Upcoming Brown Bags at Harper College

All faculty and staff are invited to attend two upcoming Brown Bag presentations offered by Harper faculty members Pardess Mitchell and Andy Geary, who were each awarded Instructional Technology Committee mini-grants and look forward to sharing ideas on best practices from their recent conference involvements.  No registration is required.  Specific details regarding each presentation are as follows:

I.  Please join us for a Brown Bag lunch session on April 23^rd with Pardess Mitchell who will share ideas on "Using Cognitive Strategies to Improve your Online Class" following participation in the recent Sloan-C conference:

TITLE: Using Cognitive Strategies to Improve your Online Class

DATE:  Tuesday, April 23, 2013

TIME: 12:00-12:45PM

LOCATION:  A242

PRESENTER: Pardess Mitchell, Chair, Physical Education Department

DESCRIPTION:  This session will present some of the best practices in online learning. The strategies that will be presented can work within any online course. These techniques are pulled from cognitive psychology and research suggests they can help improve student outcomes in online classes.

II.  Please join Andy Geary for an afternoon Brown Bag session on May 2^nd to learn new tips for communicating with online, blended, and even traditional students using a variety of tools and programs.  Before or after attending Andy’s sharing session, be sure to check out the CII Area’s Open House showcasing their newly renovated facilities (hospitality will be provided).

TITLE: Facilitating Indirect Communication with Online/Blended (and Traditional) Students

DATE:  Thursday May 2, 2013

TIME: 3:00-3:45PM

LOCATION:   F124 (CII Lab)

PRESENTER: Andy Geary of the Harper Math Department

DESCRIPTION:  Online and Blended classes offer unique communication challenges. Often times it is difficult to answer complicated questions for students via e-mail or even speaking with them directly on the phone. Students are often working at odd hours because of their schedules and direct communication, although available, is not convenient. There are several ways to effectively communicate ideas and problem solving to your students indirectly using the tablet PC and programs like JING. We will look at writing messages with image capturing, creating demonstration videos of websites and programs, problem solving videos and more. We will be using SnagIt, JING, www.ScreenCast.com and possibly a few other programs in this presentation.

Intro to Wolfram's Computable Document Format (CDF)

Please join us for an afternoon presentation by Math professor David Clydesdale. Dave attended the AMATYC Conference last year with an Instructional Technology Committee mini-grant and looks forward to sharing details regarding a free software product that may be of interest to others:

DATE: Thursday, Nov. 1st, 2012

TIME: 3:30 – 4:15PM

LOCATION: F124 (CII Lab)

TITLE: An Introduction to Wolfram’s Computable Document Format (CDF) Free Software Product

PRESENTER: David Clydesdale of the Harper Math Department

DESCRIPTION: Drop by the CII Lab (F124) on Thursday afternoon for a brief introduction/demonstration of the free Wolfram Computable Document Format (CDF) Software Product (www.wolfram.com/cdf-player/). Wolfram’s CDF product enables easy creation and deployment of interactive documents that can be used in a variety of courses. Just bring your questions and your curiosity along to the session.

SPONSORED by: The Instructional Technology Committee

Registration/RSVP: Not required

Teaching Science Online Conference

Parkland Community College, in Champaign, Illinois is hosting another conference this November on teaching science online. This year's title is "Designing and Improving an Effective Online Science Course." The conference will be November 1-2. The conference website is: https://online.parkland.edu/scienceOnline/index.cfm

The call for proposals is still open if you would like to present. The Call for Proposals & Registration information are at the website under “Current Conference.” For more information, contact Brett Coup at 217-353-2639 or bcoup@parkland.edu.

ICCFA 2012 Teaching and Learning Excellence Conference

Registration is now open for the Illinois Community College Faculty Association 2012 Teaching and Learning Excellence Conference. The conference will be held October 25 and 26 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Springfield, Illinois.

Registration includes five Thursday evening Round Table Discussions with appetizers provided and over 20 sessions from which to attend on Friday; as well as Friday breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. Session topics include e-textbooks, student retention, learning communities, online teaching, and more. Keynote speaker will be Ralph Martire, Executive Director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accounting. Mr. Martire will address the issue of pension reform.

A draft version of the Program is available at Teaching & Learning Conference Program/Draft.

Register for the conference on or before October 17th to receive the $100 conference rate. http://iccbdbsrv.iccb.org/iccfa/registration.cfm

Room reservations must be made on or before October 4, 2012, to ensure you receive the conference room rate of $70.

Use the conference code: ICC.

E-Learning Tools & Technology Course

The EIT 200 E-Learning Tools & Technology course will be offered online in the Fall 2010 semester. In this survey of e-learning tools, EIT 200 students will build a foundation in the tools and technologies used to develop and support e-learning in business and education environments. Students will explore a wide variety of Web 2.0 technologies that can be used to enhance online and classroom courses, including technology tools for presentations, assessment, collaboration, creative expression, brainstorming, review games, social networking, and more.

The EIT 200 course could be useful for faculty members or any individual interested in exploring technology use in supporting educators or trainers, teaching online, corporate e-learning/training, and enhancing the classroom experience. More information about EIT 200 E-Learning Tools & Technology.