Imagine drawing a graph with your finger and applying a voiceover to explain an economic concept. The possibilities with that kind of technology, available through applications for the iPad, are driving Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) Office of Academic Services (OAS) to explore and use current technology to help students achieve their best academically.
“Putting resources in the hands of the students,” that’s how Anne Nebel, SFS-Q Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, describes the goal of the technology initiative under development in OAS. She explained: “In OAS, the focus is to support student achievement across the curriculum. We have looked at apps related to economics, geography, French and Arabic as foreign languages, and academic writing across the disciplines.” But, as Nebel pointed out, student achievement is more than mastering a course.
Whether it’s brainstorming for the next paper, managing one’s time, creating an outline structure, developing a thesis, or writing citations, there are essential areas of learning that, depending on a student’s strengths or weaknesses, may be enhanced through technology.
“Because we are in this unique and exciting and very multilingual society and context, we see students with lots of different strengths and with different kinds of needs,” said Nebel.
“We try as best we can to identify student strengths,” she added, “and help them find ways to build on their weaknesses.”
Over the years, OAS has offered academic support to all Georgetown students through one-on-one tutorials, workshops, and guidance, but the tutors are adding a new dimension to their services by tapping into the multitude of possibilities now available through technology.
And it’s not just apps that are making their way into the collection of tutor’s tools. Just ask Samreen Khan, OAS economics specialist. Due to ease of use and portability, tutors like Samreen can send a podcast or a video from Khan Academy, for example, to be accessed through an iPad or a laptop with a message to the student saying “here’s a little something that can help explain the concept we discussed earlier.”
As for helping students with writing, tutors such as OAS writing specialist Tara Corman, have found apps that focus on mind mapping, conceptual mapping, and conversion of mind maps to outlines for papers. In foreign languages there are apps to create flash cards should students want to study a subset of words and quiz themselves.
“Our mandate in Academic Services is to help students reach their highest level of achievement in our curriculum,” said Nebel. With that in mind, OAS is also looking at new technologies to assist students with learning differences. The Assistant Dean gave an example: Dragon Naturally Speaking, a speech-to-text software that records speech and converts it to text that students can later use as notes.
When reviewing the range of new technologies, Nebel said: “We’re trying it. We’re piloting it. If it makes it easier, we’ll run with it. Supporting students and helping them work independently has always been OAS’s goal.”
Back in February 2008, the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar launched its Global Classroom to link its campuses in Washington, DC, and Doha, Qatar. The system is used to deliver undergraduate courses to and from Washington.
The system makes the technology more transparent and it allows for natural interaction between students and faculty. It gives students in Qatar the chance to take classes from well-known professors in Washington, DC. At the same time, students in Washington can learn from the faculty in Qatar.
This technology allowed SFS-Qatar to connect to Polycom’s headquarters in Japan, where eight resellers had the opportunity to learn more about SFS-Qatar’s experience using telepresence technology.
Georgetown’s telepresence classroom uses immersive videoconferencing technology to connect students on the Hilltop with students at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. The telepresence system effectively creates a mixed virtual classroom composed of students in Qatar and in DC.
Using a high-bandwidth Internet network provided by Qatar Foundation, the Polycom telepresence solution went live in February 2008, making it the first university in the Middle East to adopt immersive telepresence as an educational tool. With this initiative the university took on the challenge to link two campuses on two different continents in two different time zones to create one realistic classroom experience.
The Peninsula
