Technology Training Opportunities
Summer technology workshops for faculty
There will actually be two series of faculty summer tech workshops this summer.
Official faculty summer workshop program. Four teaching with technology topics will be part of the set of faculty summer workshops sponsored by Academic Affairs. Each of these technology workshops will be offered twice, once in May and once in June. My workshops will include a morning session from 9-12, which will be a mix of discussion, presentation and hands-on practice examples. There will be optional studio time in the afternoon each session day, for participants to work on materials for their fall courses, with advice and assistance from the academic technologies staff. Workshop stipends for the morning component of the sessions will be $50. Academic Affairs will be sending out a link to an online form for signing up for these workshops. (The online form for registration is now open: http://www4.cord.edu/acadAffairs/forms/workshops08.asp.)
- Getting started with Moodle (May 8 or June 3): The purpose of this workshop is to make sure that your Moodle courses are set up for the fall, and that you're ready to distribute materials and communicate with your classes. "This workshop will show you how to get started with your class environments in Moodle and some of the ways Moodle allows you to do more with your classes than CCAngel. Specific topics covered in the workshop will include: getting your courses set up, customizing the look and arrangement of materials in your course, distributing resources (PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, images, media, web links) to your students, and managing class communications. The optional studio time in the afternoon will be focused on helping you set up specific classes for the fall."
- Learning activities in Moodle (May 20 or June 30): In this workshop I want to help you move beyond just using Moodle as a place to post you syllabus. "The focus of this workshop is on Moodle-based activities to increase student engagement in your course. Specific activities covered include online and offline assignments, drop boxes, discussion forums, quizzes & questionnaires, among others. We will also discuss how to use Moodle to support the teaching of writing as a process; and if time permits, how to use reports to monitor the progress of your students. The optional studio time in the afternoon will focus on helping you set up specific learning activities in your Moodle courses for the fall."
- Using and creating podcasts (May 12 or June 20): What's up with educational podcasts and how can you get involved? "This workshop will briefly discuss what podcasts are and strategies you can use to incorporate podcasts from other sources into your classes. We will then have hands-on experience in producing audio, enhanced-audio and video podcasts. Both Mac and Windows based applications for producing podcasts will be covered. The optional studio time in the afternoon will allow you the opportunity to produce podcasts that you can use for your fall courses."
- Using technology to support active learning (May 22 or June 24): May 22 is my birthday, so come help me celebrate by discussing pedagogy and technology. "This workshop will review the pedagogy underlying team-based learning and inquiry/problem-based learning, and discuss specific uses of instructional technology to support these approaches to teaching and learning. The optional studio time in the afternoon will focus on designing and implementing specific technology approaches to supporting the use of these pedagogies in your fall courses."
The unofficial workshop series. I've also decided to offer some shorter, focused sessions on additional topics, based on the responses to the faculty interest survey I distributed earlier this semester. These sessions will be about an hour long, offered one time each, on selected afternoons in May and June. There are no stipends for these workshops since they are not part of the official faculty summer workshop series, but I will plan on bringing home baked goodies and/or other treats. If you are interested in attending any of the unofficial workshops, please send me an email at landa@cord.edu by the end of April so that I can plan for handouts and baking.
- Effective use of PowerPoint (May 19, 1:00): We'll certainly take a look at how PowerPoint can be used to organize text, images, audio and video, but how can PowerPoint be taken beyond simple, linear presentations? Come find out.
E-portfolios (May 19, 2:30): We'll look at a couple of ways of handling student portfolios - in Moodle and by using FrontPage webs.Canceled.- Blogs and wikis for your courses (June 4, 1:00): Education 2.0 focuses on students as co-creators of understanding; we'll look at how blogs and wikis can support that process.
Using Google Docs to support collaboration (June 4, 1:00): Access your documents and spreadsheets anywhere/anytime, share them for viewing and/or collaboration, see how to use an online spreadsheet to collect information online.We'll briefly cover Google Docs at the end of the blogs/wikis workshop.- Using Atomic Learning in your classes (June 5, 1:00): Tired of teaching your students how to use technology, instead of teaching your course? We'll go through an overview of the tutorials available to Concordia in Atomic Learning and discuss how to efficiently direct your students to the lessons they need.
