Technology at The College of New Rochelle
Recognizing that technology is a costly and important driving force in instruction and administration in higher education, The College of New Rochelle (CNR) embarked on a unique shared services model for technological advancement with Marist College. This shared-services partnership, which received the 2015 Innovation Award for Resource Enhancement from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), leveraged Marist’s technology proficiency to address CNR’s need for the affordable and timely onboarding of new technology and will optimize CNR’s academic and business platforms. The first phase of the collaboration resulted in CNR’s new website, the second phase transitioned CNR’s finance operations to the Banner enterprise resource planning system, and integrating all student-related functions will be the third phase.
On the teaching-learning front, following are a few highlights of The College of New Rochelle’s technology initiatives. In the School of Nursing, faculty are using VoiceThread, an innovative discussion platform that uses audio, video, documents (or any resource) as the basis for online student discussions through audio or video, as well as text. A growing number of faculty are using the “flipped classroom” model of teaching in which faculty put lectures online so students can view them before (and after) coming to class, redirecting class time to more collaborative group projects and presentations. Entergy and Con Edison awarded The College funds to purchase 45 ipad minis which have been distributed to students, faculty and peer tutors in designated biology major courses. CNR Biology Professor and Chair Dr. Lynn Petrullo reports that the iPads have been used by students to create animations in Keynote for learning biology concepts, to take and share notes with each other in Evernote, to take pictures of specimens or slides and organize them into Evernote lab notebooks, to study together through FaceTime, to read online textbooks and to identify plants for Environmental Biology.#
