COLTT

I recently attended the COLTT Conference at CU Boulder and it was a good conference. The conference featured presenters all over Colorado and from Wyoming. The sessions were interactive and hands on and was well worth it.

Alternative Reality Game as a learning Narrative

The first session I attended was scenario-based learning utilizing QR codes. We broke into groups and used our cell phones to scan the codes and we would either watch a video clip or read an article. After scanning all the codes we worked together as a group to solve the mystery. This session was very hands on and kept me engaged; it certainly has a lot of possibilities in the classroom.

Touching the Future: iPad Usage in College Curriculum

This session was very interesting to hear about iPad usage. The Community College of Aurora purchased iPads to use in film classes that they offer. Students would check out the iPad for the semester and they would use it for taking notes, receiving instructor handouts. Student feedback was that it was easier and quicker to access materials. They could understand electronic notes as opposed to hand written and students paid more attention to word quality.

A psychology course also participated in the study. To use an iPad in the classroom was not a decision for students to enroll or stay in the course; students were concerned with the instruction. They used eBooks for materials, but more than half of the students preferred print. Some of the issues faced were poor wireless in the classroom, eBooks were not available offline.

Participant-Driven Classroom Technology: Building Applications and Games

This session began by demonstrating examples he would have students develop using Flash for their programming class. The end product students would develop also helps them understand concepts and theories. Some of the games they develop are on probability and Math and programming. The rest of the session was hands on and we developed our own Flash example on probability. I am already a Flash user and this session was great. Flash is a great application tool for any area and should be integrated into course curriculum. Here is the website of the different games and applications http://amath.colorado.edu/programs/COLTT2011/

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

I enjoyed this session using photos to develop photos to make edits. One of the Adobe reps led this session. The presenter took pictures in class and showed us how to get them into Lightroom and make adjustments that can be applied to all pictures with the click of a button. Adobe Photoshop is a complex program, but Lightroom is much easier to use to make simple edits on your photos. I really enjoy photos and this was useful to learn some tips and tricks.

Create Engaging ePublications for Education Using Adobe Tools

The same adobe rep Rick Miller led this session and it was informative. In this session Rick showed us some examples of already created ePublications for web and mobile-based devices. He then showed us how this content was created in Adobe Indesign CS5.5. Dreamweaver CS5.5 was also demonstrated. This was good information as we start to move forward to deliver content to our mobile devices. HTML5 is so new and most of us don’t know where to being to create content. The Adobe suite CS5.5 presents great tools to develop content to mobile devices.

Summaries of sessions at COLTT 2011-Day 2

Lunch with Vinnie, Andrea,
Carl and Jeff

Day 1 was excellent and I was hoping that Day 2 could provide the same high level of usefulness and knowledge. And I was not to be disappointed! Day 2 started off with a great session on screencasts, or short video presentations that can be used in a number of ways such as short tutorials and mini lectures. The day ended for me with a hands-on demonstration of Google Sites, the Google app for building your own website for free and without having to know html coding. Amazing stuff. The following are summaries of each session and links mentioned by the presenters. Note that these content descriptions were written during each session. Some phrasing may not be structured properly so no grading for grammar or sentence usage, please :-).



Designing and Using Screencasts. 

Session notes are available at

prezi.com/jswrvrwtiajh/screencasts-for-courses

www.learncheme.com

This was another session using Prezi. He mentioned that screencasts are short, relaxed, not professionally produced videos. They can be used of homework problems, tutoring, and other situations needing short explanations requiring a visual component. They upload to iTunes U. Large increase in  views just before exams. Students find them very useful and request additional video resources. Over 80% of students watch the videos. An optional resource. They are available via mobile devices. More useful than text with the audio, video, annotations using tablet PC. Used for mini lectures, test problems, software tutorials, conceptual problems, and exam reviews. These promote active learning by supplementing class materials and freeing up time for discussions. They can be used to supplement office hours, exam reviews, replace in-class examples, and for absent students.

Another marvelous resource for video tutorials is the Khan Academy at khanacademy.org

He also mentioned the flip classroom. Something for me (and you?)to check out.

To get started, identify issues, identify misconceptions, and determine what would help. Then write out the major points, draw out the figures, and check all numbers and solutions. 

Materials needed include a tablet PC, headset with mic, and a screen capture program such as Camtasia, Jing (free but not editable) or Captivate. Use the PC tablet stylus to annotate the screen as needed. After video completion, edit the video as needed.

