CALL FOR PROPOSALS

2009 POD Network Conference
October 28th - November 1st
Houston, Texas USA

Proposals are due APRIL 6, 2009, 5:00 PM Pacific.
Proposals will be accepted online starting MARCH 10.

Read the complete Call for Proposals and submit online here: http://podnetwork.org/conferences/2009/ (opens in a new window)

www.podnetwork.org (open in new window)

Professional Development Opportunities Abound in March

The Center for Teaching and Learning has scheduled our most requested and most popular workshops throughout the month of March to help you during your busy semester. We also are pleased to offer several online workshops through our membership with Sloan-C. Just take a look at our calendar and sign up!  We hope to see you soon!

Workshop Title: “Put Down the Spoon: Creating Independent Learners Through Information Literacy”
When: March 20, 2009, 8:00 – 3:00 pm
Where: Carolinas College of Health Sciences, Rankin Education Center, 1200 Blyth Blvd., Charlotte, NC
Cost: $25, which includes breakfast and lunch

See attached PDFs below for more information.

• ReduceRegistrationForm-InfoLiteracyWorkshop.pdf [290 KB]
• PutDowntheSpoonFlyer-reducedcost.pdf [319 KB]

Professional Development Opportunities in February

The Center for Teaching and Learning has scheduled our most requested and most popular workshops throughout the month of February to help you during your busy semester.  We also are pleased to offer several online workshops through our membership with Sloan-C.

Just take a look at our calendar and sign up!  We hope to see you soon!
 

Professional Development Opportunities Abound in January from the Center for Teaching and Learning

The Center for Teaching and Learning has scheduled several workshops before classes start and throughout the month of January to help you get started on the new semester. Just take a look at our calendar and sign up!

Colleagues:

I invite you to participate in the UNC Distance Learning Virtual Forum to be held on December 10, which you can access from your computer wherever you are. We will have presentations and demonstrations by faculty and staff from several of our institutions as well as from General Administration. Vice President Alan Mabe will provide an update on current distance learning issues, and we will have plenary sessions on educational technology innovations including the Virtual Computing Lab, interactive multimedia simulations, and Second Life.

We will also have "breakout sessions" addressing intellectual property issues, international distance education, test proctoring in distance education, shared online courses for teacher education, minority issues in distance education, and distance education site-based issues. There will be pre-recorded overviews of each session posted on the Forum site before and during the Forum, and there will be opportunities for both audio and text Q&A. We will have discussion threads available before and during the Virtual Forum, and a discussion section is being created specifically for the Faculty Assembly.

This Virtual Forum is made possible by the great contributions of Dr. Elmer Poe and his colleagues in the ECU Academic Outreach Division, and I provide below their instructions on how to register on the Forum website. I invite you to go to the Forum site to register and explore it before the Forum begins on Wednesday, Dec. 10. There will be daily updates on it as well as the threaded discussions. Individuals should try out the site before the Forum to ensure that they can access the appropriate applications. A help desk will be available as described on the site. It's fair to say that this Virtual Forum will be a huge experiment in communicating and networking, and its success will depend in part on participation by many individuals such as you and your colleagues. Please share this announcement with others who may be interested.

Best wishes,
Jim Sadler

Instructions from ECU development team:

Registration for the Fall Virtual DL Forum 2008 is now open, and below you will find links to a preview of the conference tools and simple instructions to register in Ning. By now you have heard that this year's Fall DL Forum will be different - virtually. You will be able to attend some live and prerecorded sessions via Ning, Centra, and Second Life. We realize that some of these tools may be new to you, so on the Ning site you will find short tutorials explaining each platform. Here is a brief description of how each tool will be used.

• Ning will be the "lobby" or homepage for the DL Forum. From this site you can access all of the presentations, threaded discussion forums, announcements, and help site.
• Centra will be used for prerecorded presentations, and live text Question and Answer sessions.
• Second Life will be used for an afternoon presentation and discussion.
   

***NING Site Sign Up Instructions:
 

1. Go to http://uncdlf.ning.com/ (opens in new window)
2. Click the SIGN UP button in the middle right hand area.
3. Follow the simple sign up wizard to completion.

Microsoft Windows Media Player is required for viewing the following videos. If you do not have the player go to Microsoft Download Center (opens in a new window).

