Wayne State University's Technology Resource Center (TRC) was recently named an "exemplary model of digital learning and teaching with new technologies" by the international Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Collaboratory (HASTAC). Wayne State joins a distinguished roster of model institutions and projects and appears on the interactive Google map of institutions and projects that are advancing the future of digital learning. (www.hastac.org/node/1109)
The nomination was based on an evolving portfolio of projects managed by the TRC, a collaboration of the Office for Teaching and Learning (OTL), Computing and Information Technology and the Digital Projects Initiative of the Wayne State University Library System (WSULS). Called "Digital Partnerships for Engaged Learning," the portfolio fosters purposeful integration of digital media in teaching and learning by bridging faculty and TRC expertise, building faculty learning communities and collaborating with other institutions in the community (viewable at www.otl.wayne.edu/dpel).
Presentations of the portfolio this year included the Humanities Center Brown Bag series and invited national forums of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes in St. Louis in March. The portfolio will also be presented at the HASTAC annual conference at UC-Irvine and UCLA on May 24 as well as the annual meeting of the Association for Integrative Studies at the University of Illinois-Springfield in October.
The three projects in the current portfolio include:
The Digital Media Learning Community is developing new technologies for teaching and learning, including Second Life and other communication and social networking tools. TRC staff are currently working with the Honors Program on the use of new technologies in a service learning requirement with roots in the community, and during the 2008-2009 academic year, the TRC and Humanities Center will co-sponsor a new WSU-HASTAC Digital Humanities Collaboratory (a monthly series featuring innovative uses of technology across campus with a parallel Webspace).
The Art History Luna Project is a collaboration of the Art History Department and staff of WSULS. Using LUNA Insight software, the team is replacing art history slide carousels with digitized images while adding innovative metadata and searchability features that will make the tool more widely available for the university community at large.
The Digital Learning and Development Sandbox (DLDS) aims to foster greater use of the WSULS Digital Images Collections, created through collaborations with museums and archives. The DLDS will be a digital workspace with images from Virtual Motor City and Digital Dress and will also feature templates for authoring digital learning objects that integrate images, texts and audio in online assignments.
For further information, send an email with "Digital Partnerships" in the Subject Line to the OTL at otl@wayne.edu
The Wayne State University Library System consists of the university's five libraries: The David Adamany Undergraduate Library, the Purdy/Kresge Library, the Shiffman Medical Library, the Arthur Neef Law Library and the Science and Engineering Library, the Library and Information Science Program and the Office for Teaching and Learning.
Wayne State University is a premier institution offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to nearly 33,000 students.