I'm a little behind with my blog posts!! October is always a bit busy for me--my two favorite professional conferences are usually held in October, so I'm still catching up from my exciting travels
This year was my 10th year attending the Mid-western Educational Research Association annual meeting and I enjoyed it, just as I always do. This year's meeting was in St. Louis, MO. I wasn't as active this year--I served as moderator for a few sessions and did not present, but I did get a chance to chat with trusted colleagues, hear some thought-provoking presentations, and enjoy great conversation!
Thanks to all who encouraged me to finish up my dissertation--that was just what I needed. I am moving full-speed ahead and I am confident that I will graduate in May of 2010. Special thanks to Dr. Dimiter Dimitrov for sharing (over a glass of my favorite wine) his expertise on statistical procedures that my be useful for my work. Also, his keynote the day after our chat was very helpful.
I was also particularly enthralled by our Friday Lunch Keynote, Dr. Ronald Rochon. Through his provocative use of images and moving speech, he urged us to consider the messages we are sending our pre-service teachers and to take action with regard to how underserved populations are viewed and treated in the schools. Being able to meeting and chat with him after his talk was really a treat. I found that out that he, like myself, is a former DFI Fellow (Diversifying Faculty in Illinois) and also like me, he is eager to give back.
Overall, I had a terrific time this year (as always) and I am looking forward to next year--we will be in Columbus and one of my most cherished mentors, Dr. Cynthia Campbell, is the Program Chair! Can't wait!! If you're interested in joining us next year, please contact me or check out the website: www.mwera.org - you'll be happy that you did!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Reflections on the 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning - Aug. 4-7, 2009
Well, it's been nearly two months since my last post! Let's just say I've been busy...
I returned to work this week after experiencing an enlightening time at the 25th Annual DTL Conference at the beautiful Monona Terrace Conference Center in Madison, WI.
I attended the conference with my Moraine Valley teammate (and learning/instruction buddy), LaWanda Burrell-Love and had a terrific time. It was a time to think and reflect on what we’ve been doing and experiencing at Moraine while learning with and from the scholars and practitioners we interacted with at the conference. I met and talked with some fantastic people (Shouts out to: Tiffany, LaTasha, Randy, Gary, Brandon, Carolyn, and Curt!!!) and learned so much from my conversations with them.
I learned a lot of strategies and ideas, but what I needed most from this experience was a different way of conceptualizing what my teammates and I are experiencing as we try to accomplish our college’s goals. So, here are some of the more philosophical “take-aways” from the conference (some of which I kinda already knew, but I just needed a lil’ corroboration)…
1. A lot of people who work in Distance Education experience the same struggles with facilitating change and promoting best practices in teaching online. We all struggle with issues related to faculty development, compensation for online course development, appropriate policy and procedure for distance education, ownership of the online course, diffusion of innovations, and best practices for student support and online instruction. To my team and all of my brothers and sisters in the struggle…we are definitely not alone.
2. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for any of these problems—it’s really about “best fit” solutions that mesh with the culture and structure of the institution. It’s in our best interest to understand the culture and structures within which we work and the constraints created by the culture and structures. So, a solution that works for my institution may not work at all for yours.
3. Distance Education leaders must be creative and well-versed in their knowledge of instruction and technology skills, but also in their interpersonal and politickin’ skills. I am finding that my interpersonal skills are becoming much more useful to getting things done than the deep knowledge of learning, instruction, and technology integration that I have worked my hind parts off to develop over the past 10 years. In my life as a college educator and scholar, I used really different skills on a regular basis. This new gig is pretty challenging for me (and yes, I know I am not alone). Distance Education leaders are change agents—and that is a political position in and of itself.
4. As my son would say, “Don’t hate the players, hate the game!” which means: It’s not really about how the people (the players) react to the change you are trying to push; it’s about the system (the game) and how to work within it to achieve your institution’s goals. Again, quoting my son, “It’s gonna be all good, ma!!”
So, to sum it up, I left my college on the afternoon of August 3rd feeling a bit downtrodden and, quite honestly, dog-tired of the struggle that I’ve only experienced for just over a year. I came back with a renewed energy and a fresh outlook. Thank you Distance Teaching & Learning Conference for providing us with a forum we can use to re-energize our minds, reconnect with our colleagues, and revitalize our work!! Also, thanks for the wonderful resources that you post on your conference website (NOTE: Check the Resource Library for presentation notes, slides and other materials). I will see you all again next year (or on Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn, or ...)!!
I returned to work this week after experiencing an enlightening time at the 25th Annual DTL Conference at the beautiful Monona Terrace Conference Center in Madison, WI.
I attended the conference with my Moraine Valley teammate (and learning/instruction buddy), LaWanda Burrell-Love and had a terrific time. It was a time to think and reflect on what we’ve been doing and experiencing at Moraine while learning with and from the scholars and practitioners we interacted with at the conference. I met and talked with some fantastic people (Shouts out to: Tiffany, LaTasha, Randy, Gary, Brandon, Carolyn, and Curt!!!) and learned so much from my conversations with them.
I learned a lot of strategies and ideas, but what I needed most from this experience was a different way of conceptualizing what my teammates and I are experiencing as we try to accomplish our college’s goals. So, here are some of the more philosophical “take-aways” from the conference (some of which I kinda already knew, but I just needed a lil’ corroboration)…
1. A lot of people who work in Distance Education experience the same struggles with facilitating change and promoting best practices in teaching online. We all struggle with issues related to faculty development, compensation for online course development, appropriate policy and procedure for distance education, ownership of the online course, diffusion of innovations, and best practices for student support and online instruction. To my team and all of my brothers and sisters in the struggle…we are definitely not alone.
2. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for any of these problems—it’s really about “best fit” solutions that mesh with the culture and structure of the institution. It’s in our best interest to understand the culture and structures within which we work and the constraints created by the culture and structures. So, a solution that works for my institution may not work at all for yours.
3. Distance Education leaders must be creative and well-versed in their knowledge of instruction and technology skills, but also in their interpersonal and politickin’ skills. I am finding that my interpersonal skills are becoming much more useful to getting things done than the deep knowledge of learning, instruction, and technology integration that I have worked my hind parts off to develop over the past 10 years. In my life as a college educator and scholar, I used really different skills on a regular basis. This new gig is pretty challenging for me (and yes, I know I am not alone). Distance Education leaders are change agents—and that is a political position in and of itself.
4. As my son would say, “Don’t hate the players, hate the game!” which means: It’s not really about how the people (the players) react to the change you are trying to push; it’s about the system (the game) and how to work within it to achieve your institution’s goals. Again, quoting my son, “It’s gonna be all good, ma!!”
So, to sum it up, I left my college on the afternoon of August 3rd feeling a bit downtrodden and, quite honestly, dog-tired of the struggle that I’ve only experienced for just over a year. I came back with a renewed energy and a fresh outlook. Thank you Distance Teaching & Learning Conference for providing us with a forum we can use to re-energize our minds, reconnect with our colleagues, and revitalize our work!! Also, thanks for the wonderful resources that you post on your conference website (NOTE: Check the Resource Library for presentation notes, slides and other materials). I will see you all again next year (or on Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn, or ...)!!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Learning College Summit
I'm back from the Learning College Summit (a conference of the League for Innovation in the Community College) held at the luxurious Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoeniz, AZ. It was a great experience--and not just because of the accommodations!! My entire NTL team, my Dean, and our colleague from Academic Assessment all attended and we had a real opportunity to bond as colleagues. While learning about the "Learning College" concept, we also learned about each other and more about the context within which we all work. This type of learning is truly important for us as a "new" team of professionals who have been charged with leading change at our institution in the areas of learning and teaching effectiveness, technology integration, and assessment.
We presented during the conference and our team did a superb job with our presentations. Once again, I am proud to be affiliated with such excellence. Our Dean was the consummate professional (as usual) as she led the panel discussion on Wednesday morning. Her open, friendly, and thoughtful communication style served as a great model to us. I am forever learning from her and she is one of the few people that I truly admire and wish to emulate in so many ways.
Back in April, I attended an awesome session at the Sloan-C Blended Learning Workshop facilitated by Norm Vaughan. Norm created a wiki to store the ideas generated during the session so that participants could access it later on. We borrowed this idea from him and created a wiki to store our materials and insights generated our presentation sessions. If you're interested in checking out the materials and notes from our presentation, please visit our wiki at: http://morainelearningsummit.wetpaint.com/. As of today, we're still working on updating it, so please be patient as we continue to add materials.
I'm looking forward to continuing the discussions we began at the Learning College Summit. I'm also hoping that our team is able to attend conferences together in the future. What a great experience!!
We presented during the conference and our team did a superb job with our presentations. Once again, I am proud to be affiliated with such excellence. Our Dean was the consummate professional (as usual) as she led the panel discussion on Wednesday morning. Her open, friendly, and thoughtful communication style served as a great model to us. I am forever learning from her and she is one of the few people that I truly admire and wish to emulate in so many ways.
Back in April, I attended an awesome session at the Sloan-C Blended Learning Workshop facilitated by Norm Vaughan. Norm created a wiki to store the ideas generated during the session so that participants could access it later on. We borrowed this idea from him and created a wiki to store our materials and insights generated our presentation sessions. If you're interested in checking out the materials and notes from our presentation, please visit our wiki at: http://morainelearningsummit.wetpaint.com/. As of today, we're still working on updating it, so please be patient as we continue to add materials.
I'm looking forward to continuing the discussions we began at the Learning College Summit. I'm also hoping that our team is able to attend conferences together in the future. What a great experience!!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Blackboard acquires Angel...
The BORG strikes again! Blackboard will now assimilate Angel. Resistance is futile.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Blackboard (I actually like some of the tools it offers), but monopolies are bad for business and Blackboard is looking more and more like a monopoly to me. There are some awesome features in Blackboard, but there are some services and features that other solutions provide better. Unfortunately, if Blackboard keeps up its BORG-ish behavior, there won't be any other tool left!! Let's see how the D2L/Blackboard drama unfolds...
Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Blackboard (I actually like some of the tools it offers), but monopolies are bad for business and Blackboard is looking more and more like a monopoly to me. There are some awesome features in Blackboard, but there are some services and features that other solutions provide better. Unfortunately, if Blackboard keeps up its BORG-ish behavior, there won't be any other tool left!! Let's see how the D2L/Blackboard drama unfolds...
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Still recovering from last week...
...the writing weekend, the Sloan-C workshop, trying to finish updating Ch. 3 of my dissertation (which I didn't quite do, but I sent it to my committee anyway), trying to catch up at work (after being gone for the workshop), and then a sick child and husband (strep throat--AGAIN!). Whew...!! What a week! It's Sunday, we're about to start a new week, and I'm still recovering from last week!
A Twitter friend (chrispenny) posted this quote today...
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." --Darwin
This is true at even the most basic level--just being able to adapt to the changes that occur in one week can be a most daunting task, but it's necessary for our very survival. The ability to adapt to change is almost its own special type of intelligence.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
2009 Sloan-C Workshop...
The workshop was awesome! I learned a lot, met some great people, and shared a lot of resources. Norm Vaughan (co-author of Blended Learning in Higher Education) was the presenter for the Instructional Strategies track. He did a terrific job of capitalizing on the great ideas among the participants while interjecting his own expertise. I left with lots of goodies! Here are some resources to check out...
http://shex.org/wiki/Collaborative_learning_technologies - Wiki maintained by Norm Vaughan; also contains notes from the workshop...
http://www.uic.edu/depts/oee/blended/workshop/ - Sloan-C workshop homepage--check here for the workshop presentation resources.
I also presented a poster at the workshop (standing with me in this pic is Norm Vaughan). Here is a link to the poster slides. Keep in mind that the project is in its infancy, so you can contact me for updates.
http://shex.org/wiki/Collaborative_learning_technologies - Wiki maintained by Norm Vaughan; also contains notes from the workshop...
http://www.uic.edu/depts/oee/blended/workshop/ - Sloan-C workshop homepage--check here for the workshop presentation resources.
I also presented a poster at the workshop (standing with me in this pic is Norm Vaughan). Here is a link to the poster slides. Keep in mind that the project is in its infancy, so you can contact me for updates.
