With Project Rebirth Columbia and Georgetown Offer Students a Closer Look at Post 9-11 Recovery

December 16, 2008. Project Rebirth, the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL), and Georgetown University have partnered to create an educational initiative to inform students about and to support research on the human response to the devastation of the 9/11 attacks. Project Rebirth is a nonprofit organization led by Imagine Entertainment president Jim Whitaker that is producing a documentary chronicling the re-development of the World Trade Center site and the recovery of 10 people coping with the aftermath of 9/11. CCNMTL has recently launched a Web site – http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/rebirth – that provides project information and lists courses taught by leading figures in psychology, social work, nursing, architecture, business, English, film, and other fields at Columbia and Georgetown who will use the content in their classrooms.

Faculty partners from both universities currently have access to hundreds of hours of footage from the Project Rebirth film library. Their students will use a CCNMTL-created environment called VITAL (Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning) to view the footage in a secure, Web-based environment that supports managing and annotating the video content. In addition to the faculty currently using the footage in their classroom, 14 others are preparing to teach the content in spring and summer 2009. The initiative’s goal is to capitalize on the power of close viewing and observation to create a deeper understanding of the effects of 9/11 and to put this understanding into practice in the community.

Columbia and Georgetown will work with Project Rebirth as they prepare to open the Project Rebirth Center, which will serve as a center for therapeutic, education, and training resources that focus on grief and trauma suffered by victims and first responders to major disasters. The Center is scheduled to open in 2010, the same year as the release of the Project Rebirth documentary.

Frank Moretti, CCNMTL executive director and member of the Project Rebirth board of directors, has worked closely with collaborators during the development of the Project Rebirth initiative.

“My colleagues at Georgetown and Columbia have responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to work with Project Rebirth’s unique content, and I thank my team at CCNMTL for helping to get these initiatives underway quickly and efficiently. We are all excited about working together towards meeting the urgent needs targeted by the Project Rebirth Center in collaboration with experts from both universities,” said Moretti.

Visit the Project Rebirth site to learn more.

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

CCNMTL's 4th New Media in Education Conference a Success

October 30, 2008. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) hosted its fourth New Media in Education Conference on October 17, 2008 at Columbia University. New Media in Education: Connecting a Global Community was designed to engage faculty and instructors in a dialogue on the best practices of pedagogy and technology and the future possibilities of an interconnected classroom.

Over 200 faculty, instructors, and other interested parties attended presentations by CCNMTL staff and faculty partners representing the schools of Law, Journalism, Continuing Education, and Social Work, the College of Dental Medicine, Columbia University Libraries, the Earth Institute, Barnard, and Columbia’s Copyright Advisory Office.

Presenters addressed the challenges and successes of using technologies such as simulations, wikis, and multimedia case studies and provided examples of their use at Columbia University. Featured projects included the Millennium Village Simulation, the Global Classroom, Multimedia Case Studies for the Journalism School, e-portfolios for the College of Dental Medicine, and the Southside Chicago Documentation Project. Workshops were also held throughout the day and included information on iTunesU, top Web 2.0 tools for education, and Sakai, a course management tool that will replace Columbia’s current system next fall.

About the NME 2008 conference, CCNMTL executive director Frank Moretti said, “It is our pleasure to co-present with our faculty partners, and to demonstrate what we believe to be exceptional projects and learning opportunities from the past two years. This biennial event has always been a major highlight in CCNMTL’s history.“

In addition, attendees were able to meet CCNMTL’s directors and educational technologists to learn more about the support available to them as they consider the use of technology in their classrooms.

Video recordings of the event are now available on Columbia on iTunes U located at http://itunes.columbia.edu. For more information about the conference, please visit: http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/nme2008.

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

New Media in Education 2008 Conference Web Site

CCNMTL Partners with Earth Institute on New Master's Degree

October 23, 2008.The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded The Earth Institute at Columbia University a $3.275 million grant to create a master’s program that will educate future generations of international development practitioners responsible for addressing the complex problems of extreme poverty and sustainable development. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) will receive a share of the funding to co-develop and support the program’s pedagogical and technological framework.

“The new Master’s in Development Practice will train professionals with the multi-disciplinary knowledge, tools, and management skills they will need to confront the immense and interconnected crises of climate change, extreme poverty, epidemic disease, hunger, rapid population growth, and environmental degradation,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. “CCNMTL’s experience applying technology to education across the full range of academic disciplines makes them a key and enormously creative partner in this endeavor.”

