6 Tips for Recording Video

Today, I've been experimenting with Piktochart, a super tool for creating infographics (for free).  Here is my first creation and the context for its creation.

I work with college faculty who are just getting started with teaching online or are looking for ways to revitalize their existing online class.  Video has changed dramatically in recent years, providing simple tools that enable video creation from webcams and mobile devices.  Locating a tool that aligns with your instructional goals is important.  However, there is a handful of "tips" I find myself sharing over and over again.  I attempted to capture them using Piktochart so I can share them in a more visual and engaging way.  Of course, I hope you will find them useful and share them as well! It is shared with a CC-BY graphic so feel free to re-use as you'd like.

Here is the direct link to the graphic: https://magic.piktochart.com/output/4669055-5tipsandtoolsforrecordingvideo

Online Teaching: A New Beginning

This post was first shared at CI Teaching & Learning Innovations blog.

I started teaching online in 2003 and as I grew into the role of an online instructor a lot of things began to change for me.  My teaching (both online and face-to-face) became more active, placing my students at the center, and my views about how people learn also began to change. Last spring, I accepted a position at CI that provides me with the opportunity to support faculty with their own journeys into online teaching.

Shortly after I started at CI, I facilitated our first Online Teaching Preparation Program, which has been completed by 17 in the first two offerings. The fully online classes that make up the program place faculty in the role of an online learner, providing an authentic experience to relate to the array of challenges and unique opportunities that their own students will encounter.  Additionally, faculty create and share reflections about their journey at different points in the program.  I enjoy reading these reflections immensely.

Stacey Anderson, a full-time Lecturer in English and First Year Composition Coordinator, shared a poignant reflection that, to me, captures so much of the transformative aspects that can be intertwined with “becoming” an online instructor.  Stacey has given me permission to share her reflections below. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

"A New Beginning," by Stacey Anderson

“In the summer of 2012, my family and I made the first of what will be many visits to the Cook Islands. The population of the entire country is about 11,000 residents, comprised primarily of Maori natives and New Zealand transplants. It is a rustic and amazing place to lose and/or find yourself.
On the tiny island of Aitutaki (population 2000), our favorite spot to eat, shop and hang out was the Koru Café, owned by an energetic, adventurous couple who left their familiar lives in New Zealand to return to the culture of their ancestors.
The koru symbol was everywhere in the café, including the stylish business card that was attached to every purchase, and I asked the owner, Trina, what it meant. She said it symbolized “a new beginning,” which signified what starting up a new business in a small island country meant for her and her family. In that moment, I visualized everything they had risked, what they had left behind, and how they had to adapt, and would continue to do so, to embrace this new life – a life that discarded the creature comforts to which they had become accustomed but offered a whole new world of simpler pleasures, as well as challenges. I purchased the necklace pictured above for myself and the women in my family as a remembrance of what I had learned and experienced.
Throughout our trip last year, and in the time since, the koru has been a powerful symbol for me. The symbol itself is based on the “fiddleneck” frond of a fern before it has unfurled. A bit of internet research reveals that that its circular, cyclical shape “conveys the idea of perpetual movement” as well as “a return to the point of origin” – in other words, “a metaphor for the way in which life both changes and stays the same” (“Mountain Jade”).
The koru provides an apt metaphor of my transition into online teaching, exemplifying Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s call for us to “be true to” who we are “while embracing the full potential of” the “online learning landscape.” This is a process of continuous unfurling, reaching forward, growing, while always hearkening back to where I began, and what matters to me as an educator in any learning environment.
Teaching online is truly a “new beginning,” for me personally as well as on a larger scale. The transformation that these three classes have precipitated for me has been more profound than I ever would have anticipated. Like the owners of the Koru Café, I am embracing a new adventure that is filled with risks but also great rewards. Hard work lies ahead. But it is also meaningful work, work that is helping unfurl potential I didn’t know I had. I am so hopeful and optimistic that I can help my online students experience a similar transformation and embrace a “new beginning.”
I am immensely grateful to everyone who has participated in this extraordinary journey with me. This process has been unexpectedly cathartic, inspiring me to take risks in ways I never could have in a less trusting, supportive environment. I hope we can all continue to turn to one another as we strive to put what we learned into practice. I would happily share a cup of tea or glass of wine with any of you – either here stateside, or at the Koru Café. In the meanwhile, as they say in Maori, Kia Orana (‘be well’)!”

