ANNOUNCEMENTS | August 15, 2015

CCNMTL Becomes Part of CTL

The Center for Teaching and Learning will incorporate the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Teaching Center.

The CTL’s services for faculty and graduate student instructors include support for a range of teaching approaches and technologies. The Center has already developed an extensive set of programs and workshops hosted in its offices in Butler Library and on 168th Street. You can learn more about them at the Center’s website at ctl.columbia.edu.

See Provost's announcement: Introducing the Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning

ANNOUNCEMENTS | July 10, 2015

Columbia iTunesU Private Store Front Closed

Apple decided to sunset the private iTunes U sites which Columbia used to distribute content internally, usually protected using a UNI and a course affiliation.

Apple's statement: "As institutions have focused more on contributing content to the public catalog and building public and private courses with the iTunes U app on iPad or using Course Manager, fewer and fewer institutions are using the original iTunes U private sites for distributing their content internally. As a result, Apple will be discontinuing legacy iTunes U private sites on September 1, 2015." All content has been removed from the platform.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | May 13, 2015

CCNMTL's Paul Stengel and Sarohini Chahal Present at 2015 AERA Annual Meeting

Last month CCNMTL educational technologists Paul Joseph Stengel and Sarohini Chahal traveled to Chicago, IL to present at the 2015 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting. While there, Stengel and Chahal presented to, and attended presentations by, colleagues in the field of educational research.

As part of an in-progress graduate student research-roundtable, Stengel and Chahal presented research regarding “The Effects of Peer Collaboration on a Summer Intensive 21st Century Teaching Institute”. The research investigated whether peer interaction during edtech trainings lead to the formation of sustained peer support networks, and more informed choices when using technology in the university classroom. Survey results showed that participants were interested in working with their peers on difficult teaching challenges, and also that interactions of this nature enhanced the technology knowledge of participants. The research project was sponsored by CCNMTL and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center.

Stengel and Chahal also attended conference presentations related to work at CCNMTL and the GSAS Teaching Center. Of particular interest were sessions on teacher professional development and Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCS). The team spent some time with the AERA Faculty Teaching, Evaluation, and Development special interest group and attended a great session on “Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Influencing Instructional Practice”. The team also attended notable paper sessions on MOOCS that discussed research on the challenges and possibilities for emerging teacher professional development MOOCs, Hybrid MOOCs as well as a process for MOOCs designed by university students.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | May 11, 2015

CCNMTL's Maurice Matiz on NYU Panel for Technological Innovation in Higher Ed

Last month, CCNMTL director, Maurice Matiz, participated in a panel at NYU’s Leonard Stern School of Business to discuss technological innovation in the classroom. Numerous topics were covered, including student-centered classrooms, case studies, tools, online learning, measuring and assessing learning, and faculty development. Matiz joined a panel that included Steven Goss, vice provost of Digital Learning at Teachers College, Columbia University; Shay David, co-founder of Kaltura and a visiting fellow at the Yale Information Society Project; and John Katzman, education entrepreneur and founder of Noodle, 2U.com, and The Princeton Review. Messrs David and Katzman also offered their companies’ visions for technical innovation in higher ed.

The panel fielded questions from the moderator, Professor Kristen Sosulski, director at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning at the NYU Stern School of Business, and from the audience. The two-hour event was held at Kaufman Management Center at NYU-Stern.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | May 11, 2015

2015 Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning Announced!

The 8th Annual Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning, a day-long workshop devoted to exploring effective teaching and learning strategies in health sciences education, will be held on Monday, June 22, 2015 from 8am to 5pm at Butler Library on the Morningside Campus. Topics covered during the Institute will include:

• Effective Course Design
• Engaging Learners in the Classroom and Online
• Creating Innovative Lesson Plans
• Teaching and Learning Resources for CUMC Faculty

This event is designed for junior faculty or senior faculty who have recently taken on a new teaching role. Apply for free admission to the Summer Institute by submitting the online application. The application deadline is Friday, June 5th, 2015.

If you have questions, email us at cumc-sitl@columbia.edu.