Suggested practices include matching your learning objectives, keep short (no more than 10 minutes), speak freely and fix later, highlight and annotate, pause while recording and take a short break, and follow a problem solving outline.

Places to disseminate videos include Vimeo, iTunes U, Youtube, and Ning. You can also create your own site such as Learncheme.com. All of the content resources have analytics that provide data on who is watching and how.

Personal Learning Environments (PLE) as a Teaching and Learning Environment

PLEs are informal learning environments. Check out the EduCause Learning Initiative, 2009. PLEs consist of Tools (blogs, wikis, Flickr, Audacity, podcast), Services (iTunes, Google Reader, iGoogle, Symbaloo, Mendeley, youTube), and Communities (MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook). 

We need to assist students to distinguish the important points in the knowledge presented in a lesson. This also includes processing the various points of view. This session was heavily theory-based. This is certainly not a bad thing but I prefer more application-based sessions for a conference of this type.

One PLE site mentioned was Scoop It (www.scoop.it). The presenter shared her ScoopIt site available at www.scoop.it/t/ple-on-ple. This site provides a number of integrated resources for students to follow, discuss, and otherwise interact in an academic setting. A great site for classroom technology tools is cogdogblog.com. Cogdogblog merges the love of dogs and bicycles with the occasional discussion of technology.


Internet Video: Sharing Schools with the World


This session deals primarily keeping children safe on the internet. He mentions future shock, where we experience when the world no longer fits the model of what we were educated for. The read/write web is an interactive experience, a two-way electronic communications method. Kevin Honeycutt is mentioned as a blogger, blogging about how we are getting our kids ready to spend the rest of their lives in the future. He also mentions Gordon Parks, an innovator. He then discusses current classroom and school digital media policies and how they align with what is happening in the world. Paul Bogush (blogush.edublogs.org and www.youtube.com/user/moranmustangs) is a middle school social studies teacher. Bogush emphasizes the learning skills that blogging assists with.


Creating a Google Site
http://sites.google.com/

Google Sites logo

This was a hands-on session for creating a website using Google Sites. It's free, no HTML language is used or needed. The presenter has used Google Sites for several projects, creating a unique page containing resources used by project participants. An example of a site is followmolly.com, a site created by a friend of the presenter.

Create, Edit and More Actions buttons

The three most useful buttons used throughout the site creation process are the Create Page, Edit Page, and More Actions buttons located on the top right of the site page. This is where virtually all development tools are accessed. The site creation process begins with the creation of a site name which becomes the URL, the site template, and the site background. The background scheme can be changed at any time. However, you are locked in to whichever template is selected (one column, two column, etc.). After your basic layout is created  you begin adding elements such as links, images, text, and whatever else you like. You can make the site public or private. And, just as with most (all?) Google tools, site hosting is free.


Noon keynote: Michael Kodas

The keynote was a journalist, photographer, professor, adventurer, and author. Michael began his talk lamenting about the closing of the journalism school at CU-Boulder and the need for news organizations. It's news organizations and their reporters that keep government officials and associated entities on a relatively honest path. He pointed out the recent uncovering of corruption by the LA Times at the city government of Bell City, California. This was where city officials were paying themselves outrageous salaries from a blue collar town of 30,000. The Bell City newspaper closed long ago but sharp reporting by LA Times reporters uncovered to scandal. Michael goes on to say how print media may be dying but it's being replaced by just-in-time reporting using easily obtainable devices such as smart phones, blogging, Twitter, and so forth. Print will never die out completely but will not be where people search for the latest news updates.

Summaries of sessions at COLTT 2011-Day 1

CU Boulder, Atlas building

COLTT is the annual conference for online teaching and technology held at CU Boulder. This is my first COLTT conference and I have high expectations based on what others have said. Here is a blow-by-blow summary of attended sessions:

Wednesday, August 4, 2011

Alternate Reality Game as a Learning Narrative
The first session attended was one on scenario-based learning using virtual reality. A team from Front Range Community College created a scenario that incorporated QR codes, the funky little codes you occasionally see on advertisements. Each QR code provided a clue to a mystery. The session participants were broken into groups and were tasked to scan each QR code, read or listen or watch the clue, and develop a theory that solved the mystery. The QR codes provide an interesting possibility for classroom-based learning based on how they are used and the outcomes desired. Something to look into.