In close collaboration with the newly created “Global Master’s of Development Secretariat,” CCNMTL will develop a repository of teaching and learning tools that will be accessible to partner institutions worldwide. The repository will enable institutions to supplement their own course offerings to meet the requirements of the Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) curriculum. The repository will include taped lectures, case studies, datasets, as well as tools for data analysis and collaboration. CCNMTL will also support the Secretariat’s work to establish an international network of universities and practitioners engaged in cross-border, multi-disciplinary problem solving. Starting in the fall 2009, Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs will be the first of an international consortium of institutions to offer the MDP degree.

In spring 2008, CCNMTL and the Earth Institute piloted what will become one of the MDP’s core courses. The course “Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Development Practice” connected students at twelve universities around the world in a weekly videoconference with international experts to discuss lectures that students viewed prior to class.

“The Master’s of Development Practice (MDP) degree will advance global understanding of the world’s problems and their solutions to shape a habitable and just world for all. It is our hope that the educational and collaborative tools created for the master’s degree will facilitate this effort,” said Frank A. Moretti, CCNMTL’s executive director.

CCNMTL’s Global Learning Initiative is a strategic effort that mobilizes the power of new media and technology to expand collaboration among the world’s educational community. Read more about the Global Learning Initiative at http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/globallearning/.

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

CCNMTL Partners with Social Work Faculty on $3.3 Million Grant

October 20, 2008. A $3.3 million, five-year grant was awarded to Dr. Nabila El-Bassel of the Columbia University School of Social Work by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study the efficacy of a multimedia HIV prevention program to be developed with the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL).

CCNMTL will work closely with Dr. El-Bassel and the Social Intervention Group (SIG) research team to create Multimedia WORTH (Women on the Road to Health), an online, interactive version of a drug use and HIV/STI prevention intervention that has proven effective for female offenders in a large Alternative-to-Incarceration Probation Program in New York City. Recent studies have found that female offenders under community supervision test HIV positive at rates that are four times higher than the general population.

“There is an urgent need to identify and scale up evidence-based HIV prevention interventions for drug-involved women on probation,” said Dr. El-Bassel. “Our hypothesis is that use of multimedia will result in superior outcomes.”

Multimedia modules developed for the intervention – including video models and interactive tools – will also be used in Columbia courses to help social work and public health students, and other human service professions develop the skills needed in these fields. SIG researchers hypothesize that multimedia will result in better facilitator delivery of the four-session, gender-specific intervention and will generate a better response to the intervention by study participants.

“Putting technology to work in the service of improving the human condition is at the heart of CCNMTL’s Triangle Initiative,” said Frank Moretti, executive director of CCNMTL. “We look forward to working with SIG on extending the knowledge, and eventually the reach, of multimedia-driven health interventions through research and education.”

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

CCNMTL Launches Columbia On iTunes U

Columbia on iTunes U Album Art

September 15, 2008. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning launched Columbia University's new site on iTunes U in early September. The site, called “Columbia on iTunes U,” allows Columbia students, faculty, and the public to download free lectures, seminars, and other Columbia-produced media content to mobile devices or personal computers.

iTunes U was created by Apple to provide schools with a platform to archive and distribute educational content to the university community and the public. Many universities also use the platform to distribute audio and video clips of campus tours and popular speakers making it easier than ever to stay connected with alumni and prospective students.

In fall 2005, CCNMTL began promoting the use of podcasting as a tool for instructors to provide educational resources to their students. Later, in an effort to expand the Center's podcasting capacity and accessibility to faculty and students, CCNMTL began working with Apple on an iTunes U contract for Columbia University. During this period, Columbia University's medical and dental schools produced podcasts for nearly 30 courses each semester. These podcasts, in addition to digital libraries, quizzes, glossaries, and lecture podcasts from around the university, have contributed to the 1,400+ media tracks now available on Columbia’s iTunes U site.

The Center will continue to support faculty and instructors to effectively use podcasts in their teaching and help them manage their own course-related audio and video collections within the site. Students enrolled in Columbia courses will be able to download these materials for further review and study.

Podcasts of conferences, featured content, and promotional materials, such as walking tours of the campus, are currently accessible through Columbia’s site. Columbia's schools and departments will manage their own sections within Columbia on iTunes U, offering new audio and video content for courses and academic lectures, student profiles, and admissions videos. Publicly available content will continue to be added to the site throughout each academic year.

Columbia on iTunes U is accessible through its launch site, http://itunes.columbia.edu. For more information please contact CCNMTL at ccnmtl-itunesu@columbia.edu.

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

Columbia on iTunes U Launch Site

CCNMTL Collaborates with WGBH and UMASS Boston to Activate Vietnam Digital Archive

June 25, 2008. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has recently awarded a National Leadership Grant to the WGBH Educational Foundation Media Library and Archives (WGBH) along with the University of Massachusetts Boston Healey Library (UMB) and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) for the creation of a digital library with material from the 1983 WGBH miniseries Vietnam: A Television History. The IMLS grant award is $709,000, and WGBH has raised an additional $451,000 in matching funds.

