Next Meeting Friday Morning at 10

Yesterday, 34 people logged in to attend the session on free cloud-based tools for educators.  We demonstrated how Google docs can be useful for collaboration, publishing, collecting information and managing a lot of files as well as replacing expensive, propietary software like Microsoft Office.  We also talked about storing files using tools including dropbox.com, Windows Live Skydrive and Amazon's Clouddrive.  Jerry demonstrated several cool image editors, including Photoshop.com, Picnik, and phixr.com.

There was a fair amount of interest among those attending in mind mapping software and using wikis.  If these are topics that interest you too, you might want to attend the session tomorrow at ten AM that will demo those tools and a few others.  Hope to see you then!

Next Presentation Tomorrow.

Wednesday, April 27^th, 2 PM - What’s in your tool box?  Free web tools can make life easier for you and your students, Presented by Jerry Lewis of Columbia Basin, Scott Dennis of the State Board and Tom Jacobs of Olympic College.  This presentation is targeted at faculty members who teach online and/or in the classroom.  Attendees will see live demonstrations of free web-based tools that can be used in place of expensive photo editing and office software, allow for collaborative web development and mind mapping.  Attendees will also take away a longer annotated list of free, web-based tools to choose from and try with their own teaching.  To attend, click on the Elluminate tab at the top and then on the participant link to log into Elluminate.

Presentation Schedule Update

Everyone who has been laying awake nights, waiting for the presentation schedule to be updated may now sleep peacefully.  Please find a list of sessions and open office hours on the Schedule tab above.  We have some great presenters lined up and hope to add more soon, so please check back.

eLearning Community Planning Sessions

It is time to plan what topics we will tackle in the next series of eLearning Community sessions.  We will hold this meeting in Elluminate this Thursday at 2 PM Pacific time.  To access the session, please click on the Elluminate tab above.  Anyone interested in participating is welcome.

Faculty Training Opportunity, Tegrity Hands On, May 11th, Spokane

In late breaking news, we will have an all day, hands-on Tegrity training day for faculty at Spokane Falls Community College on Wednesday, May 11^th, from 9:30 AM – 4 PM (lab opens at 9).  This workshop is available at no cost to anyone teaching or working in the Washington Community and Technical College system.  Lunch will be provided.  Registrations will be taken on a first come, first served basis.

Please register via this form:

http://goo.gl/VyuhC

Based on previous experience we expect this training to fill quickly so please do not hesitate to get the form filled in if you plan to attend.  Parking and related information will be mailed on May 2^nd.

Also, the Tegrity training days scheduled for April 28^th and 29^th at Seattle Central and Lake Washington are now both full with waiting lists.

Attendees to all three events will need to bring a headset with microphone.  USB headsets are recommended.

Please let me know if you have questions.

Thank you,

SD

Scott Dennis

eLearning Professional Development Manager

WA State Board, Community & Technical Colleges

PO Box 42495 | 1300 Quince Street SE  Olympia, WA 98504-2495 

sdennis@sbctc.edu

Voice: 360.747.7211

ANGEL Videos | Tegrity Videos

Professional Development Calendar

Based on how people rated the suggested topics in a recent poll and the frequency with which other topics were suggested, here is a list of potential topics for the next schedule of sessions:

• What’s in your tool box?  Free web tools can make life easier for you and your students 
• Adding  Audio and Video Media to Your Course - Techniques you can use today
• Web 2.0 Tools and Social Media - Who in our system is using what and why?
• Academic Integrity - How to prevent cheating and plagiarism, and what to do when it happens
• ANGEL; Automation - Customizing the student experience, and adding efficiency
• ANGEL; Testing, Test Banks from the Ground Up, Best Practices for Building, Getting questions into ANGEL
• Google apps for education – free office tools, email, sites, phone, and much more
• Tegrity/Elluminate - Getting started with lecture capture and real time web conferencing
• Labs for Online Learning, Techniques and Real World Examples
• Structuring an Online Course, rubrics, alignment, and what to avoid.
• How to build online human presence, and persona, connecting with students online
• Online Discussion - best practices, pedagogy, how to write questions and get to engagement
• Universal Design and Accessibility  - Best practices and little things that make a big difference
• Self-evaluation resources, techniques and examples

What do you think?  Would you attend these sessions?  How could they be better focused to your needs?  Please leave comments.

Also in the recent poll in addition to asking about what session topics respondents would be interested in and when they would be available, we also asked them about their experience with teaching online and whether they have known about and/or attended sessions in the past.  The results were interesting and not entirely expected.

A wide majority of respondents have themselves taught fully online and/or hybrid courses:

Interestingly, while a majority of respondents have been previously aware that free, online live training is available, most of those responding have not attended a session:

Upcoming Session Dates and Times

Recently we asked faculty members and potential session attendees to fill in a poll to let us know what session topics are of interest to them and when they would be able to attend.  Fifty-two people filled out the poll.  We're still working on analyzing the data on what sessions people want to see but the numbers on when they can attend are clear and compelling:

Based on this information, it looks like we will be offering future sessions in the mid afternoons on Wednesdays or Thursdays, with Thursday at two being the most likely.

eLearning Community Session Tomorrow - Finding Good Open Educational Content

Tuesday, April 5^th, Tom Caswell, Open Education Program Manager for SBCTC, will give a talk and demonstration for all interested on open licensing and how instructors can find good openly available educational resources and content.  Please forward this message widely.  The session will be begin at 3 PM in Elluminate.  All are welcome. 

Elluminate Login:

http://goo.gl/JpmfU

More from Tom:

Here’s a quick description, as well as an outline of what I will try to cover:

Walking the Walk, Finding Good Open Educational Content

Summary: We will start with the basics, briefly defining Open Educational Resources plus a few other commonly used terms. Then we will cover how to find and use OER. Join us!

Discussion Outline:

1.       First, some definitions:

a.       Open Educational Resources (OER) are digitized materials offered freely and openly for teaching, learning and research (examples: Wikipedia, MIT OpenCourseWare, and the Kahn Academy)

b.      OpenCourseWare (OCW) is course material that is available for all to see and use (OCW is a subset of the broader OER).

c.       Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that has made a series of open licenses available to the public to enable easier sharing of creative works. Including educational materials.

2.       Why should I care?

a.       Teaching = Sharing (OER makes this easier and faster for digital resources)

b.      SBCTC Open Licensing Policy

c.       Sharing can be good for reputation

3.       How do I find Open Education Resources to use?

a.       OCW Finder (http://www.ocwfinder.org)  

b.      SBCTC’s OER Matrix (http://bit.ly/oer-matrix)

4.       I found one! Now what?

a.       Follow the requirements of the Creative Commons license

                                                               i.      In most cases you will need to give attribution, or credit to the author/creator.

                                                             ii.      Non-commercial and share-alike? What the…?

b.      What about fair use?

5.       I want to create OER. How do I get involved?

a.       Join the ELC OER group (http://elc-oer.blogspot.com)

b.      Apply for phase 2 of the Open Course Library!

-- Tom Caswell
Open Education Program Manager, SBCTC
(e) tcaswell@sbctc.edu (p) 360-704-4363

(w) http://opencourselibrary.org/ (t) @opencourselib