July 8

The power of professional networking, or “How to network like Alex” :)

Building a professional network is a life-long process of being interested and being interesting.

For me that means it is about relationships and learning. I am better at my job and better as a person by being familiar with the academic, personal, and professional experiences and contexts outside myself, my unit, my organization, my state, my country.

All relationships take interaction and nurturing. And they have to come from a place of authentic genuine interest. Like with any friend, to maintain the friendship, you have to be intentional about reaching out and checking in. There is also an element of just-in-time... so, I try to post in my various social media outlets what I am doing, so that if someone in my network happens to see it, and happens to be interested or curious, they can reach out. I will also occasionally share some things directly with individual people that I know might have a specific interest in something I am doing, or something I have found that I know they need, or would be interested in it if they knew about it.

So, here are my suggestions for how to network like a boss:

1. Leverage social media: Twitter, FB, and Linkedin

  • Follow your rock stars, see who they follow and follow some of them.
  • Join groups/chats that interest you. Spend time daily cultivating, and learning and sharing.
  • Post stuff you are doing/learning/creating, share stuff to amplify what others are doing that you genuinely think is cool or interesting, ask and answer questions – if you can help someone solve a problem, you strengthen your relationship, reputation, and credibility.

2. Reach out to meet people you find genuinely interesting, creative, innovative, cool.

  • Take opportunities to meet people at in-person and virtual events, conferences, or webinars.
  • Be authentic.
  • When you meet someone interesting, connect with them in Linkedin and follow them in Twitter. And let them know you are interested in maintaining contact/connection, or learning more about something they do, or they said when you met them that you found interesting and want to follow up on.
  • Check with your supervisor to see if you can join LOOP https://www.iste.org/companies-and-partners/iste-loop – a networking service.

3. Share

  • Look for opportunities to document what you are doing, and share it.
    • Create a blog, podcast, video about what you are doing, and post it – and share it on your social media platforms.
    • Present at conferences, events, webinars, twitter chats, online groups.
  • If you come across something that would be of interest to someone you’ve met, send it to them. This could be a job, a tool, a resource, a project, an article, etc.
  • When possible/appropriate openly license what you create, so you can share it broadly, and so people can adapt/adopt it easily.
  • Represent yourself and SUNY well.
    • Understand where, what, and how you share.
    • Know your audiences, and manage your connections, followers, friends.
      • Twitter is public = followers. FB is friends = personal and professional. Linkedin is professional connections.
    • Filter.
      • Assume that your mom, the chancellor, Kim, your boss, or your professional rock star are reading what you write, and don’t say every random thing that comes into your head. ‘
      • Don’t be unkind. No matter how frustrated you may get with friends and colleagues, try not to be snarky or criticize people/things that happen at work. You never know what people are going through…
    •  Maintain a balance in the “noise” to “signal” ratio both in yourself, and in whom you follow.
      • Consider how you represent yourself: Personal (noise) vs. Professional (signal). A little of both makes you relatable and a “real” person. Seek a balance.
  • Amplify others. Use your platform to highlight, recognize, and appreciate the work of others.

Networking requires time, authentic engagement, and mutual interests, and cultivating personal relationships.

There is never sufficient time, energy, or resources to do everything one might like to do. One’s own work and organization are the priority, so anything else is extra, and can’t be done at the expense of oneself, or professional responsibilities.

I don’t actively pursue, or initiate collaborations or partnerships per se, I focus on relationships that are genuine, and where there is mutual (personal professional and organizational) benefit. Opportunities sometimes emerge from that. I also decline lots of stuff. I have interests in particular topics, areas of the world, and a keen desire to hang out with people that I like (that find cool or interesting in some way) – I cultivate those in ways that I can without too much difficulty or too much effort.

What do you do to cultivate, sustain, and grow your professional network?

Some networking opportunities I had this year and how they came about:
Social media links:

 

Category: engage, instructions, networking, reflection | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 6

Can we reduce the number of posts required in an online discussion?

I was asked recently about the standard practice of online discussions – 2 weeks per discussion, 1 response and 2 replies. This is a fairly standard ubiquitous practice and considered a best practice by most online practitioners.

