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Showing posts from April, 2012

Recent Post on LETS Blog: Freeing The Course Part 3: Course Delivery

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We’re back again with Part 3 of Freeing the Course.  Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 and be on the eye for our future pieces. By course delivery, we’re talking about what can produce and provide for your students that goes beyond the readings.  This may include videos (externally or internally created), podcasts or lecture recordings, or even the presentation programs that communicate your teaching in the classroom. For rest of the article, click through here ! Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for them via email. This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Letter to the Editor - Chronicle of Higher Education

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To the Editor: Perry Glasser is right: no teaching career was promised to Joshua A. Boldt ("Who's to Blame? The Adjunct?" The Chronicle, April 1). But Mr. Glasser's approach is rather disappointing. "The fact that 70 percent of all sections are being taught by underpaid adjuncts may be a shame and is undoubtedly exploitive, but it is no secret," he writes. But what Mr. Boldt's Adjunct Project attempts to reveal is the depth and variation of that exploitation. Changing exploitative conditions starts with quantifying what the conditions are. For the rest of the letter,  click through here . Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for them via email. This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Recent Post on LETS Blog: Professional Day Part 3

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The final entry on 2012 NSCC Profession Day’s workshop on social media and higher education  (Check out Part 1 , Part 2 , and the Workshop Resources ) focuses on a few fun insights and questions that came up in the discussion. 1. The Type of Social Media Invokes a Particular Culture of Performance This was an interesting conclusion that I had not full thought about before, but makes absolutely sense with the online environment.  Just as there are places where we can be “ourselves” and places where we must be “professional” and places that blur the lines, social media has its equivalent.  Facebook still remains a place that swivels from personal to professional depending on who is using it (and how they choose to use it).  We may not like what others are posting, but we know that their “Facebook” but it’s their space to do with as they please.  By contrast, LinkedIn.com invokes a different sense of etiquette and behavior.  As an arena for recruiting and networking, the interactions a

Filtered: Or How One Makes Sense of What Goes In and Out of One's Head

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I'm thinking about filters today.  Filtering input; filtering output.  How much do I block what comes in and how much do I block what goes out.  The filtering of words and thoughts I send out into the world, but also the ways in which I filter what comes in.  The ideas and thoughts resonate from the filtering I did on this post and this one , but also from the works of Jeff Jarvis , Eli Pariser , Kathryn Schulz , Brené Brown , and my continuous dialogue with students and faculty.  The thoughts are also spurred by discussions with friends and from different coverage of the ways in which we see conscious filtering by people by others in their (self-selected) social networks.   We do need ands use filters.  Or at least, I know I do.  It's how I make sense of the world.  Without filters, I couldn't comprehend the world in intelligible ways.  I couldn't keep a continued line of thought since guiding my thinking would be particular cues.  ( I would be like this ! ).  And w

Recent Post on LETS Blog: Professional Day Part 2: The Importance ofSocial Media for the Community College

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So the last post discussed some of the concerns for ourselves and our students when contemplating social media.  This post will examine some of the important reasons to consider and engage in social media in the college level. Social Media = Virtual Community Social Media is about devleoping and engaging an online community and that virtual community can transcend into the real world .  As North Shore Community College increasingly teaches more students online, we need to foster and engage our students in a similar fashion.  After all, the student that leaves in Western, Massachusetts going to NSCC full time via online classes is also part of our community.  Just as faculty have a physical presence in physical community, a virtual presence is also needed. Check out the full article here! Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signi

Recent Post on LETS Blog: Professional Day Part 1: Concerns of SocialMedia

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Tuesday, April 3 was North Shore Community College’s Professional Day. I ran a workshop on using Social Media.  My goal was provide some ideas and approaches to using it.  However, in order to get there, there were issues to address that commonly come up when discussing social media.  I wanted to address and negate some of these concerns and inflated fears.  I also wanted to help colleagues understand why its important to be using social media or how students can benefit from our usage of it.  Finally, I wanted to highlight ways in which it can be used in the classroom.  What follows is a series of posts highlighting some of what I hoped to communicate and also some of what I heard and learned from my colleagues.   The full discussion can be found here on the LETS Blog .  Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for

On the Death of a Student

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I like to think that I’m not easily shocked but that’s just what I like to think.  The reality is that when blindly struck, I’m just as much at a loss as anyone else.  Reading the email that informed me of the passing away of a student sucked the breath out of me, today.  I’ll avoid further clichés, but it hit hard to say the least.  What follows is my process.  I’m not looking for sympathy; I’m not trying to make this about me.  I’m processing and found this to be the means by which I could do it and also serve a higher purpose of maybe opening up dialogue with other educators now or in the future that must grapple with such sad events. He was an older student, a vet, and finishing up his education before moving on to new opportunities.   He was a student with whom I had enjoyed several conversations with before and after the class.  I appreciated his engagement with the course, but also with life altogether.  He had opinions and he liked to challenge me, his peers, and himself.  He