The Liquid Syllabus: Are You Ready?

by mcdarius CC-BY-NC

Liquid content refers to web content that is highly shared - where the desire for sharing is driven by contagious or 'viral ideas' within the content. OK, ok. Maybe a college course syllabus won't become viral (for good reasons) but what if a course syllabus could transform into a content experience that students really wanted to look at and engage with, as opposed to resource we dictated they "must read." Are we at the tipping point for this to happen?

Back in 2011, I wrote a post titled "Time for an Extreme Syllabus Make-Over?" In that post I explore the importance and value of the course syllabus to both instructors and students, ideas I still support. I also explored the value of communicating with students more visually than faculty generally do in higher education. This argument was contextualized in a brief reference to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and mentioned the general shift toward the visual digital media context our students toggle in and out of as they move between their formal (i.e. in Blackboard, Moodle, Desire2Learn, Canvas, etc.) and informal (in the open web -- YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc.) environments. That dichotomy remains -- if anything, visual content has become more central to an individual's informal learning as the ownership of smartphones has accelerated in recent years.

I've been reflecting a lot lately on this notion of the 21st century syllabus (and chuckling to myself that I would even use such a phrase). Three years ago, I found a visually compelling PDF to be cutting edge. Today, with so many students accessing content from smartphones, is a PDF the best format for a syllabus? I think not.  The syllabus should be a resource that could be easily accessed and bookmarked on a phone, not locked inside an LMS, and a resource that does not need to be downloaded.

I receive a notification in my email each time someone downloads the "Educator's Guide to a 21st Century Syllabus" that I shared back in 2011. And each time I receive one of those notifications, I am torn -- part of me wants to take that resource down, as I think it needs some serious updating, but I also feel it is helpful to faculty who may not be ready to leave the PDF format all together.

This is where digital media can really become transformative for a resource like a syllabus.
  
Here is my grand vision. Imagine with me. What if your syllabi were beautiful? What if they were a pleasure for students to engage with? What if they provided opportunities to not only understand and access policies, expectations, schedules and such, but for our students to meet us?  What if the syllabus became a site where former students could share voices (stories, feedback, words of encouragement) with future students? Isn't THIS what our goal should be as we move into this amazing landscape of mobile, digital media?

What if these syllabi were all open websites, as opposed to documents secured inside a Learning Management System, as so many are? Thiw would encourage sharing of ideas amongst faculty and students could bookmark them on their smartphones and refer to them frequently, on the go.

But beyond that, they could be linked to pre-registration experiences for learners. Why do students need to wait until after they register for a class to review a course syllabus? This has always made me scratch my head. Imagine if the registration process was truly student-centered and students could not only review the course syllabus but also experience a video from each instructor and any other creative resources designed into that syllabus.

Now we're talking.

Now you may be thinking, "I don't know how to make a syllabus like that" or "faculty at my institution aren't that tech savvy."  Well, you are wrong -- and I hope you take that as a challenge.

In the past year, many micro-publishing tools have emerged that facilitate simple creation of beautiful, captivating single-page websites.  They are perfect for making a liquid syllabus.  In past blog posts, I've referenced Populr, Smore, and Tackk -- and all three of them make great tools for creating beautiful, mobile-friendly course syllabi (or digital flyers that link to course syllabi)!

Below are a few examples of syllabi for you to explore that have been created with these micro-publishing tools.  I encourage you to view them on both a web browser and your mobile device, an important experiment for testing the value of new tools in our mobile learning society.

Populr.me

• Offers a robust ad-free account for educators, although you would never know it based upon the design and organization of their site. Populr.me offers institutional accounts too, which could be incredible transformational for faculty across the board, as the upgraded options included blocks of content that can be customized and updated from single point and pushed out into templates across the institution. While I have not used this type of account, I imagine this being a pathway towards supporting faculty syllabus creation by establishing a template with institutional policies plugged in, saving the faculty time and creating more consistency in the student experience overall.  Of course there are many other uses too like faculty pages, faculty training offerings, events, committee meeting notes, and more.
• How are you using Populr.me?

