Looking forward to Day Five of our Virtual Conference

This is Bev's last stint at being the roving e-reporter for our Virtual Conference. What compelling discussions await us tomorrow? I'll check in. Here's lookin' attacha, kiddos.

Our Fourth Conference Day: Web 2.0 tools; Hybrid Course Deliveries

I'm listening in and sometimes contributing. Your trusty, roving e-reporter will check in tonight and report on the day's activities.

The roundtable on social networking such as Facebook and My Space ponders the imaginative uses of these Web 2.0 tools as well as its dangers. Amanda Hartman suggests that when adults join the Facebook community they should wait to be 'friended' rather than actively seek 'friends' among the younger set, thereby insuring their integrity and inviting respect.

At his roundtable today, Justin Cary presents 21st century composition: building a website IS composing, right? How might we utilize a resource like this to facilitate different methods of student writing in the composition curriculum?

http://www.wix.com/

Justin invites us to take a "look at a website built by one of [his] creative writing students during our poetry unit. [Justin] challenged the students to use the tools of technology to think about new ways to express poetry."
http://www.wix.com/holyllama/poetryetc

Consensus reigns at the Hybrid Roundtable: this part distance/part in-class delivery makes demands on the instructor to 1) produce and manage a coherent structure between the two modes 2) maintain a focused and timely instructor-student interaction, 3) be timely to respond to students’ contributions on the discussion boards. This group ponders compensation for the hybrid instructor's heightened activity such as caps on class size, merit pay, and other recognitions.

Also discussed are strategies to prompt students' "critical thinking": post "provocative" news articles to invite interactive thinking into postings on the BB Discussion Board. Another thread offers suggestions about how the BB Discussion Board activities could support students' learning of 'difficult' in-class lectures by uploading PowerPoints with voice over or providing study prompts before and after a scheduled lecture.

Wednesday, April 15. Our Third Conference Day

Your trusty roving e-reporter is checking in. Can't wait to have an e-lunch with Joyce at 2:00 to trade cheap-eats. e-get-togethers on this rainy day save us from putting on our trenches and getting into that old auto--not to mention saving gas and avoiding accidents.

Have you noticed that the developers of our conference are teaching us how to use features in Blackboard? Can't say that I am a fan of synchronous online deliveries such as the BB white board. Maybe I'll be coaxed to revise my judgment? Talk to ya about that after 2:30.

Well, I've just returned from our virtual chat (synchronously). Marti offered that this venue might be used to go over the results of an exam. Joyce reported that one instructor had her students tune into a TV program connected to issues in the course: as they watched they chatted via the virtual chat with congenial and productive outcomes that forwarded the learning objectives.

TTFN

Marti's Roundtable on Hybrid Teaching & Learning begins tomorrow.

Have you signed into Blackboard yet?

Remember the Virtual Conference is found in Blackboard, under the Organization titled: VIRTUAL CONFERENCE: TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH TECHNOLOGY (SPRING 2009). Organizations can be found under the College Connect Tab.

Tuesday, April 14: Our Second Conference Day

Noted to the left of your screen is an update of the Amazon brouhaha: we are relieved that a computer glitch was to blame. The links to your left provide interesting reading about how our media, social connections, and instructional deliveries are being revised in a Web 2.0 environment.

Monday, April 13, 2009 and Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Welcome!

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date: no time to say 'hello,' 'goodbye,' I'm late, I'm late, I'm late . . . Are you like me? I didn't know the conference is linked to My Organizations in BB: just in case, point your browser to http://learn.vccs.edu Sign in and see the Virtual Conference 2009 link to the right of your BB screen.

Have you created your home page? Our Conference Developers, Marian and Joyce, publish announcements each day: please check these out to be directed to the day's activities.

Now, to take up my reporting duties. . .

Beth Gray-Robertson (Director of distance learning at Halifax Community College in Weldon, North Carolina) gives us a rousing and common-sense introduction: KEY POINTS: if you don't enjoy distance deliveries--don't do it! But if you want to give it a try, 'being organized' is key. If you commit, you will LEARN by DOING.

Beth's is sound advice--and we will hear more of her (energetic) ideas on Friday, April 24th a 9:00 a.m.: (Bricks & Mortar) Summit.

A question to blog followers: how did you find your way to distance deliveries? Did you 'ease on down a path,' get unceremoniously dumped into the road. . ? Tell a story--if you will, then I'll tell mine.

Listening in: Reynolds Virtual Conference 2009

Hello! Bev here: I'll be surfing the conference sessions, listening in, and reporting the conversations. I welcome you to participate by sharing your comments, your impressions during the first conference week: Monday, April 13 through Friday, April 17.
Talk to you soon!

Listening in: Reynolds Virtual Conference 2009

Hello! Bev here: I'll be surfing the conference sessions, listening in, and reporting the conversations. I welcome you to participate by sharing your comments, your impressions during the first conference week: Monday, April 13 through Friday, April 17.
Talk to you soon!

A preview of some of the Virtual Conference topics!

• Dealing with disruptive students


• Free tools for teachers


• Adjunct issues, questions, problems


• Social networking with Facebook or MySpace


• A special forum for Deans and Program Heads


• Hybrids


• Knowledge Center


• Library Tutorial


• and much more! prizes too! virtual tours! connect with your peers!

Register for the 2009 Virtual Conference by clicking this link (created with Google docs)

What to expect from the JSRCC Virtual Conference

Conference participants will have the opportunity to view the Blackboard course management system from the student perspective as they engage in small roundtable discussions, large group (conference) discussions, participate in synchronous chats, experience some of the latest technology for instruction, and download and view video clips. Participants who complete the conference schedule may request a certificate of completion and certification of 10 hours of professional development credit (PDO credit).