Here is a detailed video on how to sign up and also navigate the NING Site. Please keep in mind that we are still in the process of building some of the areas of this site. http://winmedia.ecu.edu/academicoutreach/dlforum2008/
login_ning_v2.wmv (opens in a new window).

Click the following link for a "preview" of the conference tools. http://winmedia.ecu.edu/academicoutreach/DLFORUM2008.wmv (opens in a new window).

UNC Charlotte’s Sonya Hardin is the nation’s top nursing educator according to the Gannett Healthcare Group.        

An associate professor in the School of Nursing, housed in the University’s College of Health and Human Services, Hardin is the 2008 recipient of the National Nursing Spectrum Teaching Excellence Award presented by the group, formerly Nursing Spectrum, which is the country’s largest print and electronic publisher of information about registered nurses. It is a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
           
“My goal is to help every student become successful in learning the art of nursing, which requires compassion, respect and the ability to deliver safe care,” said Hardin. To accomplish her goal, Hardin employs a variety of techniques to tailor instruction to students’ learning styles.
           
As an example, Hardin is utilizing new technology to promote learning for her online classes. For the past year, she has used Second Life, a virtual world that in some ways can mimic real life. Students create an avatar or virtual character to move around and communicate with others. One assignment related to Florence Nightingale required students to submit a virtual painting based upon their assigned reading along with a paper that explained the painting’s significance. The class’ artwork and papers were displayed in a Second Life gallery for each student to view virtually. After reviewing and analyzing the projects, class members discussed the role of nursing within the Second Life world. The University’s Second Life space is hosted by New Media Consortium, an international not-for-profit comprised of nearly 300 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and technologies.
           
Other experiential learning methods Hardin has used include allowing a student volunteer to experience life with a full arm cast for several hours or asking students to reduce their carbohydrate intake for a day to illustrate the difficulty a diabetic could encounter in making dietary changes.
           
One of the greatest challenges in nursing instruction is bridging the connection between theory and practice, said Hardin. “I want UNC Charlotte graduates to leave with more than the knowledge of how to provide excellent nursing care; they need to understand how to be with others in a healing way.”
           
Hardin has more than 20 years of experience in nursing instruction and research. After completing a bachelor’s degree in nursing from UNC Charlotte, Hardin was one of the first four graduates of the University’s master’s program. She earned a doctorate in nursing from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.

[Reprinted from the Nov. 19, 2008, UNC Charlotte Campus News.]

Your attendance is requested at our first E-Learning Showcase, this Friday, 11/21, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in Atkins 271. Three talented instructors will share their best practices, tips, and pointers for creating engaging and effective online learning experiences using a variety of technologies. Dr. Sonya Hardin will spotlight her innovative uses of Second Life, an online virtual world, with her Nursing Theory students. Ms. Monica Belus will discuss engaging students using multimedia, quizzing, and discussion in her hybrid American Studies course. Dr. Richard Hartshorne will discuss his experiences with Moodle, an alternative to the Blackboard Vista learning management system, for teaching and learning in several Educational Leadership courses. Light refreshments will be served.

The latest newsletter came out via email on 11/18/08.  You can now view it as a Web page: http://teaching.uncc.edu/files/newsletter/November2008.html.

Highlights:

• The Next Campus LMS
• E-Learning Showcase 11/21
• Announcing the First Book Discussion Group
• Faculty Innovation Spotlight
• Check Out Our New Website!
• CTL Welcomes New Staff
• Blackboard Help in Barnard, CoED
• RSS Feeds

We welcome your feedback.

Garvey

J. Garvey Pyke, Ed.D. | Center for Teaching and Learning | UNC Charlotte

The Center for Teaching and Learning is glad to welcome Dr. Jaesoon An to the department. As the Instructional Design Specialist, Jaesoon will provide expertise in best practices in teaching and learning, assist faculty in developing exemplary courses and redesigning large enrollment courses, and work to promote scholarly teaching.

With nearly 15 years experience in teaching, research, and instructional design, Jaesoon most recently worked in Indiana University's Knowledge Acquisition and Projection Lab and also worked as an instructor in IU's School of Education. Her focus has always been to help educators and learners to achieve their instructional goals through effective instructional design.

Please stop by sometime to welcome Jaesoon to UNC Charlotte. Her office is Atkins 148A.