"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
I am currently reading Bill Kist’s new book, The Socially Networked Classroom. While written for all levels of education from elementary through postsecondary, he focuses on the use of social media in classes from middle school and above. As I continue to work with K-12 teachers in my graduate course, this book addresses many of… Read more The Socially Networked Student
A delivery from Barnes and Noble is like Christmas in July. As much as I like digital, there is something comforting about holding a book. Here are the next four books I plan to read this summer: . Looking forward to jumping in! And by the way, they are sitting on one of my favorite… Read more My Next Summer Reading Plans
Over the weekend, I started a little project that will last a LOOOONNNNGGGG time. My daughters have given me a scanner so that I might digitally scan some of the 2400+ 35mm slides that are sitting in storage up in the attic. Works great, though it takes 8 minutes to do 4 slides. (You do… Read more DIYU, Probably Not, But Use DIYU Resources, Definitely!
I am heading out for a couple of weeks vacation, but I wanted to try and capture some thoughts about the summer institute our team at the CTE completed on Friday. My last two posts focused on the first two days. The further we got into the week, the less energy I had at day’s… Read more Teaching Online (Versus Online Teaching)
We had a great second day in our Institute for faculty transitioning to online teaching and learning. Tuesday was devoted to focusing on just what a “classroom” meant for an online class. We explored our learning management system – Blackboard 9 – in the morning, and compared that to two open access options, a Ning… Read more Day 2 of Summer Institute
. It is finally here – our summer institute, where we spend a week working with 20 VCU faculty who are transitioning courses to the web. My colleagues Jeff Nugent, Bud Deihl, and I have been working since February to develop and refine this institute, so it is exciting that it is finally underway! Our… Read more Day 1 of Summer Institute
I am about one-third the way through Charlene Li‘s and Josh Bernoff‘s 2008 book, Groundswell. The groundswell that these two analysts from Forrester Research discuss is the impact of social media on businesses. Striking a similar theme to that espoused by Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody and David Weinberger in Everything is Miscellaneous, Groundswell… Read more No Groundswell in Higher Ed?
In 10 days, we start our summer institute on online teaching and learning. This is an experiment of sorts for my institution. For the first time, our institute this year will be the start of an upcoming year-long process to help a cohort of faculty develop and teach online classes. Following the institute, each member… Read more Bridging the Chasm
I am a huge fan of Hugh MacLeod‘s art. His “Great Ideas” really resonated with me. I could not help but think about the resistance I have seen over the years regarding moving from class-based instruction to online instruction. My hope is that faculty are beginning to move beyond their fear of online learning to… Read more Great Ideas
Our office has a new iPad and we are taking turns playing…I mean exploring its instructional uses. But I could not help notice the fingerprints after I turned it off (they are not ALL mine!) : – )