Application

ATLAST Tech Explorations

2011-08-13T16:13:00Z

While participating in the ATLAST Tech Explorations I hope to continue building up on the relationships of “teacher geeks” that I’ve made the past three years during ATLAST. Although I may be one of the helpers/facilitators during this journey, I always learn from working with other faculty. I appreciate hearing what/how/why faculty, and students, can and cannot use different technologies. I am especially happy we are starting with Google+; I want to spend a little time exploring that tool!

Mistress of the Salon

2011-03-12T02:09:00Z

I’m excited about the hub-bub I’m surrounded by at the current CyberSalon meeting. Not that I haven’t been thrilled with how the group has blossomed over the past...what...four years?! How cool is it that the idea has spread, both within the state and in North Carolina. I think I’m more excited that today’s meeting represents what I originally imagined when I started the group, a bunch of people gathered around with laptops, drinks, and laughs (we miss you CogDog!). Maybe I’m afraid about the fact everyone was so happy to earn the “asshole" badge in the new BuddyPress group. Maybe I’m afraid that I’m still referred to as the Queen or Mistress of the Salon and I’ve become the anti-social-app user of late (when was the last time I posted at this blog?). Or maybe I’m just happy that the group has got me excited and motivated to be a little more digitally social. Or am I just using the desire to test my feed to the CyberSalonAZ WordPress blog with BuddyPress?

Applying for the Google Teacher Academy

2010-06-29T23:50:00Z

I’m happy to announce I was accepted to the Google Teacher Academy in London on July 29th. Google sent out emails of acceptance last Friday; I excitedly squealed via Twitter and Facebook (I think maybe LinkedIn too). One person responded with a congratulations as well as a “I thought that was for K-12 educators.” I’m writing this blog as a longer response to that tweet…
This summer I’m one of the instructors in one of our MCC Study Abroad programs, the one going to England. I already knew I was going to be in England the month of July when Google announced the GTA in London, so I applied! Granted, I knew it was a long shot since they explicitly said that they target K-12 educators; however, the call for proposals also emphasized a commitment to sharing ideas through various professional development activities--which I do, a lot! Not only am I active within my community college district as well as in my discipline, I also work with local K-12 educators through connections I’ve made on my own as well as through the ATLAST grant project.
Knowing that my application was a long shot since I did not exactly fit their criteria, I decided not to spend too much time completing it (I’m not saying I spent no time, just didn’t treat it like a $50k grant). Specifically, I did not want to spend too much time making the one minute video required for the application. Therefore, I decided what I was going to say and then put together the video. I decided I would “argue” (I’m a rhetorician!) that “Classroom Innovation equals Playing and Sharing.” I then searched for images representing ”Playing” and ”Sharing” at Flickr licensed under Creative Commons. I then used Audacity to record my short blurb about playing and sharing. I used Macromedia Fireworks (what I already had loaded on my computer) to add some simple attributions to the images as well as add some key words from my audio file. I then uploaded the images and audio to Animoto and let Animoto edit together the video.

This is not a polished video; however, it does the job of conveying my beliefs about classroom innovation. The Google proposal form gave a space for any extra comments about the video. I basically outlined my process and articulated that the photo editing, just adding words on top of the images, could have been done in Flickr’s free editing software. I mentioned that I like trying to use technologies that are free and have a relatively low learning curve, technologies that other faculty and students might use in their classes.

Besides being amazed that Google actually met their deadline of reviewing all the applications in just over a week (in academia we can take weeks, even months, to review proposals), I really appreciated the second line of their acceptance email:

After reviewing your application, we believe that you have the experience and passion necessary to positively impact education in your region, and we are excited to have you join us on Thursday 29 July 2010 at the Google office in London.

So, to answer my colleague about why I might have gotten accepted although I teach in higher education, I think it because I’m also clearly dedicated to “positively impacting education in my region.” I like playing with new technologies, I enjoy testing out ideas on how they might better facilitate teaching and learning, and I adore sharing my successes and failures with others.

