UAF eLearning faculty awards announced
January 7, 2013
This fall, more than 30 UAF faculty, instructors and adjuncts applied to receive $3,000
to support their innovative efforts in the classroom. eLearning and Distance Education has implemented a series of initiatives meant to encourage and support UAF educators
who aspire to innovate.
The winner of the Fall 2012 Innovation Recognition Award is Orion Lawlor for his creation
of a web tool, NetRun, that allows students to use a single uniform interface to execute
numerous varieties of assembly languages and run the programs on numerous kinds of
hardware. Students can also complete and check homework problems. Lawlor uses NetRun
during his lectures, which has greatly improved the learning experience for students
since they are now all learning and practicing in the same environment. Although this
is a highly technical example of an innovative project, the real innovation lies in
the leveraging of technology to increase the quality of information absorbed by his
students by changing the mode of delivery. Lawlor received $1,000 for his extraordinary
efforts.
The department also awarded two $1,000 incentive grants to faculty members Gino Graziano
and Lynne Lott to support their efforts to improve learning opportunities for their
students.
Gino Graziano is working on a project created for the Cooperative Extension Service that involves working with multiple schools and classes to study the use of the toxic
and invasive European bird cherry tree in Anchorage forests by winter foraging moose.
Graziano plans to enrich the project, expanding it to Fairbanks, and and also improve
the student/teacher experience utilizing Google Docs and ArcGIS online. Displaying
the data in ArcGIS online will allow students to explore spatial patterns in the data
statewide, from an easy to access web portal. This project is an example of using
technology to improve collaboration and involve students in real scientific discourse,
as well as exposing teachers to new data gathering techniques.
Lynne Lott is revising a capstone course for the Journalism Department. She proposed to align the course with contemporary news gathering and publishing
techniques, including creating a public news site on an open source publishing platform
that will give students an opportunity to contribute real content that is relevant
to UAF and Alaskans. In addition to facilitating the involvement of students into
communities of professional practice, students will gain an understanding of publishing
platforms and digital media production, and they will be doing so in teams. This is
a multifaceted, collaborative approach to using technology to mediate better learning
and teaching that is open to public discourse.
UAF eLearning is excited about the number of faculty who are creating new learning
opportunities. Visit the Design Team website to see more about the upcoming proposal deadlines for Spring 2013 and more details
on this semester's winners.