Faculty explores AI, IOT and Cloud through TIO’s Teaching and Learning Technology Innovation Grants

Faculty explores AI, IOT and Cloud through TIO’s Teaching and Learning Technology Innovation Grants

In the last few years, substantial transformations in higher education have opened extraordinary new opportunities to innovate instruction and expand educational opportunities.

To ensure that Texas State continues to deliver quality education in this period of dynamic innovation and experimentation, the Technology Innovation Office (TIO), has set aside funding for faculty members to submit innovative teaching proposals as part of its Teaching and Learning with Technology Innovation Grants (TLTIG)  program. This program aims to help foster excellence in undergraduate teaching through the innovative application of technology.

Instructional Designers from the Office of Distance and Extended Learning work closely with the TIO team and faculty throughout the grant, making sure that proposals are aligned with pedagogy.

The Technology Innovation Office received various proposals during the 2019 TLTIG request for proposals. Out of the submissions, three projects were awarded funding.  Below you can read a summary of each proposal. The TIO team will share updates from these exciting initiatives on its website and through the DOIT blog.

    1. ADVANCING VIDEOGRAPHY INSTRUCTION IN NUTRITION
      by Dr. Sylvia Crixell
      School of Family and Consumer Sciences
      and Hannah Thornton, MS
      School of Family and Consumer Sciences

      Crixell_2017 0

      Summary: Dr. Crixell and Thornton will be leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) services as a toolset in support of student creation of media targeted at developing multilanguage nutrition educational content. In addition, students will experiment with AI services as a toolset that can improve content quality.

      In their proposal they wrote: “In the classroom, videography allows for creative and innovative approaches to project-based learning that fosters student engagement. Students are able to enter and connect with their own communities in new ways and to leverage talents that would otherwise go unnoticed by faculty. Furthermore, students are compelled to interact deeply with course content and faculty are able to easily identify gaps in understanding. In this way, videography projects not only provide a mechanism for students to increase technological skills, but also a way for them to test and expand their knowledge of nutrition and their capacity to translate evidence-based information into consumable educational units. Training nutrition students to use AI-driven translation software will enable them to bridge language gaps and provide high-quality information to diverse audiences.”

 

    1. EQUITY AND STEM INTEGRATION: USING WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE STEM EDUCATION
      by Dr. Juanita Silva
      Curriculum and Instruction
      Dr. Shelley Forsyth
      Curriculum and Instruction
      and Dr. Luz Maldonado
      Curriculum and Instruction

      ProfilePictureCroped Forsythe_Headshot Luz

      Summary: Drs. Silva, Forsyth, and Maldonado will guide STEM pre-service teachers (PSTs) through a series of activities aimed at fostering discovery through data analysis and applications to equity and cultural issues that they will likely see with their future students. In this project, PSTs will use wearable fitness devices to track daily activities, and activities specified as part of their courses. Their data will be shared to a common data repository which will be available to the whole class so students can use the shared dataset to carry out individualized scientific inquiry.

      In their proposal they wrote: “Elementary PSTs will use their personal embodied experiences collecting and analyzing data from wearable technology to examine important equity issues and culturally sustaining questions in regards to student health, data privacy, accessibility of community services, and the ways in which data and technology impact elementary students in-school STEM learning and out-of-school daily lives. This dimension of critical pedagogy is a significant innovation in the way that wearable technology is typically implemented and is a crucial component of effective undergraduate education as a Hispanic Serving Institution.”

 

  1. MEDIA INNOVATION – INNOVATION CLUB
    by Jon Zmikly
    School of Journalism and Mass Communications

     jonz

    Summary: The Media Innovation Lab (MILab) was established to provide a physical space for many of the innovation activities that the School of Journalism and Mass Communications have been performing over the last decade. Jon Zmikly proposed the formation of a new student organization, the Innovation Club, as an extension of the MILab activities. The Innovation Club will consist of students from across the university interested in expanding their digital skills in an inventive, collaborative environment.  Through their grant, students will develop applications and projects around Internet of Things (IoT), portable 3D scanning, and Augmented Reality (AR).Beyond innovation, this project has cross-discipline and diversity components, a set of values that are in alignment with the University’s goals.

    In his proposal Jon wrote: The Innovation Club wants to “provide a collaborative environment, resources, and support for students to further develop their own personal and professional digital products and projects. We want to expose students to emerging technology concepts and skills that are valued in the workplace, and to technology skills outside of the computer science and engineering disciplines. This is particularly relevant for the high percentage of female and Hispanic students enrolled in our School.”

TIO and the Learning Experience Design team from Office of Distance and Extended Learning are actively working with the grantees and are looking forward at sharing news about their outcomes as the academic year progresses.

Dr. Carlos Solís is Associate Vice President for the Technology Innovation Office.

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