviewing the innovative work being done by teachers around the Quebec college network could be the first step to a Eureka moment as you shake off the excesses of holiday cheer and forge ahead into the passions of next semester’s course planning.
English (left) and French (right) Service Editors
During the last semester, Profweb’s stories contained accounts of teachers using specific software to transform their classrooms.
- Rhys Adams wrote about Using Webwork to Enliven Discussion in Physics Classrooms. Your math or physics classroom could be next!
- Silvia d’Apollonia’s account of Netvibes: A Tool to Focus Attention during Inquiry-based Learning could help teachers in numerous disciplines to ease their students’ transition into autonomous online learning.
- Sandi Mak makes a convincing case for using a wiki in Collaboratively Fostering Understanding.
- Sandi’s experiences were supported in a story by Michel Villeneuve on Using a Wiki for Student Projects.
- Maggy Richmond-Mhairig’s use of Twitter is an option to consider for quite a number of classes. Read all about it in Tweeting the Benefits of Twitter.
- In The Ultimate Agents of Change, Carole Scheffer explores how a new drafting software called Revit is changing how architectural technology is taught.
- In From DECclic To Moodle – A Relatively Smooth Transition, Jamie Bridge charts the first steps of the DECclic platform’s transition to Moodle.
- On the subject of Moodle, Moodle Evolving in a Competency Based Program, describes how Roger Caissy creatively uses Moodle as a tool to help deliver his courses’ competency-based objectives.
Our stories also took on the broader changes that IT engenders in the classroom.
- Where Fashion Meets Technology by Heather Sorella explored the world of online synchronous learning with a classroom that spanned the globe.
- In Geography and Exploration: IT Location Basics in the College Curriculum, Jan Warnke explored the impact of geographical information systems which reveal facts in new ways as students discover, analyze and describe vulnerable areas, cultures, development and other human and natural phenomena by overlaying layers of information.
- Lisa Deguire presents a fresh look at an IT approach to peer instruction in To Learn Through Teaching.
- Getting Beyond the Equations is Kevin Lenton’s account of using technology to show students how to see the real world in a totally new light.
- Michael Helfield waxes philosophical as he situates the relationship between his technology and his teaching in IT in Education – Another Rhetorical Strategy.
And then, there were the accounts of those who went beyond the classroom to harness the power of IT to network, learning beyond the limits of our colleges.
- Louise Bouchard generated a blog-based debate on ethical issues as the result of a joint activity between the Law and Life Sciences Program at Université de Sherbrooke and the biotechnology program at Cégep de Sherbrooke which is described in Considering the Rules of Ethical Biotechnology.
- Easy Learning with ESL Blues by Eifion Pritchard is the account of an early attempt to develop an IT resource for ESL that has developed a global audience and how the author has changed his approach to reflect developments in information technology.
No retrospective of the last session would be complete without a tip of the hat to Profweb’s French service which delivers a penetrating look at IT to colleagues teaching across the linguistic divide. If your French is up to the task, you might want to take a look at the following highlights of last season’s offerings.
- Julie Bernard and Patrick Chabot have designed a multimedia tool to allow students to use excerpts from major American films as a way of enriching reflection about this material and about multimedia content in general. Read about it in Des citations filmiques à l’appui.
- Matilde Asencio explains how she and Annie Desnoyers took the task of learning Spanish out of the classroom and into the lost world of the Aztecs in Les chemins les plus charmants pour apprendre l’espagnol.
Profweb will be back with new content on Monday, January 17. 2011. We hope our retrospective provides you with some interesting and valuable information.
