Past Sessions

FeedSync: An Open Spec for Synchronization through Atom and RSS Thursday, April 24, 2008

Join Steven Lees from Microsoft for a discussion on FeedSync, a specification for data synchronization through Atom and RSS feeds. Services that work well on devices and in the cloud (like email on your smartphone, desktop, and browser) depend on data synchronization. Until now, those sync methods were a closed system. FeedSync enables synchronization in an open way though easily consumable Atom and RSS feeds.

A question and answer session will follow the main presentation.

About the speaker:
Steven Lees is a member of the CSA Concept Development team at Microsoft, demonstrating how new technology can deliver great end-user experiences. Steven has worked on many developer tools and technologies at Microsoft, including Visual Basic, VBA, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual J++, and tools for mobile devices. Steven's interest is in lowering the barriers to custom application development by making tools that are powerful yet easy to use and extend. He's hoping for some good spring skiing this year.

Podcasting, New Media & The Law Thursday, January 31, 2008

As podcasting becomes more and more popular in the classroom, educators may be bound by additional sets of rules and regulations. Join Colette Vogele, co-author of the Podcasting Legal Guide: Rules for the Revolution and author of the legal issues chapter of The Business Podcasting Book: Launching, Marketing, and Measuring Your Podcast, for a discussion on copyright issues. Vogele's expertise in new media copyright law will be of interest to instructors and others who make classroom audio and video recordings available to students on the Web.

A question and answer session will follow the main presentation.

About the speaker:
Colette Vogele heads the firm Vogele & Associates, which advises individuals, businesses, and non-profit organizations on a range of copyright, trademark, trade secret, patent, and privacy issues as they relate to technology, new media and the arts. Vogele grew up in the Pacific Northwest and is an Honors Program graduate in Political Science from the University of Washington. She earned her law degree cum laude at George Washington University Law School.

Session resources:
Colette Vogele's presentation (PDF)
Session podcast (MP3)

Student-Created Digital Content in UW Courses Thursday, November 1, 2007

Join a panel of UW faculty and instructors as they discuss how they incorporate student-created content into the learning experience: blogs in the Honors in Amsterdam program, online portfolios in Construction Management's distance learning classes, and the rich Web sites of urbanarchives.org and the Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project. Panel members will describe their experiences creating digital content as part of a course and present ideas that can be adapted to other teaching and learning contexts.

Major discussion and presentation points will include: What was the creation process, and how was this process integrated into the course(s)? How was the digital content used in the course and thereafter? How did the creation process improve student learning and contribute to desired learning outcomes?

About the speakers:
Julie Villegas, Associate Director, Honors Program
Clifford Tatum, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Communication
Beginning with the Spring Quarter 2007 course, "Pragmatic Tolerance & Urban Culture in Amsterdam: Interdisciplinarity Research with the Use of e-Research Practices," Julie and Clifford, along with the Honors in Amsterdam program students, used blogs, videoblogs, and wikis for many course and experiential learning activities.

Giorgia Aiello, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Communication
Tom Dobrowolsky, Doctoral Candidate, College of Architecture and Urban Planning
In Visual Communication and Comparative History of Idea courses, Tom and Giorgia, along with Irina Gendelman, have developed a cross-disciplinary curriculum that gives undergraduates in the Information School, the Comparative History of Ideas program, and the Communication and Landscape Architecture departments an opportunity to apply theory and methods through fieldwork, creating digital content for the Urban Archives project.

Eddy Rojas, Associate Professor, Construction Management
Eddy uses online portfolios in his Construction Management distance learning class for final projects. With the portfolios of past students available to new students every year as reference of the work expected, the quality of the portfolios improves year after year. Each portfolio consists of three parts, and students make modifications to their portfolios after reviewing the portfolios of their peers, thus improving the quality of the deliverables as well as the learning experience.

James Gregory, Professor, Department of History
With this unique collaboration—involving community groups, several Arts & Sciences centers, UW faculty, and both undergraduate and graduate students—James has led the creation of several rich repositories of historical content. Students have been at the center of this work, conducting interviews, writing papers, and authoring Web content.

