I’m among the many that have been enamored with the iPhone since it first released a year ago. When it first launched, while I really wanted one, I couldn’t justify the steep price for one. Now that the price is coming down and with the promise of 3G and Apps, I’m tempted again to consider getting one despite the hefty cost of a service plan.
We have an opening at the Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center at NIU for an Instructional Technology Coordinator. Below I’ve included the ad and link to download the complete position description. Come join our team!
I spent June 13-20th with my brother-in-law Justin and father-in-law Terry riding across Colorado on our motorcycles. We loaded the motorcycles on my trailer and left Friday evening, June 13th after work and towed them 18 hours to Colorado Springs where we spent the night at Justin’s cousin, Travis & Britta’s house. From there, we drove on the bikes to Pagosa Springs to spend a couple of days with Justin’s family and in-laws before hitting the road and spending 3 more days on the road en route back to Colorado Springs and then finally home. In total, we put on 1,027 miles on the motorcycles and another nearly 2,000 miles in the Explorer towing the motorcycles to Colorado and back. All in all, we had a great trip and many fond memories that will no double be talking about for years to come.
All the photos from our trip are available here. For the slideshow, click here.
Anyone interested in the route we took, here are the maps for our routes that Justin planned out using Google Maps:
I’m currently preparing to teach my first course with the Illinois Online Network’s “Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality” (MVCR) series entitled, “Web Design Principles for Online Educators” that begins June 2nd. The MVCR series of online faculty development courses is designed to help faculty members acquire skills and knowledge needed to teach online.
Registration closes for this course May 30th, but in the meantime, details are available for anyone interested in registering for the course or just find out more about this course.
I recently received an email invitation to Nfomedia, a new free social networking utility designed especially for faculty and their courses. I’ve setup a free account and poked around a bit, but since NIU isn’t yet listed as one of the home institutions, I’ve not dabbled any further. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until many more institutions are listed and I look forward to eventually giving this a try.This certainly does look intriguing…if you have already tried this new tool, please post a comment with your experience.
I’m at Faculty Summer Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign preparing for several sessions I will be leading over the next few days. As I posted earlier, I’m going to attempt to stream 4 sessions I’m leading live online via Ustream as well as record the audio to post to my podcast. This will be an interesting experiment and I look forward to seeing how the quality of the live streams and recordings turn out.
Here are the days/times for these upcoming sessions for anyone who might be interested in taking a peek at any of the sessions online:
- Getting Started Creating Web Pages with Google Page Creator: Tue., May 13, 2008, 8:30am-9:45am (CDT)
- Introduction to Social Bookmarking: Tue., May 13, 2008, 1:30pm-2:45pm (CDT)
- Media Mashups Using Kaltura: Wed., May 14, 2008, 8:30am-9:45am (CDT)
- Getting Started Creating Web Pages with Google Page Creator: Wed., May 14, 2008, 10:15am-11:30am (CDT)
No guarantees, but if all goes well, I’ll be streaming these sessions at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fsi08
I’m experimenting with quite a few new social networking technologies during this week at FSI but will refrain from posting much more about them here. If interested in keeping posted on these adventures, you can follow me on Twitter.
As the fly home from the Sloan-C International Symposium, I’m preparing to attend the 2008 Faculty Summer Institute on Teaching with Technology at UIUC. Although I’m not leading a Learning Team this year, I look forward to giving the following presentations:
- Introduction to Social Bookmarking
- Mastering Microblogging
- Getting Started Creating Web Pages with Google Page Creator
- Media Mashups
I’m giving a presentation at the 2008 Sloan-C International Symposium on Emerging Technology Applications for Online Learning on the topic of socially constructed self-paced learning environments. In particular, I discuss the implementation of CMUOnet, an instance of the Elgg open source social application engine, for fostering organic, informal interaction among participants in an online self-paced professional development certificate program.The slides for the presentation are available here along with the links I reference.
If I am successful in recording the audio for my presentation, I’ll eventually add there here as well as on my edtech podcast.
Free Webcast: New Features in Blackboard 8.0
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm (CDT)
With the upgrade of the Blackboard course management system to version 8.0, faculty can expect to see a number of new and enhanced features when they log in to Blackboard. The new version introduces significant changes in the functionality of the discussion board, transition of the Blackboard Gradebook to the completely redesigned Grade Center, as well as a new “Self and Peer” assessment tool that will allow students to review and grade their own work and the work of their peers, among others. This online session offered by NIU Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center will highlight these new and enhanced features and tools in Blackboard version 8.0. All are welcome. Advanced registration is required.
Registration Information:
Please email your name, institution, title, and email address, to jrhode@niu.edu. You will then receive confirmation of your registration.
This video by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University, creatively and powerfully looks at today’s students and how they are changing the world of learning and education.
Do you find these attributes as characteristic of the students you teach? What steps might you take to engage students of the 21st century? Please post a comment with your thoughts and reflections.
- MORE FROM JASON