The materials that WGBH generated to create the landmark 13-hour miniseries about the war in Vietnam are currently being preserved and digitized at the University of Massachusetts Boston. CCNMTL will work with WGBH to make these materials accessible to instructors, scholars, and the general public. Photographs and hundreds of hours of interviews, original footage, and archived footage will allow for significant scholarly work to be conducted with these materials that heretofore were inaccessible to scholars, students, and the public. Working in partnership with Columbia faculty from several departments, CCNMTL will define pedagogical models for engaging a range of these multimedia materials.

Dr. Charles Armstrong, Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences at Columbia University, is partnering with CCNMTL to allow the students in his fall 2009 History of the Vietnam War course to create their own short documentaries using materials from the digital archive. Drs. Margaret Crocco and Bill Gaudelli, Teachers College professors of Social Studies and Social Studies and Education, respectively, are teaming up to create a course where educators will assess how the Vietnam War has been taught, and conceptualize new methods of teaching this subject in K-12 schools using multimedia lesson plans. Dr. John Broughton, associate professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, will use the materials in a course in Media Studies to help students examine representations of culture and youth during the Vietnam era.

The public will have access to the miniseries materials through the WGBH Open Vault Web site (http://openvault.wgbh.org/) and on-site at UMB Healey Library. Pedagogical models developed at Columbia will be made available to the public. WGBH, CCNMTL, and the University of Massachusetts also plan to create a consortium of institutions and instructors interested in using the Vietnam Digital Library in their own classrooms.

"This project represents an important partnership between public television, academic institutions, and a digital media and education center where the collaboration produces a profound and lasting impact on the teaching and study of the Vietnam War," said Frank Moretti, CCNMTL's executive director.

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

Read the Vietnam Digital Library informational sheet (PDF)

CCNMTL Hosts Technology and Learning Event for CUMC Faculty

April 28, 2008. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) hosted Innovation in the CUMC Classroom on April 22, 2008 in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame Theater to reintroduce Columbia University’s health science educators to technology innovations for teaching and learning.

More than 60 faculty, instructors, librarians, and university officials from the College of Dental Medicine, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the School of Nursing, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Columbia University Information Services attended the event to hear presentations by dental and medical faculty and CCNMTL staff. Faculty presenters discussed pedagogical challenges such as effectively teaching cultural competency and teaching histology to large classes, while also introducing technological solutions to these challenges. The presentations focused on several teaching tools including virtual microscopy, Web-based simulations, Web-based reflection portfolios, and VITAL, a video-based observation tool.

Other presentations included information about iTunesU, Columbia Wikispaces, and Sakai, a tool that is being considered as the replacement for Columbia’s course management system, CourseWorks. In addition, attendees were able to meet CCNMTL’s directors and educational technologists to learn more about the support available to them as they consider the use of technology in their classrooms.

Video recordings of the event will be available to the general public on Monday, May 12, 2008 via the CCNMTL Web site: http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu. For more information about CCNMTL or to visit CCNMTL, please contact Dana Hoover at 212-854-4407.

See also:

Innovation in the CUMC Classroom Event Web Site

View full press release (PDF)

New Global Classroom On Sustainable Development

January 29, 2008. Students around the world can now have a live interactive discussion with the top thinkers in the field of sustainable development—without ever having to leave their classroom. This week, economist Jeffrey Sachs, 2007 Nobel laureate Rajendra K. Pachauri, UNICEF Director Ann Veneman and several other experts kicked off a new “global classroom” that links leading problem solvers with hundreds of graduate students through new web technology.

"The idea is simple yet profound," said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. "By integrating taped lectures and live web-based discussions, the classes will bring together students in a dozen universities around the world, to help forge a new discipline of sustainable development. The span of schools is phenomenal, reaching beyond the U.S. to include campuses in Europe, Africa, South America, South Asia, and East Asia. The Global Classroom provides the opportunity for expert lecturers and diverse bodies of students to hold a real-time worldwide discussion on the world's foremost problems of sustainable development so that together they, and we, can brainstorm on solutions."

The master's-level course titled, "Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Development Practice," launched worldwide on January 22 and will continue through the spring. It is being led by The Earth Institute's Commission on Education for International Development Professionals and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL). John McArthur, Associate Director, Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and Jeffrey Sachs are co-chairs of the course.

"The Global Classroom Project will contribute significantly to the world's efforts to advance global understanding both of the problems and their solutions related to shaping a habitable and just world for all," said Frank A. Moretti, CCNMTL's Executive Director.

Sustainable development is a worldwide responsibility and through online meeting rooms, video, live chat, and discussion boards, the course will provide a truly global academic setting where students in a dozen universities can learn and explore the relationship across core fields of study in agriculture and nutrition; economics; environment and climate science; management; policy, anthropology and social studies; public health; technology and engineering.

