The New Jersey Intercampus Network (NJIN) continues its Faculty Colloquium Series on emerging issues in distance education. Participation in the NJIN Colloquia on Distance Education is free to faculty, administrators, and staff of NJIN member institutions. Our next session is scheduled for Friday, April 7, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM.

Topic: "Pedagogical Role of Multimedia in Distance Learning"

Sites: Fairleigh Dickinson University Teaneck, College of St. Elizabeth, Brookdale Community College, Burlington County College (Mt. Laurel), Atlantic Cape CC.

This session will explore the role of multimedia in distance education using synchronous and asynchronous learning strategies. Appropriate usage of multimedia from a pedagogical perspective will be discussed and examples of multimedia use across the disciplines will be demonstrated. Strategies for producing multimedia on campus will be presented with an eye on support infrastructure and budgetary impact.

Presenter Dr. Michael Kolitsky is the Director of Instructional Technology at Rowan University and a biologist by training. He has been working in the area of multimedia courseware development for over 15 years focusing on both the development of media content and the training of faculty to incorporate pedagogically appropriate multimedia into their teaching and learning strategies. In 1992, Mike received the EDUCOM Distinguished Natural Sciences Curriculum Innovation award for his Embryology videodisc and HyperEmbryo software which simulated a full semester lab microscopy course in Embryology. In that same year, he also received a second runner-up award at the First Quicktime Film Festival for his digital micromovie entitled "Egg-Sperm Meeting". While with the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) from 1993-1997, he was responsible for designing the technology infrastructure for a new Undergraduate Learning Center and for putting in place the support infrastructure to assist faculty in teaching with technology and for creating multimedia to enrich the learning process. He established at UTEP a "Multimedia Teaching and Learning Center" which was accepted as a member of the New Media Center Consortium in 1995 and, in 1996, he received The University of Texas Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is currently serving as a virtual adjunct professor teaching an online eHistology course to students at UTEP from his home office in Ocean City, NJ. Mike also has an interest in poetry and has presented twice over the past six months at conferences on the new concept of writing poetry in cyberspace using Virtual Reality Modeling Language. This has been viewed by colleagues in composition as a new genre and for the first time, explores writing poetry when a third dimension, the z-axis, is available. He and his IT staff at Rowan have recently been asked to organize three workshops under the auspices of the New Jersey Virtual University demonstrating appropriate usage and production of multimedia for online learning.

You can register for this event by using our convenient online registration form.