Digital week promotes learning, research

The Office of Digital Learning (ODL) launched its first annual ND Digital week Friday, and it will feature more than 30 events between now and Oct. 9 dedicated to promoting digital teaching, learning and research on campus.

“The ODL is a new office on campus tasked with enhancing the bonds between students and faculty and driving a first-class learning experience via cutting edge technology,” Elliott Visconsi, Notre Dame’s Chief Academic Digital Officer, said. “It’s really important for us to hear student feedback and engagement — what their concerns are and what they want to see in their learning experience.”

A keynote lecture by Anant Agarwal, CEO of edX and professor at MIT, will kick off the week at 3 p.m. Friday in the Geddes Auditorium. “[Agarwal] will be discussing the evolving nature of higher education and the role of digital learning within it,” Melissa Dinsman, projects and operations manager for the ODL, said. “We’re hoping it will generate a lot of buzz and discussion.”

Tim Bozik, CEO of Pearson PLC, and Tara McPherson, Associate Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California will also present lectures. They will discuss online learning and digital scholarship, respectively, on Monday.

Dinsman said other events include a series of round table discussions on digital education as well as workshops on digital publishing, e-portfolio preparation and digital comics creation. There will also be open houses hosted by the Digital Visualization Theater in Jordan Hall, Academic Technologies Lab in DeBartolo Hall and ePortfolio services.

“This is a big announcement that the ODL is here and has plenty of resources to offer students and faculty alike,” Dinsman said. “We also want to highlight all the great digital scholarship already being conducted on campus.”

Dinsman said the ODL plans to showcase the digital scholarship conducted by Notre Dame graduate students with “Lightning Talks” on Thursday. Each graduate student will present a five-minute talk on the theme “New Technologies, New Knowledge.”

Sonia Howell, research fellow of digital initiatives at the ODL, said the week will also include interactive activities for students such as a digital scavenger hunt, Twitter Bingo, a 3-D printing contest and CasheND, a geocaching race. Prizes include T-shirts, bookstore items and restaurant gift cards, with the scavenger hunt champion receiving a free iPad mini.

“This is the first time Notre Dame has done anything like this, and it’s important because it’s a great opportunity to present ourselves as world leaders in the sphere of digital learning,” Howell said.

For updates and a complete list of events, visit online.nd.edu/digitalweek2014 or follow @NDDigitalWeek on Twitter.