Seminar: Blanca Polo, "Birth of the Multi-Format Teaching Environment" (4/16/2009)

I propose to develop and test a new Multi-Format Course Delivery (Multi-FCD) teaching framework that aims to deliver class material independent of time, place or format. Multi-FCD allows students to access and tailor the class material to suit their personal learning styles and busy schedules. The class' material will be fully available on the Internet, so students will have access to it at anytime from anywhere. The material may be accessed linearly as the course progresses, or randomly giving the student freedom to preview the material ahead of time as well as to review previous lectures. A relational view is provided. This view allows student to see how a particular topic relates to the rest of the course as well as to the real world. Finally a structural view will allow the student to see how class material fits within the structure of the course. The material will be presented redundantly over different media giving the student the opportunity to choose among several formats. This framework may be equally applied to distance education, blended or face-to-face courses.  Multi-FCD adopts the networking concepts of "unified communications" to manage information flow and delivery, "virtualization" to simulate 100% instructor availability and communication tools such as blogs, social networking, IM and texting to promote social interaction. The overall course structure should increase engagement with the materials, sustain motivation within assignments, and improve student morale.