L
aura Florand is a Senior Lecturing Fellow in the French Language Program in the Department of Romance Studies who has participated in a number of Duke Digital Initiative (DDI) programs, beginning with the initial iPod Experience. She was also an instructor in the earliest courses at Duke to incorporate student video projects with DDI support.
A novelist and former Fulbright Scholar to French Polynesia who has written extensively about the experience of other cultures, Florand is especially interested in finding ways to bring culture in its many forms into the French language curriculum. This year, she is overseeing a transformation of her advanced intermediate French course to a new curriculum centered around a series of important Francophone films.
“Since language is so dependent on being able to hear and see people communicating in context, and since students need lots of practice with their language skills, we can really benefit from having these DDI video tools available,” Florand said. “Our attempts to use video in the past have been complicated by the technical side, so we’re hoping that some of the new tools will help us overcome this.”
