Division of Instructional and Information TechnologyDebra A. Brum, Ph.D. - Vice President, Instructional & Information Technology
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As I prepare this message to the university community on June 9–12, 2008, the campus is being readied for the most important days of the year—the three days on which eight Commencement ceremonies occur. All of us—students, faculty, and staff—look forward to celebrating the reason we came to Cal Poly Pomona. In I&IT we celebrate our staff and student assistants who will walk the stage this week, and we celebrate the part we play in their achievements. Our seasonal photo features 17 of the 25 I&IT staff members who are proud Cal Poly grads (I’m the one in the cap and gown). Congratulations to all 3,700 students graduating this weekend—and to all of the professors and others who helped them to achieve their dreams! |
Graduates, students, families, friends, faculty and staff can view the commencement ceremonies live and on-demand at video.csupomona.edu. Each year viewers from all 50 states and from 75 or more countries enjoy commencement at a distance.
Tenured and probationary faculty members with laptops that are three years old or older will receive email messages from I&IT no later than June 30 offering them a new laptop to be delivered in August or September.
A faculty learning community supported by the Faculty Center for Professional Development and I&IT Learning explored two types of student response systems (clickers) during the winter quarter. Feedback from the learning community and students in these professors’ courses was reviewed by the Teaching and Learning with Technology Committee (TLTC) of IT Governance. IT Governance selected i>Clicker as the campus standard based on its flexibility and ease of use.
What does it mean to have a campus standard clicker system? Students should be able to buy a single clicker and reuse it in multiple courses, or sell it back to the bookstore for use by other students. The bookstore will have an adequate supply of new and used i>Clickers to meet student needs. I&IT Learning and the Faculty Center for Professional Development will provide regular, ongoing support for i>Clicker users.
Getting started with i>Clicker is as simple as making a call to Studio 6 or the Faculty Center. To assist faculty who are considering using i>Clicker in their courses, the Faculty Center is sponsoring a workshop, “Interactive Learning and i>Clicker,” on Friday, June 20 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (lunch included), location to be announced. You will learn about the pedagogical benefits of interactive learning techniques, practical methods for deepening student engagement, and get hands-on practice in using Cal Poly Pomona’s i>Clicker system. Dr. Alex Rudolph, Associate Professor of Physics, will be the facilitator. For more information, visit the Faculty Center website at www.csupomona.edu/facultycenter.
The first of our two new high-speed campus Internet connections is up and running. Each of these provides about six times our prior speed and capacity. Students, faculty and staff should all benefit from improved and more consistent speed for general Internet access, and for accessing online campus resources while away from campus. In addition, streaming of video content like commencement, and access to and delivery of online course materials should benefit from the improved speed.
When our second Internet connection is available later this summer, the redundancy will protect us against Internet outages. If one link does down, the campus Internet connection will automatically 'switch over' to the second circuit.
Visit I&IT Learning’s web site at www.csupomona.edu/iit/learning early and often. A facelift is in progress – our goal is to make Learning’s support for teaching and learning even more visible. One of the new features is a set of case studies (you can the access case studies directly at http://www.csupomona.edu/~iit/learning/casestudies.shtml). The current set of case studies feature innovative uses of technology in support of teaching - these are great examples of what our faculty can do with a little help from the creative team in I&IT Learning!
Other examples of the assistance available at Studio 6 include:
We have a lot of resources available to assist you in making course materials and web pages accessible to students and others with disabilities. “Catch the Wave” at the Faculty Center – we’re repeating this popular workshop from 2007. You can check out all of the Faculty Center’s offerings at www.csupomona.edu/facultycenter and go directly to Catch the Wave at http://www.academic.csupomona.edu/facultycenter/uploads/flyer_113.pdf. One-hour workshops on creating accessible materials are scheduled throughout the summer. You can find them at http://www.csupomona.edu/~accessibility/training.html. Many of them offer free software to permit you to apply what you’ve learned.
Talented students are available for in-office accessibility consultation. You can ask them to review a sample of your course materials, advise as to any accessibility issues, and help you to modify as needed. Contact Carol (Heins) Gonzales, Accessible Technology Coordinator, at carolhg@csupomona.edu or 909-979-6457 to make an appointment with a student.
Would you like to create a personal web page, but you're concerned about meeting the accessibility requirements and don't want to have to learn web design? Try out Spinneret (http://www.csupomona.edu/~spinneret/), a simple web interface that will build you an empty web site to which you can add content using Adobe Contribute. And you can get a copy of Contribute by attending a Contribute workshop offered by the Accessible Technology Initiative. With Spinneret and Contribute, making an accessible web site is as easy as using a word processor.
I would very much like to hear from you as to how we could better support you and meet your needs.
