On Wednesday, November 16, 2011, UConn Today featured an article about Professor Oskar Harmon’s innovations to traditional class methods. The article was written by one of the department’s MA students, Andrew Sparks.
Andrew’s article outlines Prof. Harmon’s efforts to makes his lectures and class discussions available online and on mobile devices. For example, Prof. Harmon has re-formatted his lectures so that they can be played on smart-phones, and has opened class discussion threads on Facebook so that his students can choose to learn and participate on mobile devices. Andrew notes the significance of this, as Prof. Harmon recognizes the need to give students several options for participation beyond email, HuskyCT forums, and in-class lectures. Prof. Harmon saw a new opportunity in mobile media (smart-phones, tablets, etc.) and rolled out the new formats this semester.
The link to the article is here: http://today.uconn.edu/blog/2011/11/smartphones-can-make-you-smarter-when-used-as-mobile-teaching-tools/
Be sure to check UConn Today for future articles on the Econ department faculty, also written by Andrew.