UITS grants to help learning

In attempts to enhance teaching and learning through technology, IU has awarded grants to 14 IU faculty members. The funds will be used to research ways to use technology to aid the learning process.\nThe Technology Assessment Grant (TAG) Program, established in 2001 by the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology and the IU Office of Distributed Education, announced the recipients late last week. \nA total of $68,667 will be awarded to the faculty members on the eight IU regional campuses, who will then use the funds in researching and developing the best ways to use educational software for teaching, using new, up-to-date technological resources.\nErwin Boschmann, associate vice president for distributed education at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, lauded the grant program as a beneficial way for students to learn with different methods of technology.\n"A primary outcome of this awards program will be a better informed University community about the impact of educational technology on teaching practice, student learning and course outcomes," Boschmann said. "As results are shared, these projects are likely to influence not only the practices of the faculty who have received the awards but others across the University as well."\nAlthough the TAG program features a wide array of initiatives developed by different faculty members in many areas of study, the projects have similar objectives that attempt to enhance IU's learning environment.\n"A wide variety of disciplines are represented by the funded projects, across a number of campuses and involving many different uses of technology," Boschmann said. "The findings from these studies will advance knowledge of effective use and application of technology in teaching and learning at IU -- potentially benefiting a great amount of students."\nRecipients will also use the funds for researching what methods are beneficial for teaching. A few objectives of the program include studying ways of how technology -- through email, chat, and surveys -- can help students, studying what learning abilities and skills are best improved by the use of educational technology and determining what kinds of learning educational technology promotes.\nSimon Brassell, professor of geological sciences at the Bloomington campus, is one of the recipients of the grant and is currently researching the use of interactive learning in oceanography. He said he is pleased to have the opportunity to evaluate how his project is working.\n"I believe this new program fulfills the need of being able to provide the resources to faculty for making assessments of how the use of technology is working in the classroom -- and this can help identify which components are most effective -- therefore, being able to make better use of it in the future," Brassell said. "One of the requirements for the grant is reporting the results (of research). Inevitably, the information that goes into those reports can help not just the instructors, but can add to the knowledge base about effective methods for teaching on campus."\nThe TAG program grants will also provide important resources and benefits for international students and students learning English as a second language. \nOne of the projects awarded a grant is "Hear-say," which provides computer-based training in the pronunciation and comprehension of English consonant and vowel contrasts and utilizes automated speech recognition technology to provide feedback to learners using drills and games.\n"This is an important study, because a lot of companies market similar products without doing adequate research and validation," Daniel Reed, research associate and a principal investigator for the project, said. Reed worked with IU Professor of Linguistics Harry Gradman in developing the computerized program. \n"If our study shows that it 'works,' then IU international students studying English stand to benefit, because consideration could then be given to making the software available for more regular use as a complement to other instructional techniques," Reed said. "I believe the TAG award will make it possible for us to evaluate whether this idea works in practice"