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Conversation with Guy Raffa

"Using technology is not a shortcut to good teaching. The good technology that we have now must go hand-in-hand with good pedagogy. Faculty members need to think long and hard about how they're teaching their classes, and then how technology can help them to, maybe, do it a little differently," says Guy Raffa, associate professor of Italian. Winner of a Gold as well as a Silver award in the Teaching with Technology category in the 2007 and 2003 IITAP competition, Raffa developed the Danteworlds Web site, for use with his ITC 349 course on Dante.

Students in several other UT Austin courses have also used this beautiful and informative way to present Dante's Inferno. A humanities lecture class of 300 students at Stanford University has already included use of the Web site in the course, and Raffa receives inquiries and comments from other universities.

Although there are other Web resources available about Dante, most are text-based. These are good for scholars, but Raffa wanted a resource he could use with undergraduate students. The Danteworlds site is distinctive with its original artwork depicting scenes from the text and audio recordings of passages in the original Italian.

"In teaching the Divine Comedy, you learn quickly that students need to visualize what's happening. The user of Danteworlds needs to be able to see what Dante sees, as he journeys through Hell and up the mountain of Purgatory, and through the spheres of Paradise," said Raffa, who developed concepts for the project over a period of many years. "I was already thinking about how I was teaching the class and how this project would complement and enrich aspects of the teaching."

Support for his visions came through a College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Grant in 2001, and another in 2003. Working with a team including a graphic artist, programmer, and technology specialists in the College of Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS), Raffa developed his ideas of how images of Dante's Inferno could help his students better understand and interpret the text. This was the first instructional multimedia project he worked on. Raffa emphasizes that a team approach was necessary for the project's success.

One of the goals for the project was to make it accessible not only to his students, but to anyone, anywhere, teaching Dante. For that he needed programming and technical assistance, as well as support from his department, college, and university resources such as the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assesment (DIIA). Additional help was provided by students in the Spring 2002 TLC 331 course, Multimedia Production, to enhance features in the Web site. Student feedback was also an important component. Raffa asked his students in class and on questionnaires what would help them the most, and what they would like to see in the project.

Raffa believes that instructional technology is a good way to bring together the different components of a faculty member's teaching, research, and other work.
The commentary and notes he wrote for the project is a result of his Dante scholarship, as well as his teaching. It has helped him to think of new ideas for his research, and becomes part of his scholarship. Even the process of submitting his project to the IITAP competition was useful. "During the process, I started to articulate what I was trying to do in a new way. It got me seriously thinking how the project fit into the field of instructional technology generally, and also how it was related to other projects, as well as my own field," said Raffa. At the IITAP awards ceremony in April, he enjoyed talking with people as they looked at his project, and also seeing other projects that were set up for viewing. "Seeing how people react to your project, the questions they have, it was all very useful."

Interacting with technology people during the workshop the day after the awards ceremony was especially helpful. Reflecting on the experience, he said, "The main lesson I learned from the whole IITAP process is how rich this area is, of teaching and technology, and how faculty members who are teaching regularly in the classroom can contribute greatly to how we use instructional technology in the future."

Student comments from course evaluations show that students appreciate the multimedia approach the Danteworlds site offers. "The Web site was invaluable to my understanding of the Inferno. The pictures, both old and new, added a new dimension to the reading--as did the audio recordings," remarked one student. Raffa found that students do better by several measures. They come better prepared for class because the supplementary material is available on the Web, it's engaging, and helps students see and hear the text in new ways.

Quiz scores are better than before he used the Web site in his course, Raffa has noticed. Students use the site to prepare for class or to review and enhance what they've learned from the class discussions. In class, discussion can get to a higher level more quickly. He can spend less time on some of the basic information in class, and talk about other things in the course related to the poem. That's one of the pedagogical advantages of this project, he believes--changing the way the classroom teaching occurs, and enriching the students' experiences.

Raffa advises other faculty who are interested in developing instructional technology projects to start thinking early about how they are teaching their class, how the technology will help that, and then to talk to as many people as possible who have technological expertise. If you're trying to design a project that will be available to others to use, you have to make sure you're using material that is free of copyright, or that you have permission to use.

"Having an artist actually create the images means that we have the copyrights. Other images we were able to get and use, because they're in the public domain, since they were produced long ago. So we're able to use them without infringing on others' copyrights, or paying costly fees," he said. Because he's a Dante scholar, Raffa was able to write his own commentary and notes, so those can be used and posted on the Web. He's learned a lot along the way, and cautions others to avoid the temptation of taking information, digitized images, or other material which may be available and putting these together to form a project. Some of that may be fine if it's just used in the classroom, but if it is to be freely accessible on the Web, without strict password protection, then one must think carefully about who the audience is, what materials can be used, and if permissions are needed.

For Raffa, it has been a wonderful combination of factors coming together, and he warmly acknowledges the assistance he's received through the various phases of this project. He is fortunate, he says, because of the proliferation of support at The University of Texas at Austin for faculty using instructional technology in their courses.

He strongly recommends the IITAP program to any faculty who may have a project in development, and encourages them to talk with others who have been through the process. His teaching and scholarship have been energized through working on this project, and he's eager to continue the journey through the next phases of development.

Originally recorded by Dawn Cizmar
May, 2003 and updated in 2007.