March 2008:
"Teaching Truth? Building Up Students in the Faith"
March 26, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Commons Lecture Hall
Unlike colleagues in the secular academy, we do believe in "truth" as a vital element of knowledge. But how–and when–do we teach truth? Some avoid that question, protesting that it is hard to define "truth." And others among us simply revel in skewering our students' flawed assumptions and received knowledge. "But, at some point when teaching confrontationally, how do we pass along something firm for our students to hold on to?"
"Wikipedia and Student Research"
March 19, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Hekman Library 305
Faculty members and librarians across the country are becoming concerned with students using Wikipedia as a source in their college research, and are crafting various responses, from banning it entirely from students’ bibliographies to creating assignments that ask students to engage or even contribute to this online source. Our discussion will address why and how we should challenge students in their use of Wikipedia as a source in college-level research. We will also share ideas for using or engaging Wikipedia creatively, so if you have strategies that have been successful in the classroom, please bring them and add to the discussion! Led by librarian Sarah Kolk.
3rd Annual Teaching with Technology Showcase
March 20, 2008 | 11:30 am - 1:30 pm | Alumni Board Room (Commons Annex)
The Calvin Information Technology Teaching & Learning team is excited to announce the 3rd Annual Teaching with Technology Showcase. Meet CIT's Teaching & Learning team, learn about T&L services, ask questions, share ideas and see how other faculty are using technology for teaching. http://www.calvin.edu/it/tl/twtshowcase/
April 2008:
Wikis, blogs and podcasting…Oh my! (LunchByte)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 | 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. | Common Annex Alumni Board Room | (register)
Harness the power of online collaboration with wikis and blogs, now built-in to your KnightVision course or organization. Wikis can be used for collaborative group projects allowing group members to easily update wiki entries. Blogs (online journals) can be used for groups or individuals, to track progress for an assignment. Both wikis and blogs can be integrated directly with your grade book. The podcast tool in KV enables you to embed audio or video files in your course. Upload songs, readings, video clips, or even a recording of your lecture and all files will be automatically aggregated and made available to play within your course. An RSS feed allows students to subscribe to your podcast in iTunes, automatically download new files and sync them to an iPod.
Point and click: An overview of the clickers (CPS) LunchByte
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 | 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. | Common Annex Alumni Board Room | (register)
The “clickers” are gaining momentum on campus and many instructors are starting to use them regularly with their classes. The clickers are a wireless polling system that offer rich feedback for any class. With this powerful system you can ask multiple choice and numeric questions in classes of any size, as well as measure comprehension, gather opinions and take attendance. Results can even be uploaded to your KnightVision gradebook! Come take a peek and see what the clickers might be able to do for you!
"Foundations for Making Racial Diversity Work"
April 9, 2008 | 3:30-4:45 | Meeter Center Lecture Hall
What are other institutions of higher education doing to make "diversity work"? What can we learn from them, what could they learn from us? This session will include a time of sharing the "big picture" of the office of Multicultural Affairs, a real-time snapshot of what Calvin is doing to support an anti-racist and diversity imitative, and brief presentations of some of the best-practices of other institutions of higher education.
KnightVision: New Features for 2008-2009
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. | Commons Annex Alumni Board Room | (register)
This summer new KnightVision tools and features will be available to the Calvin community. CIT will also be rolling out a new grade center (grade book) and other new content management tools. Come and see what is coming!
GroupWise Basics: Be more productive using GroupWise (Windows)
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. | HL 122 | Instructor: Krista Spahr | (register)
Learn how to be more productive using GroupWise. We’ll show you the various options you have when sending and receiving email learn how to use the address book, create additional address books, and use groups and aliases. We’ll also show you how to use the calendar.
Prerequisite: None
Files here, files there, files, files everywhere: Learning the KV Content System (LunchByte)
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 | 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. | Common Annex Alumni Board Room | (register)
Come see how to save, manage and share files in the Content System. Once in the Content System, you can share and reuse collaborative learning materials across sections, courses, and organizations and link to files in the Content System from your courses or organizations.
Plagiarism Education and Deterrent
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 | 12:10 p.m. - 12:50 p.m. | Commons Annex Allumni Board
Room
Instructor: Rob Bobeldyk | (register)
Plagiarism prevention services are available to Calvin with the flip of a switch and at no additional cost. These services help educators prevent plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers. In addition to acting as a plagiarism deterrent, it also has features designed to aid in educating students about plagiarism and the importance of proper attribution of any borrowed content.
Come join us as we begin to explore the implications of this type of tool at Calvin.
May 2008: