Francine Gobert
Staff Writer
Technology, you and the Center for Teaching and Learning. These all relate to you because the CTL works to improve the learning experience for students through training instructors in the latest classroom technologies, the center leaders say.
“We teach faculty to use technology to teach,” Lisa Rodriguez, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, said. “And we are here for a resource for students.”
“We do a lot, not only for faculty but for students to make life more productive on campus,” Frank Foderaro, coordinator of instructional technology said.
The CTL has upgraded its staff and technology to better assist both students and faculty.
The Center has added two new members to its roster including new Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Lisa Rodriguez, and Valerie Shafia, new administrative assistant.
“I love it here,” Rodriguez said.
“I love working with faculty and being involved with technology in general,” Rodriguez said.
Like Rodriguez, Shafia also has a positive outlook.
“It’s been amazing and it’s a good time to be here with all the changes and growth,” Shafia said.
User-friendly upgrades have been made to Blackboard, which is commonly used in classes at La Verne. These changes add to the growth of the center and will make the site easier to navigate.
“We have added social networking software to blackboard,” Rodriguez said.
This software includes blogs, podcast, journals and editing wikis like those on Wikipedia.
Rodriguez said the similarity of these features to those of popular sites such as Myspace functions will allow students to communicate in a way in which they are most familiar.
“The wikis will allow students to collaborate on projects,” Foderaro said.
The wikis provide the students with the capability to edit and add information.
They will also allow each student to input their portion of a project while allowing the instructor to see just how much information each student contributes.
Along with Blackboard upgrades is the news that almost 94 percent of the classrooms on campus are smart classrooms.
The CTL in conjunction with the Office of Information Technology are near completing the smart classrooms.
“I’m really excited about having mid-94 percent in smart classrooms,” Rodriguez said.
The classrooms include a smaller podium rack that take up less space and will make it easier for presentations.
The smart classrooms also include Microsoft Office 2007.
The efforts to make the University of La Verne a technology savvy and safe campus are also important to the changes and growth of the CTL.
“In October I will be visiting every First Year Experience class to talk about illegal downloading, email and Web space,” Rodriguez said.
During her visit Rodriguez will also have the new iTech CD to give out to new students.
The iTech CD will provide students with information on Blackboard, e-mail, illegal downloading information and other important technical information.
The CTL will launch a student survey that will include the chance to win iTunes music prizes.
The survey will be used as an effort to help the CTL in further assisting students and faculty in meeting instructional technology expectations.
Students can expect to see the surveys in the fall.
The CTL will be send them out via e-mail.
For more information about the CTL, visit www.ulv.edu/ctl.
Francine Gobert can be reached at fgobert@ulv.edu.
