Carnegie Mellon University

Eberly Center

Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Teaching With Technology White Papers

The purpose of the Teaching With Technology White Papers is to provide Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff access to high-quality, research-based information with regard to a given classroom technology. These literature reviews are intended to provide scholarly integration and synthesis of the most sound and comprehensive studies documented at the time of publication.

collaboration tools white paper

Collaboration Tools pdf

Date of publication 01.23.2009

The landscape of technology that can be used to support project-based collaborative learning is vast and varied. Educators can benefit from a more detailed and disaggregated view of what tools are available, and how they can be used most effectively in support of specific teaching and learning goals.

In this paper, we offer a working model of the collaborative process and outline basic approaches to assessing project-based group work. We then discuss potential risks and benefits of taking project-based collaborative learning online, and give an overview of technology tools that can be used to support various activities in project-based collaborative learning.

classroom response systems white paper

Classroom Response Systems pdf

Date of publication 11.30.2007

How to foster meaningful engagement among students is a long-standing question in large lecture halls. In effort to address this issue, electronic classroom response systems (CRS) have been tested and used in higher education classrooms since the 1960’s.

The studies summarized in this paper show that CRS can facilitate the process of drawing out students’ prior knowledge, maintaining student attention, and creating opportunities for meaningful engagement. They can also assist instructors in assessing student comprehension and developing classroom activities that allow for the application of key concepts to practical problems.

Podcasting white paper

Podcasting pdf

Date of publication 06.04.2007

This paper explors educational podcasting in three realms: the creation and distribution of lecture archives for review, the delivery of supplemental educational materials and content, and assignments requiring students to produce and submit their own podcasts.

Lecture Webcasting white paper

Lecture Webcasting pdf

Date of publication 01.16.2007

The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of lecture webcasting, and to summarize findings from several formal evaluations of the technology. We focus on questions of attendance, learning outcomes, student behavior with regard to access of archived webcasts, and effects on instructor behavior and quality of teaching.

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