But it is based on anecdotal lived experiences of early online practitioners. If you know of any research on this I would love to see it. I think we have moved past the one size fits all stage of practices in this field of online teaching and learning.

This is a really hard complex question, because it depends… if online discussions and/or more specifically the questions, are not well designed, or discussions not are not well facilitated, or interaction is not valued highly, in terms of the percentage of the grade… it doesn’t matter how many, or how few posts you require … How interactions (discussions)/posts are valued, assessed, or contribute to student learning is what is important. Also, important is whether that is the same for every course for every instructor in your department/program/institution…

This question is about the quantity and quality of interaction (discussion) between students and/or the instructor, – which we know are strong predictors of online student satisfaction and reported learning, and if leaning might be impacted by reducing quantity (not quality). Or, assuming the quality is there, if there might be variables like the discipline/ type of course, or level in the program -first year/vs Jr. or undergrad vs masters… where quantity matters more, or less.

If one perceives pressure to make an online course/program more self-paced to compete with other programs which might be doing that, or because one’s students are, let’s say working adults who are too busy to interact, I’m not sure those are the right decision drivers.

I think the course, content, discipline, instructor, and level of the student should drive those decisions, but again I am not aware of any research-based guidance/recommendations for course/curriculum designers on this issue.

What do you think?

Category: engage, practice, reseach | LEAVE A COMMENT
June 4

Tools I use to enhance my instruction and to actively engage online learners

They are project-based with opportunity to apply, authentically experience, design, practice.

I use a variety of social media/web tools that are external to the course management system.

  • To enhance the presentation of online course content.
  • To facilitate engagement and interaction with course material and between learners in the online teaching and learning environment.
  • To enhance the presentation of feedback.
  • To give the learners in the online course options and choices in how they make their thinking and learning (and their progress) visible to me and others in the class.
  • To provide access to course materials beyond the end of the term.
  • To build connection and community among past, present and future learners in the online course.
  • To self-disclose, demonstrate social presence, establish trust and a sense of class community and model the academic and professional uses of the social web.
  • To expose learners to tools and utilities that may have potential to enhance instruction.
  • To test the potential of these tools for instructional purpose and observe their effects on learners.
    • voicethread – An online media album of any type of media (images, text, documents, and videos). I user it as an ice-breaking activity. This example uses a video of my daughter introducing me from her perspective, as well as slides to do deeper more contextualized introductions including, experiences relevant to the course, prior knowledge, expectations, etc.
      • How I use VT
    • diigo – A social bookmarking tool.
      1. Used to bookmark, highlight, comment upon ,and share all references used/shared in the course and by all participants.
      2. Used to create a dynamic link roll of resources that automatically updates the latest additions to the shared class annotated bibliography of resources curated by the course participants – access to this bibliography remains available to students beyond the end of the term.
      3. Used to facilitate instructor feedback on learner-generated work posted on the web, e.g., feedback provided on learner blogs via the highlight and comment features of diigo make providing learning feedback more efficient and easier for the instructor.
    • edublogs – education-focused blog platform (wordpress for education with a .edu url extension and the ability to link instructor and student blogs in classes).
      1. Used to keep metacognitive journals and reflections/feedback on the online course teaching and learning experiences.
        1. Example instructor blog: https://etap640.edublogs.org
        2. See also learner blogs linked to off the instructor blog above.
    • netvibes – to aggregate and display student blogs.
    • twitter – micro blog.
      1. Used in this course for newsflash type announcements, questions, interaction. https://twitter.com/i/#!/alexpickett/etap-640-summer-2012 and https://twitter.com/etap640
      2. Used to introduce learners to the power of the social web, building an online digital network, identity, and voice that contributes to the online discourse on topics of academic and professional interest.
    • jing – a screen capture tool used to provide instructions, feedback, and clarification to online learners. (5-minute limit on the free version).
      1. Showing is often easier and more efficient than writing.
      2. Screencast-o-matic for 15-minute screencasts.
      3. Online learners can use this to present projects, critiques, etc.
    • screencast – a Techsmith repository affiliated with the jing project that gives me the ability to create a playlist of my “how-to” videos in my course.
    • audacity – a free audio recording utility used to record audio comments & feedback for online learners, as well as content in the form of interviews with exemplary online faculty.
    • podomatic – a podcasting platform used to deliver the audio feedback created with audacity as an embedded playlist widget. See podcasted student feedback examples on online course learning activities.
    • youtube – an online video platform to record and view course-related video materials.
      1. online asynchronous video discussion to bring “rockstars” into the class and blur the boundaries of the online learning classroom environment “box”.
      2. See also the course videos playlist.
    • vimeo – to post course-related video materials.
      1. See the screencasted feedback course reviews.
    • voki – a speaking avatar used for announcements in this course.
      1. Example: Welcome to ETAP640!
    • breeze – used to create voice-annotated powerpoint course materials.
    • polldaddy – survey tool used to collect feedback from students on the course.
    • rate my professor – professor rating tool.
    • jumpscan – a QR code generator used to create a scan-able QRcode with information about this course.
    • Facebook – to build community among and between course participant cohorts.
    • Padlet – an online multimedia bulletin board.
      1. Used for online learners at the end of the course to leave tips and comments for the next cohort of online learners.
        1. Example1
        2. Example 2
    • Powtoon – a tool to make graphic animated presentations.
      1. An option for student presentations.
Category: cooltools, engage | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 19

