Students Organize a Tour: A Possible Assignment?

Are tours part of your classes? I saw this post on eNews today about a student who saw a flier about a tour to visit a water-treatment plant and invited others along because he saw the relevance to their coursework.

Is this one idea for a class assignment--a student-identified, student-organized class tour? Students who wanted to do this assignment could bring their proposals to class for review-- you might include a rubric so the class could determine which were the choice(s) for the term. The tours could be in virtual worlds too....

http://www.coloradomtn.edu/email/

Fulbright Emphasizes Diversity Among Its Fellows

The esteemed international academic-exchange program is attempting to attract more students from community colleges.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i09/09a02301.htm?utm_source=cc&utm_medium=en

Survey - Do You Know What These Are? : eLearning Technology

Hi All,

Saw this three item survey on library technology--it would be a fun one to share w/ students.

Survey - Do You Know What These Are? : eLearning Technology

Cheers, Alice

SMART Classroom Training

Now is the time for everyone to start thinking about scheduling an appointment for SMART classroom training for the upcoming Spring session, during the first week when faculty is on contract. Scheduling will be on a first come, first serve basis.

My goal is to break the training down into two different sessions: the basic and advanced use.

The basic training session’s educational objective will focus on the operation and function of the Crestron controller, operation of the Smartboard, the basic tools available with the Smart Classroom software, the operation of the Document camera, and the operation of the DVD/VCR.

The advanced training will focus on how to fully utilize the potential of the Smart Classrooms in creating exciting presentations. The training sessions will last approximately 1½ hours. I will then be available to answer questions and to work individually with anyone who wants to learn more about this technology.

In addition, I have created a Wiki page for Do-It-Yourself training. It is located at http://itwiki.coloradomtn.edu/index.php?title=SMART_Board_Tutorials .

If anyone has any questions, please contact me at jblanc@coloradomtn.edu .

Want to Attend a Conference IN Second Life? Free?

I got this notice from East Carolina University today. They East Carolina University sent this notice about their Second Life Conference IN Second Life on November 10 and 11, 2008.


"We are very excited about the conference and the proposals that were submitted. The conference is focused on the uses of virtual worlds for instructional purposes and we have some wonderful presentations to share with you as well as resources. We will be sending out additional information shortly.

If you have anyone you know that would like to register, please share the following link with them. We are still accepting them at this time.

http://hawk.aos.ecu.edu/secondlife/Pages/SL-Conference1.html

Never been in Second Life but are curious? You'll need to get an avatar (SL character) to attend the conference cand it would be helpful to go through some orientation--one I like to recommend is from New Media Consortium because its resources were created in response to feedback from
higher educators: http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/Getting_Started

Fall CMC Faculty Innovators

I have had the opportunity to hear about a wide variety of innovative practices going on during this term.

Joe Reinig says they are providing talks by experts in the field for students in the STEM disciplines: Coming soon--a biologist who did her dissertation on Moose (or Elk?)

Aggie Ramos-Doyle is using conversation bots to engage second language learners.

Cynthia Zyzda and colleagues are offering block style courses in the gt pathway art courses and Western Civ (Hope I got that right). The transfer between like content during the same semester enriches the student engagement in both courses.

Roy Brandt's web-design students are discussing their projects in a lively fashion with their preferred space: Facebook.

Bruce Kime and student Kodiak Drewery produced an outdoor orientation film:
http://www.coloradomtn.edu/programs/outdoor.shtml

Gywn Ebie has incorporated pbwiki into the EDU222: Effective Teaching course.

Without a doubt, there's even more going on out there.
Would you share yours with CMC colleagues? Thanks!

Engaging Baby Boomers

http://www.civicventures.org/

This study (featured in the Chronicle 10/03) features what ten community colleges are doing to serve Baby Boomers.

Among the suggestions:

Provide flexible schedules but include networking opportunities
Provide Boomer mentors for Boomer learners