Faculty Center for Learning Development (FCLD)
The Faculty Center for Learning Development (FCLD) was established to stimulate and
support the teaching and learning environment by assisting faculty with the incorporation
of technology and new teaching methods into their established curriculum including:
 Promoting best practices for enhancing teaching and learning;
 Supporting the application of specific instructional technologies like Blackboard
and PowerPoint (see list below);
 Providing support and learning through group and individual consultation or
workshops;
 Providing faculty access to a variety of instructional technologies, including
personal computers, digital video, scanners, and color printing.
FCLD offers the following consulting services for instructional technology:
 Instructional Design
 Visual Design
 Web site Design/Redesign
 Course Site Development
 Best practices for using instructional technology
 Instruction on specific technologies (e.g., Blackboard)
FCLD manages Blackboard, an Internet application used to put courses
online. Faculty interested in learning how to use Blackboard to put their course on the
web should contact FCLD for startup assistance.
In addition, support is available for the following instructional technologies:
 Computer software used for instruction: MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel
 Internet technologies: used for instruction (partial list): Browsers, Blackboard,
Search Engines, Web sites, Newsgroups, Streaming Video, Streaming Audio
 Recording technologies: Audio, video, analog/digital
 Imaging technologies: Scanning, animation, digital image editing, illustration
 Presentation technologies: Slides, interactive whiteboards, posters, overheads
Faculty Lab: The FCLD Faculty Lab, located in Room 203 of the Mortensen Library,
is available for faculty support and use and is equipped with instructional technology
equipment including: PCs, Macs, a digital video camera, digital camera, scanners, color
printers, and projectors as well as support staff. Faculty wishing to use the lab may
contact FCLD at x4661.
FCLD Staff: Lorelle Wilson, Director
Ella Holst, Educational Technologist
Website: http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/fcld
The FCLD website includes instructions and tips for using a variety of software,
including Blackboard.
Email: Faculty and staff may send instructional technology-related questions and
inquiries, including Blackboard, to fcld@hartford.edu.
Phone: Call x4661 between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.:
 For help or support with instructional technology-related questions
 To contact FCLD staff
 To arrange use of the faculty lab in Mortensen L203
Faculty and staff with instructional technology-related support questions after 5:00 p.m.
may call the ITS Support Hotline at x5999. If ITS personnel are not able to provide
immediate assistance, the question will be forwarded to FCLD for response on the next
working day.
Spring Learning Series: Teaching the Millennials
Open to all University of Hartford Faculty and Instructors
When it comes to technology, teaching today’s ‘Net Generation’ or ‘The Millennials’,
can be challenging. This spring FCLD will be exploring the challenges and the myths of
teaching the Millennials. This is a generation that began using computers as early as
four years old, who are adept at multi-tasking, and whose native learning style probably
leans towards images rather than words. Their world is a world of cell phones, IM’ing,
and digital music. However, recent studies have shown that this generation prefers a
moderate use of technology in the classroom and that it values face-to-face time with
instructors. Surprised? Please join us as we share some of the latest information on
teaching Millennials and discuss teaching strategies and technologies that may help
engage Millennials in the learning process. From podcasting to Sympodiums, we
will demonstrate new teaching technologies, as well as tips for sprucing up existing ones
such as PowerPoint in ways that effectively reach today’s learners. Highlights include a
live online chat with University of Hartford instructors in the UK and Australia, as we
discover how the web has opened up and extended the very walls of the classroom. Then,
on April 6th, Dr. Paul R. Hagner, Associate Director of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, an
organization which promotes the use of IT to enhance the quality of teaching and learning,
will discuss effective teaching strategies for The Millennials. We hope you will be able
to join us as we explore learning in the age of the Millennials!
Seminars are open to all faculty and instructors. Interested faculty should contact FCLD
at 768-4661 or email fcld@hartford.edu to sign up. Space is limited.
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February Seminars
Tuesday, February 21st – Lunch ‘n Learn: Using SMART Podiums
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Hillyer 244
Prerequisites: Open to all Instructors
With more and more of our classrooms being outfitted with SMART Podiums, this
seminar will demonstrate the ins and outs of the SMART Podium and share best practices
for using a SMART Podium in your teaching. Bring your questions and a brown bag
lunch! This is part one of a two-part series. On Thursday, March 30th, there will be a
follow-up seminar on using SMART Sympodiums. Join us for one or both sessions!
Friday, February 24th – Transferring VHS video clips to DVD
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Faculty Center for Learning and Development Faculty Lab (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with computers and comfort using a mouse.
With VHS fast disappearing from the marketplace, you might want to consider
transferring your classroom clips to DVD or another digital medium. Digital clips offer
the added benefit of being used in a variety of applications, including PowerPoint. In
this demonstration, we will show how easy it is to capture clips directly to your computer
using iMovie and Pinnacle Studio, as well as explore various digital video file formats.
March Seminars
Monday, March 6th – Scanning Articles
3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Faculty Center for Learning and Development Faculty Lab (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: General computer knowledge.
This seminar will show you how to scan multi-page articles and convert them into PDF
files. We will discuss image resolution, appropriate file size, copyright considerations,
and best practices for including PDF files in a Blackboard course site. If you have an
article that you would like to use for scanning, please bring it along to the session.
Friday, March 10th – PowerPoint beyond Bullets: The Slide Master
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with creating basic PowerPoint presentations.
One of the criticisms of PowerPoint is that its preformatted templates constrain
information and influence the way it is presented. However, with just a few modifications
to the Slide Master you can take complete creative control of your presentation. The
slide master is a special slide that contains all of the formatting defaults for your
presentation. Not a fan of bullets? Remove them from every slide with just one click!
You can also modify fonts, add images, headers and footers, custom backgrounds, etc,
and these changes will be applied globally throughout our presentation. This not only
gives a consistent look and feel to your slide show, it also frees you from the inherent
limitations of PowerPoint’s built in design templates.
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March Seminars continued
Monday, March 13th – Using Online Quizzes in Blackboard
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with adding course content and navigating Blackboard.
Are you ready to take the next step in Blackboard? Jay Stewart, Associate Professor of
Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences and Information Technology Services
consultant, joins FCLD in showing you how to make the most of Blackboard’s quizzes
and surveys. This session will demonstrate the step-by-step creation of quizzes and
surveys in Blackboard, tips and tricks, and discuss strategies for using Blackboard
surveys and quizzes that may improve student learning outcomes.
Tuesday, March 14th – Chatting around the Globe with Blackboard
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with adding course content and navigating Blackboard.
Today’s students use Instant Messaging and other Internet chat tools to communicate
with each other on a daily basis. Ever wonder what students mean when they talk about
IM’ing and chatting online? FCLD invites you to join us in as we explore the advantages
of communicating with students in their ‘native digital tongue’. Online ‘live’ chat can be
a convenient way to hold office hours and review sessions for students, especially for
adult learners juggling busy schedules and full-time work. It also allows participants
from all over the globe to communicate at once, as we’ll see with guest participants and
University of Hartford instructors Kaitlin Walsh and Hudson Birden. They will
be chatting live with us from St. Catherine's College, Oxford University in England, and
from the University of Sydney in Australia.
Tuesday, March 28th – An Introduction to SPSS Statistical Software
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with computers and comfort using a mouse.
SPSS is a sophisticated, easy-to-use application for statistical analyses of data that
researchers in all fields can use. It has powerful data manipulation facilities, does simple
and complex statistics, and makes pleasing graphs. Our new campus licensing
arrangement will allow all campus computers to have SPSS (V14). This introductory
session to SPSS by Jay Stewart, Associate Professor of Sociology in the College of Arts
and Sciences & Information Technology Services consultant, will illustrate basic data
entry, variable definition and manipulation, simple univariate and bivariate statistics, and
some of the new features of Version 14, including how to install it at home and in the
office.
To register, contact FCLD at 768-4661 or email fcld@hartford.edu
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March Seminars continued
Thursday, March 30th – Lunch ‘n Learn: The Sympodium
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Hillyer 244
Prerequisites: General computer knowledge.
Finally, an electronic grease pen! SMART Sympodiums allow you to write with a stylus
pen on a computer screen and project your writing to your students, just like an overhead
projector, but they also allow you to save your annotations to file and send them to your
students later. Join FCLD in an informal demonstration of the SMART Sympodium.
Participants will be able to try out this new technology and learn how these interactive,
computerized white boards can be used to annotate PowerPoint slides and other computer
applications, or capture in-class lecture notes directly to a computer for later distribution
to students. Bring your questions and a brown bag lunch!
Friday, March 31st – PowerPoint beyond Bullets: Using Diagrams to Convey
Information
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with creating basic PowerPoint presentations.
Adding relevant imagery to a PowerPoint presentation not only makes it more engaging,
it also increases learning and retention. Sometimes a diagram can offer a better visual
representation of a concept than a bulleted list. In this one hour, hands on seminar you’ll
learn how to use diagrams to create and customize several types of diagrams in
PowerPoint, including Pyramid, Radial, Venn, Cycle and Organization Charts. You’ll
also learn how to animate diagrams so that they appear by section rather than all at once
on the screen.
April Seminars
Monday, April 3rd – File Management and Storage
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with computers and comfort using a mouse.
Never go searching for files again! Learn the essential concepts and skills needed for
maintaining an organized and easy-to-use filing system on your computer. This seminar
teaches all the essentials of file management: creating/copying/moving/deleting files and
folders, tips and tricks for finding files, creating folders, file naming conventions, and
more.
To register, contact FCLD at 768-4661 or email fcld@hartford.edu
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April Seminars continued
Thursday, April 6th – Teaching in Turbulent Times
Dr. Paul R. Hagner, Ph.D., Associate Director, EDUCAUSE Learning
Initiative
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Open to all Instructors.
How does the learning style of a generation that has never known life without the Internet,
cell phones, or instant messaging impact the traditional classroom? Advances in
communication technology allow us to rethink our traditional conception of “learning
spaces”. Perhaps, however, “allow” is not the correct word to use. These advances,
coupled with the Net Generation’s embracing of them, actually force us to re-invent
learning. Join Paul Hagner, Associate Director of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative,
for this lively talk as we discuss these changes, the opportunities they present, and the
nagging question of “inevitability.”
Tuesday, April 18th – Podcasting: Lectures to Go - Anytime, Anywhere!
12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Open to all Instructors.
Duke University's 2004 iPod Initiative first brought iPods and Podcasting into the focus
of the higher education community. The 2006 Horizon Report from Educause lists
“personal broadcasting”, or podcasting as it is better known, as one of the top two
emerging technologies to watch. Using digital audio or video recorders, or even iPods,
instructors record lectures, interviews, music, video or sound art, and then make the audio
recordings available to students via the Internet, allowing students to learn 'where they
live' - while commuting, exercising, or getting ready for class. Ken Steen, Associate
Professor of Composition and Theory in the Hartt School, and Jim McDonald, Assistant
Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, both podcasting pioneers at the
University, join FCLD in discussing what podcasting is and how it works, its potential
impact on teaching and learning, and student reaction to 'lectures to go'.
Friday, April 21st – PowerPoint beyond Bullets: Creating an Interactive
Menu Slide
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with creating basic PowerPoint presentations.
PowerPoint does not have to be a linear production that drives your lecture. Instead, it
can be used as a repository of slides that can be accessed randomly, allowing you the
freedom to respond to students’ input spontaneously. In this seminar, you’ll learn how to
create an interactive menu or ‘home page’ that lets you jump to individual slides or
subsets of slides within a PowerPoint presentation using hyperlinks and action buttons.
To register, contact FCLD at 768-4661 or email fcld@hartford.edu
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April Seminars continued
Wednesday, April 26th – Managing Assignments in Blackboard using the
new Assignment Tool (a great alternative to the Digital DropBox!)
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites:
Familiarity with adding course content and navigating Blackboard.
Finally, a replacement for the Digital Dropbox! The Digital Dropbox confuses students
and only permits assignments to be downloaded one file at a time. To address this,
Blackboard created the new ‘Assignment Tool’ which, like the Dropbox, can be used for
submitting assignments, but also integrates seamlessly with the gradebook. The
Assignment Tool: automatically assigns student’s names to files when they are
downloaded, allows you to download or delete all assignments all at once, and provides a
comments box so you can provide specific feedback when you return student homework.
If you’ve been frustrated by the limitations of the digital drop box, you’ll be pleasantly
surprised at the versatility of this new tool. Saeid Moslepour, Assistant Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, Technology and
Architecture, will share his first-hand experience using this new Assignment Tool.
May Seminars
Friday, May 5th – Getting Started with Blackboard
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Basics of personal computing and surfing the Internet.
Get ready for summer term! This session is designed as a general orientation to
Blackboard, the Internet application used to put courses on the web. You’ll learn
strategies for organizing your Blackboard course, review the many tools and features
available in Blackboard, and start adding course content items like your syllabus and web
links to your Blackboard course. Be sure to bring a digital version of your syllabus; this
is designed as a hands-on seminar.
Friday, May 12th – Blackboard Gradebook Drop-In Clinic
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Woods Family Center for Learning and Instruction (Mortensen Library)
Prerequisites: Familiarity with adding course content and navigating Blackboard.
Let us help you get through the rush to submit grades at the end of the term. FCLD staff
will be on hand to work with you informally in a one-on-one setting to answer any
questions you might have about using Blackboard's Online Gradebook.
To register, contact FCLD at 768-4661 or email fcld@hartford.edu
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