Everyone once in awhile I peruse LifeHacker or TED just to see what I can see, and I come across something interesting and exciting that couldn't be more relevant to something I happen to be working on. Such was the case with this video what motivates us:
Facilitating the "iTeach Essentials" course for the past year and a half certainly validates the information in this video. Although it's true that the kind of people who would be sign up for the course are already probably highly motivated, I have found that by the end of the course, most participants report feeling really energized and motivated to learn more and do more, and many report that they can't wait to begin completely redesigning their courses.
One of loveliest emails I've received recently was from a recent course participant who told me that he was so motivated by the iTeach course and the Barnes seminar that he'd recently attended, that he planned to spend several hundred dollars in retroactive money he'd received (which came out of a collective bargaining issue) on the purchase of a comprehensive suite of software that will enable home to add a lot of new multimedia and redesigned graphic content into his online course.
The information in this video aligns closely with many conversations and efforts by various councils and committees in our system, and I personally plan to try to promote more local and system-level conversations around ways in which we can identify professional development efforts that actively identify specific and support opportunities for Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose in our faculty and staff.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Where to begin?
Tomorrow I'm scheduled to do a presentation on social networking and Web 2.0 in higher ed at one of the colleges in our system. There is so much happening in the field that sometimes it's difficult to know where to begin and where to end!! Social networking alone as it is being used in college classrooms could be a whole presentation in itself, and yet I know people will be curious about all of the different websites and resources that they have heard about but not necessarily experimented with on their own. It's always a challenge to try to make a presentation relevant for those who are completely new to the technology and terminology, and yet present some new, interesting, and fresh uses and ideas to those who have already been using them for awhile.
Just this morning, as I was reviewing some of the information and ideas I was thinking of including, I came across something I'd meant to look at and forgotten about: Twitter lists. Under the heading of "just how fast can I learn how to do this so I can include it in the presentation?", I googled it and found a mashable site that gave a general overview of how to use it, and then created a list of my own and added a few people to it. It was really easy to create the list and add people to it, and I can see right off the bat how helpful this could be in a typical four-year college classroom (where most students are 18-21 and are probably already Twitter users), but I wonder whether or not, in a community college setting, whether it could set up a "digital divide" between students who are using Twitter, and those who are not?
I created an "iTeach" list, thinking that perhaps I'll encourage the next class of iTeach participants to try it out!
Just this morning, as I was reviewing some of the information and ideas I was thinking of including, I came across something I'd meant to look at and forgotten about: Twitter lists. Under the heading of "just how fast can I learn how to do this so I can include it in the presentation?", I googled it and found a mashable site that gave a general overview of how to use it, and then created a list of my own and added a few people to it. It was really easy to create the list and add people to it, and I can see right off the bat how helpful this could be in a typical four-year college classroom (where most students are 18-21 and are probably already Twitter users), but I wonder whether or not, in a community college setting, whether it could set up a "digital divide" between students who are using Twitter, and those who are not?
I created an "iTeach" list, thinking that perhaps I'll encourage the next class of iTeach participants to try it out!
Friday, April 17, 2009
I'm baaaaaaaack!!!!!!
Haven't updated this blog in a long time, but thought I'd start updating it again since my "learning curves" have been spiraling upwards lately. Lately I've been teaching an online class for the faculty in our system (called iTeach Essentials) and teaching it has been a wonderful--though sometimes harrowing--experience.
This course was a long time in development. As the training manager for our system, obviously having a fully-online course in online teaching for faculty who wish to teach online was a major addition to my current arsenal of training tools. However, the development of the class has been very collaborative, and has had the input of quite a number of people. (That's a whole story in and of itself).
The thing I am really enjoying about the experience of teaching this course is the fact that the faculty who are participating are really actively engaged in the process. It's putting them into the interesting position of wondering, as one of them recently wrote on a discussion board, "Am I a student or am I a teacher?!". Tough question, because in this course they're actually functioning as students, and I think that for many of the participants, being in that role--of having to actually read content or watch videos, submit to discussions and complete and submit technical assignments within certain deadlines--has given them a completely new perspective on what it means to be a student in an online setting.
The two most common posts to our discussion boards so far are, "Oh my G-d---I sound just like one of my students!!!!!" and "Gee, I've been doing this all along, but I never knew what it was called!" (this when discussing pedagogical concepts such as chunking, scaffolding, etc.)