       Populr.me Syllabus Examples:

• History of Still Photography by me, Mt. San Jacinto College. I am happy to share the clone link for this syllabus with anyone who contacts me directly through my blog. :)  You'll notice that I, personally, choose to include a PDF at the bottom of my Populr.me syllabus so students who prefer the option to also print the resource have that option.
• English 102: Stretch Composition I - created by Stacey Anderson of CSU Channel Islands
• How to Humanize Your Online Class - created by me for CSU Channel Islands
• How to Design Your Online Course - created by me for CSU Channel Islands
• Designing Engaging Online Activities - created by me for CSU Channel Islands

Tackk

• Tackk is my newest find and we are becoming very happy together. I'm using Tack to create Unit Overviews for my online class (which I write about here and plan to blog more about soon).  Tackk does not have options for creating multiple columns but the user experience is lovely -- very simple and the content is beautiful. Each Tackk also has the option to include a stream at the bottom to which viewers may comment. Tackks can be embedded (adjust the height and width provided to make it larger and fit well in your LMS) and even when embedded, the videos play great on my iPhone and iPad (which I can't say about the same YouTube videos I embed directly into Blackboard...sigh). Customizable URLs are also built right in, which is nice!

       Tackk Syllabus Example:

• English 116: Critical Thinking & Composition by Tracy Schaelen of Southwestern College.

Smore

• I have not actively used Smore so it's tough for me to comment on its features. Smore offers educator accounts for $59/year and details are available here.
• In the limited use I have with it, it seems to have fewer layout options than Populr.me (which can be limiting for syllabus creation). Smore is marketed as a tool for creating digital"flyers." It is simple to use and the content you create is beautiful. Analytics are also included.
• How are you using Smore?

        Smore Syllabus Example:

•  Disabilities in Society by Jill Leafstedt at CSU Channel Islands. (I should note that this is an old syllabus of Jill's. After learning about Populr.me she made the move and started using it for her syllabus.

VoiceThreading Learning Opportunities Ahead!

I am coordinating a series of events in collaboration with the TLT Group, a non-profit group of higher education faculty, staff, and administrators exploring opportunities for using new technologies to improve teaching and learning. 

The series will be anchored around my eBook, How to Humanize Your Online Class with VoiceThread.  The events will include one webinar that will be free and open to the public followed by a series of deeper dive experiences designed to engage participants in group dialogue and reflection about the eBook's narrative which is designed to support an individual's pedagogical growth, experimentation and development. 

Learning Out Loud Webinar
Fri, Sept 19th
11am-12pm PT/2pm-3pm ET

(this event is free and open to the public)
This 60-minute webinar will be interactive and provide opportunities for Q&A. It is intended for VoiceThread beginners who are seeking to learn more about the unique benefits that VoiceThread brings to the college teaching experience. I will draw largely upon my own teaching experiences and share findings from an ongoing study about how learning out loud is impacting my community college learners.

• Click here to register

Book Discussion & VoiceThread How-To Series
Thurs, Sept 18th through Wed, October 15th

(this series is open to members of the TLT Group)

This series will include:

• 3 synchronous events (2 how-to VoiceThread webinars with TLT staff and one online conversation with me).
• A complimentary copy of my eBook.
• An opportunity to apply your new VoiceThreading skills in a TLT VoiceThread group (a minimum of a free VoiceThread account is required).  Group members will have access to a series of VoiceThreads that I've designed to support a reflective conversation about the eBook chapters, as well as provide opportunity to actively apply some of the skills demonstrated in the eBook.
• Click here for more details about this series (times noted on this site are Eastern).
• Click here to learn more about becoming a TLT Group member.

After Oct 15th
Continue the learning in the VoiceThread Google+ Community.  

Stay tuned! I hope to organize a Hangout on Air to showcase some of the recent innovations occurring in the VoiceThread higher education community. If you have a creative teaching use of VoiceThread you'd like to share with me, please let me know!

Humanizing Online Learning at CSUCI!

An online faculty development offering for CSUCI

Last March, I was hired by CSU Channel Islands to support faculty with the exciting journey into online and blended teaching and learning. Between March and June, I worked furiously to develop a series of online courses for the small, creative, and entrepreneurial campus. If that sounds like an unsual way to describe a public institution of higher education, you're right. And that's one of the things I love so much about this institution -- and why I decided it was right for me to work here. :)  It has a vibrancy and sense of curiosity about learning that makes me feel very at home.

