Introduction to Interactive Video Classrooms

Presenters' Profiles

Jean Forward is a lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She teaches Introduction to North American Indians, Contemporary Issues of North American Indians with a focus on the Northeast. As part of a collaborative, cross-disciplinary effort, she has team taught Ethnicity in Massachusetts over interactive video. She has recently edited a European volume, Endangered Peoples: Struggles to Survive, as part of a reference series and co-authored a chapter on the Scottish Highlands. Jean is interested in understanding how ethnic identities can be peacefully passed on. She holds a Masters of Arts and Ph.D. in Teaching/Anthropology from University of Massachusetts Amherst.

William Moebius is Professor and Chair of the Department of Comparative literature at UMass where he has been involved each year for the past four years in a collaborative distance learning course, Poets and Poetry of New England. With the Amherst campus as the coordinating site, he has served as the moderator of weekly interactive video conversations among faculty and students at as many as four other campuses of the Massachusetts higher education system. For broadcast on Channel 57, WGBY, he has also scripted and delivered two course-related videos, while serving as interviewer or
moderator for three others.

John G. Stoffolano is a Professor of Entomology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professor Stoffolano has been involved in distance education since 1996 when he taught the first University of Massachusetts course using MCET (Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunication). The course was sent via satellite to 127 teachers throughout the U.S. Since then he has taught his course for teachers (Entomology 671 "Using Insects in the Classroom) each year to two or three sites simultaneously using the PicTel studio at the Division of Continuing Education. Currently he is putting this course online using the eCollege platform.

Donna C. Van Handle is Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Department of German studies at Mount Holyoke College. She is also President of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) and was a member of the Modern Language Association's Committee on Information Technology from 1998-2001. Her research interests include contemporary German literature and culture, second language acquisition, and use of multimedia applications and Internet resources in foreign language teaching and
research. She is co-author of book entitled Using the Internet in Instruction: A Guide for German Teachers and has developed and given TELI (Technology-Enriched Language Instruction), an online course for the professional development of teachers of German in the U.S. as part of the GOLDEN project (http://tc.unl.edu/golden/) sponsored by the Goethe Institute and the American Association of Teachers of German. She has
given numerous workshops on creating standards-based teaching units using Internet resources and continues to focus her energies on developing web-enhanced courses for all levels of German instruction.

Thomas Wartenberg is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Holyoke College where he chairs the Film Studies Program. His publications include Unlikely Couples: Movie Romance As Social Criticism and The Forms Of Power. He has edited a number of anthologies, most recently, The Nature Of Art. He has been involved for a number of years in the public schools, where he assists elementary school teachers in teaching philosophy using children's literature.