At Columbia the course is offered for credit by the School of International and Public Affairs. Throughout the semester, instructors at each partner institution will draw on a common syllabus and set of pre-taped lectures, reading assignments, and other resources available through a "super site" course management system developed by CCNMTL. While some lectures will be delivered live over the internet, in most cases students will view pre-taped lectures outside of class time to allow maximum time to engage with lecturers in video-enabled online discussions. Students and instructors will also have access to the video-capable online environment to facilitate cross-institutional discussions and collaborative assignments.

"This is just a first step," said McArthur. "We hope other schools and programs will take on this model to teaching students across disciplines while convening classes across borders. The world's toughest development challenges - like climate change, poverty, and water scarcity - will require collaborative global problem solving that draws upon core insights from various fields. Just like YouTube and Facebook have revolutionized how people communicate with each other, so can new media revolutionize approaches to education and learning."

Joining Columbia University in the Global Classroom project this semester are institutions of higher learning on five continents: The Energy and Resources Institute (India), Georgetown University (USA), Institute of Development Studies, Sussex (UK), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (Singapore), Mekelle University (Ethiopia), Sciences Po (France), Tsinghua University (China), Universidad Internacional del Ecuador (Ecuador), University of International Business and Economics (China), University of Ibadan (Nigeria), and the University of Malaya (Malaysia).

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

Award Received for Brownfield Action Seminar

December 19, 2007. NITLE Eastern Advisory Council awarded Barnard College $28,000 to organize and implement the "Brownfield Action Seminar." The seminar, scheduled for spring 2008, will allow Professor Peter Bower and his partners at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning to educate faculty from other colleges and universities on the award-winning environmental simulation Brownfield Action 3.0.

Brownfield Action, created in 1999 by Peter Bower and CCNMTL, is currently in use at Connecticut College, Georgia College and State University, and Lafayette College. The simulation exposes students to the real-world practice of environmental forensics through a virtual ground water contamination narrative. The narrative includes access to fictional town residents and a suite of scientific tests and data leading students to a final report on the feasibility of the contaminated site's commercial use.

The newly Web-based simulation is currently supported by a $450,000 three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant is focused on improving the simulation's technical infrastructure, thereby making the broad dissemination of this project technologically possible.

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

Read more about Brownfield Action 3.0

NIMH Funds SMART +SA Project

December 17, 2007. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) is partnering with researcher Robert Remien of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies on a two-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to adapt and pilot test a multimedia version of a proven HIV treatment adherence program. The addition of technology will support lay counselors in South African HIV care clinics implementing the program with limited training and supervision while ensuring greater standardization.

The project, "Multimedia Social Support Intervention: Adherence to HIV Care in South Africa," is modeled on SMART Couples, a drug adherence program that has been shown to be effective in New York City clinics by Dr. Remien and his HIV Center team. The current project, known as SMART+SA, will support counselors at health clinics in Cape Town in assisting HIV-positive adults to adhere to their antiretroviral drug regimens through a combination of education and social support. CCNMTL will work with a consortium of Columbia and University of Cape Town researchers and local community members to determine the appropriate role of technology for the project.

"Our partnership with CCNMTL provides us with a very exciting opportunity to engage technology experts, academic researchers, clinicians, and community consultants in a collaborative effort to create a user friendly and culturally appropriate program that can be readily 'scaled-up' if shown to be effective in our study," said Dr. Remien. "Teaching and training tools such as the ones we are developing are greatly needed in Sub-Saharan Africa and other resource poor settings coping with very high rates of HIV among the general population."

SMART+SA is part of CCNMTL's Triangle Initiative and will be used to enrich Columbia courses in Public Health and Social Work. "The Triangle Initiative strives to extend the application of the University's research both into the classroom and the larger community," said executive director Frank Moretti. "The community we serve is the community of humanity, and the SMART+SA project is our first effort to extend our work to those in Africa suffering from HIV/AIDS."

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

Read more about SMART +SA

CCNMTL Debuts New Technologies at 2007 Fall Premiere

New York, September 17, 2007. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) kicked off the academic year with the 2007 Fall Premiere, presenting an overview of the newest technology and services offered to Columbia University faculty.

Faculty and instructors from more than 35 academic departments and divisions of the University attended the event, which presented innovative ways that Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis, podcasts, and RSS (really simple syndication) feeds enhance classroom teaching and course Web sites. Speakers also highlighted iTunesU, a podcast repository, which may soon be available university-wide.

"User-created content and social networking have soared in popularity around the world; this popularity is now spilling over into the academic community. This event allowed us to present purposeful and powerful teaching and learning tools for faculty and students while harnessing a wave of new technology that many students are already familiar with," said Maurice Matiz, vice executive director of CCNMTL.