Serving on the Campus & District IRB Boards

2010-06-26T16:42:00Z

Three years ago, our district finally outlined a process to set up an Institutional Review Board. They set up the “full-board” as a overall district entity; but, also set up campus boards for both faculty and student projects. As a more active scholar on my campus, I was asked to do the reviewer training through CITI and serve on our campus IRB (called the College Research Review Committee). Basically the college level IRB could approve exempt and expedited proposals; however, if the proposal needed a “full-board review” it had to go to the district level IRB.
Although no one has the extra time to do the full reviewer training, it was a worthwhile endeavor. I learned a lot of information that has helped me design studies in a more careful manner. During our first year, the CRRC met a lot! I really enjoyed talking about different projects and the potential risks involved; just like the training, these discussions were worth the time because they impacted my own researching thinking and designs later. The second year we did not meet nearly as much; and this third year, I don’t think we met face-to-face at all.
Our campus chair asked me to cover her position for a couple months when she was out. During that time period I got to attend one of the district meetings. Again, the discussion was a worthwhile experience. Since I also needed to submit my own IRB application, I was also able to test out our new electronic application and deliberation process. The geek in me was happy to give some feedback on what might make the application process run a little smoother for applicants with the primary suggestion being to provide applicants a document with all the questions before they log into the system!
Although I like being on the campus, and representing occasionally on the district, IRB committees. I’m realizing it is a little difficult as well since I’m one of the more active researchers on our campus. If I’m one of the few active IRB members, but I can’t be a reader for my own application, that causes a problem. I think the electronic system will help with that because we could get readers from other campuses; however, I’m sad that it would cut down on the robust dialog we had during face-to-face meetings.
(PS...this is a boring descriptive post because it is a part of my Faculty Evaluation Plan).
(PPS...sorry to all of you who saw the accidental early posting of this before it was done.)

Writing for EduKid

2010-06-18T21:11:01Z

During the Fall 2009 semester I did a workshop on Facebook for Mesa Life Options (a community outreach component of MCC). Kate Ali’varius, the editor of EduKid, attended. EduKid is a local non-profit publication for school-age children. Kate asked me to write a technology column for the paper. My first column was about Wikipedia and it was published in the December 2009 issue (page 6). My second column, in the May 2010 issue, as about alternative Google Search Engines. I’m planning to do a follow up article on using Google’s Advanced Search Pages. Other technologies I think will be interesting to this audience include: Social Bookmarking/Diigo and security options/features in social networking sites like Facebook. (If you have other ideas, feel free to reply below!)
I’m very excited about this project because I think it is a perfect example of scholarly service. I’m taking the skills and knowledge I’ve learned as a teacher and scholar and I’m applying them in the real world. How Groovy is that?

Mobile Learning Isn’t Just Making Materials Mobile Accessible

2010-01-06T01:25:00Z

Today I went to the doctors. She gave me a prescription and a coupon for it; however, the coupon had to be activated on the web. I pulled into the pharmacy parking lot, left on the radio, grabbed my phone and started surfing. I was able to activate everything on the phone, go into the pharmacy and get the great discount. The website required that I click through a few pages, fill out a form, etc. Although I definitely needed my zoom button, I was able to navigate everything with relative ease. Thankfully, the information they wanted was not “too” much, it didn’t take me “too” long, and I was happily on my way.

This experience got me thinking about all the stuff I’ve been reading and thinking about in terms of mobile learning. In most cases when I’ve talked to people about mobile learning we’re talking in terms of the technology. Specifically, we talk about what mobile devices the students are using as well as how do we enable our web-based materials to be accessed by those mobile devices. Instead of thinking in terms of the technology, today I got thinking more in terms of the pedagogy.

If we are going to design mobile learning in a way that really engages students and facilitates learning, we not only have to think about the technology, but about the environments and circumstances in which they are using those technologies. Specifically, we need to be thinking about developing assignments that are for “on-the-go” and assignments that require “sustained thinking.” And/or, we need assignments that can easily be paused and then picked up again (so obviously we’re not talking about timed quizzes here). So the context I’m interested in here is not so much physical, as it is temporal. What chunks of time will students give themselves for mobile learning? I guess the physical matters as well, who/what will be around distracting them at that time. For example, when I’ve done podcasting I’ve had more than one student talk about listening to the podcast while cooking dinner.

For example, I was thinking it would be easy for my writing students it would be easy for them to do online/digital reading “on the go” because they can just bookmark where they stopped. At first, I though, but writing can’t be done this way, writing requires bigger chunks of time. But I know better...what I realized is that I wouldn’t want to write using my mobile device. I know others don’t mind writing lengthy texts with their thumbs; however, I don’t “write” on my phone. But then I thought, oh, I could be drafting this blog idea (yes, the one I’m typing writing now, that I was thinking about in my car while I drove) with iPadio. And iPadio would then do the first draft transcription for me! Hey...this could be GREAT online activities for my writing students. I can’t wait to suggest it to them in the fall. And I’m setting up iPadio for speed dial on my phone tonight!

All of this to say, I’m looking forward to more thinking and discussion about the pedagogy of what mobile learning is/will look like to be successful for both teachers and students.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skokiepl/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

What I Learned this Past Summer (2009)

2009-08-29T06:04:01Z

I gave me brief presentation about what I learned at conferences this past summer. I talked about listening to Bill Cope present at the Computers & Writing Conference. I really liked his presentation about New Learning and immediately ordered the book. Today I had folks discuss the various differences between in education between the modern past, recent times, and new learning. Since I was asked to present because I’m the tech geek, I also worked in some technologies. I constructed the presentation in Prezi, had folks live blogging with me through both CoverItLive and Twitter, used an Online Stopwatch, and ended the presentation with a PollEverywhere live poll.

The Presentation

The Poll Everywhere End of Presentation Assessment
Quick assessment of what the audience today was going to do with the info we talked about. Seventy people registered for today, I’m not sure how many actually showed up and some had definitely left by the time I presented. Only 22 responded; however, it’s still fun feedback!

Create your own sms poll at Poll Everywhere

MCCCD Faculty Developers Retreat 2009

2009-08-28T13:24:01Z

Faculty Developer’s Retreat 2009

Facebook Fan Page for the WGtR

2009-08-24T04:00:00Z

I decided to conduct an orchestrated social networking extravaganza for The Wadsworth Guide to Research (the textbook I co-authored; it finally printed last Fall). On August 1, I made a Blogger blog, Wetpaint wiki, Twitter account and a Facebook fan page.

In the first week we got over 70 fans and now, August 23, we have 121 fans. WOW. I admit, that a large number of the first number burst came from Devon A. inviting his students (he suggested his high school students purchase the book, some have and I’ve even got one review!). I now need to suggest it to my friends as well!
What I’m interested in is the passive nature of “fan” pages. It seems to me people can just “fan” something and never go back. Now, I’ve started posting stuff to the fan page every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Basically I’m posting to Blogger on Mondays (pushing the URL to both Twitter and Facebook) and then posting extra stuff to Facebook and Twitter. However, I’m pushing different stuff to Facebook and Twitter (not blanket repeating). Now I’m excited about doing all this; however, I’m wondering how do I access the effectiveness of this work. I’m imagining my primary audience as instructors; however, I know students are there too (and most of the stuff is useful for both). I started this to help support students and faculty using the book; however, how do I know if they are “using” it. And of course, you know the publisher wants to know if it is helping with sales. And since I don’t have direct access to the when/where/how of sales, I don’t think I have a way to cross-analyze hits and sales.
If anyone has ideas, definitely hit reply and share. Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll post about this more in the future.