Session resources:
Honors Program in Amsterdam
Urban Archives Project
Construction Operations and Productivity
Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights History Projects

Podcasting Panel Discussion Thursday, March 1, 2007

Matthew Saxton, the Information School, discussed how podcasting supplements face-to-face classes, providing a different "take" on material to students. Richard Strickland, UW Oceanography, shared his experience podcasting lectures to students enrolled in an internet section, who then only come to class for exams. Thomas Deardorff, UW Libraries, provided background information on copyright issues relevant to instructional podcasting. Cara Lane, UW Catalyst, discussed her evaluation of how UW students and instructors are using podcasting.

Session resources:
Session podcast (MP3)

The Wireless Campus: What Does it Mean for Your Teaching and Student Learning? Thursday, January 25, 2007

The session began with an introduction to the wireless terrain on the UW campus. Scott Mah, Assistant Vice President from Computing & Communications, explained how wireless Internet access actually works, its reach, and its limitations.

Next, Cara Lane, Research Scientist with Catalyst Research & Development, presented a brief overview of faculty and student attitudes and habits regarding wireless, drawing upon data from the 2005 UW Instructor and Student Educational Technology Surveys.

Finally, a panel comprised of Mike Eisenberg, Dean Emeritus and Professor from the Information School, Taso Lagos, Lecturer in Department of Communication, and Ana Larson, Lecturer from the Astronomy Department along with undergraduate Christopher Blair from the Jackson School for International Studies discussed the benefits and challenges of teaching and learning in a wireless classroom. A special emphasis will be placed upon classroom management issues as well as how the panelists have altered their courses to take advantage of the available technology.

Session resources:
Scott Mah's presentation (PDF)
Cara Lane's presentation (PPT)
Wireless Classroom Resources (PDF)
Session podcast (MP3)

Innovative Learning Spaces Thursday, October 19, 2006

Join Phil Long (MIT) and Dan Gilbert (Stanford) to learn more about technology-enabled classrooms and informal learning spaces that support active learning. UW professors Richard Anderson and Daryl Pedigo will demonstrate innovative technologies currently used here.

Phil Long, MIT, showcased his TEAL classroom. "TEAL is a teaching format that merges lectures, simulations, and hands-on desktop experiments to create a rich collaborative learning experience." (quoted from http://icampus.mit.edu/teal/)

Richard Anderson, UW Computer Science, demonstrated Classroom Presenter, a tablet-based system in which the instructors and students share and mark up slides.

Daryl Pedigo, UW Physics, showed how the use of a very simple device, the clicker, can promote anonymous and widespread participation in classroom discussion.

Dan Gilbert, Stanford, highlights the inventive, educational technology found in Stanford's renowned Wallenberg Hall.

Session resources:
Phil Long's presentation (PPT)
Phil Long's presentation (MOV)
Session podcast (MP3)

Web Services Discussion Group 3rd Thursday of each month

Campus developers share Web services best practices and discuss common issues. Meets on the 3rd Thursday of each month from 3:30-5:00 PM in Odegaard Undergraduate Library, Room 220.

Sign up for our Mailman list here, or use the newsgroup: uwash.webservices.users

Topics may include: debugging interactions across servers, streamlining data exchange, security and data exchange standards, versioning and expiration of Web services, applying consistent business logic to data, and introduction to different methods (SOAP, REST).

MySQL Discussion Group 2nd Thursday of every month

Campus developers and MySQL users share best practices and discuss common issues. Meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month from 3:30-5:00 PM in Odegaard Undergraduate Library, Room 220.

Sign up for our Mailman list here, or use the newsgroup: uwash.mysql-users.

Topics may include: using log analysis software to improve performance, database design tools, security in MySQL and applications using MySQL (including avoiding injections), object relational mapping, advanced clustering, MySQL installs for large groups of users, and migration strategies and war stories.

Catalyst Solstice Demonstration Thursday, August 10, 2006

Solstice is an open-source Web application development framework for Perl that helps developers write applications faster and with fewer mistakes. Solstice serves as the foundation for the Catalyst Web Tools, and is created by the Catalyst developers from the Office of Learning Technologies at the University of Washington.

Developers Miles Crawford and Patrick Michaud, Catalyst Research & Development, will introduce the Solstice application framework and demonstrate how to use its development tools to create a simple Web application. They will also demonstrate more advanced features of Solstice, including validation, state machine based navigation, and interoperability.

In addition to the Solstice framework, Catalyst has made several of its Web applications and development tools that run on Solstice available. Visit the Solstice Web site for downloads and more information.