Risky Business

Me Hanging Out with my CSUCI colleagues,
Jill Leafsted and Michael McGarry.

The simple fact that CSUCI was willing to hire me to work remotely to support faculty in this endeavor says a great deal. I know, I know -- how can hiring a remote employee have a "humanizing" effect?  What am I, nuts?

Well, on the one hand, it really makes a great deal of sense.  One of my major tasks is developing online trainings, facilitating these trainings entirely remotely, supporting the vetting of emerging technologies for the campus, and working with faculty (which I do through asynchronous and synchronous technologies). For example, I participate in one-on-one and group meetings with my colleagues via Google+ Hangouts.  This process has been an enriching learning experience on both sides, I believe, as many individuals on campus have had the opportunity to learn experientially about the humanizing effect of technology without being explicitly told that's what their learning.

I don't want to come across as one who is advocating for the virtualization of brick-and-mortar campus employees. But I think there is something to be said about considering the option in certain scenarios when it makes sense. That requires a leader to do something against the grain of what's typical in higher ed tradition and that can be immensely difficult and scary. Roselind Torres would say this is a characteristic that defines a 21st century leader.

The Courses

The three courses I've developed for faculty are each two weeks long. We offered the first full series of the courses in the Spring (May-June), as I was developing the final course. The feedback has been extremely positive...but, yes, these are the early adopters so it's more likely to see positive reactions to online learning, in general.

The courses include:

• How to Humanize Your Online Class
• How to Design Your Online Course
• Designing Engaging Online Activities 

The Tool Buffet, a suite of emerging technologies
with humanizing potential.

Click here to visit the site I've put together for CSUCI faculty, which includes a link to each syllabus.  The How to Humanize Your Online Class course is a unique offering to CSUCI (as far as I'm aware). Its intent is to model to faculty how to effectively integrate outside (web-based) technologies into an LMS (in our instance, Blackboard), review recent research that explores how voice/video and social technologies are being used to improve teaching and social presence, experience the humanizing impact of select tools within an online learning environment, encourage faculty to experiment with emerging technologies, and to reduce to fear and anxiety often associated with participating online in video and voice. The faculty that complete the course each produce an online video introduction for their course, in a tool of their choice, and share it in a (closed) Google+ Community for CSUCI faculty, as well as create a "humanized course action plan" which is intended to be a reflective learning experience to help faculty be cognizant about their growth (this too is shared in the Google+ Community with peers).


Here is a link to the Tool Buffet that is provided to faculty in the "Humanizing" course. Notice that it is created in a web-based tool (Populr.me) (the same tool used to create each online syllabus), which enables faculty to bookmark the URL during course and visit it later for continued learning (as it is continuously updated by me!). Populr.me also renders content very well on mobile devices, which makes it a great match for online learning. Each course ends with a live Google+ Hangout to dig deeper into questions that have been collected on a collaborative Padlet board throughout the 2-week class. 

A Potential Humanizing Workshop with ELI!

Yesterday I had a great conversation with Veronica Diaz at EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative and we are discussing the possibility of offering the Humanizing course as an multi-week online session in May through ELI. Details will be shared as they come into focus!

Evidence of Good Things Happening in "The Center"

What is The Center? from Michelle Pacansky-Brock
Go to The Center Guide 

Why use Google+ and Twitter for Professional Development in Higher Ed?

Last October, I began my journey as the Coordinator of The Center, a new social online learning community, part of @ONE's suite of  professional development services designed to support California's 112 community colleges. It has been an amazing ride! In June, I will be leaving my role as coordinator, but I will remain a contributing community member.

The Center was very much an experiment.  Utilizing social technologies to cultivate a professional development environment for higher education institutions is not exactly commonplace today. Yet, the need for educators to understand how to foster relationships through social tools, create value through collective exchanges, and realize how much more we learn together, as opposed to being individual people, organizations, districts, states, regions, nations, etc. is quickly becoming essential to our shift into the social era.

Fostering relationships through social technologies (which is distinct from using technology -- as anyone can learn to use a tool) will continue to define leaders in the future. And in the social era, a leader is not a position. In the social era, everyone is a leader.  And this is one reason why cultivating one's own professional online presence and developing a professional learning network (PLN) is essential for educators. If we aren't actively engaging, learning, and sharing to understand how social technologies transform the nature how knowledge is constructed and valued in the 21st century, how are we to model this essential skill to our students?

