The Daily Bulletin Archive

A panel of Buffalo State College faculty presented “Unique Ways to Reach Your Students in a Digital World” at the SUNY Conference on Instructional Technologies, held at Genesee Community College on May 29.

The panel comprised Laurie Buonanno, chair and professor, Political Science; Geri Hura, assistant professor, Educational Foundations; Carlos Jones,assistant professor, Theater; Kathleen O’Brien,lecturer, Hospitality and Tourism, and director, Campus House; and Ramona Santa Maria, lecturer, Computer Information Systems. Melaine Kenyon, associate director of instructional technologies, Instructional Resources, facilitated the panel.

Buonanno has taught hybrid and online courses on both ANGEL and the former SUNY Learning Network platform and uses discussions in unique ways to reach students. Hura uses digital video in her online graduate classes. Specifically, she asks students to record themselves and send her the videos. Staff within Buffalo State’s Instructional Resources Department (IR) digitize these videos and place them on a protected streaming server. Hura can then link to the videos, and only students enrolled in the course can view and comment on them. Jones uses quizzes in unique ways to reach and engage his students. O’Brien has multiple uses for digital video in her undergraduate classes. Video production staff in IR, in conjunction with Campus House staff and students, developed teaching videos used in hospitality and other training courses. Santa Maria has large undergraduate classes (100 students) that are a challenge to manage. She makes unique use of the team feature of ANGEL to accomplish this task. She has also developed special customizations within ANGEL.