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Tom Dickinson, Professor of Education Studies and Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS) Faculty Coordinator

Imagine this professional scenario: You get to work with highly trained, highly talented individuals whose whole orientation is summed up by the statement “How can I help?” You get to play with cutting edge technology and be continually informed about applications and opportunities of these new technologies. You get to work with your peers at the University and highly talented and motivated K-12 teachers from surrounding public schools. And you get course release time, a nifty office, and your name on the door to boot.

What possible professional opportunity could this be? The FITS Faculty Coordinator position. And you can apply for this position just as I did.

FITS—Faculty Instructional Technology Support—is a group of highly trained and talented individuals who work with faculty to provide instructional technology support for their teaching and professional endeavors. Most of the group is housed in the basement of Roy O. West Library with satellite groups in the Julian Math and Science Center (GIS support) and the Green Center for the Performing Arts (audio and recording support). The Faculty Coordinator’s position is an integral part of the FITS team. During my time in FITS I’ve had the opportunity to:

• Attend national technology conferences and deliver presentations on technology usage;
• Enhance my own use of technology through discussion with my FITS colleagues and DePauw faculty members;
• Pilot test a variety of new, cutting edge technology components;
• Act as a consultant for DePauw faculty and their instructional needs;
• Help plan and deliver various campus technology presentations on Moodle, teaching larger classes and absence preparedness;
• Help plan and deliver the FITS Summer Workshop for DePauw faculty members;
• Help plan and deliver K-12 Faculty Workshops for teachers from surrounding school systems;
• Brief local school administrators on the use of instructional technology and its use in schools;
• Write for the FITS newsletter;
• Pilot test the most recent Moodle upgrade to version 1.9.5;
• Participate in the Moodle User Group meetings and the Faculty Showcase demonstrations on the use of instructional technology;
• Teach ITAP students;
• Act as the “eyes and ears” for FITS among the faculty and at faculty gatherings;
• Serve as an advocate for instructional technology to the campus.

The position of FITS Faculty Coordinator reports to the Chief Information Officer, Carol Smith, and the position, as Carol has conceived it, is highly flexible and adaptable to the skills, abilities and needs of the faculty member occupying the position. Responsibilities of the position currently include:

• Fifteen hours a week during both academic semesters devoted to FITS work (this is the equivalent of one academic course assignment; the FITS Faculty coordinator is provided with one course each semester of reassigned time);
• Participation in ongoing FITS activities (summer workshops, faculty presentations, staff meetings, writing for newsletters, etc.);
• Winter Term assignment to FITS (with Winter Term credit provided for the faculty member);
• One month assignment to FITS during the summer, usually in June to cover the FITS summer workshops for DePauw faculty and K-12 faculty (with appropriate compensation based on faculty member’s salary);
• A two-year commitment to the position.

Faculty members have the ability to establish flexible hours based on their teaching schedules although the flexible hours must be contained within a normal work day of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. since FITS is a working office on campus. There is also considerable room for a faculty member to suggest major projects that impact technology usage on the campus, to develop programs and presentations, as well as to continue the traditional role of the coordinator that has been established.

During the Fall 2009 semester the position of FITS Faculty Coordinator will be advertised for the academic years 2010-2012. Interested faculty members are highly encouraged to apply and any member of the FITS team would be happy to talk about the position (and that includes the current Faculty Coordinator!).

Think of this position as an opportunity to provide service to your peers and the profession, an opportunity for unbounded learning, a chance to work with one of the very best units on campus, and an opportunity to play with some really neat toys!

Jin Kim joined the  Instructional and Learning Services department as a Multimedia Development and Support Specialist in April 2004. Jin was working and studying at IU Bloomington Graduate School before coming to DePauw. He was majoring in Instructional System Technology and minoring in Curriculum and Instruction.
With his position at DePauw, Jin is working as part of an instructional technologies team working with faculty members and student interns to develop digital curriculum and instructional support materials. He is working closely with instructional technologists in the University’s Faculty Instructional Technology Support (FITS) program, Student, Technology Assessment, Resources and Training (START) program, technical training, and the curricular and training pieces of the Information Technology Associates Program (ITAP).

Fun fact: Jin enjoys traveling (he’s maintaining the US map with the travel routes he’s been taking) and playing computer games.

As a graduate of Grinnell College, Donnie Sendelbach had long advocated liberal arts education before starting the position of Director of Instructional and Learning Services and Director of the Information Technology Associates Program at DePauw University in November 2008. Before working in instructional technology at Lake Forest College, Lawrence University and Bard College, Donnie taught courses in Russian language and literature along with English as a Second Language for several years.  With an Ohio State Ph.D in Slavic Literatures concentrating on Boris Pasternak’s poetry and prose, Donnie, despite living in Indiana, will always be a Buckeye!