 

Outcomes

The primary outcomes of The Centery are to improve sharing and increase innovation across California's 112 community colleges. The Center attempts to achieve this goal through inviting members to join a Google+ Community and/or follow The Center on Twitter.  Google+ Hangouts on Air are held every two weeks, featuring faculty, staff, and/or administrators from CCCs who volunteer to share innovative practices using technology to improve learning. All Hangouts on Air are archived and shared on @ONE's YouTube Channel.

• Click here for a brief Guide to The Center

Joining The Center's community or following The Center on Twitter is open to anyone, as is viewing the Hangouts.  Therefore, The Center has the potential to be a global collective, while showcasing innovations from within the CCC's 112 campuses -- aiming to dissove the physical boundaries of campus walls.

A sampling of the Hangout on Air topics have included:

• Humanizing Online Grading with Voice & Video
• Faculty Websites: Why They're Important & How to Make One Now!
• Active Learning with Google Drive: Tips & Strategies
• "Presentain" for Mobile, Engaged, and Archived Class Sessions

The Center's Spring Survey Results

This spring, I shared a link to an online survey in The Center's Google+ community and Tweeted it from The Center's Twitter account (@Center_Ed).  At the time, we had about 220 members on Google+ and 250 Twitter followers.  50 people responded to the survey. That is about a 22% response rate.

Here is a summary of the some of the findings from the survey:

• 75% of respondents are employed at a California Community College 
• 52% are a CCC faculty members
• More than 3/4 (80%) of respondents strongly agree or agree that The Center improves awarness of innovations occurring on campuses other than their own.
• More than 3/4 (78%) strongly agree or agree that The Center improves the sharing of ideas across campuses.

The open ended prompt, "Share a specific improvement or benefit that has been an outcome of your experiences" with The Center," generated some exciting qualitative data.

• "I started a Google Hangout for a campus club meeting. Planning to use for online office hours, as well."
• "I have changed the way I respond to student work (using video) as a result of several hangouts and the resulting discussions."
• "Having a topic active for several days has led me to spend enough time thinking about it to feel comfortable trying something new in my classes. Also, having a channel to share how it went with others encourages me to do it and improve upon it."
• "With my new awareness of what colleagues at other colleges are doing, I am helping my college to revise our Distance Education policies and training programs. I could go on and on -- The Center has had a huge impact on my teaching life!"
• "I'm so impressed with the use of social media that is displayed. It is a great way to build community among educators."
• "I've been inspired to do more videos and screencasts with my online classes for more instructor presence."
• "I have created a personal faculty web page. I have started using new programs like Haiku Deck and introduced new programs to colleagues."
• "Have found the thoughts of other faculty very helpful to my online teaching and my work with our Committee for Online Learning..."

I don't know about you, but when I read these statements, I get pretty excited. I see evidence of more faculty willing to take risks in their teaching. Today, fostering a culture of experimentation in which pushes college professors into vulnerable places.  A social community built with free tools that offers ideas, support, and reflection opportunities for instructors, staff, and administrators -- both part-time and full-time, regardless of one's physical location -- seems like worthy initiative. I look forward to seeing what continues to develop with The Center and am grateful for this opportunity!

Thank you +Micah Orloff for supporting this leap. 

Learn with The Center This Summer

• The Center's Hangouts on Air are now on summer break but will reconvene in the fall.
• Learn more about The Center here, includes links to all Hangout video archives!  Archives are a great way to learn this summer! And the Google+ community and Twitter are always open!

Archive of Inclusive Learning: Lightbulb Moments

Here is the archive of Inclusive Learning: Lightbulb Moments, a Hangout on Air from The Center. In this Hangout, +Deborah Lemon and I share and reflect on our own growth and development as online educators and discuss how the integration of social tools into our online learning environment has fostered community-oriented learning that nourishes our students' learning differences and creates personal, relevant learning. Deborah showcases her online Spanish class which is taught in Facebook and I share my online ice breaker designed in VoiceThread and examine how the option to express oneself in voice or text is impacting my students' learning. What are your two takeaways? I'd love to hear them! #CCCLEARN

    Thanks for sharing with me today, Deborah! I always learn so much from you. 

