Don't read this by e-mail! Instead, read the hypertext version of this
newsletter: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/current.html>.
Contents:
September 1996 October 1996
S M Tu W Th F S S M Tu W Th F S
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
22 23 24 25 26 27 28 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
29 30 27 28 29 30 31
Local events of particular interest to FCN members (see also upcoming conferences below):
![[New]](newyahoo.gif){kind=small}
This summer has seen a substantial amount of work improving the computer projection capabilities of large classrooms on campus. A team including Physical Plant, IMC, the Registrar, Network Services, and faculty members worked together to identify several large classrooms and install new multimedia lecterns, modern lighting controls, network access, computers, and computer/video projection equipment. The timing is tight, but we hope to have all of the improvements completed by the start of the fall term. Orientation and training sessions will be scheduled as soon as the equipment is installed.
Classrooms being re-equipped include:
If you are scheduled to teach in any of these rooms this fall, it is likely that you will have an environment where you can comfortably project web pages, powerpoint presentations, videotapes, or CD-ROM applications.
For further information on the classroom improvement project contact Andrew Bonamici, <mailto:bonamici@oregon>, or Greg Bothun, <mailto:nuts@moo>.
Have you considered using a computer-mediated discussion group in your classes? Have you concluded that using a listserv or USEnet news was too limiting? Would you like to have your online discussion group integrated into your course web publications? If so, then this is for you!
Lucy Lynch of the Computing Center reports that the CC has taken a site license for Motet, a very nice computer conferencing software package. If you have a Unix-based web server, then you could run your own Motet-based conferencing system, but the CC also plans to run a Motet system for general instructional use. Lucy reports that "Motet should be available for trial use by the start of fall term".
If you aren't familiar with web-based conferencing systems, see the excellent survey that Lucy put together at <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/conf.html>. That page includes links to general discussions of computer conferencing and to examples of Motet-based systems.
For further information on the CC's plans for Motet, or to set up a trial conference for fall term, contact Lucy at <mailto:llynch@darkwing>.
Georgeanne Cooper, director of the UO Teaching Effectiveness Program, writes:
Date: Mon Sep 9 07:49 PDT 1996
From: gcooper@oregon.uoregon.eduThe Teaching Effectiveness Program conducted an intensive two week Educational Technology Short Course for fourteen faculty members during the last two weeks of August. The course dealt with improving presentations, using electronic communication to build new relationships with students, course website development, how to determine the success of our efforts with educational technology, and tools for productivitiy.
Participants reported that the course was a huge success. By the end of the course, participants had ambitious plans for how they would be using educational technology in their classes this year as well as a good start on implementing these plans. TEP will be providing follow up support and training for these participants throughout the year to ensure that they can achieve their goals.
This year's participants included Holly Arrow (Psychology), Don Brodie (Law), Warren Brown (Management), Richard Chaney (Anthropology), Steven Chatfield (Dance), David Figlio (Economics), Larry Irvin (Education), DanaJohnston (Geological Sciences), Anne Laskaya (English), John Lukacs (Anthropology), Jane Maitland-Gholson (Arts and Administration), Debra Merskin (Journalism), and Elizabeth Rocha (PPPM). We're hoping to find the funding to make this short course an annual summer event. Meanwhile, TEP is conducting an extensive evaluation of the course, ranging from short term analysis of the factors that contribute to a successful traning session to a long-term assessment of the effect of this course on the participants' teaching.
Mike Holcomb, director of the UO New Media Center, writes:
Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 16:38:01 +0800 (U)
From: <mikeh@nmc.uoregon.edu>
Subject: Early NewsWe've now completed work on our first major piece of courseware, "Electronic Music Interactive" (see below) which is already being considered by two publishers of instructional software . The reason I'm contacting you today is that we've just heard from Diane Marks at Macromedia in San Francisco and her comments are "This is excellent......a wonderful piece".
She goes on to ask if Macromedia can feature "Electronic Music Interactive" at the Educom Conference in Philadephia in October. We are very excited about this as Educom is perhaps the premiere conference for this kind of work and Macromedia is one of the biggest names in multimedia software. I just wanted to share the news with you and invite you to take a look at "Electronic Music Interactive" from the University of Oregon's New Media Center.
"Electronic Music Interactive" is a multimedia primer for electronic music and a survey of the subject that prepares students for the study of music theory in a university electronic music curriculum.
Developed by the New Media Center at the University of Oregon, "Electronic Music Interactive" is a state-of-the-art example of network deliverable instructional materials. Created in Director for Shockwave, the core file is so elegantly designed that it only occupies about 380k and can be completely downloaded over a 28.8 modem in approximately 2.7 minutes. It includes 80 original diagrams, 50 original interactive animations with sound and 150 interactive glossary terms explaining content distributed across 38 topic modules. It's table of contents is an interactive navigation information system, providing access to "related topics" locally and at any of the topic modules.
Besides providing a survey of the subject, "Electronic Music Interactive" creates understanding through the user-controlled manipulation of audio/visual representations of key concepts like the relationship of waveform to sound. It exemplifies the power of multimedia to enhance learning to an almost startling degree.
Altogether, the project has taken about ten months from initial meetings to the final phase. Jeffrey Stolet, Professor of Music and Director of Future Music Oregon, is the content specialist on the project. Thirteen advanced students from Linguistics, Visual Design and Computer Science have worked on it as well as Steve McGrew, Project Director and Mike Holcomb, New Media Center Director .
During it's testing phase, September 1 to January 1, "Electronic Music Interactive" will be available for examination at
Multimedia publishers, teachers, musicians and designers are especially invited to give it a try.
Copyright and intellectual property issues are an important consideration in any use of educational technology. The new electronic media have created new stresses on the laws protecting intellectual property. Educators in particular have long depended on the principle of "fair use" to allow them to make use of copyrighted materials under some conditions. without needing to obtain permission from the copyright holder, but emerging changes in the copyright laws are likely to change the interpretation of that principle, perhaps dramatically reducing its scope.
An interesting article by Jeremy Rowe, of Arizona State University, recently appeared on the AAHESGIT mailing list urging educators to pay more attention to these emerging changes, and offering an excellent set of references for anyone interested in understanding current law or the evolving debate. I've placed a copy of his article in <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/misc/jr-copyright.html>.
I ran across a web site last week that I wanted to call your attention to -- Varying the Texture: a Study of art, learning, and multimedia, <http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/jime/jime-01/jime-01.html> This site is an article, published on the web, describing and demonstrating the Art Explorer, a web-based multimedia art history package. Art historians are likely to be interested in the intellectual content of the article itself. The rest of us are likely to find several features of the site particularly interesting:
This is a selected and somewhat idiosyncratic list of upcoming conferences relevant to educational tech., both "virtual" (online) and traditional. For conferences that require physical travel, my emphasis is on conferences in the Northwest and on those I find personally interesting. The Educom and CAUSE calendars, <http://educom.edu/web/calendar/calendarHome.html> and <http://cause-www.colorado.edu/information-resources/events.html>, contain a more extensive list of mainstream conferences.
Virtual conferences and tutorials:
Traditional conferences and workshops:
![[New]](file:///stem%20HD/jqj/FCN/Newsletters/newyahoo.gif){kind=small}
My choice for web site of the quarter is <http://www.schoolsucks.com/>. This site is a collection of term papers, with papers organized by topic. School Sucks is a free service, allowing college students to download a term paper on any subject. School Sucks encourages people to upload their term papers as well as downloading them. A wonderful reference source!
On a more serious note, plagarism is a very real problem made easier by electronic media. You can minimize the problem by various means:
The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately) twice a month. If you have materials for inclusion in the newsletter you can send them to <mailto:jqj@darkwing>. This newsletter (as well as other FCN-related material) is available on line in <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/>.