Mentoring & Social Networking

2009-08-15T23:37:01Z

Once I started teaching at a community college, I figured my days as a mentor would be limited. I figured since I would primarily be working with students enrolled in gen ed courses, I would not be needed as a mentor. I should have known better. As a graduate student, some of the most important mentoring I received was from my peers. And one of my same graduate student peers who I considered a mentor was also a colleague peer mentor when I first got hired. After my first couple years at Mesa CC, I just settled into having a list of people whom I called upon when I needed words-o-wisdom; I still never really foresaw myself mentoring.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by gfesdmin
This past year I’ve had three different people call me “mentor.” I have to admit, I’ve been surprised. I’ve been thinking about how and why I believe this has occurred. First, I think the fact that I’m hitting my third year of facilitating a number of teaching with technology workshops across the district has contributed to my collecting of mentees. Specifically, one of the individuals who called me a mentor I met during one of my workshops. Second, I think my position as Faculty Professional Development Coordinator at Mesa CC has made me more visible across the disciplines. Third, I think my easy accessibly through a variety of social networking technologies (email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) has also greatly impacted my growing role as a mentor. To be blunt, I am around (virtually) to ask questions and I try to provide answers quickly. I’m excited about the connections between social networking and peer mentoring. I look forward to gaining more mentees while I strengthen my own networking of mentors.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by bgblogging

what am I thinking?

2009-07-07T16:38:00Z

Good question. I’m wondering why I’m inputting my exercises to both Dailymile and Dailyburn (the web 2.0 application formerly known as Gyminee). Really, I do know the answer to this and the fact that the CyberSalon peeps just switched their quarterly challenge from Dailyburn to Dailymile confirms it. The challenge feature in Dailyburn would only allow folks to input one type of exercising (in this case “running") when folks in the challenge were doing lots of other things (walking, hiking, swimming, biking, etc.).

cc licensed flickr photo shared by galo/*

We have to test run and play with these various technologies to really get the feel for what they can and cannot do. It actually reminds me of LMSs; on the one hand, an LMS is an LMS is an LMS (someone at Blackboard as well as one of the Sakai programmers are sending me bad vibes as I write this). On the other hand...we know that they all have various hidden “gems” and “nightmares.” And we don’t find these specifics out about any technology until were actually playing in the system. Posting this blog also comes after my third time facilitating a LinkedIn workshop targeted to baby boomers. They keep asking about the hows and whys of these various systems (for example wanting to compare LinkedIn to Facebook and Twitter). And one of the main messages I keep trying to send is...you just have to jump in for a while to see what/if/how/why they work for you! Or...we can go have a long conversation about each of them over beer and wings!

So I’ll post this blog, and tweet about it, and push that tweet to Facebook, so like with my exercising, I’m posting to different locations. But I know the feedback I’ll get from each location will be slightly different.
PS...thanks CogDog for the rockin Greasemonkey Flickr citation script. The English Citation Nazi side of my brain loves you!

Local and Regional Conferences

2008-11-04T04:47:00Z

I’m increasingly finding myself attending local and regional conferences and other “events.” I think there are a variety of reasons for attending these events, including:
1. Supporting local/regional organizations and people—they put on this event because they think it is important enough to do so, and most of the time I agree with them. And although sometimes it’s tiring to attend (you know, after a full week of work)…these folks have been working hard for multiple weeks to put this show together.
2. Cheap professional engagement—by attending local/regional events I’m not having to fly and usually I’m able to sleep at home; cheap, cheap, cheap (however, this does then make for a major drawback, see below).
3. Networking, networking, networking—don’t get me wrong, as a scholar trying to stay active in a disciplinary community as well as stay marketable while working at a community college, I need to network with folks outside of my reason; however, for getting stuff down on the home front requires that I network close to home as well. I’m really beginning to enjoy attending local/regional stuff that is not necessarily education focused and making connections with folks outside of the education field. Who knows when I might want to ask one of these folks to guest lecture in a class, present on campus, etc.
However, I’m finding there are a few major problems with attending local conferences as well:
1. I’m not necessarily giving up the national conferences I’m attending; therefore, I’m trying to cram more stuff into a “lazy Rachel” that is already spinning out of control. (My partner in scholarly crime is named Susan and hate’s the fact her name is associated with those devices…so we’ve renamed them.)
2. By staying home I’m more distracted by all the other “work” I have to get done (you know: grading, writing, laundry, house cleaning, clip the dog’s nails, spend time with the partner, etc.). It’s much easier to disconnect from both home and work responsibilities when you actually leave the general vicinity of home and work.
Although I think the benefits outweigh the costs, I miss my partner and he misses me!
Me at the recent PodcampAZ unconference