In addition, this year, Summer Institute fellows will have the opportunity to continue their development as educators by participating in a new mentorship program. Interested fellows will be paired with a mentor from their school or program. This exciting program will be lead by Deborah Cabaniss, Director of the Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators Columbia University's College of Physicians & Surgeons. Participants may reach out to their mentors to get help developing learning objectives, plans for teaching activities, or methods for evaluating your teaching. Participants can ask their mentors to sit in on teaching sessions. Participant's mentor’s name and contact number will be provided in this year's packet.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | May 6, 2015

CCNMTL Hosts NYC MOOC-Maker Meet-Up

Columbia University’s Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) hosted the second official New York City “meet-up” for cultural and educational institutions producing online courses. Close to thirty professionals, in video production and course design, from the American Museum of Natural History, Coursera, edX, Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, the Museum of Modern Art, and Yeshiva University gathered in Butler Library to exchange new ideas for improving production, distribution, and course design for MOOCs. The agenda focused on video transcription, captioning, translation, and annotation; new partnership opportunities; and media production best practices for distribution and preservation. In addition, representatives from Coursera presented recent research on MOOC retention and completion rates.

The group reviewed a range of options and requirements—governmental, institutional, and moral—for transcribing and syncing video transcripts in higher education. In early April 2015, the Department of Justice reached a settlement with MOOC-platform (and Columbia partner) edX that outlined some of the federal requirements for making educational content fully accessible to Americans with disabilities. Meet-up members discussed how they use a combination of automated systems (i.e. Automated Sync and 3Play Media), internal staff, and freelance employees for editing transcripts that comply with these standards.

The group also discussed the possibilities for fostering partnerships within a university (i.e. CCNMTL’s partnership with the Office of Development and Alumni Affairs), across multiple universities, or between unaffiliated institutions (i.e. a museum and a university). With these possibilities in mind, meet-up members discussed the challenges of making online education more sustainable with options for distribution beyond Coursera and edX—keeping in mind the looming concerns over how to preserve content and where to find server space.

The next NYC MOOC Meet-up will be hosted by the American Museum of Natural History in June covering licensing, copyright, and best practices for investing in memory and storage.

In October, Columbia will host the Learning With MOOCS conference. Follow @CCNMTL on Twitter for more information as it becomes available.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | March 31, 2015

April 6th Deadline for Provost's Hybrid Learning RFP

If you are a Columbia University Faculty member and are interested in applying to the Provost's Hybrid Learning RFP, note that the submission deadline is April 6th, 2015 at 5:00pm EST.

Below is the submission criteria:

• A letter of support from the applicant’s department chair or vice dean must be provided.
• Faculty submitting a proposal must complete the proposal application form at https://bit.ly/rfp-sp2015.
• Final proposals must be submitted by the Dean’s office of your school (one PDF file:​ ​proposal​ ​+ Dean's letter) via email to​ ​ccnmtl+rfp@columbia.edu​ with the subject line of “RFP Hybrid Learning: [Last Name of Applicant].

View the full details of the Provost's Hybrid Learning RFP.

Contact ​ccnmtl+rfp@columbia.edu​ with any additional questions.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | March 24, 2015

Video: Exclusive Alumni Study Session for Eric Foner's Civil War and Reconstruction MOOC

On Wednesday, March 19, the Columbia University Alumni Group from the 3rd installment of the Civil War and Reconstruction MOOC—The Unfinished Revolution: Reconstruction and After, 1865-1890—were treated to an hour and a half long study session with Professor Eric Foner. During the session participants from the course were able to ask Professor Foner questions salient to the first few weeks of the course on Reconstruction. Below is a video of the Alumni study session, that includes all of the dialogue at the event.

The Civil War and Reconstruction alumni group was formed by having participants register for the MOOC, and then self-identify as Columbia University Alumni. In addition to this study group, other special features offered to this group include directed e-mail communications, a dedicated course discussion board, and exclusive Columbia University themed content within the course. One participant even brought her copy of Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, Eric Foner’s new book, and got it signed. The study session was held at the Columbia Alumni Association.

Judging from the results of the event’s survey, participants thoroughly enjoyed the session. A few mentioned this was the first alumni event that they had ever attended. A few remarked that it was nice to have face to face time with Professor Foner in an intimate setting. A similar Columbia University Alumni Group study session will take place on April 30 with the course’s lead TA, Timothy Shenk.

