The Academic Technology Specialist Program (ATSP) has recently acquired two new Academic Technology Specialists (ATSs) and initiated a variety of projects, one of which is highlighted in this article (i.e., the core chemistry module for the Human Biology Program). In addition, the ATSP has collaborated with several campus groups to implement and launch the Stanford Technology Commons Web site. See Stanford Technology Commons - A Community Knowledge Base for New Technologies in this issue.
Ken Romeo joins Program as ATS for the Language Center
Ken Romeo joined our program in July as the Academic Technology Specialist for the Language Center.
Ken has taught ESL (English as a Second Language) in a variety of situations since 1988 - first in the People's Republic of China, then for 10 years in Japan, and finally here at Stanford. He came to Stanford in 2000 to complete an MA in the School of Education, and continued on to the doctoral program there, graduating in 2006. Over the years, he has moved from using cassette tape players in his teaching to employing online data collection technology in the Language Lab and in his dissertation research.
Ken works with the instructors in the Language Center, primarily on assessment using the SOPI and other online tools, and on content delivery via CourseWork. (See also The New CourseWork Is Ready for Fall 2007 in this issue.) He also administers the weblogs and wikis for the Language Center and teaches graduate ESL courses in English for Foreign Students.
In the constant search to improve the conditions for learning, he is always aware of the fact that technology has many definitions: from flashcards and textbooks to stand-alone electronics and online software. In the last year, Ken has helped implement a wiki farm, Movable Type weblogs, and online listening exercises and assessments. In addition to assisting with testing, he is looking forward to not just adding to the number of tools that Language Center instructors have at their disposal, but also to contributing to the ways that they think about developing their lessons and curricula.
Kimberly Hayworth joins Program as ATS and Manager of the Academic Technology Lab
Kimberly Hayworth has formally joined our program as the ATS and Manager of the Academic Technology Lab (ATL). Kimberly will be working with faculty in any discipline who are interested in incorporating technology in teaching, learning, and research.
Kimberly came to Stanford in 2001 as an Academic Technology Consultant and was a member of the CourseWork (Stanford's Learning Management System) design and support teams. In 2005, she went on to manage the Consulting and Multimedia Services Group. Some of Kimberly's upcoming projects include curriculum development support and the implementation of multimedia components in Communications courses. She will be able to leverage the rich resources of the ATL and the Multimedia Studio to create instructional content and consult with faculty and their students. Kimberly will also be working with Biological Science faculty to explore ways to enhance student collaboration and to increase the opportunities for capturing student-generated course content. Kimberly holds a master's degree in French with an emphasis in Educational Technology from Washington State University.
Core Chemistry Module for Human Biology Program
This fall, the Program in Human Biology is introducing a chemistry learning module to supplement its core curriculum. Much of the information could be found online and in textbooks, so the objective was not to provide more information but less: to focus on the basic concepts a student needs to understand lectures and course content and graphically illustrate them.
In June, when the ATS for Human Biology Program Carlos Seligo and Academic Technology Assistant Larry Spackman began working on this module, there were a variety of ways to proceed. A web site had certain limitations, though would be easy to produce, whereas a Java-based application had many freedoms, but could be too time-consuming for the rapid production schedule. Flash was the obvious compromise, and ActionScript 3 has provided the language for extending the navigation features beyond what would have been possible in html.
Seligo has focused on the design and illustrations and Spackman on the implementation, though sharing a room means there is a lot of give and take in development. "There was a bit of a learning curve," Spackman said, "because I hadn't used Flash since 1999 and a lot has changed since version one, but the new scripting language library is robust enough to create and quickly modify tools. Its pretty sweet."
The chemistry module will be available at:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/humbio/chemcore
For More Information
To learn more about the ATS program, visit:
