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Education IT

Columbia University embraces interactive web teaching

By Xinghui Guo | 2 June 2011

At Columbia University, America’s fifth oldest institute of higher learning, a department was founded in 1999 enhance teaching and learning through the purposeful use of new media and technology.

Known as the Columbia Centre for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL), the centre offers support to various faculties ranging from basic course website management to advanced project development.

Frank Moretti, Executive Director of CCNMTL, told FutureGov Asia Pacific that all material developed have the curriculum in mind, and that what CCNMTL builds are web-based. Moretti said: “Our emphasis is not on classroom technologies but on web-based technologies that students use all the time—whether it is during the class or at night from their homes or dormitories.”

CCNMTL has since created hundreds of projects in all 18 schools ranging from fields like architecture to journalism and medicine.

Moretti demonstrated the use of Video Interactions for Teaching and Learning (VITAL) to FutureGov Asia Pacific. This web-based application allows educators to upload a video that can then be individually edited and annotated by students. These notes are later embedded in essays by the students. All work done, including notes, annotations and the final essay are housed in an online community where instructors and peers can review work published within the system.

“So this is the kind of work we do. We work with everybody in all the different fields,” said Moretti. Programmes like these are built through a Design Research methodology.

“We look at the curriculum context to understand it, identify the challenges, form hypothesis in teaching and learning, design what we’re going to do, put it into the classroom for an educational experience. We then evaluate what we’ve done and the circle keeps going,” explained Moretti.

“It has all got to do with us collaborating with faculty to make things. We’re working to create things that enhance what is happening in the usual classroom context. It’s an enhancement and an intensification.”

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