Enhancing and Enriching Learning: Blogs, Drupal and the Great Monster Mash-Up in First-Year Seminar

The goals of the First-Year Seminar (FSEM) program at the University of Mary Washington are to promote life-long learning skills, enhance the idea of community within and among students and faculty, and provide opportunities for students to explore and express their ideas and arguments. In this FSEM course on Mad Scientists, Bad Scientists and Evil Geniuses, I have used blogs and a Drupal resource site as a means to make student learning participatory, exploratory and community building. In addition, I allowed (for the first time) students to use video vs. written word for some assignments. In this talk, the use of these technology driven formats will be examined as tools to enhance and enrich student learning.