This has been my first time attending the First-Year Experience Conference being held this year in San Antonio. This is a huge conference with an incredible number of presenters and exhibits. Here are some highlights of the first day presentations I attended.
This Isn’t Your Daddy’s Filmstrip Presentation, Using Camtasia to Create Student Success Videos
Robert Sherfield teaches technical writing and student success courses in Nevada. He gave a lively demonstration on the use of Camtasia software to create videos. I had heard of Camtasia before and seen it used to provide a narration for slide shows or program demonstrations. It’s now easy to add a picture in picture, more audio tracks, videos, and text callouts. The editing part of the program looks a bit like iMovie, but would make sense for Windows users. I know we’ve had this package at Mont Alto. I definitely want to try it, or something like it out.
From the demonstration I think the trick is to make short videos of specific topics rather than try to record a whole lectures. And it’s easy to put everything on a Youtube channel.
First Year Students Expanding Their Boundaries Internationally by Sharie Brunk from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse. UW Lacrosse has added a foreign trip experience to their first year seminar. In the first year a group of four students and two faculty toured Paris for three weeks during a winter inter-term. Brunk described the challenges of creating and staging the program. Although they had hoped to have more students, the cost, the timing, and other factors kept the number of students down. They hope to improve the program and make it a lasting part of their first-year course.
I was impressed to hear about the normal first-year seminar at UW Lacrosse. Faculty are paired with a student affair staff person to teach each section according to a standardized syllabus. They have some fun activities, including a dinner at the faculty member’s home. They also have a common book for discussion, with the author as a campus speaker. It seems like a well thought out, fun program. I think it would be great if we could have a more uniform course like this at Mont Alto. At least then the students would know what to expect.