PIC Recruits Faculty for 2009/2010 Steering Committee
April 14, 2009
The Program in Interdisciplinary Computing (PIC) is recruiting faculty members to serve on the PIC Steering Committee (PSC). Academic units across campus are encouraged to have representation on the PSC in order to voice your ideas and concerns regarding computing education at FSU and assist in designing solutions and creating opportunities. PSC members serve three years and meet on an average of once every 3 - 4 weeks during the 9 month school year. PSC members experience the satisfaction of effectively improving the quality and availability of computing education for students in their own academic area, as well as the overall student population at FSU. To put your name on the list for the PSC email Ken Baldauf - kbaldauf@pic.fsu.edu.
PIC Hosts NSF CPATH Workshop
April 3, 2009
The Program in Interdisciplinary Computing (PIC) hosted an NSF funded workshop on "Drawing Students to Computing Through Visualization Technologies and Applications". The two day workshop is one in a series of seven NSF CPATH workshops on "Revitalizing Computer Science Education
Through the Science of Digital Media". Thirty faculty from 11 universities participated in the workshop which included four presentations from experts in the field, and hours of round-table discussion. Students from FSU's ACM and ACMW played an important role providing student perspectives on the issue. More information on the workshop is available at http://pic.fsu.edu/cpath.
PIC Injects Technology into ENC3310
March 26, 2009
PIC faculty member Kyle Gower-Winter collaborated with Susan Hellstrom, instructor of ENC3310, Article and Essay Workshop, to inject practical technology and computing lessons into the popular English class. Students in Ms. Hellstrom's section of the class enjoyed three weeks of lessons on digital graphics and blogging. They put their newfound computer skills to use by collaborating on Webazines - online magazines, that included their class writing along with digital artwork. Kyle's useful video tutorials on blogging and digital graphics are available in the Course Materials page on the PIC Web site. View one of the resulting Webazines here!
PIC Director Addresses Council of Deans
February 19, 2009
PIC Director, Ken Baldauf, addressed the monthly meeting of FSU's Council of Deans where he officially introduced the Program in Interdisciplinary Computing, explaining the mission of the new program and discussing its plans.
PIC Presents at FSU's Teaching with Technology Showcase
February 11, 2009
PIC faculty Ken Baldauf and Kyle Gower-Winter provided two presentations at FSU's Teaching with Technology Showcase. Both presentations were well received by the live audience and those that viewed the presentations streamed over the Web. Here are the presentation overviews:
Learning Topic Relevance Through Current Events and Podcasting
Instructional Issue Addressed: Many concepts that we teach are lost on students because they fail to see the relevance of the concepts to their lives and the world. The Web offers a seemingly limitless amount of news sources that can be harnessed to show students the relevance and importance of what we teach, and how it impacts the real world. Turning students into news researchers and reporters helps to drive home educational concepts and calls attention to important events in the community, country, and world.
Technology/Instructional strategy used: This presentation will include the following technologies and topics:
- Finding and subscribing to relevant news sources using RSS technology
- Collecting and researching news stories using Google reader and Google Notebook
- Creating a news podcast using GarageBand or Audacity
- Publishing podcasts on the Web and in iTunes
Creating Collaborative Web Sites for Courses
Instructional Issue Addressed: While Blackboard is useful for providing course students with information, learning material, and grades, it lacks in Web 2.0 features. Fortunately, tools are available for teachers to use to create their own high-quality, state-of-the-art Web 2.0 sites centered around course material. Using these tools teachers can build a social framework where students can contribute and get involved with the learning process.
Technology/Instructional strategy used: Drupal and Joomla have emerged as the two most popular, and user-friendly tools for amateurs to use for building impressive Web 2.0 sites. Students can publish their thoughts and photos, share links, and build conversations around topics. RSS feeds can be streamed to your class site, providing the latest news. Plenty of interactive widgets and design themes are available. This presentation will show how to implement a social networking site for your class.
IDC Goes State-wide!
October 14, 2008
Today the Florida Department of Education, Office of Articulation, informed me that "you and your program have made a convincing case for the creation of the IDC prefix and a new, distinct discipline for Interdisciplinary Computing". Today is the birthday of IDC! Click here for descriptions on the new discipline and prefix.