Inclusive Learning: Lightbulb Moments from 2 Online Instructors

Inclusive Learning: Lightbulb Moments from 2 Online Faculty

Thursday, April 3rd

4:00-5:00pm Pacific

LIVE - Google+ Hangout on Air!

Click for Google Event

View on YouTube --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJkREZ-eYqo&feature=share

Join The Center's Community for follow-up discussions --> tiny.cc/TheCenter 

Follow The Center on Twitter --> @Center_Ed

Join me, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, and +Deborah Lemon  as we engage in a reflective conversation about their growth and development as online educators. Deborah and I will share how we have come to value the rich, community-oriented learning environment in our online classes that supports our students' learning differences and encourages them to make relevant connections with the curriculum. We will share tips and strategies, show examples of our own VoiceThread and Facebook learning activities, and take questions from the live audience.

• The Q&A feature will be enabled during the live Hangout on Air to allow viewers with a Google+ account to submit questions through a web browser.
• The Hangout on Air will also be archived and and shared with a Creative Commons license on The Center Hangout Archive playlist at: http://tiny.cc/CenterArchives

This Hangout on Air will feature:

• Michelle Pacansky-Brock - Community Coordinator of The Center; Associate Faculty, Mt. San Jacinto College; Instructional Technologist, CSU Channel Islands, Author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies and How to Humanize Your Online Class with VoiceThread
• +Deborah Lemon  - Professor at Ohlone College, Instructor of Building Online Community with Social Media at @ONE

All Center events are brought to you by @ONE.

Supporting Online Community College Faculty

Image by Jim Bumgardner CC-BY-NC-SA. The Center is brought to you by +@ONE 

Supporting Online Community College Faculty

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 19th

3:00pm Pacific

LIVE - Google+ Hangout on Air!

Click for Google Event

View on YouTube --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9FRP9fAUfE&feature=share

Join The Center's Community for follow-up discussions --> tiny.cc/TheCenter 

Join us for a #CCCLEARN Twitter Chat on the topic --> Thurs, 3/27 3-4pm PDT

California’s Community Colleges are leaders in distance education. In 2011-12, distance education courses comprised roughly 27% of the state’s total student headcount and each of the 112 community colleges in the state offered an average of 10 online degrees (CCC Chancellor’s Office, Distance Education Report, 2013). Supporting faculty with training and resources to teach online is foundational to ensure students have successful learning experiences and persist in their online classes.

In this Hangout, Katie Datko, will share an overview of the growth and development of the resources Pasadena City College has created to support the training and development of their online faculty.  Using the screenshare feature, Katie will provide a tour of some of these resources and discuss the challenges and opportunities the college has experienced along the way.

• The Q&A feature will be enabled during the live Hangout on Air to allow viewers with a Google+ account to submit questions through a web browser.
• The Hangout on Air will also be archived and and shared with a Creative Commons license on The Center Hangout Archive playlist at: http://tiny.cc/CenterArchives

This Hangout on Air will feature:

• Katie Datko - Instructional Designer for Online Learning, Pasadena City College
• Michelle Pacansky-Brock - Community Coordinator of The Center; Associate Faculty, Mt. San Jacinto College; Instructional Technologist, CSU Channel Islands, Author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies 

Want to learn more about The Center?

I will be presenting a free webinar tomorrow for @ONE about The Center, @ONE's next-generation online learning community for which I am the community coordinator.  The Center is designed to support California's 112 community colleges but our events are open to everyone (and all are free!).  Learn how The Center can improve collaboration and community in your own professional development and help you get started with your transformation into a connected educator.

 The Center: @ONE's New Online Community

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

12:00-1:00 Pacific

Advanced registration required, please click here for details.

Archive! Humanizing Online Grading with Voice & Video

View this video on YouTube.

Yesterday, I spent an hour in dialogue with +Dan Barnett and +Tracy Schaelen about one of my favorite topics ... humanizing the online learning environment for students. Despite a major fail on the part of Google+ Hangouts on Air (grumble) to stream half of our live conversation, we persevered and, fortunately, the archive of the Hangout turned out fabulous.  I am sharing it below and hope you will find time to view, reflect, share a takeaway about the conversation, and pass the link on to your own networks too. 

 

Reinforcing Research Findings

I intended to end the Hangout with a reference to the findings from online teaching research, which, more or less, reinforce all the insights and findings shared by Dan and Tracy in the Hangout conversation. Unfortunately, I forgot.  So, here is the graphic I intended to share in the Hangout.

