Welcome back to another school year! The students are back on campus, faculty are busy in their offices developing syllabi and planning their lessons. I hope everyone here had an enjoyable summer and a productive summer (however you define being productive). In this blog I wanted to share what has happened in Ed Tech this summer and to describe a bit my plans for the coming year.
This past summer was a busy one. I had several goals for the summer, most of which I met. First, and perhaps the most significant was the creation of a formal training workshop for undergraduate faculty who will be teaching online courses. In collaboration with Michelle Laughlin of the Center for Online Learning, we offered a 4 day training that blended both face-to-face and online components. Using the Quality Matters rubric as a tool, these faculty began designing their online courses. This form of training will continue to be offered as more of our undergraduate faculty begin teaching online either in the summer or in the new Organizational Management program.
The second major accomplishment was the creation of a Moodle Bootcamp course. I created this course as an Intro to Moodle. It is a self-paced course that introduces you to the basic functions of Moodle including creating assignments and quizzes, creating resources such as files and folders, and how to set up a gradebook. Participants who complete this course will receive a badge showing that they have completed this online training. Any Morningside Moodle users has access to this Moodle Bootcamp, so if you are interested please check it out.
Another major goal of mine was to offer initial training on using the lesson building software SoftChalk Cloud. In June those who were interested participated in a two-part webinar. The ‘Getting Started with Softchalk’ webinar is 1-hour long and you can view the recording here. I do plan to offer some additional resources for those who are interested in learning more about this program. Keep an eye out for emails from me announcing different webinars that are offered on different topics. I may also make a few how-to videos myself to help fill in the gaps. However, there are several video tutorials available from SoftChalk to get you started that are worth checking out.
Looking forward I have several goals for the upcoming school year.
- Create a webpage for educational technology resources
- Offer several faculty development workshops. Topics planned so far include
- QM summer pilot panel
- Using technology to discuss and engage
- Developing student writing in online/blended courses
- Explore the potential for a badging system for faculty professional development
- Create a recognition system for faculty using technology in creative and innovative ways
- Continue work on implementation of Quality Matters – attending QM conference in late October
- Incorporate Ed Tech’s role in Academic Challenge initiative on campus
In addition to the bigger goals, I hope to increase my consultations with faculty and to continue to be proactive in discussing the role of ed tech with faculty and departments. I look forward to working with all of you this upcoming year. I welcome any feedback on the resources that I have created and ones that you feel are needed. I hope everyone has an excellent school year!