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September 24, 2024 17 mins

“What EdTech successfully transformed student outcomes in your course(s)?”. We showcase a variety of Seton Hall instructors who share stories of their classroom successes and highlight the diverse technological landscape on our campuses. As you will learn, transformative EdTech can take many forms and can be used by instructors at any stage of their tech integration journey. 

Resources

Adobe Creative Campus: Seton Hall Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 course: Creativity for All

Adobe Education Exchange

Professional Learning for Educators

Dr. Joseph Martinelli : Profile   

Dr. Juergen Heinrichs: Profile

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:00:03):
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Innovate and Educate,
the podcast that's all about empowering
minds and shaping
futures in higher education.
Hosted by the Teaching,
Learning, and Technology Center,
or TLTC at Seton Hall University,

(01:00:26):
this exciting series is
dedicated to exploring
the intersection of technology and
teaching in higher education.
During each episode of
Innovate and Educate,
the TLTC will tackle a pressing question
about how to harness the power of
technology to transform student outcomes
in college and university settings.

(01:00:46):
Whether you're a seasoned professor,
a tech curious instructor,
or an administrator looking to boost your
institution's digital prowess,
this podcast is your go-to resource for
practical, innovative solutions.
We understand that educators are busy,
so we've designed each episode to be a
concise yet comprehensive 20-minute dive

(01:01:07):
into a specific tech-related topic.
You can look forward to expert insights,
real-world examples, and actionable
strategies that you can
implement in your classroom,
in your department,
or across your campus.
A new episode of Innovate and Educate
will be released on the
last Thursday of every month,
giving you plenty of time to digest the

(01:01:29):
information and put it into
practice before our next installment.
Whether you're looking for new ways to
approach familiar topics,
integrate the latest
tech into your curriculum,
or find innovative
solutions to your classroom issues,
Innovate and Educate has got you covered.
During today's episode,

(01:01:50):
we will answer the question,
"What edtech successfully transforms
student outcomes in
your course or courses?"
We are excited to showcase a variety of
Seton Hall instructors
who will share stories of
their classroom successes
and highlight the diverse technological
landscape on our campuses.
As you will learn,

(01:02:10):
transformative edtech can take many forms
and can be used by instructors at any
stage of their tech integration journey.
Hey, how are you? I'm doing great. Good,
good. I'm so happy to
be here. I'm Joe Martin
Nully. I am a senior faculty associate in
the College of Human Development, Culture
and Media. And I've also been doing the

(01:02:34):
director of instructional design and
technology. Technology
is my thing. And I've been doing it for
some 25 years at Seton Hall now.
Wow, that's great. Then you've seen a lot
of technological progress.
Yeah, well, between 25 years at Seton
Hall and 15 at William
Patterson and almost 40
years and higher, it'd be a lot of
technology progress.
Definitely. Well, then you saw us as we

(01:02:56):
became the first
university in New Jersey to become
an Adobe Creative Cloud.
Yeah, yeah. With the first, I saw us when
we became the first with laptops. And now
I was so excited that we became the first
university with the Adobe Creative Cloud.
I love Adobe products. I've used them,
date myself going back
to PageMaker, which was

(01:03:16):
the first one that people look at, "Oh,
what are you talking
about?" Adobe does some great
stuff. Adobe creates the Creative Cloud,
gives our students and
our faculty the ability to
just have fun. I call it just make.
You're making something.
And as we got it and I started
working with it, I'm like, "How can I

(01:03:37):
integrate this into my
courses? How can I integrate
this and give students the opportunity to
what I call creative play?"
Well, and why did you have that interest
for them? What's in it for them?
Yeah, you know what? It goes back to one
of my things that I love.
My interest academically
research is creativeness. And one of my

(01:04:00):
interests in technology is we're
consumers of it, but
are we creators? We all consume it.
Everybody consumes it. But
I thought the Adobe Creative
Cloud, hence the word "creator," gives
our students the
ability to create. And as an
educator, I believe in an active
classroom. I believe in

(01:04:20):
collaboration. And I believe
in students being able to
take a risk and just have fun.
So last year I started with using it
three different courses I
taught. Actually, I ended
up using it in four. I used it in a
digital photography. I used it in...
That makes sense.

