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 

The Center: Supersizing the Online Learning Sweetspot!

CC-BY-NC Jim Bumgardner

The Center: Increasing Innovation in California's Community Colleges   

brought to you by @ONE

Google+ Community:  gplus.to/TheCenter
Twitter:  @Center_Ed

As Community Coordinator for The Center, I have the awesome job of harnessing the power of Google+ and Twitter to increase collaboration, sharing, and innovation throughout California's 112 community colleges (the CCC system). How cool is that?

Two community interests are showcased each month as a combined dialogue that starts with a Google+ Hangouts on Air, extends into a Center Challenge, and wraps up with a Twitter chat.  The Hangouts on Air are live video conversations in which I engage in casual conversations with CCC educators about innovative practices pertaining to the topic. The Hangouts stream live to the web and viewers may submit questions via Twitter using the hashtag #CCCLEARN.

The week after a Hangout (every other Thursday at 3pm PT), a Twitter chat is held, giving community members an opportunity to engage in an interactive exchange of sharing (in addition to the broader public who is welcome to join in), discussion and Q&A. The two events are bridged with a Center Challenge which is like a call to action to encourage individuals to share deeper reflections, ideas, or strategies related to each topic through blogging, Tweeting, and the Google+ community.  The Center leverages the hashtag #CCCLEARN.

Supersize the Online Learning Sweetspot: Hangout on Air

Here is the 30-minute video archive of the Hangout on Air, 

"Supersize the Online Learning Sweetspot."

Last week, I was joined in a Hangout by +Katie Palacios (@katiepala) an instructional designer from the San Diego Community College District (SDCCD), and +Samantha Hurst (@sammhurst), an anthropology instructor also from SDCCD.  Katie shared a conceptual framework of her own, which she describes is an effort to encourage online instructors to, "Supersize the Sweetspot of Online Learning."  In her model, she explains the importance of embracing the full potential of active learning when designing and facilitating an online class and stresses that most new online instructors gloss over the need to consciously build in active learning, because these types of learner engagement opportunities often occur spontaneously in face-to-face teaching (think "socratic teaching" style).  Therefore, Katie proposes a model to "supersize this sweetspot" which involves "mushing" content, interaction, and assessment together into a fabulously, messy learning experience (picture making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich). 

After Katie's brief, engaging, and information presentation, Samm joins in to share a teaching innovation of her own that was inspired by Katie's supportive instructional design efforts.  She shares with us how she is using Video Everywhere, a building block for Blackboard that enables students and instructors to post communications using a webcam (videos are recorded to YouTube, posted as Unlisted, and then they appear in Blackboard where students and the instructor may view them).  Samm has her anthropology students share video blog posts to describe an experience using non-verbal communication (body gestures, for example). Fascinating! In the Hangout archive, you have the opportunity to see two examples of fantastic videos shared by Samm's students (who provided permission to allow us all to view them -- thank you!). 

Supersize the Online Learning Sweetspot: Twitter Chat

After you view the video, if you'd like to continue the conversation about Supersizing the Sweetspot of Online Learning, join me and other CCC educators for a #CCCLEARN Twitter chat this Thursday, October 31st at 3pm PDT!

Lifelong Learning with Twitter

Two years ago, I reluctantly began to use Twitter.  I was curious to understand why so many found such a superficial, ridiculous tool so compelling.  After all, why would I care to read a description of "what you are doing" in 140 characters or less and why would you care "what I'm doing?"

Today, I am continually amazed and exhilarated at the vast resources and support my Twitter community provides for me around the clock.  I has become my own personalized professional development program and I despite the fact that there are more than one billion tweets sent per week, most educators are not engaged and have not realized the significance that Twitter holds for student engagement, digital literacy, research, and professional development.

Recently, I shared a success story on my blog about another reluctant part-time college professor, @Bio_prof, who says Twitter has helped her foster her own community of educators and she now feels more supported and less alone in her teaching endeavors.  Given that most college classes are taught by part-time instructors, I'd argue that this is a relevant conversation to have.

This month, in my GETInsight blog post, I reflect on Lifelong Learning with Twitter.  I invite you to read the blog post and contribute your story or thoughts about Twitter in the related VoiceThread (which is also embedded below).

Maybe summer is a good time to start curating your own Twitter network?  Follow me @brocansky.

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