One thing that makes me truly happy about being able to make this new resource available to our faculty is that I think that it will truly make those who successfully complete the course into much better online instructors, and this will ultimately yield a more positive and successful learning outcome for the students in our system. The trick now will be to train enough other people to teach the class so that it can be made more widely available throughout our colleges!
This course was a long time in development. As the training manager for our system, obviously having a fully-online course in online teaching for faculty who wish to teach online was a major addition to my current arsenal of training tools. However, the development of the class has been very collaborative, and has had the input of quite a number of people. (That's a whole story in and of itself).
The thing I am really enjoying about the experience of teaching this course is the fact that the faculty who are participating are really actively engaged in the process. It's putting them into the interesting position of wondering, as one of them recently wrote on a discussion board, "Am I a student or am I a teacher?!". Tough question, because in this course they're actually functioning as students, and I think that for many of the participants, being in that role--of having to actually read content or watch videos, submit to discussions and complete and submit technical assignments within certain deadlines--has given them a completely new perspective on what it means to be a student in an online setting.
The two most common posts to our discussion boards so far are, "Oh my G-d---I sound just like one of my students!!!!!" and "Gee, I've been doing this all along, but I never knew what it was called!" (this when discussing pedagogical concepts such as chunking, scaffolding, etc.)
One thing that makes me truly happy about being able to make this new resource available to our faculty is that I think that it will truly make those who successfully complete the course into much better online instructors, and this will ultimately yield a more positive and successful learning outcome for the students in our system. The trick now will be to train enough other people to teach the class so that it can be made more widely available throughout our colleges!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Well, this is a "real life" blog rather than one about SL, but since I have this blog set up, I figured it would be easier to just send a link to this rather than to email everyone. I probably won't get to blog often while we're here but since I hapen to have Leila's laptop handy, I thought I'd write about our first day or so.
So, we are in Japan at last! We arrived yesterday, Sunday 4/5, at about 5pm local time, which is 13 hours ahead of our time EST. We flew Northwest Air and had two very nice flights, with no delays. We slept a little on the plane, but our plan was to go out to dinner and do a couple of things before heading back to Leila's apartment, to try to get acclimated and ready for bed. We took about five trains to get from Narita airport, which is quite a ways outside of Tokyo, to the stop just before Leila's regular stop. We got off a bit early so we could drop off our bags at Leila's GEOS school, where she teaches. We took the elevator up to the little school office and saw her classroom which is also small, but with lots of pix of friends and family and a big map of places she's been. She uses these in her lessons to have conversations with her students.
From there we went around the corner to go to a favorite restaurant of hers, called Gyukaku, which serves Japanese bbq. This is not quite like any bbq we'd had! First, they bring this big metal hibachi filled with hot charcoals and place it in the center of your table, directly under this big metal vent which sucks all the smoke (well, most of the smoke) out. So right away, Joel and I are just imagining all the lawsuits of millions of dollars that this set-up would engender in the States! Then you order little dishes filled with different kinds of raw meat--tongue, beef, pork, etc. and you cook the pieces on the grill. Some of these you just eat dipped in various sauces or garlic butter which has been melted on the grill, and others you wrap in a big lettuce leaf slathered with a combination of something like mayonnaise and bbq sauce that you mix together. Delicious, and fun. You just keep ordering little plates until you don't want anymore. For dessert, little fish-shaped waffles filled with "anko", a delicious sweet bean paste. You put them on the grill, too, then eat them warm. Yum!
Then we got back on the train for one stop, and when we got off, Leila got her bicycle (which she's ridden to the train) and Joel and I shlepped our luggage to her apartment. Whew. This was quite a long walk--maybe 20 minutes, dragging the suitcases...not exactly the high point of my day, as you might guess. We finally reached Leila's place (not a minute too soon) and climbed the stairs to her tiny little apartment. Cute, but tiny! At the top of the landing (she's got her own little stairway) is a little washing machine, then a little kitchen with ittybitty fridge, stovetop, and sink on the right, and door to bathroom on left. Then in a door to the main room, which is about 8x12, I'd guess. A futon up on a high platform, a tiny fold-down desk, a little table in the corner with her tv, and a little closet...that's it! Joel and I bedded down very happily on two air mattresses she'd gotten. One we put in the space below her sleeping platform and I crawled in there to sleep, and Joel slept on another mattress on the floor right next to the futon. We were both asleep in seconds, because at that point, with the exception of a 3-4 hour nap on the plane, I think we'd been up something like 28 hours.