(01:04:41):
Yeah, which yeah, you got to use it. I
used it in writing for
media. And I'll explain
how I did that one. And I used it in my
oral comm class, which
I think all the sections
use it to an extent. Tools that I used
out of the Adobe, the
Adobe Express is just...
That's a fantastic one just to start

(01:05:02):
with. With a little bit
of learning and ability
to just play, you can create portfolios,
you can create images,
you can create branding
things, you can work into YouTube, which
we did. In digital
photography, we started with
Lightbox, Lightroom, sorry. And then we

(01:05:23):
went over to Photoshop. And
then we went into Photoshop
Express. And then we went into Adobe Free
Express itself. So we
used all different tools. And
we used the Premiere Rush, the short one,
to make a video. So
part of the thing was...
That's a lot of tools.
Oh yeah.
In one class.
And then we used the portfolio to put all

(01:05:45):
their digital images,
their products up. So
they were able to see, yeah, it was a lot
of products. So over
15 weeks, we would begin
each class because we had them, I had
them once a week for
three hours, we would begin
the class with a review of what our
themes were, students
would go shoot, and then we
would package them in the portfolio.

(01:06:06):
Got it. Well, it makes sense that you
would use Adobe tools
with a class like digital
photography. But what about oral comm?
Great question. So with the oral comm
class, I ended up I did
portfolio, which is required
amongst all the oral comm classes to
build a portfolio. But I
also wanted them to think
not just a portfolio to build oral comm,
but build artwork to go

(01:06:28):
along with their presentations.
Okay.
And I had them use the Adobe Express to
build artwork and to build their
presentation. Because
these kids have been using, these
students now have been
using PowerPoint since they're
great. It's part of the state rule, part
of the education. If
you look up the New Jersey
Department of Ed technology, by this

(01:06:48):
grade, you're going to use
PowerPoint by this grade.
But to go into the Adobe and get creative
presentations and
graphics is different. There
is a hesitation.
I was going to ask about that if they
were kind of nervous about that new tech.
And there's a fear that I'm not going to

(01:07:08):
lower your grade on
something, I'm going to actually
encourage you to play and take a risk.
Then that process starts to blossom.
Sure. Well, and along those lines, tell
me about that student
and yeah, you know, as
a faculty, you know, teaching and one of
the things that, you

(01:07:29):
know, I love about teaching
is having an impact on someone. I had a
student come up to me. I
taught them the portfolio
in the writing for media. And he goes,
yeah, I went and did my
own portfolio, updated it.
It helped me get my internship in New
York and broadcasting.
That's incredible.
And he goes that and he just crossed. He

(01:07:51):
goes that Adobe Express
and portfolios is an awesome
tool. Yeah, that's what it's about.
They're trying to get you
to teach students to use
these tools, how it can benefit them in
their careers, in their
life. So when they graduate,
because not everybody's staying at Seton
Hall forever.
Eventually you graduate. They'll

(01:08:12):
take the skills that we've taught them
and transfer to
something else. And in education,
we call that a transfer of knowledge.
Right. Right. When I first
taught writing for media,
it was paper or Word documents. Yep. What
we did with the Adobe
is they created basically
an online publication for their writing

(01:08:33):
assignments. And we wrote
because I truly believe the only
way to be a better writer is to write.
Yeah. The excitement
that I'm feeling right here,
you know, hearing you talk about it, I'm
sure has transferred
over to them. It's obvious
that your use of the Adobe creative tools
has impacted them, not
just in the classroom,

(01:08:54):
but definitely in the real world and
beyond. Yeah. Without a
doubt. So thank you so much
for talking to me today. Really
appreciate hearing about all
of that. And more than that,
and I'm going to tell you, I thank Seton
Hall for being
proactive on with this creative
technology in the next level.

(01:09:15):
Hello, my name is Jürgen Heinrichs. I'm
an Associate Professor
of Art History here at
Setonal University in New Jersey, and it
is my great honor to be here.
Well, something that I've really enjoyed
seeing in your
classes is how you've taken
something as "simple" as taking a phone

(01:09:37):
and taking a picture
with it to be able to
share that photo with the class. I'm
really interested in
hearing more about the project
that you created with those images and
why you decided to use
that particular technology
to enhance your instruction.
So this assignment is a way in which to
bring students closer to

(01:09:59):
the bigger picture. And
this assignment in particular is called
"Neoclassicism in my
hometown." And what it entails is it
asks students or invites students to go
to the town that's on
their record here in our
student systems, so to make it, to
personalize it, to go to

(01:10:19):
their towns and pick a structure
or a building that we in class already
identified generally as
"Neoclassical," meaning it is
a revival of the classical antiquity in
their hometowns. Usually
such would be municipal
buildings, city halls, courthouses, but

(01:10:43):
also high schools and
smaller buildings for that
matter. And it doesn't have to be
strictly neoclassical. It
could also be in the spirit
of neoclassicism, meaning playing with
some of these forms
such as pediments, columns
in a facade, and so forth.

