EdTech News
Meet our Educational Technology Team
We sincerely value your input and invite you to come hang out in our space (Larner Learning Commons – turn left after you walk into the Dana Medical Library and enter through the Technology Services sliding glass door). Bring your lunch, bring a friend. We are truly here to help and look forward to partnering with you in any way we can.
- Laurie Gelles, PhD – Educational Technology Team Lead
- Cathy Ryan, MEd - Educational Technology Specialist
- Raj Chawla, M.P.H. - Faculty Technology Liaison
Adding Interactive Technologies in Instruction- Microsoft Surface Studio in Larner Classroom
Thanks to suggestions from the faculty, the Larner classroom (100) now has a Microsoft Surface Studio installed as the podium computer. This 27-inch desktop has an articulating screen that lies almost completely flat, thus allowing instructors to annotate and sketch complex concepts live – during active learning sessions. This type of technology lends itself incredibly well to worksheet activities, diagraming, concept maps, and collaborative creations using our Office 365 implementation of OneNote. These creations are across all screens in Larner, sharing the integral piece of visualization with students.
We have already seen it used by Dr. Bryant in Foundations of Clinical Science, and have received positive feedback from students and faculty. We will be installing a Surface Studio in the Reardon (MedEd300) classroom in the near future. Be on the lookout for these innovations!
TEAMS pilot in PHPs- Finding New Ways to Collaborate on Public Health Projects
In collaboration with our Systems Infrastructure group, we are excited to pilot the use of Microsoft Teams with Jan Carney’s Public Health Projects class this year. Teams leverages our implementation of Office 365 and is built for collaboration, offering groups a one-stop solution for document sharing, note taking via OneNote, communicating via chat or email and more. This pilot will explore the use of Teams as a replacement for the WIKI in COMET.
Supporting Osmosis alongside Active Learning - Supporting Secure Access to Osmosis
In support of the pilot Osmosis implementation, members of the Educational Applications, System Infrastructure, and EdTech team worked with Osmosis as the first school to implement single sign on (SSO). We follow very strict security guidelines here, and it is important to make sure that our students’ information and passwords are protected. We are thrilled to be the first technology group to be successful implementing this standard with Osmosis and hope it will allow for a smooth pilot year for our students.
Throw mics- Actively amplifying our spaces using throw microphones
Walking by some of our learning spaces, you may have noticed some colorful cubes being tossed around. While it is known that relevant physical movement helps boost student learning (Gelles, 2013), our students are making use of technology to ensure that their voices are heard. Throw microphones have been widely used in the K-12 sector as means of boosting engagement and amplifying audio components of large spaces. We decided to try them in our classrooms to see if the same theories were applicable to medical education. There have been successful implementations in FoCS led by Dr. Everse, and Dr. Rebecca Wilcox tested their use in her Grand Rounds session on September 20th.
These tools make use of existing lavaliere microphones whose audio channels play through the classroom’s sound system.
If you are interested in trying to use the throw mics, please email us at edtech@med.uvm.edu
Professional Development: New offerings!
We will be offering regular training for faculty on software used in the Larner medical education curriculum. Sessions will be between 60 and 90 minutes in length, and will focus on skills aligned with increasing student engagement and learning in an active learning curriculum.
Take a look at our workshop offerings and schedule.