Here is another picture of me at the poster session with my favorite colleague--my mom! We came to the hotel a few days before the workshop for a dissertating retreat and she joined me at the Poster Presentation for a photo.
Friday, March 06, 2009
ECC Drive-In Technology Conference...
Well, this is cool! During my experience at the Elgin Community College Drive-In Technology Conference (March 6, 2009), I learned lots of new things. For example, there was a session during which I learned about how I can create and use a talking avatar in my online class and in other websites. I used a different program from the one presented during the session, but I created the one below specifically for a group of my colleagues at work. Check her out (click the play button to hear her speak)...
Get a Voki now!
Pretty neat, huh? Well, we're going to play around with this a little more and see how it goes...
Another interesting event was keynote speaker Barry Dahl. Both his keynote and breakout presentations were thought-provoking and informative. His ideas were food for thought about some of the faculty development initiatives my team is working on right now. If you're curious, here is a link to the slides from his breakout session: http://www.slideshare.net/barrydahl/e-learning-mythbusters-elgincc-2009. Slides #31-38 were particularly helpful for me in that his "three-legged stool" approach to online course assessment served as an alert to me to expand our approach to evaluating online course effectiveness.
Yet another exciting event was Xeturah Woodley's lunch keynote during which she discussed some truly great strategies for engaging and retaining online students. Additionally, during her breakout session she shared her institution's approach to training faculty to teach online--an approach which had some similarities to the revised model that my team has recently put in place at my institution.
Overall, the conference was a terrific experience--stimulating and informative (and free!). Thank you, Elgin Community College, for making our Friday really rock!
Tracey
Get a Voki now!
Pretty neat, huh? Well, we're going to play around with this a little more and see how it goes...
Another interesting event was keynote speaker Barry Dahl. Both his keynote and breakout presentations were thought-provoking and informative. His ideas were food for thought about some of the faculty development initiatives my team is working on right now. If you're curious, here is a link to the slides from his breakout session: http://www.slideshare.net/barrydahl/e-learning-mythbusters-elgincc-2009. Slides #31-38 were particularly helpful for me in that his "three-legged stool" approach to online course assessment served as an alert to me to expand our approach to evaluating online course effectiveness.
Yet another exciting event was Xeturah Woodley's lunch keynote during which she discussed some truly great strategies for engaging and retaining online students. Additionally, during her breakout session she shared her institution's approach to training faculty to teach online--an approach which had some similarities to the revised model that my team has recently put in place at my institution.
Overall, the conference was a terrific experience--stimulating and informative (and free!). Thank you, Elgin Community College, for making our Friday really rock!
Tracey
Sunday, February 15, 2009
This blog has been re-purposed!!
Lots of new things have happened since I began this blog back in 2006. I am now finishing up my dissertation, working as a community college administrator and trying desperately not to lose my teaching and research orientation.
I'm still teaching (online only), so I think I'll be OK with maintaining many of my skills. In order to help with my "research head," I've decided that I will now use this blog to explore and discuss issues related to research. I'll communicate with my fellow researchers and dissertators. I'll discuss exciting and thought-provoking ideas in the realm of research--obstacles, accomplishments, methods, scholarship engagement opportunities and the like. I'll also use this blog in tandem with the community of dissertators to which I belong.
So, if you are a researcher-in-training, fellow dissertator (working on your doctoral research), or a more experienced researcher, please feel free to visit frequently!
If anyone has any feedback or ideas, please contact me: tstucmickell@yahoo.com or post a comment to this blog!
Happy Researching!
I'm still teaching (online only), so I think I'll be OK with maintaining many of my skills. In order to help with my "research head," I've decided that I will now use this blog to explore and discuss issues related to research. I'll communicate with my fellow researchers and dissertators. I'll discuss exciting and thought-provoking ideas in the realm of research--obstacles, accomplishments, methods, scholarship engagement opportunities and the like. I'll also use this blog in tandem with the community of dissertators to which I belong.
So, if you are a researcher-in-training, fellow dissertator (working on your doctoral research), or a more experienced researcher, please feel free to visit frequently!
If anyone has any feedback or ideas, please contact me: tstucmickell@yahoo.com or post a comment to this blog!
Happy Researching!
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