 

The Center is brought to you by @ONE.

Join The Center's Google+ Community.

Follow The Center on Twitter.

Today! Humanize Online Grading with Voice & Video!

Join me today, Thurs, 2/20 at 4pm Pacific, for a Center Hangout on Air with +Tracy Schaelen and +Dan Barnett. We'll be discussing how Tracy and Dan use voice and video to humanize the their instructor feedback and consider the impact this has the student experience. Tracy will be sharing feedback she has collected from her students. The Hangout will incorporate the Google+ "Q&A" feature, which allows anyone with a Google+ account to click the video and ask us a question during our live conversation. Questions will also be taken via Twitter using #CCCLEARN.

Humanizing Online Grading with Voice and Video

To view the LIVE Hangout, go directly to this link today, 

Thursday, February 20th, from 4-5pm Pacific. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiqrJU6fBRQ&feature=share

The Center

@Center_Ed

The Center is brought to you by @ONE 

Center logo by Jim Bumgardner CC-BY-NC-SA

First Impressions: How to Make the Most of Week One Online

CC-BY-NC-SA by Jim Bumgardner

Join me this Wed, January 22nd from 4-5pm Pacific for a dynamic Hangout on Air conversation with three fabulous online instructors representing California community colleges.  The Hangout will feature +Tracy Schaelen, +Michael Smedshammer, and +Lene Whitley-Putz -- three @ONE Online Certified Instructors.  They will take you inside their online classes and demonstrate techniques and strategies used to make week one the solid foundation it needs to be to establish a successful start for online students.

This Hangout is part of The Center, a next-generation online learning community which I began coordinating in October 2013.  Click here for a Guide to The Center.

Center events include Hangouts on Air and Twitter Chats (#CCCLEARN) focusing on topics and innovations for improving teaching and learning through technology that are relevant to California community colleges.  All events are free and open to everyone.

How to View the Hangout on Air:

Click here to view the Google Event for First Impressions: How to Make the Most of Week One Online.  The Hangout on Air video will stream live in the Event page that is linked above -- so that link is all you need! The "Details" area provides more information.

Join The Center on Google+.

Follow The Center on Twitter.

New PDF Guide: Strategies for Humanizing Your Online Class with VoiceThread

Recently, I self-published my first eBook, How to Humanize Your Online Class with VoiceThread, which is a curation of my teaching practices, videos, and VoiceThreads wrapped into a pedagogical framework.  One of the reasons I wrote the eBook was to leverage my experiences as an educator teaching with VoiceThread and communicate them in an accessible way to a diverse group of educators who may be using VoiceThread independently without institutional support (as I did for many years) or with institutional support but with little to no training.

We all understand the deep cuts faculty development programs have experienced in recent years, while the speed of technological change has increased and instruction has become increasingly blended.  New forms of faculty support are clearly needed.

Today, I shared a free PDF guide that functions as a companion to the eBook. It may serve as a starting point to review the framework that is used in the eBook or it may serve as a helpful resource as you read the eBook and begin to implement the concepts into your own class.

The free PDF guide, 

Strategies for Humanizing Your Online Class with VoiceThread, 

is available here.

As always, I value feedback about my work.  I am accessible on Twitter @brocansky, Google+, or you may message directly on my blog through the form in the right column. 

Virtual Author Chat via Google+ Hangout

This morning I had the pleasure to be streamed live via a Google+ Hangout from my home office in Rocklin, CA to Fort Worth, TX to speak with a group of 100+ faculty at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary about my book, Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies. +Greg Smith , Associate VP for Academic Administration, invited me for the event and it was a great opportunity to apply Hangouts to connect with faculty and share ideas.

The live feed was shared online via Google+ today and a few faculty members also engaged in a Twitter backchannel, sharing reflections during the presentation.  The only "goof" was on my part (I am learning, just like you!).  While recording the Hangout, the user who launches the Hangout on Air (in this case, me) is responsible for manually toggling between the attendees' (me and Greg) video images to "tell" the YouTube recording which image will appear in the large video screen.  Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in our conversation that I forgot to do this. Oops. So, for most of the conversation, you'll "see" Greg and "hear" me.  But you can still "see" me somewhat through the large screen projection screen in the back, which is what the faculty in the room were viewing.

