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FUNDED PROJECTS
CASE-BILKENT VIRTUAL CLASSROOM INITIATIVE
ABSTRACT: During the Spring Semester 2007, students at Case Western Reserve University and Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, will "share" a course, HSTY 328/428 Comparative Perspectives on Museum and Archives History and Practice, that examines museum history and policy in the United States and Turkey. Taught from the Case campus, the course will be broadcast live to Bilkent via distance learning technology. Innovative use of internet technology will allow students not only to share the lectures but to work together on team projects, mutually explore museums in each other's country, and consult with the professor during office hours. This course is envisioned as the initial step in a wider virtual exchange program between the two universities. Funding from the WLE McGregor Fund grant is being used to enhance the technology used in this exchange as well as to support travel for the instructor or technical personnel. Funding supports the purchase of laptops, quickcams, and software used to enable virtual office hours, hardware to support classroom videoconferencing activities, and travel for IT specialists to Turkey. The WLE central budget paid for a student technical worker to facilitate and troubleshoot classroom videoconferencing activities. Total funding: $6096.
ABSTRACT: This course, BIOL 301 Biotechnology Laboratory: Genes and Genetic Engineering, focuses on the development of new molecular markers for under-utilized crops in Africa, namely marama bean, bambara nut, cassava and cowpea. Currently, students are only able to connect with the the use of these crops through the literature. This proposal will develop contacts so that the students in the course will be able to directly interact with researchers and students in Africa through the use of advanced communication technology. The students will have interactive lectures/conversations with these individuals about their interests through the Internet2, where available. They will also describe their results to their African fellow students in an interactive net conference at the end of the course. As the new markers become available, the African partner students will report back to Case undergraduates on their usefulness. This project may be adaptable to the introductory biology courses, especially BIOL 214, so that the impact and application of modern molecular biology methods across the world is apparent to students early in their undergraduate careers. Funding supports travel to South Africa for Professor Cullis to pursue collaborations with colleagues at the University of Pretoria, the University of Limpopo, Stellenbosch University, and the University of Namibia. In addition, the grant will sponsor a visit to Cleveland by Dr. Percy Cimwamurombe. The purpose of this visit is to enable Dr. Cimwamurombe to participate in BIOL 301 and to investigate avenues for future collaborations using distance learning technologies. Total funding: $6100
Dr. Cimwamurombe visits BIOL 301, October 2007
COGNITIVE SCIENCE: INFORMAL UNDERGRADUATE INTERACTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL PEERS
ABSTRACT: Cognitive Science has many opportunities to connect students internationally through videoconferencing. We already have formal H323 big-screen videoconferencing in Level 3 scheduled classrooms, which we use for department colloquia, for example, and casual face-to-face laptop videoconferencing through iChat or Skype, which students use in dorm rooms. We lack the most useful kind of videoconferencing for students, that is high-quality spontaneous videoconferencing between small groups of students. With this grant, we can transform the Cognitive Science presentation cart into a Cognitive Science videoconferencing cart that will help us cultivate international student-to-student collaborations on research topics. The goal is that these initial structured course-based relationships will continue informally, enabling undergraduate students to acquire the kinds of international contacts, collaborations, and friendships that are most common among faculty. Funding supports the acquisition of hardware and software to enhance the Cognitive Science presentation cart for videoconferencing capabilities. Total funding: $8500.
Gilbert Doho, Associate Professor of French Cheryl Toman, Assistant Professor of French
ABSTRACT: CWRU’s French and Francophone Studies Program (FFS), in conjunction with Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies, would like to advance its collaboration with the University of Buea (UB) using a WLE grant. Bringing the internationally recognized literary scholar Nalova Lyonga to Cleveland for two weeks in the Spring of 2008 will enable CWRU to promote future student exchanges between CWRU and UB and stage a series of electronically mediated classroom encounters between the two schools that can be repeated with other courses and international scholars in the future. This visit, with its three components of public presentation, classroom visits, and videoconference discussions, will provide a prep and/or follow-up for CWRU students’ trip to Buea as a part of The Cameroon Experience (FRCH/ETHS/WLIT 308/408) in Spring of 2008. It will attract future student interest and potential donor funds to The Cameroon Experience and raise campus awareness of the global context in which traditional studies of literature must be situated for contemporary relevance. Funding supports Dr. Lyonga’s two-week visit to CWRU, an honorarium, support for a public lecture, including publicity, and technical supplies that will facilitate video-enhanced communication between CWRU and University of Buea. Total funding: $7133.