Columbia Wikispaces, a derivative of Tangient's Wikispaces.com, launched this fall. Columbia Wikispaces offers a private wiki - a collaborative Web site that faculty and students edit with the ease of a familiar word-processing style interface - to all University courses. Wiki participants can easily share content, photographs, and other media within a private Web space intended to supplement the course curriculum.

The event also introduced new CCNMTL services for faculty and instructors, including several new workshops and EnhancED, a new Web site for faculty with resources and articles that explore the use of new technology with familiar teaching activities. This EnhancED Web site is available at http://enhanced.ccnmtl.columbia.edu.

View full press release (PDF)

CCNMTL and SIG Receive $3.5 Million Grant

New York, July 30, 2007. The Columbia University School of Social Work's Social Intervention Group (SIG) and the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) announced today the receipt of a $3.5 million, five-year research grant award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The goal of the collaborative project is to evaluate the outcomes of using multimedia and Web-based technology to disseminate an HIV prevention program.

Project Connect is the first prevention program designed for heterosexual couples at risk of HIV infection. "The incidence of new HIV infections is not yet declining, but we know how to reduce potential risks," said Dr. Susan Witte, principal investigator and associate professor at the School of Social Work. "While paper-based materials have been traditionally utilized in prevention programs, multimedia strategies promise a greater likelihood of more rapid and widespread risk reduction. Our goal is to determine the most effective method for the dissemination of important information to the larger community."

Funds from NIMH will further this goal: 80 community-based organizations in New York State will be randomly selected to receive either the paper version of Connect or the Web-based Multimedia Connect developed by the SIG/CCNMTL team. Multimedia Connect incorporates videos, interactive tools and activities that support both the facilitator in sessions with clients as well as training of the facilitator. The technology also reduces facilitators' preparation time, enabling them to focus more on clients. SIG researchers will evaluate the successful adoption of the intervention at the end of the five-year period.

"CCNMTL's work with SIG on Multimedia Connect has advanced the research they pioneered, positioning them now to undertake the study of a large-scale dissemination of their proven intervention," said Frank Moretti, executive director of CCNMTL. "An additional and important benefit of this work is its active use in social work classrooms as well as in the field."

See also:

View full press release (PDF)

Featured Project Page for Multimedia Connect (PDF)

CCNMTL Symposium Discusses Video Archives and Open Access in Education

New York, June 7, 2007. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) and Intelligent Television recently hosted a highly successful symposium on best practices in video, education, and open content. Video and audio recordings of the event and access to ongoing discussions will be available at http://opencontent.ccnmtl.columbia.edu.

The two-day invitational symposium, gathering an international audience of leaders in the education, industry, and archival communities, built upon the work that CCNMTL and Intelligent Television have been conducting in the area of educational video, open productions, and commercial/noncommercial collaborations. The group discussed new approaches-economic, legal, and editorial-to the creation and distribution of important new resources for open education and explored how video and open education can work together for the public good amidst rising concerns of copyright and fair use violations.

Rick Prelinger, founder of Prelinger Archives and board president of the Internet Archive, challenged industry and educational leaders in his keynote address by stating, "We need to default to openness...archives will be in trouble if people look at them as a place that blocks access." Typifying this statement of openness was Yale University's initial announcement to make digital videos of selected undergraduate courses available through the Internet for free.

Senior representatives attended the conference from Columbia University, Creative Commons, Digital Library Federation, Google/YouTube, Hewlett Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Intelligent Television, Library of Congress, Mellon Foundation, Microsoft, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Science Foundation, Open Courseware Consortium, Renew Media, Rockefeller Foundation, Thirteen/WNET, VFinity, WGBH Public Broadcasting, and many universities around the United States. Peter B. Kaufman, CCNMTL associate director and Intelligent Television founder, convened the conference as part of his Columbia appointment supported by the Open Educational Resources program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

View full press release (PDF)

View Video, Education, and Open Content web site

Havel at Columbia Site Released to Support Václav Havel's Residency

New York, October 26, 2006. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, in partnership with the Columbia University Arts Initiative, has released the Havel at Columbia site, a resource to support former Czech President Václav Havel's seven-week residency on campus.

As an artist, thinker, essayist, human rights leader and transformational political leader, Václav Havel is one of the most significant cultural and political figures of our time. On December 29, 1989 he was elected president of a united and democratic Czechoslovakia. His residency at Columbia will be his first extended stay in New York since stepping down from office in early 2003. While he is on campus, the University community will pay tribute to his life and ideas with a number of lectures, symposia, screenings, and panel discussions.