VoiceThread

https://voicethread.com/share/3084120/

I use VoiceThread in my online course as an ice-breaking activity to support and facilitate social interaction in an online web-based teaching and learning environment:

  • So students can get to know each other.
  • So students will feel a sense of belonging in the course.
  • To establish a sense of class community. So students will establish trust with me and their classmates – so we can move on to teaching and cognitive presences. (Garrison, Anderson, Archer, 2000)
  • So students can form distinct impressions of others in the course – so students feel those they interact with are “real.”
  • So students can form a distinct impression of me. I want them to know that I am “real” and that i am more than just their professor. I use the interview of my daughter to help them see me through her eyes. It helps them to seem me as multidimensional, and that i am not just what i do, i am also a mom, a wife, an artist, and i like chocolate!  : )

The various commenting options can be used in a multitude of ways to personalize, add humor to, and to self-disclose within interactions. Interactions can be extemporaneous, ephemeral, conversational, or more formal or scripted presentations. Students can co-create the VT conversation by adding central images and commentary, or respond to instructor-created materials. Within a VT, interactions are enhanced with voice and the tone that comes with one’s own voice, which conveys a sense of personality to help students form distinct impressions of the instructor and their classmates. VT allows interaction that significantly supports building social presence and a sense of class community starting with the icons/avatars that represent one’s contributions, and by facilitating the use voice, video, tone, images, even the pen annotation tool, to create an environment that is a rich multi-sensory experience .

Category: engage | LEAVE A COMMENT
February 2

I heart diigo!

I have been using diigo for several years now in my online course and in addition to delicious for my social bookmarking… (I started out in delicious and then moved to diigo… but could not let delicious go … still have it and have diigo update my delicious bookmarks)

I LOVE diigo and characterize it as “delicious on steroids” : )

I have a diigo group for my course that is open to the public for viewing, but private to my students for contributing to. http://groups.diigo.com/group/ETAP687

In my course i use it to co-create with students an annotated bibliography of shared resources for the course that <and this is KEY> persists beyond the end of the term and outside the boundaries of the LMS – because their access to their student-generated content and contributions to that bibliography would go away when the course ends, if it were not external to the LMS.

There are so many things that i love about diigo. It helps me express my teaching and social presences to my online students, and helps me build class community.

It assists me to (1) present content, (2) to facilitate engaging and enhanced collaboration and interaction, and (3) it gives me tools with which to provide enhanced and engaging feedback to my students.

These are the 3 categories i use in evaluation of instructional technology, and diigo hits all three. I also evaluate with the following critera, “does the tool allow me to achieve an instructional objective <better, faster, safer, easier, or cheaper>. Diigo hits <better, faster, and easier>.