Improving Learning Outcomes and Increasing Effectiveness
This session was from Desire2Learn and focused on D2L tools that can be used for effective teaching.  The ePortfolio has tremendous possibilities as a student repository for students. The mobile platform consists of Campus Life (fee-based), Mobile Web (free) and Desire2Learn2Go (free and for blackberry only). Mobile Web is written in HTML5 and compatible with all mobile OSs. This includes access to content, grades, discussions, news and calendar. CampusLife is more of a portal for mobile devices. All of these can be turned on or off based on user permissions.

The Course Design Accelerator and Instructional Design Wizard are helpful for developing new courses. They include a drag-and-drop interface for associating tools with the course. Pretty cool, and this should save several steps in the development process.

Intelligent Agents work in the background and will execute based on criteria you specify. These can be used to notify students on login activity or similar. Agents execute based on release conditions and role within the course. Criteria include login activity, quiz scores, assignment status, discussion activity and so forth. The resulting email can be personalized using strings based on student information, including nicknames.

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces for D2L are coming in next release. You can also provide feedback via webcam or text.

Managing the Classroom..There's an App for That
This is a summary of available apps for smart devices

Attendance
An app for taking attendance via mobile phone

iStudiez Pro
Day planner, calendar, organizer tool for students, contact info for instructor. Does not sync with LMS.

Dropbox
Cloud-based storage that automatically syncs with all computers. limited space with free version.

Adobe Connect
Web casting, sessions are recordable, an app is available for smart phones, can be slow if not within wireless range.

Evernote
Free, collaborative tool, can take pictures and share, can also record messages, fully searchable.

Delicious
Allows tagging of websites and access remotely.

Others
Note taking

• -Dragon dictation (voice to text translator)
• -Tiny Vox (record a message and send via email )

 Reference

• -Wikipedia (smart phone app)
• -Wolfram Alpha (statistical aggregator-based search engine). Smart app not free, maybe $3 bucks.
• -eduTecher (reference for education tools), free, 

Learning with Fun

• Tour Wrist- provides a virtual tour of a city, 3D camera, hold camera in front and will recognize and annotate areas of the city.

In progress

• eClicker (app version of clicker system), all students must have mobile device
• Power Teacher- class management system for Android

On the Road Again: Online Tools for Working Remotely

This session emphasized the usefulness of cloud-based computing. The session used the cloud-based app Prezi. 

Evernote

Syncs with all OSs. you can record all kinds of stuff. Can also tag and categorize. It syncs to the cloud as well as iphone, android, apple and windows. He emphasized that if you don't want people to see your stuff then don't put it online. Period. The creation of new notes is quite simple involving a title and the note text. Can include text, images, and other media. 

Diigo

This is a social bookmarking site that allows highlighting and the addition of sticky notes. Sites are shareable. 

Dropbox

Works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, android, Blackberry. Cloud-based file storage. Automatically syncs with other devices. You can also access your files on the Dropbox website when your device is not available.

Mikogo

Free video conferencing. Supports up to 30 logins. Free for now.

Morning Keynote

Keynote scribbles

Gardner Campbell presented the Day 1 keynote titled Rebooting Higher-Ed: Networked, Mobile and Cognition-driven Learning. He offered a fascinating look at the methods used to distribute learning content, both in the classroom and within social networks. He provided a ton of resources that I attempted to scribble down as his slides flew across the screen. An example he used of sharing resources came from a dinner he had with a colleague. Unbeknownst to Gardner, his colleague had taken his picture during dinner and was using several mobile apps to create a caricature which he then sent to Gardner during dinner. The apps used included Photogene, Toonpaint, and Brushes. The result was amazing and wish I could have captured it off of his slide.

Gardner also mentioned several resources related to his talk. I won't try and place these into context but I suggest at least a quick peek. One, but not necessarily the best, site is linked to each resource below:

• The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Dodge
• I Am My Connectome, Sebastian Seung (website)
• An Unfiltered Mind, Scientific American (a much-blog reviewed article)
• The Invention of Air, Steven Johnson
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirkey
• IT Conversations, John Udell (blog)
• Wikitude, an Android app for augmented reality mapping. Also available for iPhone and iPad.
• Symphony of Science, a wild remix of Carl Sagan's PBS series  Cosmos.
• Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir.

Fascinating stuff!

