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Pink for a newborn girl, blue for a newborn boy. How does clothing delineate gender? For more than 25 years, Dr. Jo Paoletti examined the gender construction surrounding clothing and materials as a member of the Department of Textiles and Consumer Economics at the University of Maryland. In 1992, she made the switch to American Studies, where she’s expanded her research interests to examine the intersection of teaching and technology. Now, students in her material culture and diversity courses have benefited from her untraditional use of technology.

“I think the University of Maryland is a place where students can be engaged in technology within all the humanities. I started integrating technology in 1993 by using e-mail Listserv lists in a couple of my courses as a way of extending class discussions,” said Paoletti. From there, she added a Web-based syllabus with readings students could find on the Internet. Students eventually posted original works to the site.

Paoletti is interested in all tools that allow her to fulfill her teaching philosophy. “My mission is to encourage students to become independent, to learn how to learn. Part of that involves creating an environment with minimal direction from me where they become their own teachers. Technology can encourage student independence,” she said.

Beginning in 1996, Paoletti developed courses that were offered completely online using public Web sites and free software. As part of a 1998-2000 system-wide program, the Web Initiative in Teaching (WIT), she reconfigured a Web-supported course, AMST 212 (Diversity in American Culture) using WebCT, a course management tool, when it became available through the Office of Information Technology. Recently, Paoletti has developed a hybrid version of AMST 212—a mixture of online interaction and face-to-face meetings.

“Adopting WebCT when I did offered definite advantages for me as an instructor,” said Paoletti. “With the support of the WIT program, there was time for me to learn the system and I was pleased to see the added security for the students. I also wanted to be able to help campus colleagues who’ve seen me as the resident tech expert.”

Paoletti does see a need for the full integration of technology into teaching. “I’m delighted at how ubiquitous computing is in the classroom now. I think on this campus, I was one of the people who helped make it happen. It was a very fun and satisfying process for those of us who were doing it. Now, I think it’s important that the use of technology is not confined to just a few instructors on campus. If more people used technology routinely and developed courses in departmental teams, teaching workloads could easily be shifted, increasing efficiency and productivity and reducing the reliance on the few ‘tech experts.’”

Next summer, Paoletti will teach an upper-level course in material culture, where she is also taking digital pictures of the period clothing students will study. Eventually, the pictures will be integrated into a similar online course.

“With so many programs in textiles and clothing reduced or eliminated entirely, there’s a real need for alternatives to the traditional classes which aren’t offered anymore,” she said. “That’s yet another benefit technology can offer us.”