The Havel at Columbia site contains a wide range of teaching and learning materials for classroom study of Havel's life and art, and will continue to grow throughout the semester as events and materials are added. The multimedia resource features video interviews with scholars, artists, and political figures contributing their insights on Václav Havel's legacy as an artist and political leader, including Dean Lisa Anderson from the School of International and Public Affairs, former President George H. W. Bush, Edward Albee, Milos Forman, Lou Reed, and George Soros. A timeline of events, an image glossary with photographs and primary documents, and archival footage from television and films provide historical context for the Velvet Revolution and Havel's presidency, making the site a rich educational resource both during and beyond his campus residency. The site will eventually feature video recordings of the many lectures, performances, and presentations that will take place through December. These will be available to view online and downloadable as podcasts.

Courses that will be using the Havel at Columbia site this fall include an undergraduate seminar in "History, Literature, Film and Dissent in Eastern European Culture" by Brad Abrams and Christopher Harwood and a multidisciplinary course at Barnard co-taught by Cathy Nepomnyashchy with theater lecturer Amy Trompetter that includes a study and performance of Havel's play "The Beggar's Opera." Anne Bogart will focus on the political theater of Clifford Odets and Havel in her graduate MFA course "Directing III." In addition, Literature Humanities students will study Havel's play "The Garden Party," Havel will deliver a lecture to the Core Curriculum's Contemporary Civilization course, for which students will read Havel's essay "Dear Dr. Husk."

To allow instructors to create a more customized experience of the site for their courses, CCNMTL has introduced a new feature called the Havel Notebook. Any Columbia University faculty member or student with a UNI can log in to the notebook to organize their own resources from the site by saving and annotating text, images, and links to a personalized page, or "notebook." Developed in coordination with faculty partners from the Harriman Institute, School of the Arts, and Barnard College, these notebooks can be shared with others, making them especially useful for classes that are using the Havel at Columbia site as a resource.

View press release (PDF)

Havel at Columbia

Successful Grant Proposals Help CCNMTL Expand Project Development

New York, August 10, 2006. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) has secured or helped secure substantial grant funding this past spring. Most of the funding will support the deployment of innovative technologies for course work and the development of pedagogical strategies that encourage students to engage fully with course material in disciplines that span the humanities, sciences, and social sciences, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. A new facet to some of these grant-funded projects is a community service-oriented component, part of CCNMTL's new Triangle Initiative that seeks to extend the benefits of University research into the classroom and to the community beyond Columbia. Below is a sampling of these projects:

CCNMTL and the School of Social Work continue to build upon a strong partnership with two successful grant proposals that are key elements of the Triangle Initiative. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Project Connect, led by PI Professor Susan Witte, a two-year grant of $400,000 to disseminate HIV interventions based on research produced by the Social Interventions Group. CCNMTL will receive approximately $271,000 to help develop technology and media for a multimedia version of Project Connect, components of which are currently being used in courses and tested in metro area clinics.

Also from the School of Social Work, Ellen Lukens (PI), Peggy O'Neill and Helle Thorning of the Center for Family Education and Resilience have been awarded a grant of $45,000 to develop HOPE-NY, a curriculum to train NYC officials and community leaders to deal with trauma in the event of community disasters or public health emergencies. CCNMTL will receive a subcontract for $16,000 to assist in the development of a small pilot prototype.

The Center for Jazz Studies, led by Professor Robert O'Meally, Director for Jazz Studies, has received a three-year $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation. CCNMTL will receive approximately $241,000 to produce a Jazz Sonic Glossary, as well as an implementation of Video Interactions in Teaching and Learning (VITAL) that will include a library of videos of jazz performances to be deployed this fall in Jazz Studies courses.

CCNTML has also received a one-year gift of $200,000 from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to increase the understanding of educators, technologists, video producers, and other stakeholders about potential uses of video and open content. As part of this grant, Peter Kaufman, director of Intelligent Television, joins CCNMTL as an associate director to provide leadership with initiatives related to video and open content, including producing a conference to be held at Columbia in the spring of 2007.

The School of Journalism received a $1.25 million grant from the Knight Foundation to establish the Knight Case Studies Initiative to promote journalism leadership. CCNMTL will develop the case studies into interactive modules, which, coupled with classroom discussion, will teach the process of newsroom decision-making in ways that further the creation of fair, accurate, contextual news in the public interest. Columbia has already tested three cases. The first follows one day's news cycle at The Washington Post from the point of view of Leonard Downie Jr., the paper's executive editor, who decides what to put on the front page. Another looks at the reporting from Knight Ridder's Washington bureau on Iraq's weapons capabilities during the buildup to and aftermath of the 2003 invasion. Knight Ridder was significantly more skeptical about those capabilities than most American news organizations, and the case illustrates how to question the official version of the news on national security matters. The third case leads students through an analysis of the data available to reporters covering Hurricane Katrina.

