PS-UncMtef Fanning, Saturday, January 3, 1998
UNIVERSITY PARK,
(Centre Co.) - New technologies
such as the Internet and video
conferencing are transforming
the way the faculty in Penn
State’s College of Agricultural
Sciences are teaching students -
and the way students are learn
ing.
The College’s Council on
Educational Technologies, which
includes representatives from
each academic unit, provides
leadership for faculty and staff
who cjre interested in adopting
these technologies in their edu
cational programs.
“Our mission is to collectively
explore and develop the
College’s use of educational
technologies is the classroom
and beyond,” said A 1 Turgeon,
professor of agronomy, who co
chairs the committee with
Pesticide
LANNAPOLIS, Md. - In
1998 the Maryland Department
of Agriculture (MDA) is offering
what may be a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to dispose of
unwanted, unusable, or uniden
tified pesticides at no cost to the
farmer.
Over the years, as agricultur
al practices or health and envi
ronmental concerns have
changed, some pesticides can no
longer be used for their intended
purpose.
These unusable pesticides
effectively become hazardous
wastes which are extremely
expensive to dispose of.
Since 1995 the Maryland
Department of Agriculture has
obtained US. Environmental
Protection Agency grants to offer
their extremely successful
Pesticide Disposal Program. The
program will be conducted once
in each Maryland County.
The program is available to
farmers and agricultural land
owners who may have unusable
agricultural pesticides stored on
their properties. MDA will
accept any material that has a
USDA or EPA registration num-
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Technology Transforms
James Mortensen, associate
dean for undergraduate educa
tion.
Turgeon has used the
Internet’s World Wide Web to
teach beginning and advanced
turfgrass science courses to stu
dents at both Penn State Berks
and Rutgers University. This
spring, he will teach two courses
through Penn State’s World
Campus, a University-wide ini
tiative to offer education pro
grams through the Internet and
other new information technolo
gies. .
“Students anywhere in the
world will be able to take this
class,” he said. “Materials will
be available on the Web, and we
also will provide a CD-ROM of
graphics for students who live in
places with slow Internet con
nections. Eventually, we hope to
offer a complete series of turf-
Disposal
ber or that can be identified as a
pesticide.
The program is not open to
pesticide dealers commercial
applicators, and homeowners.
MDA will not accept fertilizers,
antifreeze, motor oil, or any
materials that cannot be identi
fied. There is no cost to eligible
participants.
To participate, an application
must be completed and returned
to MDA by Jan 15, 1998. An
MDA inspector will contact you
to arrange a visit to verify the
type and quantity of pesticide
you have or to take samples of
unidentified pesticides. Once all
pesticides have been
verified/identified MDA will con
tract with a hazardous waste
hauler to pick up and dispose of
the materials by June 1998.
It is not illegal to have unus
able pesticides in storage and no
regulatory action will be taken
as a result of Pesticide Disposal
Program participation.
For applications or additional
information, contact the
Extension Office or the
Maryland Department of
Agriculture at (410) 841-5710.
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grass science courses. We’re
hoping our courses can serve as
a model for future World
Campus offerings from our col
lege.”
Robert Weaver, professor of
agricultural economics, has used
the Web extensively for the past
three years to teach a course on
commodity markets and prices.
“It’s an incredible resource,” he
said. “In the past, we had to
read yesterday’s market news in
print media. Today, students
use the Web to retrieve current
auction data within minutes.
The role of the textbook has
changed as the Web offers a
dynamic, rapidly evolving
knowledge base about market
operation and performance.”
Weaver said using the Web to
guide students through his
course also makes it easier for
them to leam in their own style
and at their own pace. However,
he noted, using the Web is not a
“hands-off teaching method.
“Instead, faculty must be inti
mately involved in teaching as a
one-on-one guides along individ
ualized learning paths,” he said.
“The Web just gives students
more flexibility in how they
learn.”
Charles Heuser, associate
professor of horticultural physi
ology, is using the Web to teach
an introductory course in wood
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plants to more than 130 stu
dents at both University Park
and Penn State Berks-Lehigh
Valley College. “Since last fall,
the lecture portion of the course
has been taught entirely on the
Web,” he said. “All of my lec
tures and notes are available to
students to access when they
need them. Important concepts,
such (as) plant identification,
plant features or diseases, are
hyperlinked to one of more than
1,500 illustrations or pho
tographs. Most students seem
to love this approach, and the
beauty of it is that they can
access the materials from any
where with a Web connection.”
Students in a new senior
level course on food product
development use computer
based learning technologies in a
variety of ways. “We have sup
plied each student with a new
IBM Think Pad computer, which
is integral to the way we offer
this course,” said Lam Hood,
professor of agricultural sci
ences, who coordinates the
course with Spiro Stefanou, pro
fessor of agricultural economics,
and Ramaswamy
Anantheswaran, associate pro
fessor of food science. “The
Students are organized into
teams in order to solve food
product development problems.
They use the computers to com-
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municate with each other, with
the faculty and with industry
experts who are serving as stu
dent resources for the course.”
Some professors are using
other educational technologies.
PicTel, a teleconferencing sys
tem that transmits live video
images over phone lines onto a
computer screen, lets users see
and talk to each other in real
time.
Gary Rogers, associate pro
fessor of animal science, uses it
to deliver an animal science
seminar course on genetic prin
ciples. “This course is a collabo
rative effort between Penn
State, Cornell University and
the State University of New
York at Cobleskill,” Rogers said.
“ A series of genetic experts
deliver seminars at Cornell
while students at Penn State
and Cobleskill participate via
PicTel. This gives students a
chance to have direct interaction
with these experts even though
they’re hundreds of miles away.”
A variety of other uses of edu
cational technology soon will be
applied in the College’s under
graduate classes and extension
programs. Robert Weaver main
tains a Web page that highlights
the College’s educational tech
nology use at
http://cac.psu.edu/~r2w/edtechh
tml.
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