“Shell[e]y listens” (cc) image posted by sheiladeeisme @ Flickr

Blog a Day for a Month

2008-11-03T03:35:00Z

Ok Coop and Devon and Biray…I’ll bite. I definitely need to get blogging regularly again! Not that I don’t have enough to do; but, this might be a way to keep me honest. This was supposed to start yesterday (obviously I wasn’t reading my tweets…I was sleeping off back, to back, to back conferences; what was I thinking?).
So, blog a day for a month. I was hoping I would just do my blog, but realized that I had a few out there I’m supposed to be posting to relatively regularly. So I’ll take this month as the opportunity to just get on a roll.

The blogs I’ll be posting to:
http://www.committedtechnofile.com/
This is my professional blog. For the past six months or so the only blog entries this blog has seen is live blogging from conferences. I’m looking forward to sharing the projects I’m working on, the random thoughts I’m having, and the attempt to be happy, happy with my professional life.

http://shelleyrodrigo.com/
This is my personal blog. I started it before going to England this summer for a month. Tom, my partner, and I blogged about our experiences in England. I’ll be posting this blog entry to both sites. I figure I’ll also post daily here, even if it is the link to what other blog I actually posted at.

http://tycawest.org/
This is the TYCA West website, which just happens to be a Wordpress blog. TYCA West is a regional organization of the two-year college association of English teachers. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is the umbrella organization. I’ve been wanting to organize folks to post regularly. I’m hoping I’ll start the trend.

http://tyca-blog.blogspot.com/
I also was asked to post regularly to the National TYCA blog. The National TYCA is also under the NCTE umbrella.

http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/blogcast/
This past year I was our campus’ instructional technologist. We hired someone; however, I took over as the faculty professional development coordinator (please, help me figure out a shorter title). The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), the “home” for each of these positions, has a blog.

This summer I was trying to prepare some blogging series for these different blogs. Maybe a few of these will get started; otherwise, I’ll just get blogging. I look forward to everyone giving some feedback along the way.

MCC-Welcome Back

2008-08-18T16:34:00Z

Survived and Can Never Go Back

2008-05-16T05:01:00Z

I’m still not quite sure how I did it, but I survived the 2007-8 academic year as Mesa Community College’s instructional technologist. First, this actually needing to be somewhere specific for 30 hours a week...nearly killed me. Yeah, I’m so spoiled being regular faculty. But more interesting to me is the “politics” I played this year. Not that I haven’t known politics existed, or that I haven’t played them before, but this year I got them front and center. And the problem is that once you start playing politics somewhere, even if you no longer are in that position, you really can’t go back to the naive existence. Ahh well...at least I bonded with some good peeps along the way.
One thing that was difficult was “giving up” (ie, not having the time) to do some “important” work like blogging and following various blogs to learn about new technologies. I was watching some of my close friends geek out and I was worried I would lose my geeky edge. But one of the IT guys gave me the ultimate compliment, he mentioned that he was impressed with the skin job on the Maricopa Tech twittercamp instance we had running at the Maricopa Community College District Teaching & Learning with Technology Conference this past Tuesday. I said I did it; he said he had figured it was one of the other tech guys who is good with graphic design. I felt all warm and fuzzy!