This morning we got up and out by about 10am and went down the street to a little resturant Yoshinoya. They don't really do "breakfast foods" here but I'd read a book recenty that talked about a traditional Japanese breakfast of a hot rice bowl with a raw egg mixed in. Turns out that Leila has had this and they had it at the restaurant, so we all ordered a big bowl of rice which also had some pork, made a little hole in the rice and poured in the raw egg, then mixed it all around. It was delish! Don't ask me how they get around the whole raw egg thing, when everyone in the US is so paranoid about this, but everyone eats it here and it doesn't sound like they've had any big run on salmonella poisoning!
Leila has been coaching us on common words and phrases that can be used to get by, and little niceties of etiquette. (For example, one does not put one's chopsticks into a rice bowl full of rice and leave them there sticking out; one crosses them neatly across the top of the bowl. This is because after a funeral, the body is cramated and chopsticks are stuck into the ashes vertically.) I'm also picking up the words you need to "get by".
After breakfast, we went for a walk to see the Dai Butsu (Big Buddha) at a temple within walking distance from Leila's place. (This was not my favorite part of the day because we had to walk for quite awhile and there were two large hills.) En route, though, we walked through a very pretty residential area. It's a little hard to describe the way things look here, because it's sooooo different from the States. The houses are packed together, most are small, though. Some are apartment buildings with many apartments, but most are small 2-3 apartment buildings mixed with single family homes. Some of the homes are beautiful. Even the crummiest looking buildings are quite neat, most with flowers or nice plantings, lanterns, etc. outside. For such a big city there is very LITTLE car traffic, even in the downtown areas that we went to later in the day, and the streets are incredibly narrow. Most cars and trucks range from small to teensy. The best part is that in the most out of the way places, one will just happen onto a shrine, or a temple, or a "bamboo park" (a big planting of bamboo which one can walk through). En route to the Dai Butsu, for example, we passed a tiny corner that had a tiny little bit of woods, on a steep hillside slanting down to a little pool. In the States, this tiny little corner in a crowded residential area would have probably been filled with trash, and just had a mud puddle in the bottom. Here, what they did was set up a little shrine that was set up just above a little spring that dripped noisily down into a little pool of water. Above it, there was a little wooden structure where one could offer incense, and people had made and hung these beautiful strings of tiny origami cranes as offerings. Similarly, later in the day, smack in the middle of the bustling modern Akihabara shopping district, we came upon a tiny corner that had been turned into a beautiful shrine.
Anyway, after the walk back from Dai Butsu, we got lunch at a favorite sushi restaurant where Leila knows the chefs--in fact, they've been so nice to her that I brought them "omiyagi" (gifts) of penny candy, because it's traditional to bring gifts for people and local goods from the West are considered a good gift. The sushi was very good and everyone was very nice. From there, we headed back onto the trains and went to Ueno Park, where we saw the few cherry blossoms still remaining because it rained last night! Boo! But still quite pretty. From there, we headed over to Akihabara, known for electronics, anime and manga, video games, and maid cafes! I know, I know, you're wondering what the heck a maid cafe is, now aren't you, admit it! Well, we went to one and it's kind of a trip. They come in all flavors, by the way, from the very tame like the one we went to, to the x-rated, apparently. The basic gist of a maid cafe is that it's a place you go where the waitresses are all dressed up like little dolls, short ruffly skirts, etc. and they giggle and act cute. Lots of geeky male customers, as you might imagine, but couples as well. While we were there, a group of six teenaged girls came in and a single kind of nerdy looking guy who was having a birthday. The places sale desserts, beer, cocktails, etc. and the maids will play games and make conversation with the customers...particularly the guys. Leila had written about going to one in her blog and I just had to see it for myself. At this point, Joel and I were beginning to fade, so we went and had a bite to eat and headed back to Leila's place. Tomorrow we're going to Yoyogi Park and a trendy shopping district in Harijuku and to Shubuya, in the southwest of Tokyo, and then get some ramen for lunch at a favorite place of Leila's and then do karaoke!
