Overall BMCC Project Objectives

The primary objective of the BMCC’s participation in the CUNY iTunesU Pilot Project is to improve student learning, success and retention. This objective may be met in several ways including:

• increased student engagement
• broader and deeper student learning through supplemental materials
• enhancing the review and test preparation process
• hands-on learning through student created media
• increased student access to course content through a variety of media
• increased faculty awareness of and facility with innovative pedagogical practices

Project Categories

 

To meet these objectives we see four broad categories of iTunesU related projects:

1.      Documenting the classroom in action

2.      Instructor created or collected material

3.      Student created material

4.      Extracurricular projects to support teaching and learning

By the end of the pilot we hope to have completed projects in each category. In the short term we are focusing on projects in categories 2 and 3, instructor and student created or collected material. To this end we have gathered faculty from a variety of disciplines each of whom have specific projects they would like to implement in their classrooms.

Best Practices

 

As these projects are developed and seen through to fruition the College will pay special attention to finding best practices in the following areas:

• Using iTunesU as a pedagogical tool
• Efficiently using and effectively allocating resources to create rich media for iTunesU
• Training faculty, students and staff on using and supporting iTunesU
• Organizing for quality interdepartmental communication
• Legal issues related to copyrighted material

Spring 2008 BMCC Project Objectives

We see the spring as a training, development and trial period of the project. Faculty and staff will train on how to use and administer iTunesU and the Blackboard building block. Curriculum will be developed that tie the podcasts into the learning objectives of courses. And we will begin to record and upload audio and video podcasts. A limited number of podcasts may make it into the curriculum for the spring with an emphasis on getting the technology, pedagogy and process down so we are ready for full implementation in Fall 2008.

• Do “test runs” related to creating and publishing audio and video content on iTunesU. This includes media created by faculty and students.

• For those projects that will use existing media, begin collecting the material, converting it to the correct formats and establishing the legality of using the material.

• Develop faculty training on the entire process (some of the actual training will take place over the summer). This process includes:

o       Establishing curricular and student learning objectives related to the new material

o       Developing related assessment materials

o       Creating audio and video media

o       Publishing media using Blackboard and iTunesU

• Create a documented process for incorporating student created content including:

o       signing out equipment to students

o       training students how to use equipment

o       setting up iTunesU courses so students can upload content