With her new position at DePauw, Donnie can blend her passion for teaching with innovations in technology to facilitate teaching and learning both within and beyond the classroom. She looks forward to continuing to meet faculty, staff and students as she shapes a vision for instructional technology on campus.  She enjoys the intellectual rigor that DePauw offers along with the pedagogical creativity, including the use of instructional technology.  After endeavoring to recreate a program similar to ITAP on other campuses, Donnie perceives many opportunities for growth within ITAP while tightening its academic components.

Fun fact: Donnie enjoys wine tastings and spicy ethnic food—and she’s looking for suggestions in Central Indiana!

Jean joined the FITS staff as its new Secretary in August.  In her current position, she works mornings in the Academic Resource Center and afternoons in the FITS office.  She had previously served as the Assistant Director of the Bonner Scholars Program at DePauw for several years. Before joining the DePauw staff, Jean was the Director of Membership and Chapter Relations for the Society of Professional Journalists, a national nonprofit association formerly headquartered in Greencastle.  She earned a bachelors degree with a major in Psychology from Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana.  Jean is a lifelong resident of the Putnam County area and currently lives in a rural area near Eminence.

Tom joins FITS this summer for a two-year period as the FITS Faculty Coordinator. He will be working with various forms of outreach involving the use of technology in teaching including FITS workshops and the campus-wide movement to Moodle.

Biography:

Tom is Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University. Educated at Wake Forest University (B.A., History) and the University of Virginia (M.Ed. and Ed.D., Social Studies Education and Supervision of Instruction), he taught middle and high school in his native Virginia before pursuing a college teaching career.

A former editor of Middle School Journal for the National Middle School Association (NMSA), he is the author and editor of a wide range of works dealing with a variety of middle school topics including most recently Programs and practices in K-8 schools: Do they meet the educational needs of young adolescents? (with Ken McEwin and Michael Jacobs, National Middle School Association, 2004), America’s middle schools in the new century: Status and progress (with Ken McEwin, National Middle School Association, 2003), and Reinventing the Middle School (Routledge, 2001). He maintains a special interest in middle school teacher education, state and national middle school standards, and the professional development of middle school teachers. A recognized national leader in middle schools, he was one of sixteen middle level educational leaders interviewed and videotaped as part of the Middle Level Education Legacy Project, a collaborative research effort by Appalachian State and Winthrop University, to identify and describe the factors that led to the development, evolution, and progress of contemporary middle school education.

Tom came to DePauw University in 2002 on a two-year leave of absence from Indiana State University where he taught masters and doctoral students in teacher education and was involved in ISU’s distance education program.

Tom’s current engagement involves teaching education studies courses such as the Foundations of Education, the American High School, the History of American Education, and Public School Law. In 2005 he received the DePauw University Nancy Shelly Schaenen Faculty Development Fellowship for 2005-2008. The fellowship was awarded for a study of three progressive educators—John Dewey, Jane Addams, and Maria Montessori. He has served on departmental and university committees including the Speaking (S) Committee, the Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) which he chaired during the academic year 2004-2005, the Resource Allocation Subcommittee (RAS), and was the FITS Liaison for Education Studies Department (2004-06). Currently he is participating in the 2007 HP Technology for Teaching Leadership grant exploring the use of tablet pcs and writing instruction.

Expertise: Moodle, DyKnow, Project Management, Microsoft Office, Databases, Reflective Writing.

Biography: Lynda joined FITS in September 2001. She earned an associate of applied science degree in Computer Information Systems from IVY Tech State College in December 2005. Her greatest achievement is being a mom to three terrific sons – a U.S. Marine, a beekeeper, and a video game enthusiast. Lynda enjoys spending time with her kids, cooking, writing, crocheting, and taking walks on the beach (which can be a challenge living in Indiana).

Fun Fact: Lynda once took tae-kwon-do lessons with her children.

In my nearly ten years of professional classical music recording production, I’ve always placed a premium on listening beyond the foreground (the musical performance itself) to the contribution made to the recording by the space in which the performance (and recording) occurs. I believe that the acoustic quality of a space (coupled with its appropriateness for the particular instrument or ensemble to be recorded) is the single greatest determining factor to the quality of any recording made in it.

My path here to DePauw began with the study of music composition at Louisiana State University and the University of Louisiana and musicology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where I became interested in the interplay between music and space. I started recording music as a means of studying this interplay, and became sought after by my colleagues at Stony Brook as a recording engineer. Soon I was able to earn a bit of a living from this work and eventually started a freelance classical recording business, working predominately in Northern California’s San Francisco Bay area. Later I was asked to fill an interim position teaching music technology and audio recording techniques at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, during which time I applied for the new Recording Arts Specialist position here at DePauw. When I started recording in music grad school, it became my hope to one day assume the role of recording engineer at a school of music, so my appointment here at DePauw is really a dream come true.

Fun Fact: I can spin a cafeteria tray on my finger.