"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
My final day at the League for Innovation’s 2009 conference was just as informative as the first. The conference goes on for another two days but too much going on at home for me to stay. Besides, jet lag is finally kicking in. I woke up at 3am today and then crashed at 4pm local… Read more Day Two at Innovations 2009
After two 3+ hour flights and one flight delay, I have crossed the country to attend Innovations 2009 in Reno NV. Innovations is an annual conference of the League for Innovation in Community Colleges, and this is my fifth or sixth. While I am no longer associated with two-year colleges, I still stay in touch… Read more At Innovations 2009
Over the last four weeks, Jon Becker and I have facilitated a journey for our online students into the heretofore unknown world (for them) of Web 2.0. Our students are all K-12 teachers from three different states in our Education Technology and School Leadership course. After two weeks of typical “schoolroom” topical exploration and discussion,… Read more It Is the Journey, Not the Destination … Nor the Goat
I had the good fortune last Tuesday to participate in a podcast with Kathyrn Murphy-Judy, professor of French in the School of World Studies here at VCU. Facilitated by Jeff Nugent and joined by Bud Deihl, we spent nearly an hour discussing the uses of social media in our classes. As Jeff set the stage,… Read more Individual Assessment in a Collaborative World
We had a fruitful faculty brown bag lunch conversation today. The topic was Building Connections and Communities through the Web. Ten folks present locally, and since Jeff Nugent was using UStream, another crowd actively joined via the internet. I used these slides to guide the conversation: Building Connections and Communities through the Web View more… Read more Timesharing Dogs
There was an interesting point raised by one of my VIF students in our online class taught by Jon Becker and myself this weekend. Half of our online class are Visiting International Faculty studying for their Masters in Education here at VCU, and half are Virginia teachers studying in our Ed Leadership graduate program. When… Read more An International View
Yesterday, Tom Peters, one of my heroes, listed The 19E’s of Excellence on his business management blog: If Not Excellence, What? If Not Excellence Now, When? The “19 Es” of Excellence: Enthusiasm. (Be an irresistible force of nature!) Energy. (Be fire! Light fires!) Exuberance. (Vibrate—cause earthquakes!) Execution. (Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are… Read more Excellence in E-Learning
Yesterday, Jeff Nugent and I had the opportunity to present at the 2008 Virginia School Board Association annual convention. We had around 40 people attend our session entitled “Email Is For Old People.” Two were school administrators and the rest were all school board members from around the state. These were our presentations slides: Vsba2008… Read more Email is For Old People
Laptops to many university students today are the equivalent of the spiral notebooks of my generation – a necessary part of attending college. Yet, students find mixed reactions when they fire up their laptop in a classroom. Friday, I had the opportunity to facilitate a brown bag discussion with a group of faculty from diverse… Read more Students and Laptops in the Classroom
I was slated to run a session today on “Blogging in the Academy” but ended up going a different direction instead. Our workshop description stated: Blogs have begun to move beyond personal journaling to emerge as a possible form of academic publishing. Blogs today provide a reflective medium for publication of teaching and research, and… Read more Blogging Instructionally