In Class and Online
If you haven't been in a UT classroom recently, you probably don't realize how big a role technology plays. Well over three-fourths of students and faculty use online tools as part of their classes. Torchbearer talked to two professors who’ve learned new ways of teaching.
Antun Serves Up Technology
How do you teach a class of 75 would-be chefs the difference between batonette, julienne, rondele, and oblique cuts?
How do you show them how to choose the perfect onion? And how do you let them experience a restaurant health inspection?
A peek at Chef Antun's podcastFor more and more UT instructors, such as John Antun, assistant professor in the Department of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management, the answer lies in classroom technology.
A former chef, Antun teaches Quantity Production, a required introduction to food service. With as many as 75 students in the class, there’s no gathering around a table to watch the master at work.
By videotaping himself and then showing video as part of his lecture, Antun can bring the students into his kitchen.
He has created videos to demonstrate knife skills; others, like one he calls “The Humble Onion,” teach how to purchase vegetables and fruits.
Last year, Antun received a grant to make a video of a restaurant inspection. Students see what happens during an inspection and learn that “it’s not an adversarial situation.”
Antun uses some videos during class; others are homework assignments. They’re all posted to Blackboard or Online@UT, which is an online tool that allows an instructor to create and deliver content, communicate with students, deliver surveys and exams, receive homework in digital form, maintain and distribute grades, and more—so students can view them repeatedly if they want.
This year, Antun started podcasting his lectures. It’s great for students who miss a class or want to review.
To prevent students from skipping class and just listening to his lectures on their iPods, Antun factors attendance into his grading scheme.
“I also put the PowerPoint slides that I use to develop my lectures on the Web,” Antun said. And he plans to post interviews he’s done with chefs.
“It’s almost like the Johnny Carson show with experts,” he said.
Antun, 62, who went back to school to get his doctorate after retiring from the restaurant business, admits he’s never been very technologically “savvy.”
When he wanted to add high-tech to his classroom presentations, he turned to UT’s Innovative Technology Center and found that using the new technologies was “so easy, it’s ridiculous.”
“The ITC folks come to your office and train you,” he said.
Antun thinks technology helps keep the attention of students who have grown up with computers, cell phones, and iPods.
“These days, if you ask someone what time it is, they look at their cell phone. You don’t need to ask students to bring calculators to class. They bring them every day on their cell phones.”
Antun said he regularly attends ITC training sessions to keep abreast of technology. “I’m interested in learning all this stuff. I think it’s really tres cool.”
Lida Bryan ('66), who is trying to improve her speech after having a stroke, works with graduate student Emily Reeder at UT's Hearing and Speech Center. Reeder will earn her master's degree in speech pathology in May.
Speak into this iPod
In Sue Hume’s Clinical Voice Clinic, hearing is the key to learning.
Hume is a speech pathologist in UT’s Hearing and Speech Center, part of the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology. The center diagnoses and treats communication disorders and also trains graduate students. The caseload includes children and adults with language, stuttering, hearing, articulation, and voice disorders.
Hume sees patients struggling with hoarseness, vocal fatigue, or other problems due to overuse of their voices. They might be ministers, TV or radio announcers, singers, actors, or teachers.
Although the center has a sizeable number of voice cases, students need more to satisfy their clinical requirements.
“In addition to their coursework, our graduate students have to complete 375 contact hours with clients,” Hume said. “To treat voice disorders, students need to be able to identify and describe perceptual features of normal and disordered voices.”
She wanted to create a library of voice samples that could be posted to Blackboard, or online@UT, for students to use as study tools. The UT Innovative Technology Center provided the technical help and a supply of iPods—which she hadn’t really expected.
“I thought, ‘What am I going to do with these?’” but she and her students have come up with a variety of uses.
Graduate student Emily Reeder attaches a microphone to an iPod and has her patient record directly into it. The recording can be played back immediately so the patient can hear progress or problems that still need correcting.
Reeder said she’s also used the iPods to record and download practice material that can be burned onto CDs patients can use in their cars or homes.
Hume found that the recordings could be quickly and easily downloaded into the library of voice samples for students to study. (Patients’ identities are protected.)
“We also put patients’ voice samples on a CD along with the clinicians’ written reports and the patients’ video stroboscopic exams,” she said. “Having all this information together is very useful.”
For Hume—who had no previous experience with iPods—the equipment has been a nice surprise.
“I’ve gotten a lot more mileage out of them than I ever thought,” she said.
Techies to the Rescue
When UT faculty need help going high-tech, they often turn to the Innovative Technology Center.
ITC Director Jean Derco said faculty can get help with teaching tools, attend a workshop, or get one- on- one assistance.
“The staff here continually research and explore technology issues and best teaching practices, so they are ready to identify the best solutions to help faculty.”
Joan Thomas, manager of visual design development, said the center helps remove barriers faculty experience when they try to go high-tech. In some cases, she said, ITC assigns technologically savvy students to work one-on-one with instructors.
“Some of the typical requests they assist with are setting up new desktop equipment, teaching PowerPoint, posting content in their course site, or designing a Web page,” Thomas said.
One of the most popular tools faculty use is the course-management system Online@UT (Blackboard). Online@UT allows instructors to post course content, communicate with students, deliver surveys and exams, receive homework in digital form, and maintain and distribute grades.
—Amy Blakely