Contact:
Prof. Jacek Gwizdka
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RUTGERS IS ONE OF 39 SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE SELECTED AS HP TECHNOLOGY GRANT RECIPIENT
$77,000 grant includes HP wireless equipment and cash award to improve student achievement
New Brunswick, NJ, June, 18, 2008 – School of Communication, Information and Library Studies (SCILS), Rutgers University was selected as one of 39 two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States and Puerto Rico to receive a 2008 HP Technology for Teaching grant, which is designed to transform teaching and improve learning in the classroom through innovative uses of technology.
SCILS will receive an award package of HP products and a faculty cash award valued at more than $77,000.
Each of the HP Technology for Teaching grant recipients will use wireless HP Tablet PCs to enhance learning in engineering, math, science, or computer science. In a project called “iThInking - Mobile Tablet Computers for Active Learning,” Rutgers will use the HP Tablet computers to increase the interactivity, collaboration, and active learning in the Information Technology and Informatics undergraduate degree program. Faculty will re-design courses to allow for in-class learning activities where students can collaborate together rather than work by themselves away from instructional support. Tablet laptops will offer an egalitarian learning experience in the project courses, and instead of using laptops in class as distractions the technology offers the opportunity to be truly integrated in the learning activities. Learning activities that focus on creating and evaluating information, generating and capturing designs and analyzing and re-working them, and collaborating to experiment with digital objects will be made possible by offering a more active, mobile and ubiquitous computer environment in the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies.
The Rutgers proposal was written by Professors Jacek Gwizdka, whose research area is in Human Computer Interaction and Claire McInerney, whose specialty is Knowledge Management. Dr. Gwizdka, the principal investigator, will use Tablet PCs in an undergraduate course on Human Computer Interaction. Dr. McInerney, currently the Director of the Information Technology and Informatics (ITI) degree program, will help organize the research aspect of the project. The Information Technology and Informatics degree is focused on the “human aspect of technology,” where students learn technology skills as well as the social and managerial aspects of interacting with information in an organizational setting.
In anticipation of using the computers in ITI courses, Dr. Gwizdka said, "I am very excited about the new instructional possibilities offered by tablet technology. Tablets will enable me to offer new interactive activities in the classroom. They are particularly well suited to support user interface design activities that students engage in my HCI class."
HP is awarding 149 two- and four-year colleges and universities, and K-12 public schools in the United States and Puerto Rico more than $7 million in mobile technology, cash and professional development as part of the 2008 HP Technology for Teaching grant program. Since 2004, HP has contributed a total of $60 million in HP Technology for Teaching grants to more than 1,000 schools in 41 countries worldwide. During the past 20 years, HP has contributed more than $1 billion in cash and equipment to schools, universities, community organizations and other nonprofit organizations around the world.
“Around the world, HP partners with pioneering professors and schools to discover how technology can improve student success,” said Sid Espinosa, director of Global Social Investment programs at HP. “While technology is not the answer to every educational challenge, we have witnessed its incredible and transformative impact in the classroom. This innovation is happening every day as teaching and learning are fundamentally changing.”
More information about the 2008 HP Technology for Teaching program and grant recipients is available at www.hp.com/go/hpteach.
More information about SCILS is available at http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/
More information about the iThinking project at http://ithinking.rutgers.edu/
