As part of our effort to highlight interesting work being done by our faculty, we will occasionally write posts that feature NYUAD faculty using technology in creative ways in their research and teaching.
The CDS Teaching with Technology Series: Rachel Brulé
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rachel Brulé, recently contacted the Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) asking for guidance on ways to leverage academic technology to continue her class remotely while out of town on a prior conference commitment. The class assignment that she wanted to cover during her absence required her students to respond to a relevant news or investigative article on an issue of “Justice.” She then wanted a conversation to take place among her students about the topics they each presented on, in order to foster a dialogue about the issues that arose.
After consulting with the CDS, we decided that the best approach would be to record her students video responses to these articles and then embed them into her NYU Classes site in the Forums tool, to allow peer review about each others’ topics. Over the course of two, 1.5 hour sessions, students visited the Video Studio in the Library during an allocated time slot to record their opinions individually. Rebecca Pittam, Academic Technology Specialist, set up a video camera, black screen and video lighting to make the recordings look as professional and as visually pleasing as possible.
Each recording was then uploaded to NYU Stream and embedded into NYU Classes using the Forums tool so that students could comment on each others’ work.
This was a simple and easy process and enabled Rachel to continue with her class while off campus.
If you would like to use video as part of your teaching or research, please feel free to reach out to us at nyuad.cds@nyu.edu, and we can discuss your needs and help you to come up with a solution that works for you and your students.