Session resources:
Solstice Web site
Solstice Application Framework Handout (PDF)

Findings of the 2005 Faculty and Student Surveys on Educational Technology Thursday, April 27, 2006

Did you know that 85% of faculty and 87% of students feel that computers with projection enhance instruction? Or that 68% of students and 79% of faculty own laptops, and both are more likely to bring them to class if there is wireless access?

Want to know more? Join Cara Lane, Catalyst Research Scientist, as she shares findings from the 2005 instructor and student surveys on educational technology. Mike Eisenberg, Dean Emeritus and Professor in the Information School, Betsy Wilson, Dean of University Libraries, and Bennett Hornbostel, Student Tech Fee Committee member, will discuss implications of the survey findings and answer questions.

Session resources:
Cara Lane's presentation (PPT)
Educational Technology at the University of Washington: Report of the 2005 Instructor and Student Surveys (PDF)

Creating Electronic Portfolios Friday, April 15, 2005

How do students showcase their accomplishments and experiences on the Web? What does it take for a student to create a successful electronic portfolio?

Join Catalyst E-Portfolio Contest Grand Prize winner Ann Wong, Honorable Mention winners, Krystle Jumawan, David Winters, and Island Pinnick, contest finalists, contest judges, and others as they showcase their projects and discuss the creation process, offering strategies for producing portfolios that effectively use words and images, make intelligent use of hypertext, and maintain an awareness of audience and purpose. A panel of faculty members, contest judges, and students will describe techniques for teaching and learning the analytical and technical skills needed to create successful electronic portfolios.

About the contest winners:
Ann Wong, Grand Prize
Ann Wong is a senior in the Technical Communication department. She enjoys learning to use a variety of software tools to communicate effectively to different audiences and is especially interested in editing, usability testing, and e-learning. In her spare time, Ann shops, watches movies, and hangs out with her friends.

Krystle Jumawan, Honorable Mention: Personal/Reflective Portfolio
Krystle Jumawan, like most people in Hawaii, grew up in a small town. Her hometown is Waialua. Unlike most kids from Hawaii, she does not like to surf but instead loves to play tennis. Currently, she is a freshman and has not decided on a major or a lifelong pursuit. Krystle will be happy, though, as long as she can help people.

David Winters, Honorable Mention: Academic Portfolio
David Winters is a senior in the Physics department. As can be seen from the content of his portfolio, he also enjoyed a brief stint in the Visual Communication Design program. He grew up amongst the tumbleweeds of Eastern Washington, the second of three children. David currently enjoys TAing physics, snowboarding, programming, pretentious films, and Mexican food. He is a man of few words.

Island Pinnick, Honorable Mention: Professional Portfolio
Island Pinnick is a Sophomore and just decided to major in Mechanical Engineering. Skiing is one of the greatest passions in his life, and he is sad to see the winter go. However, he looks forward to this spring for soccer, mountain biking, longboarding, camping, and Frisbee. sland is from Bend, Oregon and is one of six kids in what has to be the coolest family in the world.

A Conversation with Clifford Lynch Monday, February 14, 2005

How does convergence in the digital age impact teaching, learning, and scholarship? What new types of knowledge will be created as a result? What does this mean for the world of scholarship? Join Clifford Lynch, the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, as he shares his perspective on these issues.

About the speaker:
Clifford Lynch spent 18 years at the University of California Office of the President, the last ten as Director of Library Automation, and is an adjunct professor at Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems. He is a past president of the American Society for Information Science and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Information Standards Organization. He currently serves on the National Digital Preservation Strategy Advisory Board of the Library of Congress, the National Research Council's committee on digital archiving, and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Session resources:
Clifford Lynch Talks Online
Session podcast (MP3)

Getting Started: Four Faculty Perspectives Friday, January 21, 2005

Join us for the first event in a new series designed to provide fresh ideas, practical advice, and hands-on assistance to faculty who are interested in technology. Catalyst Spark Sessions, offered by Educational Partnerships & Learning Technologies, Educational Outreach, Computing & Communications, and the Libraries will showcase the experiences and perspectives of UW faculty members and national experts who have met the challenge of using technology for teaching and research, as well as introduce resources that can help you integrate technology.

Opening Session Video:
Real Media: High Bandwidth | Low Bandwidth
Windows Media: High Bandwidth | Low Bandwidth