2010 Faculty Evaluation Plan
Once a faculty member in the Maricopa Community College District gets “tenure” (or is no longer in his or her “probationary” period), he or she has to submit a Faculty Evaluation Plan (FEP), basically a self-study/reflection, every three years. This year was my third year since leaving probation/getting tenure. One of the things I’m trying to do with this FEP is get up an running with a digital professional portfolio. And although I really think I wanted to do it in …
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| June 25 2010 | CommentsPosted in
I’m loving MindMeister
This past December I decided to upgrade my MindMeister account for one year. I had played enough with MindMeister that I knew I really wanted to seriously play and needed more than the three mindmaps that the free account would give me. I have not regretted this purchase at all! I’ve built mindmaps for:Workshop Home/Resource PageCollaborative Notetaking at a Conference, as well as aMore Formal Presentation. What I found while developing the last …
...Continued | June 20 2010 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
CogDog, throw a girl a bone!
While flying to various professional events, I can either be extremely productive (grading, or like this past Wednesday night, I read both the 2010 Horizon Report and The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009) or not (like this past Sunday when I finished Blood Magic and piled through most of Unknown). This is a reflection about the results of being productive yet unconnected. So last Wednesday I’m flying to San Antonio to an English Professional Development event being hosted by my publisher, Cengage. I …
...Continued | February 23 2010 | CommentsPosted in Reading
Keeping Organized
My “life” is everywhere: desktop PC at home, mac laptop, 2 Google accounts (that I use a lot, of course more than two gmail addresses), a main blog, one Remember the Milk account, one delicious account, two Diigo accounts, more wikis than I remember, box.net, and thanks to @cogdog now Dropbox as well. This past fall I got the slap-in-the-face reminder from a tweet that basically said “everything needs to hang from …
...Continued | January 26 2010 | CommentsPosted in
Twitter as Communication Device
So many people still don’t “get” Twitter because they don’t understand that Twitter is a two-way communications technology like email, instant messaging, and text messaging. In workshops about Twitter @befitt explicitly says that you need to stay active on Twitter for at least 3 months to decide whether or not it is working for you. I think this is a great idea. I think, however, sharing some of those “gems” of stories about how Twitter “works” are valid as well. This is such a story… A couple of weeks before the …
...Continued | December 28 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Warning for Instructors Using Wikis
This morning while I was eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel (living up to the Time cover article’s statement about weakened will power, I had run 4.5 miles this AM and I was huuungry), I saw this “Be Careful Wet Paint” sign. When I saw the words “wet paint” it got me thinking about Wetpaint wikis. And I started wondering if “Be Careful” is an appropriate warning for instructors who use wikis. And yes, I think it is! Basically, when using wikis, instructors are inviting …
...Continued | August 15 2009 | CommentsPosted in
Online Stopwatch: Instant Brilliance
Ever have that moment where you see a new technology and just say “this is brilliant!”?
...Continued | August 12 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
My New Tech Toy: Oakley O Rokr Pro
I’ve been busy this past year with getting the textbook published and finishing the dissertation. Busy enough that I barely blogged (obviously I’m trying to change that). And although many people assumed that I would see downtime after graduation, I’ve really been going mach 10 since mid-May. Last night, however, I finally had the time, energy, and money (yes, summer school does pay!) to reward myself for a year well done (did I say I finally finished my dissertation?). I got myself a pair of Oakley …
...Continued | June 24 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Drop.io’s Present.io is Cool
I’m finally playing catch up with my RSS feeds and I’m excited to say I’ve started flipping though the LONG lists of “new techs” be talked about in various blogs. Currently I’m reading through Free Technology for Teachers. Now I had already used Drop.io this past semester for my HUM/WST209: Women and Film course. But I was excited to read about that Drop.io had a presentation mode. I’ve played around …
...Continued | May 31 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Living the Philosophy
Now that I’m a little less busy (only a little… I really wish these folks who know nothing about education would so get over the idea that we “vacation” for 3 months of the year, yeah, right!), I’m starting to try to get back into the groove of posting to my Twitter, my blog, etc. I’ll admit, being friends for @soul4real can be a little intimidating. According to a tweet by either @cogdog or @nooccar she is in the top five tweeters …
...Continued | May 19 2008 | CommentsPosted in