Rensselaer Colloquium 2008
Designing Multidisciplinary Blended Environments:
Tools and Technologies
Marie-Pierre Huguet
Shannon Hilliker-VanStrander

Abstract: From Wikis to avatars, from podcasts to Web conferencing, from M-learning to blogs, how do you stay abreast of the latest changes? How do you know which tools to select and use without falling prey to the latest fad? And more importantly, how do you integrate them to create instructionally sound and cost effective blended instruction? This hands-on workshop focused on the elements of instructional design that drive the development of effective multidisciplinary blended instruction and more specifically on the variety of tools, strategies, and technologies, that can be used to design, develop, and evaluate it. The participants were lead through a series of mini presentations, discussions, and hands-on activities that enabled them to select and test the technologies that work best for them and to ultimately develop their own, successful blended experience. The tools and technologies discussed during this workshop included:

Teaching and learning tools (learning management systems, synchronous and asynchronous tools, gaming devices, podcasting, blogs, virtual worlds, and wikis) ; Design tools (ID models, design brief, storyboarding); Development tools (media creation, HTML editors, accessibility tools); Evaluation tools (process, matrix, formative and summative).