Digital learning at Virginia Tech

Digital learning at Virginia Tech

This semester I am taking my last classes. They all use plenty of digital content compared to any of the classes I took in Finland.

Scholar is the digital gateway to all my classes. Every class has its own page and these pages contain the syllabus, assignments, announcements, forums, wiki pages, polls, calendar, and other content for participants.I have found this extremely useful tool both in managing the classes I am assisting in and classes I am taking.


I am a teaching assistant in Mammary Immunology class this semester. I have the opportunity to use the scholar tools to manage the class. I have found that sending reminders via scholar to all students and posting materials have been the most useful features thus far. I would like to add interesting news articles for students to see on the front page to bring a bit of every day dairy and immunology content to their attention.

The on-line class on emerging infectious disease is naturally fully on-line. PowerPoint slides can be printed out and the visiting lecturers have a talk recorded with the power point presentation. This is still a bit passive to my tastes. Maybe because it is a pass/fail class, the content is not as varied. Preparing the Future Professoriate and Modern Pedagogy classes are a whole other story. They both have very interactive in-class formats. Both also require blogging as part of attendance. Forums are also used when needed. The blogs for these classes are designed to start us on professional blogging. This is going to be a kick-start for me to actually write every day in either blogs, forums, or most importantly my thesis.

Here is a link to my professional blog: http://blogs.lt.vt.edu/highoneducation/