Digital images (June 5, 1:00): Don't have Adobe Photoshop but you'd still like to be able to do sophisticated image editing? Come find out about GIMP,a cross-platform, open source image editing program. (You can get it for free.)Canceled.- Wimba Live Classroom (June 12, 1:00): We've had Wimba for the last year, to provide a live online classroom experience (audio and video chat, presentation display, polling, application sharing, etc), to support our online masters courses. We've also used it for collaboration among teams between main campus and Bemidji, and one faculty member used it to meet with her class while she was traveling for a conference. Come and see how to present a class in Wimba, and discuss how it could be used in your classes.
Second Life (June 12, 2:30): This isn't a formal workshop in any sense of the word, as I'm no expert in Second Life. But virtual worlds have a lot of potential for supporting new ways of teaching and learning. I invite you to come and 'poke around' in Second Life with me; we'll discuss how to get started and brainstorm on how virtual worlds might apply to our teaching goals.Canceled.Moodle studio time (May 21 and/or June 11, 1:00-4:00): These are informal sessions where Ron and/or I will be in the lab to provide assistance as you set up resources and activities for your fall courses. Bring your course materials and ideas about activities that you want to do, and we'll help you get set up.Canceled.
Past workshops
This spring we will be offering a series of faculty workshops on how to use the Moodle system. These workshops will take place in the Library Curriculum Center lab, Tuesdays at noon or Friday afternoons at 2:40. To sign up, send an email to landa@cord.edu, listing the topics and dates you would like to attend. If you are interested in attending a session but have a schedule conflict, let me know as well. We may be able to arrange additional sessions at other times.
I've also been asked by a couple of departments if it would be possible to meet with them during a department meeting to discuss the use of Moodle to support their departmental courses. If your department is interested in such a meeting, email me or give me a call at x-4212. Keith Landa
Moodle overview: Feb 15 (F), 2:40 or April 1 (T), noon - This session will give a general introduction to the organization of Moodle courses and the principle resources and activities available for your courses. This is geared toward beginners who haven't used Moodle yet. (Agenda/outline for the session.)
Instructor best practices: Feb 22 (F), 2:40 or Mar 4 (T), noon - Come join us for an informal session where faculty who use Moodle share specific examples of how they have used Moodle to support their instructional goals, what features they have found particularly useful and why. (Faculty panelists are still being determined. If you'd like to share what you're doing, call or send me an email.)
Moving from CCAngel to Moodle: Feb 19 (T), noon - This session will compare how common tasks in CCAngel are handled in the Moodle system.
Effective course organization: Jan 29 (T), noon - this session describes in depth how to use the elements available for the front page of your course (weekly vs. topical organization, use of labels, supplemental blocks, etc) to meet your instructional goals. What are your options for customizing the look and arrangement of your course? (Agenda/outline for the session.)
Effective use of files: Feb 1 (F), 2:40 - Moodle allows you to create a directory of instructor-uploaded files, which you can then use in a variety of formats. This session will cover the different ways you can upload files and ways to incorporate them into instructional activities. Also covered: how to set up Moodle to upload files the way CCAngel does. (Agenda/outline for the session.)
eReserves: Feb 12 (T), noon or Mar 14 (F), 2:40 - Moodle allows a more secure way to make eReserves available to your students, with less work on the part of the instructor. This session will cover different ways to organize your electronic reserves.
Messaging/email: Feb 8 (F), 2:40 or Apr 8 (T), noon - This workshop will cover ways of getting the message out to your students through the use of the participants list, news forum and other options. We'll also discuss how messaging can be tied in to reports on student usage of course materials and activities. (Agenda/outline for the session.)
Moodle gradebook: Mar 18 (T), noon - This session covers all of the Moodle activities that can be incorporated into the Moodle gradebook, how to set up instructor-generated scales, and options for processing gradebook scores. Also covered will be how to export scores from Moodle for import into Microsoft Excel. (Agenda/outline for the session.)
Assignments and journals: Mar 28 (F), 2:40 - This workshop will cover how to set up drop boxes for electronic submission of papers and other student work, several different options for having students respond to assignments online, and how to incorporate grades from in-class activities into the Moodle gradebook.
Online quizzes: Mar 11 (T), noon - This workshop will cover how to import and/or create question banks in Moodle, and options available for generating quizzes. (Agenda/outline for the session.)
Course reporting tools: Mar 25 (T), noon - Moodle has a variety of tools for keeping track of student activity, what resources they are accessing and what ways they have participated in course online activities. Also, the reporting functions tie in with course messaging to allow you to provide feedback to students on their participation.
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