SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2026: FIT – Nancy Eder

Nancy Eder is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the History of Art Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

“My teaching philosophy is that I believe all people can benefit from the study of the History of Art. Today, participating in global experiences is easier than ever. Whether students use their phones, tablets, or computers the entire world is at their fingertips!

From the start, I have embraced technology in my classes. Our Learning Management Systems (LMS) have changed three times since I have been teaching at FIT. I first started teaching online asynchronously in 2011. The course consisted of quizzes, class discussions, and a paper assignment. I also provided links to videos for my classes to view. I continually use videos to teach both in-person and online.

Eventually, I was able to record my lectures on VoiceThread. Recording my PowerPoints on it slide by slide allowed for my students to go at their own pace through the lessons. Here is a short VoiceThread about the Tang Dynasty in China. An advantage to using VoiceThread is that Closed Captioning is automatic, which helps with ADA compliance.

As soon as it was available to my college, I used Screencast-O-Matic. At first FIT did not have a contract with it, so we were confined to 15-minute videos to use it. I created a video for my YouTube channel using Screencast-O-Matic. Screencast-O-Matic turned into ScreenPal and is integrated into Brightspace, our current LMS. You have the choice to embed the video into your classes or you can link it to your class as an external resource. ScreenPal has the advantage of built in AI (Artificial Intelligence). This makes it easy to provide captions for your lectures, as well as a helpful summary before the video.

One of the successful ways I have used technology in my classes was by creating an assignment that uses Padlet and Adobe Express. Adobe’s products are free for FIT students and faculty. Express allows people to turn PowerPoint-like presentations into short videos. This assignment calls for students to create their own short video and then upload their video, transcript, and bibliography onto a class Padlet. I use this assignment for both in-person and online classes. On June 1, 2023, I presented “Students as Storytellers: A Mini Documentary Video Assignment” at the FIT Adjunct Summer Institute “Small Teaching, Big Contributions: Teachers Sharing Strategy.”

I have been using the digital syllabus template for years. This is integrated into Brightspace and is a really efficient way to create a syllabus for classes. 

This is an exciting time to be an educator. I think there are a lot of possibilities for teaching and learning with technology that will unfold in the near future.”