Enhancing Our Visual Pedagogy I would like to develop/enhance a variety of visual materials for an overview of software course. This course introduces six very popular pieces of software in ten weeks. Although each is not taught indepth, students learn and leave with demonstrated ability and confidence in utilizing one or all to obtain a desired outcome.

The software is a mix of image manipulation, presentation media, document layout, www page development and image design software. To have access to impeccable materials designed and templated would allow for a more seemless transition between applications introduced, thereby leaving a faculty memeber more time to focus upon other mundane but needed activities such as vocabalary development and the recognition of other professional protocols. I took the RIT/FIT workshops this past summer. I recently completed a three day workshop on Photoshop 5.0. I'm comfortable with Power Point, QuarkXPress Passport 4.0, and Illustrator 7.0.

Project Update:

In each academic quarter, I am teaching cultural anthropology (Course Number: 0510-210-60). As for the forthcoming workshop in November, I am interested in developing a power-point / website project to demonstrate the sociocultural features of the different types of four particular societies: hunter-gatherers, horticulturists, pastoralists, and intensive agriculturists. This topic is the most difficult of all the chapters in the course of cultural anthropology for RIT deaf students. The students need to remember the societies' salient sociocultural characteristics and also learn how to compare and contrast their respective features. Furthermore, I have been collecting the colorful photographs of these different societies from the anthropology textbooks, "National Geographic" magazines and other anthropological journals, in order to display the "portraits" of their lifeways in both the power point and website applications in the classroom. The goals of this project are to enhance students' better understanding and conveniently remembering the different sociocultural features, as well as comparing and contrasting their respective lifeways, in a short time. Also, one of the goals is to create a matching set in a chart in the website so that students will fill the appropriate answers to the societies' features. This is to help these students apply the visual memory to describe the lifestyles of the four societies.

Project Update:

Currently students enrolled in NTID reading courses are being required to also enroll in a one hour vocabulary course. The intent of this proposal is to develop additional instructional activities and materials that students can access via the internet. Student performance on vocabulary tests has indicated that instruction beyond the current one hour per week is necessary. The project would begin with the vocabulary for non-fiction reading 4, with materials for the other levels to follow. The chairpersons of the speech-language and English departments are supportive of this proposal.

Project Update:

http://www.rit.edu/~jmcncs/vocindex.htm

I have been working on a website with Simon Ting for the Foundations of Critical Thinking Course. Generally, I have given him the print materials I use and they have been uploaded to one of Simon's accounts. Animation has been added to demonstrate a few of the problems presented in the course. We will be continuing to work on the website through this year. I have requested a Leave of Absence for the Spring Quarter with work on the website as one of my objectives. I have also put in a proposal for this to be a Level 1 Project. I want to gain a better understanding of what Simon and his student assistants are doing as well as gaining a measure of independence in the creation of materials for use with or without the web. I would like to have a better sense of the when, why and how of using visual materials (including those that could be in the website.) This information will have applications to other courses I teach. In terms of student priorities, I believe the thinking skills in the critical thinking course are a high priority for the Institute and some of the units and exercises in the course could be accessible to students who are NOT in the course. Many students who are registered for the course are first year students who are not yet comfortable with the technology available at NTID, but can learn a lot about using the WWW if this A level course encourages or requires it. My department has been very supportive of any efforts to improve my teaching effectiveness, with a strong encouragement to learn and use the latest technology and software available.

Project Update:

I would like to insert the course descriptions on the Department of ASLIE homepage. The RIT/NTID community can explore the courses contexts what we offer during the academic year and the links to ASL issues and anything is related to deafness will be on the reference list. Surfing on the Web would give students unlimited access to the materials.

Project Update:

I have three completed research projects that are being submitted for presentation at three professional conferences this academic year: A reading conference in Montreal, college educators of the deaf and hard of hearing in Rochester, and CAID in Los Angeles. These conferences are scheduled for February, April, and June. It is a department and CRTL expectation and priority that research faculty members disseminate their research findings at national symposia and conferences. The data have been collected and analyzed for these studies. Also, the tables, graphs, and presentation content have been drafted and laid out. I am in the process of creating Cricket graphs for these data. In addition to the conference presentations, I will present the findings of these research studies as examples in several courses that I teach: 1) Psychology of Teaching and Learning and 2) MSSE Foundations of Educational Research. Teaching these kinds of courses involves the use of numerous examples of research and related discussion of the data and findings.