ABSTRACT: This proposal describes an innovative course for Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) students, “Sociology of Children’s Rights,” which will also be taught to students of Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). This course will provide international experiences to CWRU students by encouraging them to learn about and debate rights of children and young people, which are questions of international and domestic importance in each country. IT will incorporate cutting-edge educational and communication technologies to enhance these students’ educational opportunities, including videoconferencing with leading international experts and advocates of children’s rights. To sustain this course into the future, I will take a multi-faceted approach, which will include pursuit of external funding to support this course as I revise it over time, and establishment of internship opportunities for CWRU students with international nonprofit organizations that seek to promote and monitor children’s rights. Funding supports advance trips to Florence, Italy, Barcelona, Spain, and Belfast, Ireland to consult with collaborators and UNICEF representatives regarding their participation in the course. Funding also supports honorarium for guest speakers, and technical equipment for longer-term interactions with students and faculty at QUB. Total funding: $6861.
ABSTRACT: This is to provide development of the world-wide learning component for by new course, STATISTICS FOR FINANCIAL ENGINEERING (STAT 319/419) concerned with volatile global security markets. As part of the WLE enhancement, the course will invite a European expert on international energy securities markets to participate in the class in person, and will use broadband communication technology to permit students to interview financial engineering experts from major global financial centers. Since the 1970s the international financial markets have undergone a dramatic change by becoming global, with 24/7 trading rolling around the globe through New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Dubai and London, and because of an introduction, in 1973, by Black, Merton, and Scholes, sophisticated statistical/mathematical tools permitting the design of optimized financial instruments (derivatives, options, futures, etc.). In 1997, Merton and Scholes were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for this work. The practical application of their discoveries was made possible by implementation of massive computer resources. Activities of all investment banks and hedge funds are now totally based on those techniques and the major financial institutions became a very lucrative job market for statisticians/mathematicians educated in them and able to use them. One of the goals of the course is to introduce our students not only to those techniques but also to some of the major players in the high-stakes global financial game. These contacts will make them aware of the career opportunities in the field of financial engineering. Funding supports travel, honorarium, and living expenses for Professor Rafal Weron, from Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland, a reciprocal visit by Professor Woyczynski to Wroclaw University, and expenses for broadband connections to international experts. Total funding: $8,000.
ABSTRACT: Using Italian language as the prototype model, this project will serve as the pilot for a complete conversation immersion program for foreign languages, beyond the immediate level of proficiency. Both students and instructors will be led through essential steps that comprise a systematic approach to conversation on any selected topic, derived from a liberal assortment of disciplines, driving the students to communicate using the full range of language ability already acquired. As is anticipated at intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency, defined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the objective is that all conversations contain the full range of grammar, with brief grammar reminders used only as needed, as well as idiomatic expressions. Reading is not the skill focus, but is only used to support conversation. Indispensable pedagogical features such as focus, clarification, demonstration, repetition, and synthesis are fully applied in this model. Technology is a fundamental and organic component, connecting the students to native speakers through internet options such as Skype, interactive websites, blogs, videoconferencing, and video recording and editing. The pilot project in Italian can eventually be replicated and applied to other languages. Funding supports the participation of Professor Sanzio Balducci, an Italian collaborator from the Universita` Carlo Bo (Urbino, Italy), filming and editing of taped conversations, and and license for Videoskype recording capability. Total funding: $6000.
ABSTRACT: The main goal of "Créer pour Résister" is to create, here at Case, an interdisciplinary understanding based on both teaching and scholarship of a vast, fascinating, complex, dynamic body of knowledge: the current and recent culture of diverse Arab women. In some circles, knowledge of this area is termed critical. At Case, we can achieve this goal through the already interdisciplinary and flexible program in Women's and Gender Studies; to get it jumpstarted, the WLE can support a two-part project: to organize and carry out a ten-day series focusing on the resistance art of two generations of Arab women and to develop a permanent Women's and Gender Studies course on women and the arts which will feature a technological link with the Algerian Cultural Center in Paris as an innovative component of the course. The initial event will be comprised of two parts: acclaimed Tunisian, Syrian, Lebanese, Algerian, and Egyptian artists in their late twenties will stage dance performances, film screenings, sculpture and photography exhibits, and concerts while additional world-renowned female artists and activists from Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Algeria fifty years and older will host a series of lectures, round tables, and musical and theatrical performances centered on a similar theme: creative resistance on a personal and political level. This event will coincide with the first offering of the new WMGST course, and the sustainability of the project will be reflected in the continued exchange and transmission of cultural activities through the Algerian Cultural Center and Case. Funding supports guest artist travel and honoraria, production costs for archiving the arts festival, videoconferencing fees to support the course, and fees to support the continuing collaboration with the Algerian Cultural Center in Paris, France. Total funding: $8500. This project is also supported by the Women's and Gender Studies Program and the American Association of Teachers of French.
CHINA IN TRANSFORMATION: COLLABORATION WITH ECUPL
ABSTRACT: CWRU's SAGES University Seminar "China in Transformation" and Department of Modern Languages and Literatures' course "Business Chinese" would like to connect students to Chinese peers through collaborating with East China University of Politics and Law (ECUPL) in China using a WLE grant. Bringing a Chinese professor of ECUPL, an expert on related issues, to Cleveland for one week in the Spring of 2009 and videoconferencing with students at ECUPL will enable CWRU to promote future student exchanges between CWRU and ECUPL and facilitate a variety of high-quality spontaneously videoconferencing encounters between the two schools. This academic exchange can be extended to other courses and international scholars in the future. The Chinese professor's visit includes classroom visits, a public lecture, and videoconference discussions. This visit will first of all benefit the two China related courses by allowing undergraduate students to launch and continue international outreaches, collaborations and friendship. After the project completion, the project will also help cultivate international student-to-student collaborations, attract current and future student interest and potential donor funds to other China related and international programs, such as the proposed "China Experience", and raise campus awareness of the impact of China's transformation on globalization and vice versa. Funding will support advance trips to China to consult with collaborators and regarding their participation in the course. Funding will also support the one-week visit of the Chinese professor to CWRU, an honorarium, support for a public lecture, including publicity, and technical supplies that will facilitate video-enhanced communication between CWRU and ECUPL. Total funding: $8450.
DESIGNING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATIVE COURSES IN COGNITION AND LANGUAGE ABSTRACT: This proposal outlines an initiative to develop international collaborative courses between Case Western Reserve's Cognitive Science Department and the Institute of Language and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and the Center for Semiotics at the University of Aarhus in Aarhus, Denmark. This proposal builds on a previous grant initiative awarded to the Cognitive Science Department (Fall 2007) in that it seeks to develop more sustained learning experiences through the development and delivery of a single collaboratively taught course and subsequent courses, workshops, and symposia. Professor Oakley will outline the precise contours of the initiative, its near-term and long-term goals, and the specific budget requests, as well as address matters of sustainability and assessment. Funding supports travel to Denmark to first design the syllabus, assignments and course policies and schedule and then to later develop future courses and collaborations to take back to the Cognitive Science Department. Funding will also support the necessary equipment charges. Total funding: $4466.
ABSTACT: This project will establish a connection between CWRU and Shenyang Conservatory (SC) in northeast China. This connection will begin with a week-long residency at CWRU in Fall 2008 by Professor Bingyi Chen, the director of the Music Education Department at SC. During this residency, Professor Chen will give several lectures to music education students at CWRU, become acquainted with professors and students in the music education department, and visit area school music programs. The project will provide information technology to Professor Chen such that, upon his return to SC, a web-based forum will be established for faculty and students at SC to interact with faculty and students of the CWRU Music Department during the course MUED 305: World Music in Education. The goal is for all participants to learn from one another about music education and how persons teach and learn music of other cultures. Outcomes of this project include experiential cross-cultural learning for CWRU and SC music education students and cross-cultural music education experiences for the music educators' future students. Funding supports Professor Chen's visit to CWRU in Fall 2008 and purchasing technology to support the collaboration between CWRU and Shenyang Conservatory. Total funding: $8987.
INTERACTIVE "MINI-VISITOR'S CENTER" FOR THE PIERRE AUGER OBSERVATORY AT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT: This proposal will support the installation of an interactive "Mini-Visitor's Center" for the Pierre Auger Observatory within the Department of Physics here at Case Western Reserve University. The Pierre Auger Observatory is an international collaboration of over 400 scientists from 17 countries who have constructed a major cosmic-ray detector in Argentina. We plan to install a system at Case Western that will allow students and visitors to explore the Auger Observatory and to connect with international scientists in Argentina and elsewhere around the world. The system will consist of a workstation with a large flat-panel display and a secure trackball interface. The system will be installed and maintained in a publicly accessible area within the physics department. The system will include a range of internet-based applications that will allow students and visitors alike to explore interactively many details of the Auger in real-time. The main feature will be a customized version of Google Earth which includes a detailed 3-D tour of all of the observatory facilities in Argentina. Students will also be able to access observatory displays and data, and will be able to communicate directly with international scientists at the observatory. Funding is $4843 and covers the equipment and installation charges for the Mini-Visitor's Center in the Physics Department in Rockefeller Hall. |
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