Author Archives: Samantha DeRosia, ITS Communications
U-M gastroenterologist Grace L. Su believes providing the option of videoconferencing for liver disease patients who are unable to make multiple office visits to specialists improves the provided care. Su and her team determined in a study that patients of primary care physicians who used video consultations with liver disease specialists had a 54 percent higher survival rate than… Read More »
In March 2018, U-M announced the intent to design three new online and hybrid programs: one in data science, a first in public health, and a first MasterTrack Certificate program. Sarah Dysart will be the new director for Online and Hybrid Programs at the Office of Academic Innovation. Dysart plans to work with other faculty on their online… Read More »
Recent graduates Shayan Shafii, Reid Ovis, Aklavya Kashyap, Tristan Neeb, and Sean Dew developed a productivity app that pairs with Amazon’s Alexa to help people set and achieve their goals. These goals could be daily, weekly, or monthly in the context of physical, mental, or social capabilities. Named “Iris,” the app aggregates statistical insights regarding productive activity versus counterproductive behaviors. The ultimate… Read More »
Sean Croskey, Luke Pacheco, Aristotelis Papaioannou, and Dominic Retli, seniors at UM-Dearborn, developed a Nintendo-esque video game, with direction from UM-Ann Arbor emerging technologies librarian Patricia Anderson, that helps kids with disabilities better detect online predators. The goal of the game is to find a missing prince or princess by interacting with other characters, making decisions through the… Read More »
Google and Amazon both recently announced that their voice assistants will respond to requests that end in “please.” Parents are worried that because their children are commanding information from these devices, they are not learning manners. To counter this anxiety, Google’s Assistant will now have a “Pretty Please” feature reminding kids to “say the magic word” before responding.… Read More »
The Office of Academic Innovation launched an edtech accelerator that’s building and scaling digital pedagogy within and beyond the university. Previously, the issue with edtech was that it did not extend beyond the initial department it was used for, but the Office of Academic Innovation is providing the infrastructure to support and scale it. This process involves software… Read More »
Is it an invasion of your child’s privacy to take their picture and post it on social media? Sarita Schoenebeck, assistant professor at the School of Information, is an expert on how families use technology. She suggests that parents should respect their children and keep their feelings in mind before posting their pictures. A survey of 331… Read More »
Researchers from Germany and the University of Michigan have recently demonstrated in a study that infrared laser pulses can shift electrons between two different states, 1 and 0, in a sheet of semiconductor. Their research could help make quantum computing devices, which operate millions of times faster than a conventional computer, a reality. “Ordinary electronics are in the… Read More »
Coursera recently named Christopher Brooks, assistant professor at the School of Information, a winner of its Outstanding Educator Award for Innovation for his teaching strategies in the online Applied Data Science with Python Specialization. His approach allows students are to use actual data in a low-stakes environment to solve problems that are relevant to their own communities,… Read More »