ITIF Recipients 2012 to 2013

Dept/Division PI(s) Project Title
Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy Debbie Hebert Modular Online Framework for Public Education, Undergraduate & Entry‐level Professional Curriculum, & Post‐Professional Certfication

We will create a tri-level internet-based course framework, with open and paid modules, modifiable for use with other occupational therapy content. The exemplar content, Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance (CO-OP), will be provided at three levels: basic knowledge (public); paid theory/application (free to OT/PT UofT students); certification modules (health professionals).

Continuing Education and Professional Development, Faculty of Medicine Ross Barclay piPosters: Promoting digital display, re-use and dissemination of academic poster content from educational events

This is a digital display device for electronic academic posters, with a low-cost computer backed and touchless controls. By promoting the conversion of posters to digital form, we hope to increase the quality and content of posters as well as provide new opportunities for sharing and archiving them.

Department of Historical Studies, UTM Shafique Virani SMARTEST Research Organizational, Goal Planning and Assessment Tool

SMARTEST is an automated goal setting and monitoring system for student researchers that stands for Specific-Measurable-Attainable-Relevant-Timeframed-Evaluation-System-Toronto. Based on principles of “Task Motivation and Incentives” first established by Locke, SMARTEST will enable students, mentored by faculty and librarians, to establish clear criteria to track progress and achieve success.

Linguistics Naomi Nagy Tools for Teaching with CORPORA IN THE CLASSROOM

Two increasingly important domains in linguistics are the study of Heritage Languages and the analysis of large corpora of natural language data. Our Linguistics Department has professors who do both. This project improves the necessary instructional infrastructure to scaffold undergraduate and graduate class assignments teaching relevant theory and research skills.

Anesthesia Massimiliano Meineri Development of interactive online teaching aids for learning point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS)

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) performed by the treating physician is a becoming a widely accepted diagnostic tool for rapid real-time assessment of patient status. A large demand for training in this field now exists. This project will create interactive online teaching modules that can be incorporated into these training programs.

Institute of Child Study, OISE, UT Joan Peskin, Dr. Eric Jackman Video-captured, enacted case studies: Creating and sharing re-useable course content across programs

In order to bridge theory and practice, case studies are an important curricular priority in graduate and undergraduate teacher education programs university-wide. In this project, video-captured, enacted case studies which can be used online in conjunction with discussion forums, will be developed and made

Faculty of Medicine Marcus Law Preparing prospective and incoming health sciences students with fundamental background knowledge – an innovative e-learning project

UofT health professional faculties accept students from various academic backgrounds. It is unusual for them to have knowledge across basic sciences, social sciences/humanities, learning principles, and research principles. To address this educational gap we will develop relevant online courses for prospective health sciences school applicants and new health sciences students.

Continuing Education and Professional Development, Faculty of Medicine Peter Azmi Developing best practices and a tool kit for the creation of course cartridges using existing Blackboard-embedded content

We propose to develop a standard operating procedure for converting Blackboard-embedded courses into “course cartridges” that can be used on other LMS platforms. We aim to create interoperability standards for UT-developed courseware, which will assist in the development of new online courses as well as maximize value from current offerings.

UTSC Library Paulina Rousseau Gunda Gunde Manuscript Collection

Once online, the entire archive of 219 manuscripts from the Ethiopian monastery of Gunda Gunde will serve as a unique collection of primary sources for students, researchers, and scholars to study, interact with, analyze, and evaluate Ethiopian history and culture. The digitized corpus, derived from close collaboration between Prof. Michael Gervers, the Digital Scholarship Unit (DSU), and UTSC’s IITS department, will contribute to active student learning and research.

U of T Faculty of Medicine Jeremy Goldfarb, Innovative Case System and Feedback Tool for Undergraduate Ophthalmology

We propose an innovative and engaging content delivery and feedback system to be included within the new, full service ophthalmology website. Content delivery will be done through an online case conduit utilizing the Virtual Interactive Case System (VICS) as a platform. The current project will also add value to the VICS eLearning platform through a novel feedback tool.

Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, UTSC Anya Tafliovich Automated Assessment of Students’ Computer Programs

The goal of this project is to develop a general purpose software package for use in assessing correctness of students’ computer programs — a general purpose “auto-tester”. The auto-tester can be used in any course (Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, etc.) that involves programming assignments, exercises, programming labs, etc.

(Italian unit) Language Studies, UTM Teresa Lobalsamo The Open Language Learning Textbook

The Open Language Learning Textbook allows students and instructors to work through lessons and activities simultaneously, during lecture, tutorials or office hours, without additional cost to students. The interactive textbook will be used in first year French, Italian, and Spanish courses in the Department of Language Studies (LS) at UTM.

Centre for Teaching and Learning, UTSC Elaine Khoo Interactive Website for Facilitating Accelerated Student Vocabulary Acquisition Across Disciplines

Creation of an interactive website allowing ESL students in all disciplines to acquire and practice using core academic vocabulary needed for the level and volume of reading of university courses. Provides students, instructors and writing centre staff with a practical tool to support students with rapid, targeted enhancement of academic vocabulary.

Biochemistry Ahlia Khan-Trottier The use of tablet devices to enhance learning and collaboration in the Life Sciences Laboratory Classroom

Tablet computers will be integrated into a Biochemistry laboratory course curriculum to enhance student learning and collaboration by providing direct access to online resources, the ability to actively share and discuss results, and promoting impromptu instructor-facilitated dialogue in the lab as experiments are conducted. Tablets would also serve as a platform for delivery of reusable course content.

Mathematical and Computational Sciences, UTM Maria Wesslén Building bridges; strengthening math competencies of non-math students

We will create a series of videos on core mathematics, statistics and data management topics to help students gain numeracy skills required in their courses. Many instructors find their students lack fundamental skills, and we find these are required by a number of different courses across various departments at UTM.

Biological Sciences, UTSC Dan Riggs

Quizzical 2.0

We propose to develop a student authored, on-line multiple choice question writing and learning tool called Quizzical. Quizzical will assist in building a question bank that students can access and use for self testing. A key feature is a statistical interface that allows students and faculty to measure engagement and progress.

Paediatric Hematology/Oncology, Hospital for Sick Children Meera Rayar A National Paediatric Haematology/Oncology Laboratory Education Resource

Paediatric Hematologist/Oncologists (PHO) are required to have an understanding of laboratory tests for diagnosis/management purposes. Our project will create an electronic, cased-based laboratory educational resource that will be accessible to Canadian PHO trainees. PHO staff/trainees can work with an administrator to create new modules, thus allowing for a self-sustainable curriculum.