Author: Hoffman Kim

This author has written 13 articles

Fostering autonomy and specialized knowledge through Blackboard content management

Three “choice” modules are developed each week by instructors based on current news and research trends, and students have an option to pick which module they wish to complete for 8 weeks. “Peer” modules are then created by groups of students based on their own interest in addictions, guided by instructor input, and are offered to other students for four weeks. Blackboard was the canvas that allowed us to compile resources for each module.

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The use of Visible Body as a digital tool in an online section of human anatomy lab

Visible Body is a collection of databases comprised of sets of online interactive 3D virtual anatomy models and videos. These are available to students at no additional cost through University of Rochester’s River Campus Libraries and Miner Library. The models allow students to visualize and interact with the musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and nervous systems on computers or mobile devices.

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Co-creating Content with Padlet

Padlet is described as a digital bulletin board. This tool is highly intuitive for both creators and users. There are a variety of pre-made templates to choose from such as maps, timelines, wall posts, and even a chat function. All participants (ie. students) can contribute to the Padlet and all content is automatically saved and available for later reference. The platform also allows for files to be uploaded from a computer or the web. Instructors can search for Padlets from other users on a variety of topics for inspiration.

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Forming competency-based student project teams with a Blackboard Survey

Blackboard Survey is an easy-to-use web-based survey tool that allows instructors to effectively collect student input in an engaging fashion. Similar to Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey, Blackboard Survey is available at many schools that employ the Blackboard learning platform, including the University of Rochester. Students can provide input on a wide variety of subject matter, complete attitude or personality inventories, or participate in icebreaker activities (e.g., get to know your classmates at the beginning of a course).

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Teaching Memes and Multimodal Writing with Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is free and easy-to-use software for creating memes and other content for social media. Instructors designed an assignment in which students created a meme, followed up by a brief written critical analysis. Students used the memes as an interpretive device in the reflection and analysis of Don Quixote.

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Teaching Students to Explore Their Environment with Omeka

Omeka is a web-based system for creating digital collections of media (especially images) and organizing them into exhibits. The Instructors, both from the University of Rochester River Campus Libraries, were invited by the Memorial Art Gallery to present a workshop as part of its Teacher In-Service professional development program, which is targeted towards K-12 teachers and library media specialists in the Rochester area.

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Teaching pedagogical theory as related to teaching practice with VoiceThread

VoiceThread is an asynchronous discussion board that allows content to be loaded and placed at the center of the conversation. In this workshop, it encourages a team of professionals to come together to learn more about what each other does and how they could work more collaboratively.

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ChildEx: A WordPress website for doing research in the classroom

ChildEx is used alongside the Blackboard website as students embark on their group projects. Technical skills for interacting with open-source database are introduced throughout the semester and students present their own research questions, methods, and outcomes of their projects in an oral and a written format.

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Teaching Students to Explore Protein Structures Using the Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) program and 3D Printing

Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD) is an open-source program designed for modeling, visualization and analysis of biological molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, etc. It is also a tool to view and analyze the results of molecular dynamic simulations.

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