Taking a Face to Face Class

I signed up to take a new course in program evaluation - taught by my friend Ed. Several of my colleagues are in the class, too, so I look forward to this as both a learning opportunity and as a way to nurture our learning community.

It's a face-to-face class, but the course materials all reside in Blackboard. So, it's a technology-enhanced face-to-face class. And my work is much more technology-enhanced than I anticipated. We have discussion board posts on the reading; I usually do my writing in Word so that I can proof it easier. Now I am using Google Docs so I don't have to remember which computer I was working on. The easy online access to my documents is quite nice.

I left my book at home (The ABCs of Evaluation by Boulmetis and Dutwin) but had bought the optional online version from Amazon. I logged in to my Amazon account and there was the book. Adding notes, tags, boomarks, and highlights is easy and fun. I can go back to any of these marked pages very quickly too.

Reading online gets tedious after awhile, but having the ability to annotate is great. This may be a great tool. Now, if I can share my markups and annotations with others in the class.....

Beginning of Spring Semester Ruminations

The start of Spring trimester/semester has been less hectic than I anticipated. A few instructors (mostly the newer faculty) have needed help. I have done my rounds of visiting offices and checking in with folks. In general, the faculty seem less frantic than I expected. We have begun our switch to trimesters and our winter break has been shortened a week.

Last fall there were fewer takers of my seminar series and the monthly check-in sessions. For whatever reasons, these were of less need to folks than in the prior year. My assumption had been that folks are busier with the extra demands at the college. Now, I have a couple other assumptions: most faculty have learned enough to "get by" with the distance technology, so there is less desperation. We have settled back into our regular routines. I would like to encourage further learning. How do I make this more enticing and get greater participation?

My two assumptions here are: try different activities (e.g. Saturday sessions) and show exemplars that could lure folks into wanting to model/learn more about them.

I have a survey ready to deploy to determine how best to facilitate deeper learning in technology and the pedagogy of teaching with technology. If one of our goals is to embrace Understanding by Design principles, then that is one area that needs more work. From my experience, this is less alluring than learning technology. I think it's critical, though.

As I look towards the May workshops, maybe one of the entry tickets could be the enduring understandings of one or more classes. I could also tie in to the College's enduring understandings and the 4-part lens that we are trying out.

Spring Semester Starts

My colleagues have made great strides with Elluminate and Blackboard in their distance courses over the past year. I wonder if I could have worked myself out of a job - or more realistically- what will be the next technology trend to incorporate into the work of teaching and learning here at the College of Education. I know that surveys and conversations will help me to determine the course. I also know that sometimes people need a model of what's possible.

I began investigating Facebook last fall. I am in the Alaska Anch network - that's UAA- and there are 4,291 members of that network. 308 of these show up when I search for education - not all are Ed majors, not all are still in school -but it's a place where we could connect with students. I wonder about Club Ed using Facebook or about programs using Facebook to connect/communicate with students.

Second Life has been an interesting process. It's a fascinating virtual world that may have great use for us. I've heard of various uses in educations such as preservice teachers building their ideal classrooms. There is a learning curve with Second Life, and I'm still on it. It may be a fascinating way to have meetings or hold classes at a distance. I will continue my explorations. My avatar is LeeMaria Hifeng.

Oh, and there is the whole creation of interesting content: podcasts, video clips, etc. that I can help folks learn.

Yes, I'll be busy for awhile...