Join us on Wednesday, March 25th, at 7pm for a Google Hangout with Thai Jones, the Herbert H. Lehman Curator for U.S. History at Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML), and Mary Freeman, a Columbia PhD student studying 19th century American history. They are the curators of primary sources for Eric Foner's Civil War and Reconstruction MOOC, and will provide a lively discussion about Open Educational Resources available in the MOOC.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | March 23, 2015

The Cordial at CCNMTL to Celebrate 16 Years at Columbia

This month we are celebrating 16 years of supporting faculty at Columbia. We are proud to have worked with over 10,000 teachers on over 400 projects.

Please join us on Friday, March 27th, at 3:30pm in 523 Butler Library for The Cordial at CCNMTL. Enjoy complimentary wine and cheese with colleagues and CCNMTL staff.

Please RSVP here. If you are not a faculty member, but would like to attend, please contact Ted Limpert at tlimpert@columbia.edu.

We look forward to seeing you there.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | March 20, 2015

Ian Dolphin from the Apereo Foundation Visits CCNMTL

Open source software for educational institutions—what it is, how it works, and why it’s important—was the subject of a talk for members of Columbia University’s educational technology community on March 12, by Ian Dolphin, Executive Director of the Apereo Foundation.

Ian Dolphin speaks at CCNMTL

Open source software is software whose code can be freely used, modified, and shared according to licenses maintained by the global nonprofit Open Source Initiative, which also maintains the Open Source Definition for software.

In the talk, jointly hosted by CCNMTL and the Columbia Library-sponsored Developer’s Lounge, Dolphin described the network of institutions and projects under the Apereo umbrella. Apereo was created by the 2012 merger of two existing educational software communities, Jasig and Sakai. The foundation is unique in its promotion and support of software development according to the academic values of openness and collaboration.

Since that merger, the Apereo community has grown to include more than a dozen projects through its incubation process. According to Dolphin, new software projects and communities that choose to incubate with Apereo are given a framework for development and support through mentoring from and connections with the foundation’s larger membership.

Apereo projects include infrastructure software such as the CAS single sign-on solution, UPortal, and Bedework calendaring solution; collaboration and learning management environments such as Sakai and Apereo Open Academic Environment; and educational technology tools such as the Karuta e-portfolio, Opencast Matterhorn lecture capture and media services platform, and Xerte online content authoring.

Apereo is also home to educational technology communities of interest, including regional and language communities for Sakai, the Learning Analytics Initiative, and the Sakai Teaching and Learning Group .

Lucy Appert, CCNMTL Associate Director for Instructional Design, serves as Vice Chair of the Apereo Board of Directors.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | March 18, 2015

2015 Edward M. Kennedy Prize Winner Announced

On March 16th, 2015, Suzan-Lori Parks was awarded the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History for her play Father Comes Home from the Wars, Part 1, 2 & 3. Parks is MacArthur "Genius" Award recipient, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an OBIE awardee. In addition to being an accomplished playwright, novelist, essayist, performer and songwriter, she teaches at NYU and serves as the Master Writer Chair for the Public Theater.

(L-R) Edward M. Kennedy Jr., Francis Parks, Jean Kennedy-Smith, Suzan-Lori Parks, Patrick Kennedy, and Tony Kushner at the EMK Award Ceremony

CCNMTL has already started collaborating with Suzan-Lori Parks to develop an educational website for her play, to be released later this summer. Past winners of the EMK Prize include: Dominique Morisseau, Detroit '67 (2014); Dan O'Brien, The Body of an American (2013); and Robert Schenkkan, All the Way (2013).

The award, known as the EMK Prize, was created by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to honor the life and legacy of her brother Ted Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts. The prize is administered annually by the Columbia University Libraries/Information Services and consists of a $100,000 award as well as an educational website to promote understanding of the works.

Suzan-Lori Parks and Steven Bargonetti perform at the EMK Award Ceremony

ANNOUNCEMENTS | February 27, 2015

Provost Releases Spring 2015 Hybrid Learning RFP

The Office of the Provost has launched a new Request for Proposals (RFP) inviting faculty to apply for funding to support redesigning the delivery of their courses using innovative, technology-rich pedagogy and learning strategies. The awards to faculty will be grants of $5K-$20K accompanied by in-kind support from the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning for courses in 2015 and 2016. Full-time and part-time faculty from both campuses are eligible to apply.

This is the second RFP that invites professors to submit proposals using technology-enabled learning methods as well as exploring the option of the “flipped classroom.” Key goals of this initiative are to measure the effectiveness of these designs, delivery methods, and learning strategies, as well as to improve instructional delivery and learning outcomes of Columbia University students from all disciplines.