  • I use it to document resources for the course.
  • I use it leave comments, highlights, and sticky notes on online web resources for my students and on their course blogs.
  • My students use it to bookmark EVERY link, reference, citation that they mention in ANY part of the course.
  • My students use it to comment on each other’s bookmarks and on the pages themselves – highlighting passages, asking each other questions, pointing things out to each other. (I model this for them and give them feedback to improve their uses of the tool.)
  • I provide a directed learning activity in diigo during the course in which they must find, bookmark, share, and annotate 3 resources that they will use in their own online course and comment on each other’s resources in diigo. I even have experimented with having a class discussion right in diigo.
  • I give them feedback and evaluate their use of the tool throughout the course.
  • I create a dynamically aggregating link roll that i have in my course on the front page so every time students login to the course they see the latest links that we have all added to our shared bibliography.
  • My current and past students remain members of the group and all the artifacts from every time i have taught the course persist as members in the group so we have a community of practice being built and grown with each term.

Diigo allows me to create a resource for my course that captures links to stuff that would otherwise be buried forever in my very discussion-rich fully online course. It helps students learn how to evaluate online resources, how to tag and organize resource links, and provides lots of features and functionality – some of which i have not tried yet.

I also use diigo to curate resources for my instructional designer community. You can see an example here: http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/  – on the lower left of the page and here: http://slnfacultyonline.ning.com/group/twitter

Like i said i also use it for my own personal social bookmarking and have an extensive library and many groups that i participate in. It is a fundamental part of my PLN and something that i do and use daily. Twitter and diigo are connected in my mind as i bookmark all of the things i learn about via twitter in diigo, and use specific tags and their rss feeds to feed link rolls and tag rolls on a variety of topics or disciplines in the various social networking sites that i manage. The link rolls at the bottoms of all the country pages in this wiki i built for example all draw dynamically from specifically tagged resources in my diigo library, see http://onlinelearningsnapshot-sa.wikispaces.com/

I have begun the internal process of recommending diigo as a university-wide tool.  : )

Diigo is really cool  : ) I <heart> diigo!

Category: community, cooltools, engage, reflection | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 14

Tools I use to enhance my instruction-to engage online learners

I use a variety of web2.0 tools external to the Moodle course management system in this course:

  • to enhance the presentation of course content,
  • to faciltitae your engagement and interaction with course material and with your classmates,
  • to provide you with access to course materials beyond the end of the term, and
  • to expose you to tools and utilities that may have potential to enhance instruction.
  1. voicethread – an online media album of any type of media (images, documents and videos). Used in this course as an ice-breaking activity. This example uses a video of my daughter introducing me from her perspective.
  2. diigo – social bookmarking tool. Used to bookmark, highlight, and comment upon and share references used in the course. Also used to create a dynamic link roll of resources that auto-displays latest additions to the shared class annotated bibliography of resources currated by the course participants – that remains available to students beyond the end of the term.
  3. edublogs – education-focused blog. Used in this course to keep metacognitive journals and reflections/feedback on the online teaching and learning experiences. I an example blog for the course, where i model blogging, link to student blogs, and post student feedback: https://etap640.edublogs.org
  4. netvibes – to aggregate and display student blogs.
  5. twitter – micro blog. Used in this course for newsflash type announcements, questions, interaction. https://twitter.com/i/#!/alexpickett/etap-640-summer-2012 and https://twitter.com/etap640
  6. jing – a screen capture tool used to provide instructions, feedback, and clarification. (i also use screencast-o-matic for 15-minute screencasts)
  7. screencast – a Techsmith repository affiliated with the jing project that gives me the ability to create a playlist of my “how-to” videos in my course.
  8. meebome – an IM utility to facilitate synchronos extemporaneous interaction from the course homepage and course blog site. Now using digsby as an alternative to meebome.
  9. audacity – an audio recording utility used in the course to record audio comments and interviews with exemplar online faculty.
  10. podomatic – a podcasting utility used to deliver the audio feedback created with audacity to you. See podcasted student feedback examples on course learning activities.
  11. youtube – to record and view course-related video materials. – online asynchronous video discussion to bring “rockstars” into the class and blur the boundaries of the online learning classroom environment “box”. See also the course videos playlist.
  12. vimeo – to post course-related video materials. See the screencasted feedback course reviews.
  13. voki – a speaking avatar used for announcements in this course. Example: Welcome to ETAP640!
  14. breeze – used to create voice-annotated powerpoint course materials.
  15. polldaddy – survey tool used to collect feedback from students on the course.
  16. rate my professor – professor rating tool.
  17. jumpscam – a QR code generator used to create a scan-able QRcode with information about this course.
  18. vyou – conversational video used to ask and answer questions.

