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Special Annual Awards
2008 Campus Technology Innovators: Interactive, Remote Learning
8/1/2008
FURMAN'S VIRTUAL TOUR development team (left to right): Academic Computing Specialists Wade Shepherd and Cort Haldaman, and Instructional Development Consultants Diane Boyd and Mike Winiski.
TECHNOLOGY AREA: INTERACTIVE, REMOTE LEARNING
Innovator: Furman University
One history professor experiments with technology to transport his students through space and time, and interact with them as he guides them through remarkable field trips they may never have been able to experience otherwise.
So much to see, so little time. From a logistical perspective, field trips for departments with limited resources can be challenging. Such was the driving force behind Tripping Virtually (Interactive Field Experiences in Urban History), a new IT effort at Furman University (SC) involving technologists from a number of departments, to enable student field trips that are transporting interactive experiences-- without ever leaving campus.
The results of the project are inspiring. This April, from their classrooms in Greenville, SC, Furman students participated in virtual walking tours of historical sites in cities such as Boston and New York. As their professor wandered the streets of these cities hundreds of miles away, students followed along in real time via images, audio, and geocoded displays courtesy of Google Maps. Later, with the help of Camtasia Studio from TechSmith, the students were able to access the archived tours for study purposes.
Professor T. Lloyd Benson (the Walter Kenneth Mattison Professor of History) needed only a few months to develop his unique curriculum. Eager to create a fully interactive virtual field trip complete with integrated mapping from a remote location, Benson set out in early 2007 to find technologies that could do the job.
With the help of colleagues in the school's Computing and Information Services department and the Center for Teaching & Engaged Learning, Benson selected a nucleus of off-the-shelf technologies such as the HP iPAQ hw6940 Mobile Messenger with built-in GPS, as well as technologies, products, and services from NEC, Verizon, Vonage, AT&T Wireless, Apache, IBM, Shure, Da-Lite, and JBL. Total price tag: $1,000.
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