(01:11:03):
Interesting. So you're taking concepts
that you're teaching them
in class, but then helping
them see those concepts in the real
world, and notably in a
city that they're already
very familiar with.
Exactly. So the whole purpose of the
assignment is to make them
realize, and this is often
what you find in their assignment
responses, to make them

(01:11:24):
realize that they're already
surrounded by things that have great
relevance to say,
architectural history, but they never
looked at it that way. And the way the
assignment works is that I
asked them to identify one
or several buildings. They usually
consult with me. We make
sure to approve it that they're
not going down sort of the wrong way.

(01:11:47):
They found a building,
and in a first step, they
make a photograph, which is very easy
nowadays with ubiquitous
smartphones or cameras. And
even if they can't go home to their
hometown, they may also
rely on available images that
exist out there on the
web. That's the first step.
The second step is that I asked them to

(01:12:10):
practice what we call
close analysis. They are asked
to describe the building of their choice
in ways that we
practice the entire semester
in the classroom. They also have a
variety of resources such
as glossaries. There are
all kinds of how-to resources available
on the web and

(01:12:31):
elsewhere that assist them in
not necessarily giving the perfect
description, but just trying. And of
course, the underlying
purpose of doing this close analysis is
the imperative to look, to
look carefully at something
you may have seen all your knife, but you
never really looked
at. You know what I mean?
And when you say that they're doing this

(01:12:52):
analysis, is this like a
presentation in class? Are
they doing a write-up of it? Is there a
combination of that?
Yes, it's a combination. And just to note
that this assignment
is constantly shifting.
So in the first step, they identify the
building. They usually run
it by me and say, "That's
a great choice. Go for it." In the second
step, they do the
close analysis. They write

(01:13:13):
up a description. Sometimes they turn to
me for help too, which
I'm always happy to assist
regarding particular vocabulary and
terminology. And then they
bring it back to class. And
here, we're very fortunate to use our
learning management system
in which they then register
their close analysis in ways that not

(01:13:35):
only I, as instructor,
can see it, but everybody
else in class too. And that is great
because they can then sort
of support each other and
say, "Oh, this is actually a pediment."
The triangular part of
a gable font, such as in
Greek antiquity, or this is an oculus, a
circular opening in
architecture. And so they can assist

(01:13:57):
each other and support each other. But
it's also a great way of
getting to know each other,
thinking, "Oh, I didn't realize you're
from Sparta, New Jersey,
or from Huntington Beach,
California," or wherever
your hometown happens to be.
Neat. So when did you start doing this
project in particular? Has
it evolved from a way that

(01:14:19):
it used to be and now you've changed it
up? Or has it always been this way?
Well, it's a good question. It's
constantly evolving. It
also makes it more interesting
for us as instructors to see that these
are really living
assignments. Initially, it was
born out of the desire to make what they

(01:14:40):
learn more relatable.
Relatable in a sense, and
therefore here I asked them to pick
something from their
hometown. The hometown is listed
on their student record also to avoid
some cheating, for
instance. They have to go back.
And interestingly enough, I sometimes get
students say, "Oh, I'm
from this really rural
city, way out, and there's nothing." I

(01:15:01):
said, "Are you sure?"
Because often they think
there isn't anything, and yet once they
approach me, we find something
nevertheless. In the
unlikely case of there being no
neoclassical structure
whatsoever, they are allowed to
go one town over or always refer to our
hometown here of Setonau
University, that is South

(01:15:21):
Orange, New Jersey, or nearby Newark, New
Jersey, which has a rich
variety of neoclassical
structures.
Great. Thank you so much for talking to
me today about this
project and how you bring
what the concepts that students are
learning in the classroom
to life. They're finding
these structures, these art forms, not

(01:15:43):
just on a textbook page
digitally or physically,
but in their hometowns. So thank you so
much for sharing today.
It's absolutely a pleasure, and please
know that we couldn't do
it without this dedicated
team of wonderful instructional
designers, because it
would be half the fun and half
the success without the incredible
resources you make
available to us. Thank you so much.

(01:16:07):
That wraps up this episode of Innovate
and Educate. We hope
you found inspiration in
the diverse ways our Seton Hall
colleagues are using technology to
enhance student outcomes.
Remember that every step toward tech
integration makes a difference. If you
enjoyed this episode,

(01:16:28):
please subscribe to Innovate and Educate
on your favorite
podcast platform. We release
new episodes on the fourth Thursday of
every month, so mark
your calendars. Also, make
sure to download our show notes, where
you'll find a complete
transcript and a list of additional
resources related to this topic. Have a
question you'd like us to
explore in a future episode?

(01:16:51):
Or maybe you have your own edtech success
story to share? We'd
love to hear from you.
Reach out to us at tltc at shu.edu. Until
next time, embrace the
innovation in education.
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