The technology-enabled classrooms in the Haven Center were modeled after the
newest rooms on the main campus.  Faculty members with PowerPoint presentations, course Web sites, and online teaching materials have access to standardized rooms that feature a user-friendly media control system, laptop access, a VCR and DVD player and a ceiling mounted data projector.

Bringing spatial analysis into classroom instruction

The University of Redlands has launched an initiative designed to integrate spatial reasoning and analysis into teaching, research, and administration.  Leading the academic portion of this project is the Director of Spatial Curriculum and Research, Diana Sinton.  Diana comes to the university from the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education where she was involved with many universities interested in integrating visualization and spatial analysis into their curriculum. 

Several Redlands faculty members have begun to work with Diana to develop brief spatial exercises for their fall 2007 courses.  Environmental Studies students in Wendy McIntyre’s Biodiversity class will be interpreting landscape variables using ArcGIS, while Jennifer Tilton’s Race and Ethnic Studies students will soon be using Social Explorer (a Web-based tool) to look at census data.

Full-semester initiatives are also in the works. Steve Wuhs is working with Diana to create a new spring 2008 government course called Territorial Politics. Students will use a variety of mapping tools to analyze and answer questions related to the political relationships that exist in Mexico and the United States. Additional faculty who are working on new and existing courses include Wes Bernardini (Sociology and Anthropology), Alex De Pinto (Economics) and Lillian Larsen
(Religious Studies).

All faculty are encouraged to come and learn more about spatial analysis and map making by attending a series of Monday workshops.  The first workshop, titled Introduction to Spatial Learning, will be held October 8, 2007 from 4:00-5:00 pm in the Fletcher Jones Center, C Lab. For more information on these workshops, please contact Monica Hally via e-mail at monica_hally@redlands.edu.  For additional information regarding this initiative, Diana can be reached by phone at extension 8687, or by email at diana_sinton@redlands.edu.

COLLABORATIVE WORKSPACE FOR THE NET GENERATION
Recent educational research and studies state that the incoming first year students (often referred to as the Net Generation due to their dependency on technology) will gravitate toward group projects.  The research also indicates that learning-by-doing is the most effective way to learn. Collaboration plays an integral part in this form of learning.  This is good news for faculty who see collaborative learning as both a stimulating and interesting way for their students to achieve academic success.

In an effort to support collaborative learning, one of the rooms in the Fletcher Jones Center (FJC) has been recently renovated to incorporate technologies that allow students to focus on group projects, including co-authoring papers and presentations.  This new room has been named the Collaborative Learning Space (CLS). 

The CLS is divided into two areas.  The first area is designed for both conceptualizing and finalizing documents.  This area features an electronic whiteboard connected to a workstation.  Students can visualize the details of their project by writing on the electronic whiteboard.   Specialized software allows these details to be saved or printed.

In the second area, students can work digitally to create group projects.  This area of the room differs dramatically from the aging concept of a single computer with team members huddled around it.  With the TeamSpot software, students sitting at individual workstations, while researching and preparing portions of the project, can share files between each other.  They can also copy and paste information to a group document on the large LCD screen.  The shared LCD screen is where students work together to complete a paper or presentation. 

Faculty and/or students interested in touring the room or who need assistance using the technology should contact Catherine Walker at extension 8321 or Kimberly Perna at extension 8316.  Reservations for the CLS are made through Deborah Willis. She can be reached at extension 8965.