Project Update:

For the past year, I have been a member of RIT s Open Supplier Integration Center -OSIC. Our task is to investigate different ways to effectively bridge the communication gap between Original Equipment Manufactures -OEM- and suppliers. Most companies are being forced to outsource many products or services that can be produced more economically outside their own company. The dilemma is how the OEM can effectively control the quality, delivery and changes necessary to produce competitive products. I teach a three sequence course in Computer Numerical Control, course #0812-151, 0812-152 and 0812-253. My intention is to develop several presentations using powerpoint. Please consider me for participation in the visual preparation and presentation workshop.

Project Update:

I would like to develop a Home Page for graduates from the DI&PT program (graduates from Imaging Technology and Electronic Publishing & Printing Technology are also included). The purpose of this Home Page is to provide a link for the graduates and the faculty to interact with each other after graduation. The field of imaging is constantly changing and I personally feel that some kind of support is needed if we expect our graduates to maintain and expand their skills. The Home Page would have links to all the major players in imaging, would include links to significant news releases, software/hardware development including upgrades, and probably the most important part, an on-line forum to share technical problems and solutions. I did consider setting up a listserver, but a Home Page can provide more resources, it offers the most flexibility. Continuous contact with graduates has been a priority of the department, but has yet to be addressed. An NT server is available to provide this service independent of ISC. The department has its Home Page on it at the present time. As a bonus, I would also like the possibility to configure this same server to provide ILS service so that users could connect to it to initiate videoconferencing, chat sessions, audio sessions and just plain file sharing. NetMeeting is a good example of an application.

Project Update:

This is for development of an ASL dictionary and grammar guide on CD-ROM. I have a one quarter LOA as a CRTL fellow this quarter to work on the prototype, and the ITC workshop will greatly help me understand the visual/multi-media demands of the project as it continues. The project is on the way, and I look forward to the ITC studio helping me along.

Project Update:

I teach an ASL/Deaf Studies course for students entitled "Structure of ASL". I'm interested in putting the materials I've developed for this course on the Web. By building a web site for the course, I hope to (1) improve the course's overall accessibility for deaf students (2) incorporate appropriate resources available on the web into the course content (3) provide interactive assignments for students to complete using CD-Rom resources of signing samples now available or in progress (Geoff Poor is currently working on a CD-Rom that may be compatible), (4) improve visual presentation of the course materials,(5) develop my own skills in use of software applications for building a website, (6) stimulate interest among deaf students for further investigation of this topic. This project addresses the NTID/RIT priority concerning providing educational access for deaf students.

Project Update:

RIT and NTID are required by law to provide disability services for students with disabilities. Besides the standard services we provide to deaf students, NTID must provide additional services to deaf students with secondary disabilities such as mobility, vision, and learning disabilities. NTID's Disabilities Advisory Team, of which I am a member, provides information and classification services to students with secondary disabilities. Part of our charge is to find effective ways to disseminate needed information to students, parents, and faculty. We intend to develop a web page as an institute service to to do this. This page will include the following: a) Pictures and contact information for disability-services personnel at NTID; b) Statement of Institute disability-services policy; c) news and events section be updated regularly; d) On-line version of our disability-services brochure; e) Down-loadable and/or on-line disabilities forms for students/parents to fill out; f) form for parents/students to submit disability-related questions; g) Information for faculty on accommodations and legal responsibilities; h) Bibliography of disability-related publications; j) links to other disability-related sites; k) Statements of minimum requirements for disability classification; l) A statement of the AHEAD guidelines; m) A statement of the grievance procedures. We receive frequent requests for information from parents, students, and faculty. This web page will permit us to refer them to a comprehensive, accessible and interactive source of disability information.

Project Update: