{"124311":{"#nid":"124311","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Puts Education\u0027s Future to the Test with TechBurst","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn an age where technology drives the pace of change, many universities are struggling to keep up with high-tech education alternatives. However, instead of ignoring the inevitability of change, how can institutions incorporate these disruptive technologies within the traditional university?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat is the question that Georgia Tech\u2019s Center for 21\u003Csup\u003Est\u003C\/sup\u003E Century Universities (C21U) sought to answer with its first annual TechBurst Competition, where students were invited to create short, sharable videos that explain a single concept in an entertaining and compelling way while competing for $5,000 in cash prizes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs a living laboratory, C21U\u2019s goal is to experiment with cutting-edge ideas in higher education by taking change that is occurring at the periphery, like Khan Academy, and incorporating it within an established university,\u201d said Richard DeMillo, director of C21U. \u201cTechBurst fits into that scheme because it takes your conventional lecture and breaks it apart so that it can be reformed and reused in new ways.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EC21U announced the winners of the competition during the TechBurst Awards Ceremony yesterday.\u0026nbsp; First place went to the video \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch%3Fv=SwjsbLrdpkw%26feature=plcp%26context=C475dd0dVDvjVQa1PpcFNIePCbCiMqBf7THVUkkh-3iZHR5g6m1Bk%3D\u0022\u003EConstructing the \u2018Perfect Cube\u2019 in Biomedical Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E,\u201d created by Aaron Morris, Rachel Cornelius, Matt Duane, and Clair Matthews; second place to \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rvfb8IyW2VU\u0026amp;feature=plcp\u0026amp;context=C479c872VDvjVQa1PpcFNIePCbCiMqBctCB1zZXJG0Dm0xBWJLW2A%3D\u0022\u003EThe Physics of Gravitational Pull in Space\u003C\/a\u003E\u201d submitted by Sarah Lashinksy; third place to \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=06akxR14d1M\u0026amp;feature=plcp\u0026amp;context=C41949caVDvjVQa1PpcFNIePCbCiMqBe9ugJTP6iwixbwwGhV-Nx4%3D\u0022\u003EIntroduction to Circuits: Resistors, Capacitors and Inductors\u003C\/a\u003E\u201d submitted by Hunter Scott; and the crowd-sourced winner was \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mQVieoj8jjE\u0026amp;feature=plcp\u0026amp;context=C4a875edVDvjVQa1PpcFNIePCbCiMqBToQ3FFhrz3dKCqjwgO3gO4%3D\u0022\u003EChemical Combustion\u003C\/a\u003E\u201d submitted by Erin Lightfoot.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn its inaugural year, TechBurst\u2019s pioneering approach to learning has provided C21U with some valuable lessons regarding technological innovation within the classroom.\u0026nbsp; After introducing the concept of TechBurst, many Georgia Tech students and faculty were excited by the idea of a crowd-sourced learning tool.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe were surprised at the number of professors who were interested in contributing to the project and incorporating TechBurst into their classrooms,\u201d DeMillo said. \u201cStudents also expressed a desire to teach what they know to their peers, as well as to be educated by students who have struggled with the same concepts.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, TechBurst also faced interesting challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSince TechBurst videos are student generated, they\u2019re not always correct, and that makes some traditionalists nervous,\u201d DeMillo said. \u201cHowever, that it is nature of experimentation. This is meant to be a start of a thread of conversations among students, where other students annotate videos and correct errors.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDeMillo also said that as TechBurst evolves, it will be important to generate entire courses of material, particularly for upper-level STEM classes. While there is proliferation of instructional videos for lower-level courses online, hardly any videos exist for upper-level courses. TechBurst videos will be used to populate an online library, which will eventually house videos that explain every topic covered in undergraduate courses offered at Georgia Tech. In the mean time, C21U will continue to hold the TechBurst competition annually and hopes to involve more faculty and students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u201cTesting new methods of learning and teaching is not always going to be a smooth process, but that\u2019s inevitable when you\u2019re one of the first universities to adopt a new model,\u201d said DeMillo. \u201cWe need to shift the frame of reference from universities as preserves of tradition to drivers of innovation, and TechBurst is one of the ways we are attempting to accomplish that goal.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"C21U Announces the Winners of its First Annual TechBurst Competition."}],"uid":"27552","created_gmt":"2012-04-16 21:11:17","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:12:00","author":"Emily Ivey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-04-16T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-04-16T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"66244","name":"C21U"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:emily.ivey@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EEmily Ivey\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}