Our educational technologists will be helping faculty with their project plans, which will be reviewed by a faculty committee. Please send any questions, or consultation requests to ccnmtl+rfp@columbia.edu. In addition, the Office of the Provost and CCNMTL will hold a town hall meeting to answer questions about the RFP on Friday, March 6, 2015 at 11AM in Butler Library room 203.

Faculty proposals are due Monday, April 6, 2015 at 5:00PM. Selections will be made by Wednesday, April 22, 2015.

Faculty submitting a proposal must complete the proposal application form at bit.ly/rfp-sp2015.

Find more information on the Spring 2015 RFP here.

Learn more about the Fall 2014 RFP awardees here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | February 27, 2015

CCNMTL's Paul Stengel Provides Teacher Training in Brazil

CCNMTL Educational Technologist Paul Joseph Stengel traveled to Rio De Janeiro in Brazil with a group of educators lead by Teachers College professor Brian Perkins. The team was charged with the task of providing approximately 100 local teachers with professional development workshops on the following topics: backward design, applications of neuroscience and cognition in teaching and learning, learning strategies, and opportunities and best practices for educational technology. The project was funded by Brazil’s Social Services of Commerce (SESC), a private organization established to spend public tax dollars on public initiatives.

Paul spent four days teaching workshops to approximately 25 teachers each day. Topics included Educational Technology in the Classroom: Opportunities and Best Practices, Teaching and Learning with New Media, and Assessing Teaching and Learning with Technology. Using Google Apps for Education, teachers worked in pairs on a lesson they planned to teach during the school year, exploring purposeful technology implementation by following the CCNMTL Design Research cycle and integrating methods for evaluating their teaching.

Paul’s presentations were influenced by many of the faculty development workshops provided by CCNMTL over the years and are freely available to view on a Google Sites archive.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | February 17, 2015

Provostial Hybrid Learning Projects at Columbia

In November 2014, over 40 Columbia faculty submitted proposals to redesign their courses using innovative, technology-rich pedagogy as part of a new Hybrid Learning Initiative from the Office of the Provost. Sixteen proposals were chosen to be implemented during the 2015 academic year with grants of up to $20,000 and in-kind support from CCNMTL. Michelle Hall, our Associate Director for Educational Programs, has taken the lead in managing CCNMTL's role in this initiative along with Senior Educational Technologist Michael Cennamo.

Manan Ahmed
Assistant Professor of History
Last year, in his undergraduate lecture course, Manan assigned digital essays to his students that required them to use Scalar and MediaThread to annotate digital images and architectural designs. This year he is expanding these types of assignments and creating an interactive, geo-spatial seminar for his graduate course, Borderlands.
CCNMTL Support: Aurora Collado, Educational Technologist.

Susan Boynton
Professor and Chair of the History Department
Susan is using digital humanities tools to foster active learning in her Seminar on Historical Musicology. Her graduate students will build open, online exhibitions and other digital presentations of medieval manuscripts.
CCNMTL Support: Andre Laboy, Educational Technologist.

Adam Cannon
Senior Lecturer in Computer Science
Adam is putting together a team of instructors to blend an entirely new interdisciplinary computing course. Computing in Context will teach computational literacy to liberal arts students. Students will watch lecture videos before class, and participate in collaborative assignments online.
CCNMTL Support: Jason Guzman, Educational Technologist.

Angelina Craig-Florez
Lecturer in Spanish
With the help of iPads, and an application for generating iBooks, Angelina is redesigning the final project for her course, Spain in its Art. By the end of the course, her students will have created a collaborative iBook with the goal of the students developing a higher linguistic, and cultural competence in the Spanish Language.
CCNMTL Support: Aurora Collado, Educational Technologist.

Donald Davis
Professor in Economics
Donald is building a 2.0 version of his course The Economics of New York City with video elements and geo-spatial mapping. He plans to build a video archive of interviews with outside experts and neighborhood tours to allow his students to experience spatial elements in the historical evolution of New York City.
CCNMTL Support: Andrew Flatgard, Educational Technologist.

Rachel Gordon
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Rachel is building on success she has already had using team-based learning and flipped classroom techniques to rework her course on infectious diseases. Her students will form groups to work through clinical scenarios in which they must respond to difficult questions as a cohesive unit.
CCNMTL Support: Angie Lee, Educational Technologist.

