Monthly Archives: May 2011

Reflection 5/16/11-5/20/11

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This week was rainy all week. I was able to get outside with the kids between the rain drops, but I’m hoping for a bit more sun.

PUBPL 483
Had a few more meetings this week with the instructor of PUBPL 483 via Elluminate Live (soon to be Blackboard Collaborate). The course is really starting to take shape. Glad to have content on a consistent basis. We now have Lesson 1, 2, 12, and 13. The idea is to have a one-user multimedia experience for the lessons from 1-7 that relate to current issues like gun control. We hope to tie the content and readings to these learning objects. We also hope to prepare students to do an asynchronous simulation from Lesson 8-13. To better prepare to create the simulation, we had Penny Ralston-Berg demo LER 434 that has a negotiations simulation. Since we are tackling negotiations, this should serve as a template for the sim in this course. Everyone is excited about the possibilities. To better understand the sim, we plan to participate in it next Thursday.

CAS 100B
Had a chance to meet again about ideas pertaining to making this course more interactive and media rich. Stephanie Edel-Malizia proposed that we use understanding by design. I plan to take a closer look at the following websites for our next meeting:

I’m finding that I’m using some of these backward design strategies in courses like PUBPL 483.

ACCNTG 512
Visited Great Valley on Wednesday to hold an instructor meeting. The plan with this course is to have The Introduction Objectives page, The Roadmap page with embedded voice-over ppt, and Activities page based on several companies. It looks like we’ll invite the instructor to UP to do much of the production work. This is an aggressive roll-out schedule since he is leaving PSU and would like to complete the work before leaving.

AGBIO 520
Had a program meeting this week. 520 will run in the fall, and we are to get a copy of PHP 594 into a dev space to create AGBIO 594 in its image.

Business Literacy Meeting
In light of the end of the Call Center, this meeting lacked focus. There will be another meeting on June 1. Hope to have more upon which to base a decision for the filling of the 329 space.

TED Talk

The biggest thing that I thought about when I watch this is that maybe we shouldn’t worry about giving students choices. Too many choice tend to cause more unhappiness.

Reflection 5/9/11-5/13/11

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It’s Friday the 13th and because I’m so superstitious, I’m looking for black cats to cross my path everywhere. Not really, but I’ll be glad when we get to the 14th 🙂

Masters of Finance
I got a chance to talk on the phone with the instructors for ACCTNG 512 and BUSAD 525. Great discussions and looking forward to implementing so new and familiar strategies to these courses. In ACCTNG 512, the course will be focusing on external users of accounting info. I liked an idea that this instructor mentioned about applying principals based on fictitious companies. There are many possibilities here to make this an immersive activity for maximum student engagement. In BUSAD 525, I think that we will use a similar strategy of providing instruction, knowledge checks, guided practice, and informal assessment as used in PHP 510 Predictive Values Activity. Looking forward to meeting with the Ed Techs and profs in the upcoming weeks to solidify plans.

IST
There were a few more meetings this week. One was a faculty huddle where we discussed the use of video to bridge the distance gap. Great discussion among the faculty about how they personalize their approach. Some use it to bring students closer to the geographical  position of Centre County. Others use it to show their more human side. Still others use it to clarify their expectations. I’m still working on 250 revisons.

PHP
Still don’t know faculty for a course that opens on Monday. There are only a few courses opening, so this summer should be manageable. Still it would be nice to know things a bit more in advance.

PUBPL 483
More work on the course. Glad to have gotten some ideas from Penny Ralston-Berg that will make creation of the simulation more instructionally focused and less on graphics and multimedia. The idea is to get the activity done in the LMS and move to a more rich environment over time.

Started getting outside more this week. Able to play some frisbee golf, football, and softball. Hope for more good weather.

Reflection 5/2/11-5/6/11

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Looking back over the week, I can say that this week was one of the most difficult since I’ve been here. What was difficult was working through the transition of courses from WC to IST. Before coming to WC, I was a teacher for 15 years. For the first 13 years, I was at the Jr. High/Middle School. Although I worked with different people and in different groups, I got used to sameness. Working on IST courses, I’ve gotten used to working with John Buckwalter (IPS), Amy Stever (Associate Director of E-Learning for IST), and the faculty. I can’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia and unrealized dreams of what could have been with the program. I tend to find myself planning for a longer range of time. Also, I’ve been fighting feelings of inadequacy. Was the decision to transition my fault? What did I do? What could I have done? I have been reassured from many angles that this transition is about dollars and cents. There were several projects and ideas that I hoped to work on, but this is a great reminder to me I need to live more in the moment because I never know what the future may hold here. Although I’m still a bit uneasy about everything, I’ve worked through my personal demons and ready to move on.

PUBPL 483 Game/Sim Project
Last Friday, Betsy Hutton and I met with Ronie Linser from Fablusi. My feeling is that for our instructional purposes this software would work, but based on what I can see and others like Kent Matsueda and Penny Ralston-Berg, we could use ANGEL for much of what he would do with his software. There is also the extra piece that we would be relying on his server. The helpdesk would have to be brought into the conversation. Lastly, I interested in being able to work with Fablusi to modify the interface to include more graphics — and how might that happen?  This would be a more detailed exploration of how the software is actually built. . If we can build something similar here and make it more dynamic.Today at 1:30, we will be meeting with Roni to follow up on a few items. I’m so glad to see this process continue to move forward.

Blackboard Collaborate
I’m participating with a few members from my office on testing the new product from Blackboard which combines Elluminate Live and Wimba. Here’s more info if you’re interested: http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Collaborate/Overview.aspx