The 2004 ~FAST Tex projects
College of Education

Title:
Biomechanical Analysis of Human Movement

Faculty Client:
Dr. Lawrence Abraham, l.abraham@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Ashot Petrosian

Project Description:
Courses in the analysis of human movement are significantly enriched by real examples of humans-in-motion. We developed a web-based template for digital video analysis that allows students to view a video clip in various modes: fast, slow, forward, backward, and freeze-frame. The template also allows users to track important characteristics of the human subjects in the video—trajectory, velocity and acceleration of certain body parts, for example.

In addition to the template, we began creating a library of video clips of human movement suitable for analysis. These clips include examples of elite sport performance, clinical studies, and typical everyday movement.

Finally, we began developing instructional modules that allow students to access the templates and video clips over the web. This hands-on, individualized approach with highly motivating examples and activities enables students to gain a deeper understanding of the application of mechanical principles to human movement. This knowledge and skill will enhance their future work as physicians, teachers, coaches, therapists, and engineers.

Title:
Mentoring book talks in online book clubs: An exploration.

Faculty Client:
Dr. Gayle Allen, ggallen@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Lan Zhang

Project Description:
This project produced an online environment where pre-service teachers in a graduate Reading Methods class can interact with students in grades 1 through 4. In a Web-based book club, the young readers dialogue with the pre-service teachers about books they are reading in class. This “virtual field experience” gives the pre-service teachers valuable instructional interactions with real reading students and its online format enables the Reading Methods course instructor to observe the interactions and give feedback to the pre-service teachers. This project is an extension of a previously successful—but limited—virtual book club exercise that was e-mail based. This project moved the book club experience into a Web-based threaded discussion forum, enabling greater access to everyone’s discussions and better archiving abilities.

Title:
Elementary Science Methods Course

Faculty Client:
Dr. Lowell Bethel, lbethel@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Eunmi Lee

Project Description:
This project developed a Web site to help pre-service elementary school science teachers use the Internet for curriculum development, collaboration and problem-based learning. These resources help students create lesson plans with simulated experiments and classroom setups. Discussion tools also enable the pre-service teachers work in virtual teams, resolving instructional problems provided by the Elementary Science Methods course instructors.

Title:
How to Use a Digiscope 150 Digital Microscope Web Page

Faculty Client:
Dr. Julie Jackson, Julie_Jackson@teachnet.edb.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Jaladhi Pujara

Project Description:
Digital microscopes are becoming popular in elementary school science classes because they allow multiple students to view magnified images on a computer monitor without having to use a traditional microscope eyepiece. Magnified digital images can also be projected onto a large screen so an entire class can see the image at the same time.

This ~FAST Tex project developed a web-based tutorial for pre-service elementary science teachers on how to use the Digiscope 150 digital microscope. The tutorial includes digital stills and video and helps prepare pre-service teachers for experience in real elementary school science classrooms.

Title:
CD-ROM & Web Tutorials on Children's Development and Motor Skill Acquisition

Faculty Client:
Dr. Jody Jensen, JLJ@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Derek Carlin

Project Description:
The goal of this project is to create a challenging and engaging tutorial to help Kinesiology students understand what is considered “typical” motor-skill development in young children. The web site include images and video of basic motor skills such as the walk, run, hop, jump, gallop, slide, catch, throw, kick, strike, underhand roll, and dribble. An interactive component allows for self-study with expert feedback built into the program. After viewing QuickTime movies of a child's motor performance (e.g., kicking) the user enters a score for the performance and the user can compare his/her score with that of an expert during the online tutorial.

Title:
Virtual Manipulatives for Mathematics Learning

Faculty Client:
Dr. Helen Taylor Martin, taylormartin@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Ashot Petrosian

Project Description:
Virtual Manipulatives are virtual versions of items like counting tiles, fraction pies, or base-10 blocks that are used frequently in elementary level mathematics classrooms. This project’s online version moves like real manipulatives, but they also have a box for entering notations. In addition, the action of the manipulatives and the notations that go with them are recordable so that the future Elementary math teachers taking this course may gather examples of their own and their students problem-solving and reasoning representations in order to present them to the whole class for analysis and discussion.