So, we are in Japan at last! We arrived yesterday, Sunday 4/5, at about 5pm local time, which is 13 hours ahead of our time EST. We flew Northwest Air and had two very nice flights, with no delays. We slept a little on the plane, but our plan was to go out to dinner and do a couple of things before heading back to Leila's apartment, to try to get acclimated and ready for bed. We took about five trains to get from Narita airport, which is quite a ways outside of Tokyo, to the stop just before Leila's regular stop. We got off a bit early so we could drop off our bags at Leila's GEOS school, where she teaches. We took the elevator up to the little school office and saw her classroom which is also small, but with lots of pix of friends and family and a big map of places she's been. She uses these in her lessons to have conversations with her students.
From there we went around the corner to go to a favorite restaurant of hers, called Gyukaku, which serves Japanese bbq. This is not quite like any bbq we'd had! First, they bring this big metal hibachi filled with hot charcoals and place it in the center of your table, directly under this big metal vent which sucks all the smoke (well, most of the smoke) out. So right away, Joel and I are just imagining all the lawsuits of millions of dollars that this set-up would engender in the States! Then you order little dishes filled with different kinds of raw meat--tongue, beef, pork, etc. and you cook the pieces on the grill. Some of these you just eat dipped in various sauces or garlic butter which has been melted on the grill, and others you wrap in a big lettuce leaf slathered with a combination of something like mayonnaise and bbq sauce that you mix together. Delicious, and fun. You just keep ordering little plates until you don't want anymore. For dessert, little fish-shaped waffles filled with "anko", a delicious sweet bean paste. You put them on the grill, too, then eat them warm. Yum!
Then we got back on the train for one stop, and when we got off, Leila got her bicycle (which she's ridden to the train) and Joel and I shlepped our luggage to her apartment. Whew. This was quite a long walk--maybe 20 minutes, dragging the suitcases...not exactly the high point of my day, as you might guess. We finally reached Leila's place (not a minute too soon) and climbed the stairs to her tiny little apartment. Cute, but tiny! At the top of the landing (she's got her own little stairway) is a little washing machine, then a little kitchen with ittybitty fridge, stovetop, and sink on the right, and door to bathroom on left. Then in a door to the main room, which is about 8x12, I'd guess. A futon up on a high platform, a tiny fold-down desk, a little table in the corner with her tv, and a little closet...that's it! Joel and I bedded down very happily on two air mattresses she'd gotten. One we put in the space below her sleeping platform and I crawled in there to sleep, and Joel slept on another mattress on the floor right next to the futon. We were both asleep in seconds, because at that point, with the exception of a 3-4 hour nap on the plane, I think we'd been up something like 28 hours.
This morning we got up and out by about 10am and went down the street to a little resturant Yoshinoya. They don't really do "breakfast foods" here but I'd read a book recenty that talked about a traditional Japanese breakfast of a hot rice bowl with a raw egg mixed in. Turns out that Leila has had this and they had it at the restaurant, so we all ordered a big bowl of rice which also had some pork, made a little hole in the rice and poured in the raw egg, then mixed it all around. It was delish! Don't ask me how they get around the whole raw egg thing, when everyone in the US is so paranoid about this, but everyone eats it here and it doesn't sound like they've had any big run on salmonella poisoning!
Leila has been coaching us on common words and phrases that can be used to get by, and little niceties of etiquette. (For example, one does not put one's chopsticks into a rice bowl full of rice and leave them there sticking out; one crosses them neatly across the top of the bowl. This is because after a funeral, the body is cramated and chopsticks are stuck into the ashes vertically.) I'm also picking up the words you need to "get by".