Maya Hastie
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
Maya is using blogs, Twitter, and Facebook to disseminate medical information, and evaluate her fellows in Critical Care Medicine (CCM). Working with Daniela Darrah, a colleague in the CCM program, Maya will also create multimedia resources for 10-20 important fieldwork topics.
CCNMTL Support: Angie Lee, Educational Technologist.

John Hunt
Biological Sciences Professor
John is implementing a flipped classroom model for his first-year and sophomore students in Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications of Biophysical Methods. He is using Camtasia, and CCNMTL's video production team to produce his lectures and pre-class assignments.
CCNMTL Support: Michael Cennamo, Educational Technologist.

Darcy Kelley
Professor in Biological Sciences
Darcy is having her Frontiers of Science (FoS) students watch lecture videos before class and use Smart Sparrow, an adaptive e-learning tool, to evaluate their learning. FoS is a Core Curriculum course for all Columbia College students.
CCNMTL Support: Paul Stengel, Educational Technologist.

Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou
Civic Engineering Professor
Ionnas is working with Liam Comerford, an overseas PhD student, to customize e-learning software that will help flip his course Random Process in Mechanics. The software, a customized iteration of Comerford’s previous work at the University of Liverpool, will allow students to traverse interactive activity modules with personalized levels of difficulty.
CCNMTL Support: Ellen Maleszewski, Educational Technologist.

Phillip LaRocco
Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs
Phillip is using Wikispaces, Socrative ARS, lecture videos, and pre-class quizzes to flip his graduate course, Energy Business and Economic Development.
CCNMTL Support: Sarohini Chahal, Educational Technologist.

Letty Moss-Salentijn
Professor of Dental Medicine
Letty is beginning an ambitious redesign of the entire didactic course component for third-year students in the College of Dental Medicine. Letty has gathered a teaching team that will use WACOM tablets with Camtasia to produce content in order to flip 4—of 13—didactic course modules.
CCNMTL Support: Angie Lee, Educational Technologist.

Shaoyan Qi
Lecturer in Chinese
Shaoyan, and her Teaching Assistant Chen Wu, are working with the Columbia Language Resource Center to develop a new way for students in Introductory Chinese A to perfect, and connect, their perceptions of Mandarin tones with their pronunciation. During filmed pronunciation "drill sessions," Shaoyan will be using iClickers to assess student learning.
CCNMTL Support: Paul Stengel, Educational Technologist.

Katherine Reuther
Associate in Biomedical Engineering
Katherine will be using concept mapping tools to immerse her graduate students in biomedical engineering design. She is also using Camtasia, and other video production tools, to record 20 of her lectures in order to flip her class.
CCNMTL Support: Jason Guzman, Educational Technologist.

Martha Sliwinski
Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine
Martha is working with CCNMTL's video production team to produce a series of procedural videos to be viewed by her physical therapy students. She is also using Google Glass with Livestream to broadcast lab sessions. In addition, Martha is exploring the Virtual PT Clinician tool as a starting point for building her own specialized case-studies to teach her students clinical reasoning skills.
CCNMTL Support: Ashley Kingon, Educational Technologist.

Brent Stockwell
Professor of Biological Sciences and Chemistry
Brent is taking his already-flipped course Biochemistry: Structure and Metabolism and applying web-based, analytical tools to evaluate the effectiveness of team-based science learning.
CCNMTL Support: Michael Cennamo, Educational Technologist.

While many of these projects have only just begun, a second Request for Proposals from the Office of the Provost will be issued later this month. Stay tuned for more news and updates by follow us on Twitter (@CCNMTL), or by joining our mailing list.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | February 10, 2015

CCNMTL's Peter Kaufman Moderates Panel at 2015 Digital Book World Conference

On January 14, CCNMTL Associate Director Peter B. Kaufman moderated the "Smarter Video Marketing" panel at the 2015 Digital Book World Conference in New York. Joining Kaufman on the panel were John Clinton, Director of Digital Video at Penguin Random House; Sue Fleming, Vice President and Executive Director Content and Programming at Simon & Schuster Digital; Scott Mebus, Head of Video and TV at Fast Company; and Heidi Vincent, VP of Marketing at National Geographic Books.

