Three award-winning instructors on our campus turn their backs on traditional blackboards and turn on their computers when they want to reach students in an instant.

Wei Tsun Chang, Darlene A. Franklin and Sandi J.W. Smith recently received honors for their innovative uses of technology at the Tennessee Board of Regents’ Annual Distance Learning Conference.

2005 TBR Innovation Award winners, from left, Sandi Smith, Wei Tsun Chang and Darlene Franklin.

The conference, which focuses on keeping students connected around the globe, presented Innovation Awards to representatives of several TBR schools who demonstrated the best practices in their fields.

“These instructors are helping the university find the best ways to connect students on and off campus to learning opportunities,” says Susan Elkins, dean of Interdisciplinary Studies and Extended Education. “They’ve chosen to embrace technology and use it to expand the classroom experience.”

Assistant Professor Chang, who teaches violin, was a member of our fall 2004 tablet computing initiative, which provided the teaching tools to 11 professors in an effort to help move more programs toward paperless classrooms.

As a participant in that initiative, Chang successfully developed a more technologically advanced version of our standard music appreciation class that allows him to spontaneously write music that can be played on the tablet computer.

In addition, he has a distinguished career as a soloist and chamber musician. He is concertmaster of the Bryan Symphony Orchestra and performs regularly with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra.

Assistant Professor Franklin has been a member of our Nursing faculty for 20 years and has developed areas of interest in curricular assessment, evaluation and improvement activities.

Recent opportunities for technology development have provided experiences that sparked her interest in applying innovative technological methods to those areas, she says.

Last fall, for instance, Franklin began using our Voice Over IP Virtual Classroom computer program to record all classes for later student review, which resulted in increased student performance and satisfaction. She is currently developing an educational computer game targeted specifically for Nursing students.

Assistant Professor Smith, who teaches instructional technology in Curriculum and Instruction, has developed and taught courses for 17 years about integrating technology for pre-service and practicing teachers. She facilitates a university outreach program, “Technology for Teachers,” for more than 500 teachers from 30 Tennessee counties each fall.

Smith was recently named a Macromedia Educational Leader for demonstrating exemplary uses of Macromedia computer technology to enhance student achievement and effective teaching and learning practices.

She’s on the board of directors for our Institute for Technological Scholarship, and was a lead trainer who worked with faculty involved with the tablet computer initiative last fall.