In addition, Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning (VITAL): A Learning Environment for Courses in Early Mathematics Education, was approved for a third year of funding from the National Science Foundation at approximately $460,000. Originally awarded to CCNMTL and Teachers College in 2004, this grant supports the development of a learning environment that consists of a curriculum for early childhood mathematics education and a digital library of videos within an online community workspace.

View release as PDF

Journalism School Announces Grant from Knight Foundation

June 22, 2006. The School of Journalism has received a $1.25 million grant from the Knight Foundation that will establish the Knight Case Studies Initiative
to promote journalism leadership. The case studies will be developed into interactive modules by CCNMTL, which, coupled with classroom discussion, will teach the process of newsroom decision-making in ways that further the creation of fair, accurate, contextual news in the public interest.

Columbia has already tested three cases. The first follows one day's news cycle at The Washington Post from the point of view of Leonard Downie Jr., the paper's executive editor, who decides what to put on the front page. Another looks at the reporting from Knight Ridder's Washington bureau on Iraq's weapons capabilities during the buildup to and aftermath of the 2003 invasion. Knight Ridder was significantly more skeptical about those capabilities than most American news organizations, and the case illustrates how to question the official version of the news on national security matters. The third case leads students through an analysis of the data available to reporters covering Hurricane Katrina.

CCNMTL Hosts Third New Media in Education Conference

New York, January 25, 2006. The Columbia Center for New Media Teaching & Learning (CCNMTL) will host its third biennial conference, "New Media in Education 2006: A Progress Report," on Friday, January 27, 2006 in Low Memorial Library. The conference on new media technology in education will include faculty panels and demonstrations of many of CCNMTL's projects, including Video Interactions in Teaching and Learning (VITAL), the Educational Multimedia Case Constructor (EMCC), and The Autobiography of Malcolm X Multimedia Study Environment.

"The goal of our third New Media in Education conference is to highlight some of the innovations that have evolved since CCNMTL began its work seven years ago," says Dr. Frank Moretti, executive director of CCNMTL. "This conference provides an opportunity to share our commitment to current developments in technology while reflecting upon newly emerging pedagogical best practices."

This year's conference includes panel discussions:

• A Partnership in Educational Innovation, featuring Columbia College's core science course, Frontiers of Science and the School of Journalism's The Washington Post Case Study;

• Virtual Fieldwork for Pre-Professional Education, featuring Video Interactions in Teaching and Learning (VITAL) and its role in graduate programs at Teachers College, the School of Social Work, and the School of Dental and Oral Surgery;

• New Technologies Serving Educational Goals, highlighting collaborative Web sites and media-rich resources and study environments;

• New Directions: Research, Education, and Community Service, discussing new efforts at CCNMTL to leverage multimedia adaptations of University research for use in Columbia's classes and the broader community.

In addition to these panels, the conference will include workshops on new technologies, such as podcasting, blogs, and Web services. There will be a faculty computer lab, where conference participants will be able to review CCNMTL projects and services and meet with panelists.

All members of the Columbia community are invited to attend this free conference. It will highlight the instructor's perspective, but librarians, information technology staff, and administrators supporting courses are welcome to participate. More information and online registration is available at http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/nme2006.

Press Release

CCNMTL Releases The Autobiography of Malcolm X MSE

January 18, 2005. The Autobiography of Malcolm X Multimedia Study Environment (MSE) presents Malcolm X's memoir as the textual "spine" with links to critical annotations, audio, video, and images within an innovative interactive Web site. The Autobiography is the 17th MSE produced by the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL). Professor Manning Marable, Director of Columbia's Center for Contemporary Black History (CCBH), served as CCNMTL's faculty partner and Executive Editor for this MSE, which will be used in his lecture course on Malcolm X.

As a personal account of his life story as told to Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the most popular and accessible text on Malcolm X. However, as an autobiography, it fails to reconcile certain inconsistencies and factual errors. The MSE seeks to provide a resource for studying and understanding Malcolm X by delving beyond the Haley text through critical annotations, interviews, and other primary sources organized by four "lenses," or perspectives: politics, culture, globalism, and faith.

In addition to annotating this landmark text, the MSE provides access to materials that make it an invaluable resource for scholars, including a case file on the assassination of Malcolm X. This unprecedented collection contains material not readily available to the public before, ranging from photographs of the contents of Malcolm X's pockets when he was shot to files from the FBI and the New York Municipal Archives. The multimedia archive features original interviews with Columbia Professors Farah J. Griffin and Robin Kelley, as well as Malcolm X's contemporaries Max Stanford and Ossie Davis, among others. The MSE also incorporates four video lectures by Dr. Marable on the Malcolm X/Alex Haley collaboration, the assassination, Malcolm X and politics, and Malcolm X and gender.