The panel reviewed current trends in video marketing, a hot topic among trade and academic publishers. According to YouTube, some 100 hours of video are uploaded to their platform every minute, and more than 600 billion hours of video are watched each month—over 40 percent on mobile devices—worldwide. Publishers have taken notice, building in-house production studios to develop promotional videos and supplemental content for new publications.

The panelists discussed specific strategies for video marketing on popular social, and news networking sites (i.e. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Huffpost, Buzzfeed, etc.). The panel advocated producing short, graphics-driven videos that show the book cover at or near the beginning—the first few seconds count for almost everything. Fast Company’s Scott Mebus suggested that publishers focus on treating authors “as a brand,” and build consistent messaging across all media.

More generally, the panelists described many of the same issues and challenges with video that the Libraries are facing—funding and monetization; production workflows; storage and preservation; effective descriptive metadata; and discoverability.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | February 5, 2015

New Online Nursing Course Has Global Impact

In June 2013, the World Health Organization released new guidelines for treating and preventing HIV in middle-and low-income countries. Option B+, the new recommendation for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), calls for all pregnant and breastfeeding HIV Positive women to initiate lifelong HIV treatment.

In an effort to help train as many health workers in Option B+ as possible, ICAP—lead by Director and University Professor Wafaa El-Sadr—collaborated with CCNMTL to create an e-learning course on Option B+ targeting nursing faculty and students in sub-Saharan Africa. Option B+ is the flagship course inside the new ICAP Nursing E-learning platform. Free and open to the public, it was developed with support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Since ICAP’s announcement of the new course in October, interest in the Option B+ course has mushroomed. As of the start of the year, we’ve seen users of the course in 43 countries, both inside and outside sub-Saharan Africa. Users from around the world have been sending in requests to join the program, as well as notes of thanks for providing the material.



Why is the demand for this course so great? Many countries have implemented in-service (i.e. post-graduate) workshop trainings to teach existing professionals the new standards. However, these programs are expensive and can be plagued with low attendance because the demand for nurses and midwives is so great that health workers must remain in clinics providing care. Additionally, in-service trainings do not include faculty or students at nursing schools, the very people who will be forming the front line of health professionals in the coming years. For example, Malawi has been providing national in-service trainings including Option B+ since 2010, yet faculty at nursing schools including Mzuzu and Malawi College of Health Sciences said that they had not had the opportunity to be trained on Option B+. They downloaded the national guidelines, but hadn’t yet incorporated them into the undergraduate curriculum.

“E-learning has the potential to enhance undergraduate nursing education and to make continuing education more convenient by reducing absenteeism associated with in-service training workshops, so that nurses can remain at the front lines providing care,” says Janel Smith, nursing education officer at ICAP. The faculty and student focus of the course also addresses the current gap between nursing education and in-service trainings. 


ICAP is currently piloting the new e-learning course at ten nursing schools in Malawi, Lesotho, and Zambia and will be evaluating faculty and student response to the course in February. ICAP has also promoted the course for continuing education among practicing nurses and midwives in sub-Saharan Africa through the East, Central, and Southern Africa Colleges of Nursing (ECSACON) Continuing Professional Development Library which provides a certificate for download. In addition, ICAP and CCNMTL expect to see continued uptake of the course in many countries outside Africa.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | January 30, 2015

Video: Fall 2014 RewirED Faculty Showcase at CUMC

The Fall 2014 rewirED Faculty Showcase at Columbia University's Medical Campus celebrated innovative uses of technology in the classroom and online. The event featured three faculty innovators who participated in the rewirED series:

Roseanna Graham, DDS, MA, PhD (College of Dental Medicine)
Rachel Gordon, MD, MPH (Medicine and Epidemiology)
Debby D'Angelo, MS (Biostatistics).

Each faculty innovator discusses her partnership with CCNMTL, and demonstrates how certain tools and techniques addressed during the rewirED series affected their classroom practices. CCNMTL educational technologist Michael Cennamo hosted the showcase event.

Each presenters section can be accessed directly using the links below:

Roseanna Graham - 6:30
Rachel Gordon - 19:06
Debby D'Angelo - 32:53

After the faculty presentations, CCNMTL recognized faculty that participated in the series with rewirED Rewards: a certificate, a book by Douglas Rushkoff "Program or Be Programmed", and a reception that followed the showcase. The event took place on Tuesday, December 9, 2014 in the Hammer Teaching Center.

