Learning Technologies on Display During Five Minutes of Fame

Posted: June 2, 2009

By Robyn Ness

The Digital Union celebrated its fifth anniversary on May 21 with a showcase highlighting its mission to foster instructional use of technology. CIO Kathleen Starkoff was on hand to deliver opening remarks. She complimented presenters on their creativity and urged the audience to take advantage of the hands-on opportunities.

Among the projects featured were:

• Student programming projects for the iPhone/iPod Touch and the Microsoft Surface Table, which was donated by Digital Union corporate partner Microsoft.

• Innovative multimedia use in ESL instruction – as fostered by the staff of the Learning Collaboration Studio.

• Video selections from several multimedia programs, including the “Tell Us a Story” content, International Day for Sharing Life Stories, John Lennon Educational Tour Bus visit, and an inter-university digital story initiative led by Ohio State.

• An outreach project to bring wireless Internet technology to a Honduran orphanage.

• A multimedia project documenting large course redesign in the Statistics Department.

Hands-on demonstrations included SMART Boards in education, the Telepresence videoconferencing system, Pulse SmartPen, Flip Nino HT mini portacam, GigaPan panoramic photography device, green screen video technology, and the Whisper Room audio recording studio.

Starkoff closed her remarks by noting that, with reorganization under way in the Office of the CIO, the Digital Union will be expanding its role and its staff to become the front door to services supporting teaching and learning with technology at OSU.