"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
Last night, Jon Becker, with whom I am co-teaching the online Educational Technology and School Leadership course for Virginia Commonwealth University, used Wimba Classroom to have an extended conversation with Ben Grey, instructional technology coordinator for a school district in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Ben had heard Jon’s presentation at K12Online Conference on “Facilitating… Read more The Becker – Grey Conversation
A week from tomorrow, I am scheduled to lead a Brown Bag lunch session on “Building Community and Connections Through the Web.” Bud Deihl and I were brainstorming this session (and he earlier also blogged about it). As we talked, we realized that “community” is very nuanced. The following slide emerged from our white board… Read more Communities and Tools
I have just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success (2008). For those who have not yet read it, it is a terrific book. Rather than focusing on intelligence and ambition as cause agents for success, Gladwell instead argues that success is more complex, linked to chance events and accidents of birth. Gladwell… Read more Am I An Outlier?
It has been ages since I posted anything here…a combination of end of semester and work in the Center. Part of what has been driving me lately are strategic questions, and I have some for you. For the past two weeks, I have been drafting a white paper on the state of the union regarding… Read more Strategic Thinking and Strategic Resources
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
(…or “It’s All Fracking Online!!!”) I was looking over the session schedule for the SLOAN-C Conference on Online Learning and was a bit disappointed in what I saw. Here, as in elsewhere throughout the blogosphere and more importantly the mainstream education journals, one sees the term “online learning” continually bantered around. Yet, it is a… Read more What is Online Learning?
It has been a busy week but I have had some enjoyable experiences. Last night, I covered Jeff Nugent’s class, Learning with Digital Media, while he was at the POD Conference. Today, I worked with the faculty of the Occupational Therapy program on instructional uses of the web. In both cases, I got to see… Read more The Interconnected Tool Set
As you know from my last post, I spent Friday with Jeff Nugent co-facilitating a full-day workshop at the INFORMS Teaching Effectiveness Colloquium. It was rather exciting to spend a full day with a room full of mathematicians! I am still reflecting on what transpired, but wanted to share some thoughts on one aspect, triggered… Read more The Digital Divide – Students versus Faculty
Every now and then, you are reading a book or article, and a phrase jumps out and grabs you. It happened last night on page 198 of David Weinberger‘s delightful Everything is Miscellaneous. “The task of knowing is no longer to see the simple. It is to swim in the complex.” Wow! David’s book is… Read more Swimming in the Complex
I think I am in trouble! In 9 days, Jeff Nugent and I are doing a full day training session at INFORMS Teaching Effectiveness Colloquium in Washington DC. Jeff is starting off with a session on How People Learn. I then spend some time exploring the Net Generation. Then we tie it together with Teaching,… Read more Not Net Gen – Oh No!