Title:
Online Academic Research Community: A customized and customizable online resource, integrating commonly used research tools, while enacting an information sharing environment

Faculty Client:
Dr. Oscar Mink, o.mink@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Ryan Schoenbeck

Project Description:
Both academic and virtual environments claim to be “communities,” but tend toward individualized ownership of materials. The goal of this project was to enhance collaboration among graduate students by building a customized and customizable online resource that provides quick access to the most used research and online communication tools in their fields. The site provides quick access to materials like field-specific databases, journals, conferences, and organizations.

Title:
Developing Anchor Videos for Project Based Instruction

Faculty Client:
Dr. Anthony Petrosino, ajpetrosino@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Chad Wood

Project Description:
“Anchor Videos” are central to Project Based Instruction and this ~FAST Tex project developed a Web site to help teach pre-service teachers how to create good anchor videos. The site complements a class that provides a theoretical foundation for making anchor videos as well as a practical guide for working with video to produce meaningful, content-specific and motivating curriculum. In addition to a tutorial, the site includes an interactive quiz to help students measure their understanding of anchor video creation, and an administrative tool for easy uploading of new anchor videos.

Title:
Talking Over Books

Faculty Client:
Dr. Nancy Roser, nlroser@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Chad Wood

Project Description:
A love of reading is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child, and this site provides a wide range of advice on how to introduce kids to books at a young age for both students learning to be teachers and parents. Example videos, instructional techniques, and expert-reviewed book lists are found on this site.

Title:
Ballroom & Country/Western Dance Tutorial

Faculty Client:
Rosemary Slacks, rosies@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Raul Montes

Project Description:
Some students in large (60+) ballroom and country/western dance classes need more in-depth instruction on various patterns than time permits in class. In fact, for years students have requested a video so they can see and practice the footwork and positions of specific dance variations outside of class. This project created video DVD’s that allow students to watch a demonstration as many times as they need and can help refresh them after a four-day break between classes.

Title:
Movement Assessment Screens: A Real Time Tool

Faculty Client:
M. Dixie Stanforth, d.stanforth@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Hoa Mai

Project Description:
"Movement screens" are assessments used by fitness professionals for the purpose of identifying a client's limitations prior to beginning a training program. Traditionally, Kinesiology students study photographs of individuals at various points within specific movements. This project created an instructional resource detailing the process of conducting movement screens using a series of video vignettes supported by audio, text and animation. It created an authentic video-based environment in which the learner has the opportunity to practice performing assessments on a variety of individuals and includes an interactive tool that allows the user to quickly and accurately record his/her ratings on the numerous components that make up each movement and then save and export the results.

Title:
Video Transcriber Project

Faculty Client:
Dr. Walter Stroup, wstroup@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer(s):
Scott Denman

Project Description:
Many courses require Education students to videotape their own teaching and view existing videotapes of model lessons. These efforts frequently use crude and inefficient approaches to viewing and coding video data, often consisting of simply writing down time locations and observations on paper. The goal of this project was to build a simple, easy-to-use, video transcriber tool comprised of relatively low-cost, off-the-shelf components and capabilities that are tied together by means of AppleScript. The idea was to provide every student and faculty member with the ability to code and annotate digital video based on rubrics and coding schemes appropriate to a particular course or program of research. The tool is essentially a video-based analog to existing tools for transcribing and annotating audiotapes.

Title:
Web-Based Support for Medical/Educational Course: Prototype

Faculty Client:
Dr. Keith Turner, turner.keith@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Dylan Mankey

Project Description:
This project developed several 1 to 15 minute real life Web-based video clips to help students understand Medical and Educational assessment and intervention concepts. These video clips are integrated with text to enrich them as learning resources. The resulting Web site also evaluates students' understanding of concepts depicted and incorporates interactive tutorials/exercises to teach concepts as well as evaluate the students' initiation, medial, and terminal skills in the course.

Title:
Video in Support of Innovative Instruction in Elementary Mathematics

Faculty Client:
Dr. Linda Voges, lvoges@mail.utexas.edu

Student Developer:
Zhi Liu

Project Description:
The goal of this project was to create visual guides for pre-service teachers wishing to learn new and innovative methods of teaching mathematics to elementary students. To this end it created a Web site profiling elementary level mathematics lessons. Resources include: video of lessons being taught, lesson plans, references to State standards addressed by each lesson and descriptions of the technologies used in the lesson.