http://www.appappeal.com/web-2-0-application-world-mosaic/
http://www.go2web20.net

cooltools

teaching in the cloud prezi

Teaching in the cloud links

Category: cooltools, engage | 1 Comment on Tools I use to enhance my instruction-to engage online learners
December 17

My Discussion Post Grading Rubric

Discussion Post Grading Rubric

Discussion posts are graded on a 0 – 4 point scale according to the Discussion Post Quality Grading Rubric presented below. Note that both the Comment Field and the Subject Line figure into the quality score the post receives.

  1. Peer Evaluations: Each reply you submit to a discussion forum should begin with your 0 – 4 evaluation of the quality of the post you are replying to. Place your peer-evaluation score in parentheses as the first thing in your reply- like this (4).
  2. Student Self-Evaluations: Every post you submit to a discussion forum (new posts and replies) should end with the quality score (0 – 4 points) you think your post deserves. Place your self-evaluation score in parentheses at the end – like this (4).
  3. Professor Evaluations: I will record the official 0 – 4 point value for each discussion post (up to the maximum of 12 per student) as I read it. At the conclusion of each module, I will update your Grade Book with your final grade on each discussion, and provide you with a record of how many posts you submitted and your total quality score.

Points

Interpretation

Grading Criteria

4

Excellent (A)

The comment is accurate, original, relevant, teaches us something new, and is well written. Four point comments add substantial teaching presence to the course, and stimulate additional thought about the issue under discussion. Make your thinking and learning visible: reflect, apply, report, explain, defend, refute, question, self-assess, summarize, synthesize, and analyze. Documentation for factual information is provided. Discussion points are supported with references. Sources are cited and critically analyzed. All references, links, and citations are bookmarked, highlighted, tagged, and commented on in our diigo shared references group.

3

Above Average (B)

The comment lacks at least one of the above qualities, but is above average in quality. A three point comment makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the issue being discussed.

2

Average (C)

The comment lacks two or three of the required qualities. Comments that are based upon personal opinion, or personal experience, often fall within this category.

1

Minimal (D)

The comment presents little or no new information. However, one point comments may provide important social presence and contribute to a sense of class community.

0

Unacceptable (F)

The comment adds no value to the discussion.

No penalty

The subject field is a complete sentence and conveys the main point of the comment. The reader clearly understands the main point of the comment before reading it.

-1

Minor problem with subject line

The subject field provides key word(s) only. The reader knows the general area that the comment deals with.

-2

Major problem with subject line

The subject field provides little or no information about the comment.

The Discussion Forum Grading Scale

Forum Grade

Total Quality Points

Additional Requirement

A+

40+

At least eight 4-point ratings.

A

31-39

At least four 4-point ratings.

B

25-30

At least four 3 or 4-point ratings.

C

12-24

At least four 2, 3, or 4-point ratings.

D

6-11

None.

F

1-5

None.

0

0

None.
adapted with permission from Bill Pelz.
Category: engage, feedback, instructions | 2 Comments on My Discussion Post Grading Rubric
August 13

bringing the "outside" into my course with seesmic

The conversation below is an effort to blur the boundaries of my online course to expose my students to the world “outside” the walls of our online course, and to invite the world “in” to our course to enhance our current discussion on how to engage online learners. This activity also serves as an example and model of an activity i am using to “engage” my own online students in this course.

Category: demonstration, engage | LEAVE A COMMENT