Seminars 2002-2003

New Media: Faculty Partnerships to Enrich Teaching and Learning
The use of digital media in education has enormous potential to move beyond its role as a course delivery system. Although many users continue to regard educational technology essentially as a publishing medium, we believe new digital media offer great opportunities to enrich the practices of teaching and learning. At the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, we know that a more complex and varied "culture of use" goes hand in hand with the development of appropriate digital tools. This year's University Seminar in New Media Teaching and Learning will use examples from the Center's many partnerships with faculty as a prompt for discussing emerging technologies for teaching and learning in higher education. The goal of our sessions is not only to provide new and stimulating contributions into the Columbia discourse on new media and education, but also to provide an opportunity for the usually disparate players within the Columbia community to come together and exchange ideas and build alliances. In this, our third year of our University Seminar In New Media Teaching and Learning, we will focus upon the use of new media in many Schools and disciplines throughout the University. CCNMTL faculty partners will present current projects and future plans.

April 10, 2003

New Media Learning, Scholarship, and Activism: Dr. Manning Marable

Dr. Manning Marable, Professor of History and Political Science and founding director of both Columbia's Institute for Research on African-American Studies (IRAAS) and Center for Contemporary Black History (CCBH), is also one of the University's pioneers in the use of digital instructional technologies.

March 10, 2003

The Copyright Wars and the Engagement of the Research University Community

James Neal, Vice President, University Information Services and University Librarian, Columbia University, will discuss recent developments affecting the policy and practice of copyright and its current and future impact upon the higher education community. Vice President Neal will outline the topic for us, as well as propose an agenda for research, university action, and advocacy.

February 6, 2003

Florence Nightingale in the Age of Technology: Using PDAs in Health Sciences Curricula

Dean Sara Cook and Professor Suzanne Bakken will present their work integrating PDAs (personal digital assistants) in clinical nursing courses. Dean Cook and Professor Bakken will lead us in reflecting upon technical considerations, evaluation, and future visions, and the educational use of PDAs. In partnership with the School of Nursing, CCNMTL has developed a Clinical Rotation Palm Database for Entry-to-Practice students at the School. Students use the PDA's to document their patient encounters so as to build evidence from practice. The digital learning environment uses specific nursing taxonomy to categorize data, requiring students to document their activities by employing the nursing "language" they will encounter once they graduate.

December 12, 2002

Simulations for Teaching Public Health Issues in Humanitarian Relief

Dr. Ron Waldman, Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University and CCNMTL ReliefSim project team members will demonstrate parts of the simulation, review its development and design, and discuss its future. This should prompt us all to contend with the application of simulations to other aspects of the University curriculum.

November 2, 2002

New Media: A Field of Study, a Means of Scholarship

What's the relationship between technology and thinking, between simulations and learning, or between remembering and understanding? Higher education sits within a historical, social, and linguistic context. Our lives are saturated with "new media"; computer assisted, created, or manipulated images, texts, tools, and practices. Databases, computer languages, interfaces, standards, protocols: what are the contours of this present? How did we get here and how can we design an educational environment in the midst of the objects, tools and products of computing? Just how "new" are the "new media"?

October 10, 2002

Digital Technologies in Medical Education

As Course Director for SPDM-D, Dr. Marc Dickstein faces the challenge of designing a productive learning environment for a class with a large enrollment. A central aspect of the course consists of lectures from leading medical researchers and practitioners. How can we design learning environments to gain from such expertise, yet move students from a passive, note-taking role to an active learning orientation?