After breakfast, we went for a walk to see the Dai Butsu (Big Buddha) at a temple within walking distance from Leila's place. (This was not my favorite part of the day because we had to walk for quite awhile and there were two large hills.) En route, though, we walked through a very pretty residential area. It's a little hard to describe the way things look here, because it's sooooo different from the States. The houses are packed together, most are small, though. Some are apartment buildings with many apartments, but most are small 2-3 apartment buildings mixed with single family homes. Some of the homes are beautiful. Even the crummiest looking buildings are quite neat, most with flowers or nice plantings, lanterns, etc. outside. For such a big city there is very LITTLE car traffic, even in the downtown areas that we went to later in the day, and the streets are incredibly narrow. Most cars and trucks range from small to teensy. The best part is that in the most out of the way places, one will just happen onto a shrine, or a temple, or a "bamboo park" (a big planting of bamboo which one can walk through). En route to the Dai Butsu, for example, we passed a tiny corner that had a tiny little bit of woods, on a steep hillside slanting down to a little pool. In the States, this tiny little corner in a crowded residential area would have probably been filled with trash, and just had a mud puddle in the bottom. Here, what they did was set up a little shrine that was set up just above a little spring that dripped noisily down into a little pool of water. Above it, there was a little wooden structure where one could offer incense, and people had made and hung these beautiful strings of tiny origami cranes as offerings. Similarly, later in the day, smack in the middle of the bustling modern Akihabara shopping district, we came upon a tiny corner that had been turned into a beautiful shrine.
Anyway, after the walk back from Dai Butsu, we got lunch at a favorite sushi restaurant where Leila knows the chefs--in fact, they've been so nice to her that I brought them "omiyagi" (gifts) of penny candy, because it's traditional to bring gifts for people and local goods from the West are considered a good gift. The sushi was very good and everyone was very nice. From there, we headed back onto the trains and went to Ueno Park, where we saw the few cherry blossoms still remaining because it rained last night! Boo! But still quite pretty. From there, we headed over to Akihabara, known for electronics, anime and manga, video games, and maid cafes! I know, I know, you're wondering what the heck a maid cafe is, now aren't you, admit it! Well, we went to one and it's kind of a trip. They come in all flavors, by the way, from the very tame like the one we went to, to the x-rated, apparently. The basic gist of a maid cafe is that it's a place you go where the waitresses are all dressed up like little dolls, short ruffly skirts, etc. and they giggle and act cute. Lots of geeky male customers, as you might imagine, but couples as well. While we were there, a group of six teenaged girls came in and a single kind of nerdy looking guy who was having a birthday. The places sale desserts, beer, cocktails, etc. and the maids will play games and make conversation with the customers...particularly the guys. Leila had written about going to one in her blog and I just had to see it for myself. At this point, Joel and I were beginning to fade, so we went and had a bite to eat and headed back to Leila's place. Tomorrow we're going to Yoyogi Park and a trendy shopping district in Harijuku and to Shubuya, in the southwest of Tokyo, and then get some ramen for lunch at a favorite place of Leila's and then do karaoke!
Friday, November 30, 2007
Mid-life in Second Life
OK, so I just have to ask....why are there no middle-aged avatars? Looking around at all the hip young things I see virtually tripping blithly around me might make one think that the only folks out in RL-ville who are actually SL users are, oh, maybe ages 18-25 max.
But don't you believe it, boys and girls! There are a LOT of us 51-year-old virtual fuddy-duddies traipsing happily around in SL, lookin' purdy darned cute. I mean, I don't think the standard accessory package for avatar skin options currently includes wrinkles and a cane quite yet, and even if they did...who would want 'em??
That's one of the things that makes it so much fun to run into RL friends and acquantainces in-world, though--in a very real way, you get to glimpse into what they really look like. Get it?
But don't you believe it, boys and girls! There are a LOT of us 51-year-old virtual fuddy-duddies traipsing happily around in SL, lookin' purdy darned cute. I mean, I don't think the standard accessory package for avatar skin options currently includes wrinkles and a cane quite yet, and even if they did...who would want 'em??
That's one of the things that makes it so much fun to run into RL friends and acquantainces in-world, though--in a very real way, you get to glimpse into what they really look like. Get it?
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Fun with Babbler
Last weekend, I went to Phreake Isle and picked up a copy of Max Case's translation program, Babbler3. It works like a charm, and I was able to converse in several different languages (French, german, spanish and portuguese) with a number of people in SL, which was an absolute blast. One of the folks I met was a french-speaking artist from Algeria, who offered to show me his art gallery. It was a fun visit, and particularly nice because without Babbler I wouldn't have been able to meet and converse with him. There are so many different applications for this in education that it simply boggles the mind. Miraculously, I have NOT make any dumb mistakes with Babbler so far--in fact, I was having so much fun with it that I actually hung around Phreake Isle for a while giving people a hand when they ran into trouble figuring out how to attach the HUD to themselves in order to use the translator.
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