Happy Holidays from my family!

Using a tool that I promote for educational purposes, I decided to create my family holiday greeting. Glogster.com is a really neat website that allows you to create an online, media-rich collage. Check it out...at the bottom-right corner, there is a video embeded!

It's that time of year....

The semester is over, I have one more day and a few hours to work before 2010. I am sitting in my quiet office reflecting on what I have done for the semester/year and pondering how I take my performance from good---to GREAT. I love my job, I love teaching, and I love the people I work with. Sometimes that's the perfect storm which motivates you to do MORE and BETTER. So, as I sit in my office, winding back up for the next semester, I wonder what my next "thing" will be. With faculty professional development, we have to stay current and relevant because we already know that faculty have very little time to devote to us and it's our job to make our learning opportunities hard to resist. In fact, we need to make them a necessity...without mandating them! What I really want is for faculty to have "conversations"...conversations get our blood pumping, give us fresh ideas, build camaraderie, and inspire us. As an example, I think of the conversations I have with my fellow techy faculty and instructional designers/technologists. We meet several times a semester to plan workshops and share ideas. I always leave those meetings feeling inspired and motivated. I would like to replicate those emotions with all my professional development opportunities. With that said, a few bland and boring ideas bubble up -- create a college technology users' group, schedule open conversations in the CTL....*yawn* HELP! Ideas please! Maybe I need a weeks vacation and the ideas will begin to flow....happy holidays

Season's Greetings from the GateWay Center for Teaching & Learning

For more information about GateWay Center for Teaching & Learning events, go here: http://gatewaycc.edu/ctl

Does learning have deadlines? Philosophy vs. Policy

I am reminded today, and for the past couple weeks, why teaching classes is so important to my full time gig as an instructional designer/technologist. Being "in the trenches," so-to-speak has taught me a lot about what theories apply to the real world. For example, I have always been a very liberal-minded teacher. I believe that learning does not have a timeframe, nor deadlines. I often question why we have late work policies and guidelines in our classes. Why would I NOT accept a late paper, if in fact it did prove that the student learned....perhaps a few days or weeks later than all the rest :). If my philosophy is that all students can learn and it's my job to facilitate that, then doesn't my policy of "no late work" counter that philosophy???? I'm really struggling with the insanity that accepting late work brings, because, in fact, I have a deadline to submit grades to the institution. Ugh! So what do I do? Keep my sanity; adjust my philosophy; create a policy that's a bit flexible. However, as for every semester, I have a student that wants to argue my policy about late work. Even when I've allowed them to submit it "due to special circumstances" (my "out" in my syllabus late work policy). They want to push my "late deadlines" to the extreme. "Mrs. Ballard, can I submit all 4 paper assignments two days prior to grades being due?" No! This is where I draw the line. Philosophically, I believe these students can learn, and will learn, but perhaps they need to fail (receive an F on their transcript) for this semester in order to continue on learning the next semester.

To textbook or not to textbook....that is the question

While out of the office, Debby, CTL Office Coordinator, happened to assist one of my students. The student came to my office wanting to borrow a textbook for the course. Unfortunately, there isn't a program on campus that allows for borrowing textbooks. Student may go to the library and use the textbook, but cannot check them out. The problem with this is that my courses are online and students often take these courses so they DON'T have to come to campus....so going to the library to read a book kind of defeats the purpose! I completely understand the issues our students encounter trying to pay for books after they have already spent upwards of $852 to be a full time student. Our English 102 textbook is $102 dollars! Luckily students can use it for both 101 and 102. Anyways, that's a lot rambling to get to the point of -- I feel like we need to be good stewards of learning. We should make our courses more accessible and this includes textbooks. Students should have an option of e-books, used books, rented books, purchasing online, etc..... I'm really interested in mobile learning and how 24/7 access to course content on a mobile device (think iPod Touch or smartphone) has the ability to improve learning. After all, who really wants to lug around a textbook everywhere they go? Wouldn't it be great to sit at a doctor's office and read course content, interact in the course management system, or even listen to a lecture via pod/vodcast? So, please tell me what you think by responding to this poll:

Create your own sms poll at Poll Everywhere

Making an Avatar for Course Announcements

Well, it's about time! I swear, why is it the Instructional Technologist has the hardest time making HER online courses techy? I help everyone else add glamour and style to their online or hybrid courses and I never have time to experiment with my own! Well enough! I've had it! I have vowed to add an avatar to my course announcements section every week. Currently I podcast announcements for my Mesa CC English course. The students actual listen to them! For my GateWay course, I thought I would take it a bit further and do a 1 minute announcement each week with an avatar. Maybe this will be motivational for my students? Heck, it can't hurt! I am also going to send them voice emails in conjunction with their text feedback for papers. I will let you know how it goes at any rate, here is my first avatar announcement: Enjoy!

What is your main modality of communication with your network of people (not people you see everyday, the extended network of people)

GateWay Residential and Adjunct Faculty Please Respond!

iTech for Student Success

This semester I have taken a different approach to my usual instructional technology inservice offering. Usually I am burdened with Blackboard updates (yawn) or I have to train on a particular instructional technology. This time, I decided to stick with the theme of the inservice which is "Student Success." I believe that technology has a great impact on student success, so why not do a session on instructional technologies that can facilitate student success?? Instead of creating a PowerPoint presentation or a handout for this session, I used Google Sites to create a website that housed all the great ideas I will be presenting! Find the site here: http://sites.google.com/site/itech4success/home. I took the approach of identifying key factors in student success and then matching them up with an instructional technology solution. Go take a look and let me know what you think!

Quality Matters.....what exactly does this have to do with online learning?

Every time faculty and administration "freak out" about the quality of online instruction, a good friend and colleague of mine (you know who you are) brings up the point that we should be concerned about quality instruction in all environments-- i.e. online, face2face, and hybrid. I totally agree with her, but today it has become very apparent to me why. I am going through the Quality Matters rubric with the intent of creating workshops to aid faculty with development of their hybrid and online classes. As I am thinking about activities for the workshop, I realize that all of these QM "standards" apply to face2face courses as well. In fact, they are just really focused on good instructional design -- modality aside. At this point, I haven't really found a standard that is exclusive to an online course. Funny that we make such a fuss about online learning when the requirements for a well-developed online course are the same as a face2face course. Expectations for face2face classes should be no different. I guess my point is this, we should be more concerned about the nuances of the online environment that are a shift from face2face. For example, "presence" in an online course is VERY hard to measure. You may be working 24/7 on your online course, however, if you haven't been communicating with your class on a "large scale," it's easy to forget about the students that aren't emailing with constant questions and needing affirmation. What the QM rubric doesn't address is the "teaching" of an online class. I would argue that the "teaching" is the skill that needs to be addressed......assuming that good course design is the same for both environments. Just thoughts.

Does your learning management system need constant attention?

I'm a little fuzzy from being off on maternity leave for a couple months, but I'm back in the saddle again with no time for "easing back in" to my job! I delivered a presentation on the new features of Blackboard version 8 to my GateWay faculty on Monday and Tuesday. We had great participation with most people excited about the new features of the system. However, I did have one thought provoking point brought up during the session. The general idea of this point was this: How are faculty expected to keep up with a learning management system when we are doing DRASTIC upgrades every May? It's funny because I was just complaining at a meeting with my VP and boss that it's hard to focus on instructional design (my real job) when this learning management system needs constant attention. Soooooooo, I guess there are two real complaints here, one being from an instructional stand point and another being from a support stand point. I am a firm believer that we can no longer do anything in this world without basic technologies and students with degrees should be fairly saavy, leaving it up to each instructor to use and require these technologies. (Another) However, I couldn't help but to feel for this faculty member who is sick and tired of annual training over a learning management system. I'm sure she would love for a May to pass quietly by without hearing anything of a version upgrade. Luckily I was able to look at the positive side of this version upgrade in order to offer these simple thoughts: (1) you don't have to use the new tools and (2) the grade center feature was soooooooooooooooooo needed. It's worth the 1.5 hours of training. She happily concured and we both went on our marry ways.