Frank Moretti, Executive Director of CCNMTL, points out that "The Malcolm X MSE represents the culmination of an ambitious, three-year collaboration between CCNMTL and CCBH. We have created a site that supports research and education, with information and commentary never before gathered in one place. We hope that the combination of its design, along with the power of the Autobiography and the life of Malcolm X himself, will make The Autobiography of Malcolm X MSE a powerful tool for African American scholarship."

Access to The Autobiography of Malcolm X MSE is available to faculty or students affiliated with a course using the MSE. For more information on this or any of the other 16 MSEs, please contact CCNMTL.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X MSE

Press Release

CCNMTL Releases New Multimedia Study Environment:The Annihilation of Caste

November 12, 2004. Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) has released a new multimedia study environment, The Annihilation of Caste, an undelivered 1936 speech by Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar ('15 M.A., '28 Ph.D., '52 HON) advocating for the abolition of the Hindu caste system. The speech, intended for the annual conference of the Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal Society of Lahore, lays bare the inequities (and iniquities) of the caste system, its debilitating effects on all Hindus, and its stultifying influence on India's growth towards nationhood. Frances Pritchett, Professor of Modern Indic Languages in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures conceived and developed the content of this annotated version of the text.

"The Annihilation of Caste is an important text, and by presenting it in this format, with strong annotations, students can do so much more with it. They can make connections between different parts of the text and other primary sources, providing a more comprehensive understanding of its historical context," according to Pritchett. The multimedia study environment - www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/ambedkar - will be used in this semester's "Introduction to Indian Civilization" undergraduate course. With the continued support of the CCNMTL and the Southern Asian Institute (which provided research funding for the first phase of the project), Pritchett plans to further develop the site to include additional commentary from Columbia faculty and other academics.

The multimedia study environment (MSE) of The Annihilation of Caste includes:
- An historical timeline of Ambedkar's life
- Correspondence related to the speech, including Mahatma Gandhi's published
response
- Other works by Ambedkar, including The Constitution of India
- Links to the Imperial Gazetteer of India, housed at the Digital South Asia Library

Ambedkar earned his master's degree in 1915 and his Ph.D. in economics in 1928 from Columbia University, where he formed many of his ideas about equality and social justice while studying under Columbia professor John Dewey. Ambedkar's work on the Constitution of India provided the legal framework for the abolition of many oppressive features of Indian society and gained rights for India's 60,000,000 untouchables. In 1952,Columbia presented him with an honorary doctorate of law for his accomplishment.

The Annihilation of Caste

Press Release

CCNMTL Awarded $2.3 Million from NSF to Develop New Teaching Resource Supporting Early Childhood Mathematics

New York, June 7, 2004. The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded $2.3 million to a consortium led by Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL) to develop Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning (VITAL): A Learning Environment for Courses in Early Mathematics Education. This new resource will give prospective early childhood mathematics teachers new tools to improve their understanding of children's mathematical thinking. The consortium also includes Teachers College and William Patterson University.

Frank Moretti, principal investigator and Executive Director at CCNMTL, and Herbert Ginsburg, the Jacob H. Schiff Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, will lead teams that will develop a curriculum, a digital library of primary source material that includes video cases, expert and scholarly commentary, and an online community workspace.

Studies show that children employ mathematical ideas and methods developed prior to the onset of formal education. By analyzing videos of clinical interviews and classroom interactions, pre-service teachers gain a better understanding of how children employ these mathematical ideas with the anticipation that this will improve teacher performance. "At a time when there is less support for supervision and mentoring of teachers in the schools themselves, universities have a greater responsibility to insure that abstract theory and training in practical judgment are both part of a teacher's preparation," explained Frank Moretti. "VITAL merges the two in a unique online environment, so that teachers of early childhood mathematics not only learn what is known in the field but also develop the skill to recognize the creative mathematical intelligence all children have as their natural endowment."

A prototype of VITAL, developed by CCNMTL during the 2002-2003 academic year, is presently being used in Dr. Ginsburg's classes. He has been working with video to supplement his teaching since the late 1960s and the VITAL prototype allowed Ginsburg to include interactive video lessons in classroom instruction more efficiently. The grant will allow for the creation of an enhanced VITAL that will be tested at Columbia University and William Paterson University. It will then be tested at six sites serving diverse pre-service teacher populations: Boston University, Georgia State University, Howard University, Kean University, Rutgers University-Newark, and San Diego University. By the end of the grant period, May 2009, the resource will be ready for distribution to teacher-education programs nationwide.

"This is an exciting and groundbreaking new program that will revolutionize the way children are taught mathematics," added James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia. "We are grateful to the NSF for supporting a program that will have a powerful impact on teachers and learners."

Press Release

Project Feature: Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning