Teaching/tech institute moves to September

This year's Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology, a week of talks, seminars and workshops primarily for instructors and graduate students, will meet in September.

The program has met in July for several years, but the switch to Sept. 8-12 should help open SITT to people who aren't on campus in midsummer, said University Writing Program lecturer Andy Jones, coordinator for the institute. "We hope that the September start will especially attract faculty whose children will be back in school by then," he said.

Previous sessions have covered subjects ranging from wikis and SmartSite to copyright issues and interactive online mapping. "Other topics that we're investigating for this year include inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, and faculty uses of third-party applications," Jones said, "such as YouTube, blogs, Google Docs, and others."

"This year's SITT also will include a cluster of sessions for helping both TAs and faculty members understand how to manage SmartSites in teaching classes, and how to move content from existing MyUCDavis course sites into SmartSites," said Kirk Alexander, SmartSite program manager.

Lunches and breaks offer participants a chance to network with instructors from other disciplines. About 120 people registered for SITT 2007. The institute is sponsored by the Teaching Resources Center, which will post details of SITT 2008 at its site. For more information, visit the TRC site. To suggest topics, contact Jones at aojones@ucdavis.edu.