February 2, 2004

Technology stars during 10th Annual UCSC Convocation on Teaching

By Jennifer McNulty

It doesn’t take a genius to guess that per capita spending on health care in the United States is higher than any other nation. But it’s striking to learn that Cubans, who spend less than $200 per person annually on health care, compared to $4,400 for the average American, enjoy virtually the same life expectancy as people in the United States.

That comparison, and countless others, are readily available to students, professors, and anyone with Internet access on the UC Atlas of Global Inequality, a powerful new teaching and research tool developed at UCSC by Ben Crow, an associate professor of sociology.

Crow will show off the atlas during the 10th Annual UCSC Convocation on Teaching, “Expanding the Classroom Walls: Teaching with Technology,” on Thursday, February 12, from 1 to 5 p.m. in the University Center.

The convocation will feature projects by UCSC faculty as well as a vendor showcase. A reception with hors d’oeuvres will follow the keynote address by Bernard Gifford, former dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education and current president of The Distributed Learning Workshop, a nonprofit educational software group that develops computer-mediated instructional materials in math and the basic sciences. Program details and online registration are available online.

“Faculty today are using technology in such creative and sophisticated ways--it goes far beyond PowerPoint presentations in class,” said Ruth Harris-Barnett, director of the UCSC Center for Teaching Excellence, which is sponsoring the convocation. “Judith Scott and her students in education are building a searchable database of children’s literature with help from Martha Ramirez of McHenry Library, and Alan Christy and Alice Yang Murray in history are creating virtual tours of World War II battle sites in the Pacific. Karlton Hester in music is compiling an encyclopedia of global African music. It’s incredible what’s out there.”

Scott, Christy, Yang Murray, and Hester will also present their projects during the convocation, a complete schedule of which is available online.

Crow describes the UC Atlas of Global Inequality as a “powerful tool for analyzing global economic conditions and their effects.” Begun three years ago with input from a steering committee made up of faculty from six UC campuses and $150,000 from the Office of the President’s Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center, the atlas is an interactive presentation of enormous amounts of data. Colorful maps and clear graphics maximize the impact of things like the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, while animated maps show changes over time.

“The atlas allows users to see a large amount of data as a global picture,” said Crow, who maintains the site with the help of five undergraduate and graduate students and Patti Jazanoski, who serves as a part-time technical project director.

Brian Fulfrost, coordinator of the Environmental Studies Department’s Geographic Information Systems lab, provides technical support, server space, and GIS technology for the project. The atlas has already attracted users in more than 130 countries around the world.

A powerful interactive database lets users enter queries that make comparisons by country, geographic region, and economic region readily available. For example, users can quickly see the percentage of children aged 10-14 in the labor force by decade since 1960, and compare those findings by country.

Most data is from the World Bank, but Crow said his team plans to gradually add data from other international agencies, including the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Development Program, as well as data compiled by researchers.

The atlas is a powerful descriptive tool that Crow uses in large lecture courses to show general patterns of global change. Students must conduct additional research to analyze the forces behind the data, he said. The atlas includes a “For Instructors” site that suggests teaching activities and instructional ideas.

Crow, as principal investigator on the project, writes and edits much of the text on the site. He tries to summarize debates on such contested topics as whether globalization is widening or narrowing the gap between rich and poor, and the atlas presents the best academic writing on given topics.

Unlike printed materials, the UC Atlas of Global Inequality can be expanded and updated at low cost. “We’re constantly adding content, and the site will grow over time,” said Crow, noting that current funding for the project runs out in June.

The convocation is sponsored by the Committee on Teaching, the UCSC Center for Teaching Excellence, Media Services, and the Information Technology Services Division, with support from Microsoft and Apple Computer.

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