Close Captioning and Videos

Close Captioning, YouTube and Videos

I have been experimenting in the last couple days with close captioning and a video I created for a DNP course. 

I was able to check out the flip cam from the CAT lab and record my video on location (on campus) and easily download the .mp4 onto my computer. Our video was 7 minutes long. The next step was to decide where to post the video and figure out how I might get this close captioned for accessibility. 

My first option was to post the video on Kaltura, however, it would not be close captioned there. I could include a transcript with the video as opposed to close captioning, and that would be acceptable. But I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to experiment a bit.

I had heard a little while back that YouTube offered free closed-captioning, so I wanted to see how that worked and how accurate it was. I actually started with TeacherTube instead of YouTube because I made an assumption that TeacherTube was owned and run by the folks at YouTube. I eventually discovered that wasn't the case. I like TeacherTube over YouTube in that it is focused on education and you won't find unsavory distractions like you do on YouTube. I uploaded the video initially to TeacherTube and found that there was a limit of 100MB and my 7 minute mp4 was more than that. I also found that I had to convert the mp4 to .flv. I did that using Adobe Media Encoder. It also compressed the file down to just under 100MB. 

So then I uploaded the .flv to TeacherTube and was disappointed that it would take a 24 hour turnaround to get posted. I guess it is an approval process for 'safe' content. 24 hours later I checked my video and noticed there was no closed captioning and I didn't see any buttons or mention for it. I have to admit this surprised me. This is where I realized that just because YouTube offered the CC doesn't automatically mean that TeacherTube would. 

So my next stop was to upload the video to YouTube. To my delight, they would accept my original .mp4 and it only took about 20 minutes to upload. Once it was there, I saw the button for CC and poked around. I found that I had to click a button (as owner of the video) to generate the CC. I downloaded the .sbv file. I'm not sure what .sbv is but I was able to open it in Word. Then I proceeded to check the accuracy of the CC with the video. Gadzooks it was awful! It was quite inaccurate to the point where in some places actually obscene and comical. And I had pretty good audio in my video. There is a disclaimer on YouTube regarding the CC that is an experimental process. I'd say! 

However, one redeeming factor of this comical .sbv file is that it does lay it out with the timing of the the words and the video. So as you go through to correct it you can then save and reupload your .sbv file and it will resync back up and flow beautifully. 

It took me roughly about 2 hours for the 7 minute video to edit, correct and set up the CC. Now the video is fully accessible and looks great! 

One more bit of information regarding privacy and YouTube. When I posted the video I choose to make it unlisted. This sets it up so it is not open to the public but anyone who has the link can view it. I plan on actually embedding the video onto the course page anyway, so students won't even be distracted by the other garbage on YouTube that may appear as recommended videos along the side bar.

Please take a look at our video and let me know what you think. I am quite proud of the result and Lynn and Cris were great to work with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyslC68ikc0

In conclusion, I would just reiterate how important it is to make all our content accessible. Whether you have close captioning or transcripts; whether you do it yourself or pay someone to do it, please plan on making arrangements for accessibility! Contact us in Learning Technologies for assistance or advice, we are here to help.

Nicole

Nicole's eLCC Conference Summary

Vinnie, Jeff and I recently attended the eLCC conference. Here is a summary of the event and the sessions I attended.

Open Content for Professional Development

Colorado Community Colleges Online

http://ccconline.org/Faculty/

Lisa Marie Johnson and Karen Kaemmerling outlined how they deliver and structure faculty development courses and workshops. They are very willing to share anything that they have developed and in addition if anyone wants to actually take some of the courses they offer that is ok too! They frequently have attendees that come from outside of the CCCO. If you don’t already know, CCCO uses D2L for their course management system. They offer development resources on teaching strategies and using D2L. If you go to this link http://ccconline.org/Faculty/ then choose any of the categories on the right you can explore some of the resources, videos and handouts that are available. Several of the resources are brief (under 2 minute) videos.

If you wish to register for the 2 week, self paced, D2L courses they offer, contact training@ccconline.org for specific instructions.

For you instructional designers out there, check out the model and processes that CCCO use for course development. http://tinyurl.com/5tepqhu

The whole faculty “wiki” that they have developed is worth exploring and has several gems that can be utilized. I certainly appreciated the willingness that CCCO has to share content and materials.

Keynote: Ellen Wagner “Data changes everything”

http://www.sageroadsolutions.com/

http://elearningroadtrip.typepad.com/

"Ellen Wagner is Partner and Senior Analyst with Sage Road Solutions, LLC, a premiere business and management services company. We work with organizations interested in accelerating the adoption of learning technology innovations. Ellen is responsible for industry intelligence, learning markets development and enablement solutions. In this capacity she also serves as the Executive Director of the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technology (http://wcet.wiche.edu)" (bio from her business website)

Ellen’s keynote basically talked about how data is having such a huge impact on education. Not just the data itself but how it is mined, collected and utilized. She mentioned an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed that describes “The Netflix effect: When Software Suggests Students Courses” http://chronicle.com/article/The-Netflix-Effect-When/127059/

She mentions “pattern-based strategies” (Gartner) and how we can track trends and use them with predictive analytics. These types of strategies are typically used in marketing but can be utilized in education. The Gartner 2010 Hype Cycle is intriguing too as it attempts to determine if an emerging technology is going to have impact, stick around and change the game, or is it hype. More specifically there are those “sleepers” that maybe didn’t get a lot of hype but have huge potential. If you have a moment go to this link http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1447613 and read the explanation of this but also check out figure 1. It is a snapshot of 2010 and various stages of where a several technologies are at in the timeline: technology trigger; peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment; slope of enlightenment and then the plateau of productivity. Quite intriguing...

Spice up your presentations with Pecha Kucha

Patricia Rand: from AIMS

Pecha Kucha originated in Tokyo and means “chit-chat” in Japanese. Basically it is a presentation that is comprised of only 20 images for 20 seconds each. I have to admit this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this in particular. I have heard of the one minute lecture and that is great for a quick, concise concept explanation that potentially can be memorable.

Patricia recommended a great book by Dr. John Medina, “Brain Rules.” http://www.brainrules.net/about-brain-rules

Are we not always striving to create content for our students that not only is engaging but memorable? I think we already know what doesn’t work. (aka: how quickly can we put our students to sleep?) But keep in mind this is just human nature and certainly not always easy to create a presentation or lecture that will have your students sitting on the edges of their seats with bright eyes.

There is a sea of research about memory and retention. Pecha Kucha focuses in on the fact that images assist in memory triggers and cognition, so instead of a text heavy slide with bullet points galore, use an image and a narrated story with context instead. In addition, keep your total presentation under 10 minutes. The research has found that generally people will begin to tune out at the 10 minute mark, especially in an era of multi-tasking and digital distractions (such as social networking, cell phones, facebook, etc)! Check this out by Dr. John Medina http://www.brainrules.net/attention/?scene=1

Dr. Medina suggests “you must do something emotionally relevant at each 10 minute mark to regain attention.” Keep that in mind when designing presentations.

Overall, the Pecha Kucha strategies are:

1) avoid text (and absolutely no bullet points)

2) include images and (narrate) with stories. Stories are memorable

3) use emotionally rousing content

4) make comparisons where ever possible

______________

Keynote: Barry Dahl

Excellence in e-Education, LLC http://xlents.com/

http://barrydahl.com/

I have heard Barry Dahl speak a number of times and I also follow his blog. I do enjoy his perspective and the thoughts he shares with us. He recently launched a new business “Excellence in e-Education.” He has developed an idea which to be quite honest, I can’t believe no one else has thought of this yet, to bring a conference to your campus, rather than going to a conference. It is called “conference comes to you,” and I think it is brilliant. The next one is on the topic of “digital storytelling.”
Barry’s keynote brought up a variety of points to ponder regarding education and choice. He referred to the book “Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely (which I am grabbing from the library today). Human nature always intrigues me and sets me into deep thought, so when Barry sent out the thought of “the power of free” and why do we (U.S.) make people pay for education? The funny thing is I have thought about this before. It certainly makes me angry that if I wanted to get a Ph.D I’d have to basically win the lottery or live in a cardboard box and eat pb&j for a long time. I digress; let’s get back on track with the keynote. The next idea to scratch our heads about is: “Why do we ask students to buy books (content)?” Why is it not already included inside the ‘course?’ Good question.