It was a great experiment and I enjoyed the dialogue.  I'd love to do more of these!




This video may be viewed on YouTube at: http://youtu.be/g8_KAdX-m9I

How is Emerging Tech Reshaping the Future of Faculty Development?

Today I had the pleasure of presenting with David Wicks (@dwicksspu) and Jason Rhode (@jrhode) at the Sloan-C/MERLOT ET4Online Conference in Las Vegas.  Here is a copy of our slides if you're interested in taking a look.

Transforming, Reflecting, and Sharing Our Teaching Transformations

Nearly three years ago I shared a presentation at Loyola Marymont University about my journey through teaching with technology that led me to begin to use VoiceThread, transform my teaching approaches, and, eventually, flip my classroom.  That day, a man named Michael Kieley, whom I had never met, sat in the audience.  Michael did not introduce himself to me that day but did reach out to me afterwards via email to share how my presentation encouraged him to rethink the ways he was teaching his fully on-ground Visual Thinking course. 

We have remained in touch ever since.  And he's made many spectacular transformations in his class.  We have met a few times in person at conferences and he regularly attends my "Teaching with VoiceThread Hangouts."

While Michael often credits my presentation as a formative moment in the beginning of his own teaching transformation, I have learned and continue to learn a great deal from him.  That's one of the things I love most about using social technologies for my own professional development. They allow me to engage in dialogue with educators outside my physical sphere of access. And the more educators are motivated to have dialogues with different people from varied contexts, the more we will shift our frames of reference, ask new questions, and continue to approach teaching as a process of life learning.

Michael wrote to me today. He has been asked to share a 10-minute presentation about VoiceThread with his institution at a faculty development event tomorrow.  To convey the potential of VoiceThread in 10-minutes isn't a simple task.  His solution was to create a VoiceThread about his journey.  It is shared below. Enjoy.

You may share this VoiceThread using this link: http://voicethread.com/share/4001638/
 

Archive of Jan "Teaching w VoiceThread" Hangout

January is upon us and the start of a new semester got me a little behind with the planning of this month's "Teaching with VoiceThread" Hangout -- but it was great, nonetheless!  I especially enjoyed the terrific reflections shared in the first part of the Hangout by +Michael Kieley and +Deborah Lemon about how teaching with VoiceThread has improved their connections with their students, their understanding of their students' needs, and their ability to measure their students' abilities and growth.  We also had an interesting dialogue about the value of "community" in foreign language classes, which is a strength of VoiceThread.   I also had a chance to answer some "how to" questions about "Identities" and adding video files to a VoiceThread by using the 'screenshare' feature of Hangouts in the second half of the session.

View the entire playlist of Teaching with VoiceThread Hangouts here.

To be notified of future Teaching with VoiceThread Hangouts, please join the "Teaching with VoiceThread" community in Google+.

Teaching & Share: Online Learning-the Good, the Bad, and the Awesome

I was joined today in a Google+ Hangout on Air by a group of nine fabulous online educators encompassing k-12 and higher education institutions in California and Australia.  The conversation was dynamic, the reflections were heartfelt and inspirational including stories about students and personal growth as teachers, and the tips and strategies shared were invaluable. 

And the Google+ Hangout archive didn't work.  :(  As fabulous as that hour was, I am so very disappointed to not be able to share it with more of you. 

Sorry, folks.  Better luck next time!

Archive of Dec "Teaching with VoiceThread" Hangout

Thanks to Dana Howard, Brad Belbas, Jaime Vandergrift, and Amanda Volz (of VoiceThread) for joining me today for my Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout.  This was the most instructionally diverse Hangout we've had, as our participants represented K12, high school, and college instructors.  That made for a fresh and lively conversation about many topics.  Amanda shared an exciting update about some new LMS integration features on the horizon for VoiceThread site license holders -- this will appeal to Blackboard users!  And Dana gave us a peek into one of her AP art history VoiceThread activities.  Still working through some audio hiccups with Google Hangouts, folks, sorry about the sound glitch with the screenshare.

Enjoy the archive. It is also available on the "Hangout" page of this blog (where you can learn about my next Hangout scheduled for Tuesday on the topic of "Online Learning: the Good, the Bad, and the Awesome."

And take a moment to join the brand new "VoiceThread for Teaching and Learning" Community on Google+!