This month we featured a faculty speaker, graduate student
speaker, and a question and answer session about technology-supported
remote instruction.
Our featured faculty speaker was Dr. Marc Tancredi Facciotti,
Associate Professor with appointments in the Genome Center and
Department of Biomedical Engineering. Our featured graduate student
speaker was Larissa Saco,
Doctoral Student in the Department of Sociology and Graduate Student
Researcher for ATS. Dr. Andy Jones facilitated the question and answer session on
instructional technology in the remote learning environment.
Dr. Marc Tancredi Facciotti is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Genome Center at UC Davis. He talked about a tool called NotaBene for online discussion “in
context” (i.e., directly in the course content). With collaborators at
MIT and Edinburgh and funding support from an NSF grant, the team
studies the use of this type of forum, develops artificial intelligence
to predict student engagement and sentiment, and builds tools for
students and instructors to learn from the discussion. Dr. Facciotti discussed this tool and its implications for collaborative learning
in the classes we teach.
A longtime graduate student researcher in instructional design for
Academic Technology Services, Larissa Saco presented suggestions for
making remote courses more accessible. Building upon accessibility
topics Saco co-presented at the 2019 December DOLCE
with Dr. Margaret Merrill of ATS and Joshua Hori of the Student
Disability Center, Friday’s presentation will review accessibility
concerns and opportunities in light of this year’s large-scale move to
remote teaching. Topics to be covered will include an accessibility
overview of Canvas sites, electronic documents, and instructional
videos, as well as the application of accessibility principles when
designing presentation slides, working with Zoom recordings, and editing
Aggie Video captions. Saco presented at this, her last
DOLCE on staff. To learn more about Saco’s background and work at ATS,
check out her interview in The Wheel.
