Dear Colleagues,
It's always good to get a little inspiration and insight on our work. Good professional development does just that – and gives us a tool or an idea on how to improve our teaching. There are several professional development opportunities available:
High Impact Educational Practices
We have a special professional development opportunity on Tuesday, Feb. 24 from 8:30 am to 9:45 am with the Keynote Presentation by George Kuh on High Impact Educational Practices. You can attend at the main campus (register at CAFE). I plan to use the webstream link to watch. See the CAFE website for more details or to register.
Applying the Quality Matters Rubric
Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) is a rigorous two-week asynchronous online course on the QM rubric and how its standards inform online course design. Participants will learn specific and measurable ways to improve their online courses. The time commitment to complete the workshop is 10-12 hours per week of the two-week course. I took this course last fall and highly recommend it to anyone who plans to teach online. (excerpted from email)
The next session is Wed, April 6th, 2015 - Wed, April 20th, 2015. Register here.
If you are interested in a summer session on Applying the Quality Matters Rubric, please let me know.
VoiceThread webinars
VoiceThread is an interactive tool that has been added to our Blackboard shell. It's like an online PowerPoint in which participants can comment on each slide – and the comments can be text, audio, or video. It's pretty cool. You and your students can create and comment on Voicethreads.
I attended one intro session in January – it was well done. George Haines does a good job of making the workshop interactive. Here are the sessions:
Lesson Planning Series
The first two workshops focus on how VoiceThread can enhance your current classes.
• Teaching Languages - March 11th at 7:00pm ET
• Flipping Your Class - March 18th at 7:00pm ET
"Basics" Series
The second series is in four parts and will cover all the basics of how to use VoiceThread, from just getting started to working in secure Groups to integrating with your learning management system. The first session is open to all VoiceThreaders, and the rest will be for people who have a VoiceThread license. [UAA has a VoiceThread license.]
• Session 1: Creating a Basic VoiceThread - March 25th at 7:00pm ET
• Session 2: Using Groups and Secure Sharing - April 1st at 7:00pm ET
• Session 3: Moderating, Re-ordering, and Copying - April 15th at 7:00pm ET
• Session 4: VoiceThread and your LMS - April 22nd at 7:00pm ET
• Session 4 (repeated): VoiceThread and your LMS - April 29th at 1:00pm ET
See a full description of each session at the registration link below.
Note: You will login to Blackboard to access Voicethread.
About the Workshops
These workshops are completely free. Each session is led by George Haines, an Instructional Designer and former educator. George will share his expertise to help you learn how to get the most from VoiceThread. Click here to register and join us for any and all of these sessions. (excerpted from email)
