Development of a Multiple Contact Haptic Display with Texture-Enhanced Graphics

“This dissertation presents work towards the development of a multiple finger, worn, dynamic display device, which utilizes a method of texture encoded information to haptically render graphical images for individuals who are blind or visually impaired.”

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Copyright and Intellectual Property: Teaching Creatively

“It is critical for college students to know about intellectual property and copyright and the proper use of images, text, audio and graphics in the digital world, but most undergraduate students have little understanding of what copyright involves and why we want them to learn about it. We will share our experience working with teaching faculty to plan and implement a program focused on teaching IT undergraduates about digital responsibilities and rights using library 2.0 instruction tools, including Clicker, Prezi, LibGuide, SlideShare, and BlackBoard.”

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Beyond Habit and Convention: Visual Literacy and the VRC

“Critic John Berger’s ideas about seeing are still relevant. Many are certainly enveloped in the contemporary academic librarian’s definition of visual literacy. As one might expect, visual literacy has particular necessity for the librarian, like me, who works in a Visual Resources Center (VRC). I am very concerned with the habits of seeing among students and instructors… There are several challenges to visual literacy on campus. When these challenges are not met, there is reliance on convention and old habits. These challenges include resource unawareness, discomfort with technology, and information overload. As our VRC evolved from a slide library to a fully equipped digital media center, our ability to answer such challenges transformed.”

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New Media: Engaging and Educating the YouTube Generation

“Today’s undergraduates are clearly comfortable as consumers of technology and new media—purchasing ring tones for their cell phones and tunes for their iPods, text-messaging from handheld devices, scanning and tinkering with photos, keeping up with their Facebook friends and watching viral YouTube videos, sometimes all simultaneously. We share examples of classroom assignments integrated with library support services that engage today’s undergraduates with academic materials in a variety of course context. We discuss how specific arrangements of library learning spaces and alignment of space and staffing can help undergraduate students succeed with new media projects for class assignments.”

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