Follow @CCNMTL on Twitter to find out about more great workshops and events.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | January 23, 2015

CCNMTL Joins NYC MOOC-Maker Meetup

CCNMTL staff joined a core group of NYC-based cultural and educational institutions on Thursday, January 22, to discuss new initiatives with massive open online courses (MOOCs)––the first of what we expect will be several New York City MOOC-producer meet-ups. Convening at Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, and hosted by Associate Dean Paul Lawrence, the informal gathering included staff and educators from Columbia University, the American Museum of Natural History, and Mt. Sinai.

Each group discussed their organization’s work in the MOOC space to date, and addressed potential areas for further discussion and collaboration. Topics outlined for the next meet-up, likely to be hosted at Columbia, include:

• the purpose and mission of online education
• the impact of MOOCs on pedagogy
• best practices for audiovisual production
• best practices for captioning and translating
• strategies for publishing––on MOOC platforms and beyond
• working with alumni and other special cohorts
• best practices for marketing and promotion

Additional NYC institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art, plan to join the group at future meet-ups.

Follow us on Twitter (@ccnmtl) for updates on the latest developments in the NYC MOOC-producer-community!

ANNOUNCEMENTS | January 12, 2015

Register Now for January 2015 Faculty Workshops!

The new year brings with it an opportunity to reflect upon the year before; to build upon its successes, and learn from its challenges. In order to support faculty as they prepare for the spring semester, CCNMTL will be hosting a number of faculty workshops on teaching with new technologies.

Please take a look at our offerings below, and register today!

Learn Courseworks
CourseWorks Open Lab; Tuesday, January 13, 1pm - 3pm

Migrating Your Course; Wednesday, January 14, 9:30am - 10:15am

Working with Your Syllabus; Wednesday, January 14, 10:15am - 11am

Learn EdBlogs
Getting Started; Friday, January 16, 12pm - 1:15pm

Getting Started; Friday, January 23, 12pm - 1:15pm

Learn Mediathread
Media thread Open Lab; Tuesday, January 13, 10am - 12pm

Getting Started; Wednesday, January 14, 2pm - 3:15pm

How Mediathread Can Transform Your Classroom; Thursday, January 15, 3pm - 4pm

Learn Wikispaces
Getting Started; Friday, January 16, 1:30pm - 2:30pm

Getting Started; Friday, January 30,1:30pm - 2:30pm

For even more workshops visit: ccnmtl.columbia.edu/events/workshops

All courses are led by CCNMTL’s educational technologists and
take place in the Center’s Faculty Support Lab in Butler Library, Room 204.

Questions? Email ccnmtl@columbia.edu.

ANNOUNCEMENTS | January 9, 2015

Video: PoLAR Partnership Efforts in Sustainable Development

The PoLAR Climate Change Education Partnership released a new video to promote their mission of transcending the climate change debate into a personal and community challenge. The video was produced by Dr. Stephanie L. Pfirman, Professor of Environmental Science and Alena Wels Hirschorn '58 and Martin Hirschorn Professor of Environmental and Applied Sciences at Barnard College, and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) as part of a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The video showcases the PoLAR’s ongoing project development efforts of solidifying new techniques of presenting complicated scientific material on polar climate change in very engaging digital and non-digital formats. Partners describe how and why they strive to help a diverse community of participants advance their critical thinking and problem solving skills, and develop systems thinking knowledge through their project games and interactive tools. These interviews bring front and center issues specific to polar climate change as it relates to detrimental changes occurring in the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the earth’s system. In the video, Dr. Larry Hamilton of the University of New Hampshire states “even if the Arctic is thousands of miles away, we will feel it’s effects here.” Dr. Hamilton recently published some critical findings on voting habits and climate change beliefs located here A Four-party View of US Environmental Concern.

Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Economics and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University stated recently in Eco-Business that "the year 2015 will be our generation’s greatest opportunity to move the world toward sustainable development." Thus, the highly contentious and vexing issue of climate change will be a central topic in high-level negotiations at the United Nations between July and December of this year and is highlighted in the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report “The Path To Dignity” making the timing of this initiative all the more important.

The PoLAR Hub (thepolarhub.org) is the official website of the PoLAR Partnership. It features the latest news and research in polar climate science and hosts all essential teaching and learning project resources focused on polar climate change developed by the PoLAR Partnership. The PoLAR Partnership is a team comprised of experts in climate science, learning theory, and formal and informal education.