Pedagogy First!

Introductions

Hello fellow Cohort 3 members from the land of sabbatical.  Sabbatical, wonderful, now what was it I was going to do?  As I re-read my approved proposal I wonder how am I going to accomplish all that I set out to do?  My name is Sue Simpson and I am a faculty member in the Nursing and Allied Health Department.  During my tenure at MiraCosta this department has grown and spread like the H1N1 virus.  We now proudly offer a full nursing career ladder that begins with the Certified Nursing Assistant and climbs to the top rung; the Associate in Science Registered Nursing Degree.  This sabbatical is allowing me to step out of the role of nursing instructor (sort of) and back into the hospital as a bedside nurse as well as developing materials for the on-line components of two of our RN classes.  Yup, a lot of work ahead.  When Jim first sent me the information about TypePad I played with it, created my own blog, publicly vowed to update it and........well never did.  Rather that blogging about my spectacular summer I posted photos on Face Book instead.  I will have to re-commit myself to my blog as I don't want to disappoint my 5 fans.  But, I'll get to that later.  Today I found myself deep deep in the world where blogs and nursing meet.  Exciting stuff out there.  I did find a very interesting clearing house  where a number blogs by nursing educators are listed. As you all know one blog posting leads to another to another and so on.  Eventually I ended up at Nurse Story where Teri Schmidt, experienced nurse practitioner, educator, and is currently finishing her PhD, talks about pod casting in the nursing education arena.  I think this is a blog I need to sign up for a RSS feed. Now all I have to do is read it!

A New Semester, A New Opportunity!

I teach in the Behavioral Sciences, and have offered online courses at MCC for the past four years.  So I'm still feel new to all this.  I've been fortunate to have many avenues available for professional development as an online instructor, including a recent sabbatical to explore topics of accessibility, multimedia, Creative Commons licensing, locating online instructional resources, and the instructor development and sharing of ebooks.

 
A screenshot of the ebook version of my Behavioral Statistics Workbook, hosted on Crocodoc.com.
 

This semester I will be including (for the first time) an ebook option for my students.  Importantly, there will be a designated 'online community ebook' that all students have access to, can read, and even add comments (to indicate questions they might have).  I or other students can then reply to the questions raised (directly within the community e-book), using either a text or video response.  Then anyone else reading through the online community ebook can see the questions raised by the class and the responses.  I can opt to be notified via e-mail whenever a student asks a questions about the text.  Why bother?  I am interested in reducing student costs... the e-book option for the students is free (students can either purchase the printed version from the bookstore, or have their own ebook version).  I also wish to make it easier for students to request help with the content in the course.  In my 'Ask A Question' discussion forum on Blackboard, most questions are about course format... even though it is clear students also need help with course content.  Thus making it easier for them to ask questions as they are studying (by posting their question directly within the online community ebook as they read) seems like a worthwhile direction to explore.  Note that students have the option to view their own comments only - or those of the whole class.  I look forward to reporting back on how this online community ebook experiment works. 

I would recommend two blogs.  Having attended Michelle Pacansky-Brock's @One's Building Online Community with Emerging Tools, I would recommend her blog MPB Reflections for those interested in recent developments in online education.  Having benefited many times from the insights shared, I'd recommend Lisa's (Online) Teaching Blog by our own Lisa M. Lane.

My appreciation to Jim Sullivan and Pilar Hernandez for working with Lisa Lane to make this Program for Online Teaching Certificate pathway available.  I am looking forward to journeying with everyone on this certificate path - which is great for the first time and the returning online instructor.  Having the opportunity to continue to learn from my colleages, which is at the heart of this certificate program, is a wonderful gift.  Looking forward to learning from everyone's posts!

Robert

Week 1: Here's To New Beginnings

Welcome to a new academic year on Pedagogy First. I am thrilled to be your tour guide again this year (for those of you who returning), and I look forward to reading the insights, ideas, and questions of our newest community members (yeah, yeah, let's have a shout out for Cohort #3!!).

Each week I will be posting a prompt with some reminders here at the top of the blog. All work in response to that post (and in response via comments to your fellow bloggers) is due by the following Wednesday. So for week one, the prompts are up by September 1 and you have until September 8 to respond to them.

Cohort #3: Joining Us for the First Time This Fall

(Along with weekly posts and comments, you will complete a mid-semester self-assessment and a summary post with links to all of your contributions to the blog at the end of the semester)

Week 1 Prompt: Introduction

• Read through the POT site & find out about the program.
• Introduce yourself to the community on the blog.
• Research and check out a few educational blogs on your own and share what you discover with our blog community.

 

Cohort #2: Began the Program in January 2010

(Along with weekly posts and comments, you will complete a mid-semester self-assessment and a summary post with links to all of your contributions to the blog at the end of the semester)

Your prompt will remain relatively consistent throughout the semester. Here is the language from your Cohort #2 page on the POT web site:

"The second semester consists of application to one online, on-site or hybrid class. Choose a class in which to implement some of the strategies you learned in the first semester. Participate weekly at the Pedagogy First! blog to (1) document your work and (2) help your colleagues."

Week 1 Prompt:

With this broad framework in mind, I recommend beginning your semester of contributions to this blog by identifying the course in which you plan on implementing the strategies you explored here last year. Tell us about the course and your big picture plans for applying your online teaching and learning ideas and pedagogies to the course.

In future posts, I will be asking you to keep us updated on how that process is going and to lend a hand offering advice, reactions, and feedback to our new community members from Cohort 3.

Thanks everyone. See you in the blogosphere!

Jim Sullivan

PS. For a helpful overview / review of the POT certification process, check out this video of Pilar's flex workshop.

 

 

Be Certifiable: POT's Online Teaching Certificate from Program for Online Teaching on Vimeo.

Hanging Out Lab Play List (POT Miniconference: 8/19/2010)

Here are links to a variety of tools and toys you may wish to explore during your time in the lab today.

 

Amplify (http://amplify.com/): username: miracostapot, password: spartan

Amplify combines services like Facebook and Twitter to provide easier sharing, blogging, storing of pages and images for access anywhere.

 

Bubbl.us (http://bubbl.us/) -- no password needed, click on Start Brainstorming

Bubbl.us creates mind maps, visual images of text thoughts.

 

Diigo (http://www.diigo.com/) username: miracostapot, password: spartan

Diigo is a way to save your bookmarks on the web for yourself or your class, annotate and highlight the web pages you save, and share resources.

 

Edublogs miracostapot.edublogs.org, username: miracostapot, password: spartan

Create blogs for your classes.

Glogster (http://www.glogster.com/)

Create posters from text, images, video and music. No registration required.

 

Jing (http://www.jingproject.com/) free--must download copy to your computer

Take screen shots and make short videos for web, email, and other uses in your courses.

 

PBWorks (http://miracostapot.pbworks.com) -- username MiraCosta POT, email:miracostapot@yahoo.com, password: spartan

PB Works provides wikis for educational use. Click edit and try the wiki!

 

Prezi (http://prezi.com) -- username: miracostapot@yahoo.com, password: spartan

Prezi is presentation software that works on the web. You can edit presentations online, create paths through material instead of linear shows, zoom on images, and download your presentation with its own player. Log in and click on New Prezi -- play around!

 

Tumblr (http://miracostapot.tumblr.com): username: miracostapot@yahoo.com, password: spartan

Tumblr is like a mini-blog. It lets you post images through links, quotations, video clips, and add your own content.

Voicethread (http://voicethread.com/) username: miracostapot@yahoo.com, password: spartan

Voicethread lets you post an image or images and lead a conversation around it. Students can use phone or microphone to record their input and it appears with their photo around the central object(s). Log in and click on Create -- play around!

 

Web2pdf (http://www.web2pdfconvert.com/default.aspx): no user name necessary

Turns web pages into PDF files

 

Wordl (http://www.wordle.net/) -- no password needed

Wordl lets you input any text or webpage, and it creates a map of words with the words used most often appearing larger.

 

Zoho (http://www.zoho.com): username: miracostapot, password: spartan

Log in, choose any application and try stuff! Zoho is a complete online office suite, including spreadsheets, presentations with slides, notebook with drag-and-drop images, email and more.