Although Neil Postman’s book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” is focused on the transition of technology in the age of television and movies and how it affected our culture, it sort of parallels the digital age that we are currently experiencing. What is really thought provoking are the comparisons between Orwell (1984) vs. Huxley (Brave New World).  Another book by Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message” was bought up. This book outlines how the vehicle of delivering the message may influence how the message is perceived. My interpretation of this concept with regards to higher education is that we always need to keep our educational goals and objectives in the forefront and not be clouded or even enchanted by the methods in which we deliver the content. As an instructional designer, we always say, don’t let the technology drive the content, the content should drive the technology!

Lastly, Nicholas Carr and his book “What is the Internet doing to our Brains” and the 2008 article “Is Google making us Stupid” was mentioned to us. The author of these publications observes what the digital age is doing to our cognitive processes, ie. multitasking, critical thinking, and attention span.

Nicole

eLCC 2011 Rocks!

Vinnie and Nicole

My first eLCC conference was an impressive experience. Every session attended over the three days offered takeaways that can be immediately applied to the RHCHP workplace. Kudos to the conference planning committee and all others that made this such a worthwhile experience.

Now, on to the good stuff. Two of the most enjoyable experiences were a couple of hands-on sessions. The first was one facilitated by Kathy Keairns, a senior instructional designer at the University of Denver (is it DU or UD?) titled Leveraging Web 2.0 Tools to Support Teaching. Kathy emphasized a number of technologies that are free to use and mostly cloud-based. One of these was Picnik (www.picnik.com) for basic photo editing. Picnik is web-based, free and very easy to use. She cautioned that it can be buggy when using IE and works best with Firefox. Also demoed were Voki (tinyurl.com/6xrez4d) for creating animated avatars, and Viddler (viddler.com) for recording, downloading and uploading video creations. The session was highly interactive, resulting in a number of other recommended technologies such as Irfanview (www.irfanview.com) image viewer/editor, Xtranormal for movie making, and Voicethread (http://voicethread.com) for creating multimedia learning experiences. All are free with very shallow learning curves.

Yvonne, Sally and friend

The other hands-on was facilitated by Apple and provided experience with the iPod Touch. This was my first experience with the Touch and I was fascinated! Each participant was handed an iPod Touch preloaded with several education-based apps. Selected apps were then explored with ideas on their use in the classroom.

One of the most enjoyable sessions was provided by Lisa Marie Johnson and Karen Kaemmerling of CCCOnline. They presented the session Open Content for Professional Development, examining the incredible number of courses available to faculty on effective learning strategies. It was continually emphasized that all trainings were available free of charge to anyone interested. This will be a valuable resource for RHCHP as we begin our move to Desire2Learn.

Barry Dahl's luncheon keynote

Another session eye-opener that offered tremendous future potential was Jonathan Sherrill's talk on analytics and their use with D2L. Jonathan is a data analyst with CCCOnline and described several analytics tools available in D2L. He then took the presentation a step further by reviewing several 3rd party tools, all online and all free or low cost, that provide an even greater degree of granularity in the analysis of student course data. Absolutely fascinating and something I'm anxious to explore after our D2L implementation.

Barry Dahl's lunch keynote integrated clickers with the topic of technology adoption. The clickers were used to gather demographic data which was then compared with responses to several opinion questions. Barry weaved the results into an interesting comparison of attitudes towards learning technologies and social networks.

ELCC Conference

I had the pleasure of attending the 22^nd annual elearning conference. This conference brings together faculty, instructional designers and business professionals to share their experiences about teaching and learning using technology. Below is a summary of some of the workshops I was able to attend.

Open Content for Online Professional Development

This session highlighted professional development courses offered by Colorado Community Colleges Online to new and continuing faculty. At Colorado Community Colleges Online faculty who wish to teach online must take a course for online teaching.

Some of the courses offered are learning styles, managing discussions, Desire2Learn and many more. These resources are available at http://ccconline.org/faculty for anyone to view and use.

Simplify Your Life – Web 2.0 Timesavers You Can’t Live Without

There are software programs on the market that are efficient, but can be very expensive. This session focused on Web 2.0 tools that are free or inexpensive and that can save a lot of time. Some of the Web 2.0 tools presented were DropBox (Share files online), Snagit (Capture, edit, share and organize screenshots), DivShare (Upload videos, photos, documents, music that you can embed anywhere) and Jing (Take a picture or make a short video and share it on the web, email, Twitter or your blog). One of my favorites is Snagit.

More Web 2.0 Tools

Penzu

Ipadio

Evernote

Welcome to Wallwisher

Comic Life

Prezi

Voice Thread