Submitting Leave Requests

Ann from payroll has sent a reminder to all of you to submit your leave requests (both holiday and sick time before you take the leave - and before the 20th of each month when possible. We don't know when we are going to be sick (hopefully never), but please submit your sick leave request as soon as you can.

This will help ensure that both you and your supervisor have up-to-date information on your pay advice each month.

And speaking of holidays, this is where we snorkeled off the coast of Maui. It's half of a volcano crater in the ocean . . .

Everyone should watch this!

Many of us work at our computers for long periods of time every day, so everyone should watch this video. It's a good reminder about the best way to set up our work stations and posture and taking breaks . . .

Thanks to Tyler for finding this one and passing it along.

Kudos to Mark this time

Here's our Jim describes Mark's presentation to the MM students last week. Nice job on this Mark!

"Mark delivered an excellent presentation today in the second-year programming course. Students received a first-class introduction to iPhone (and iOS in general) development. Mark was extremely well prepared and communicated his own passion for this kind of work quite clearly, which kept the students, most of whom do not think of themselves as programmers, engaged and inquisitive. The Q & A following the presentation put things into a larger context for the students, reinforcing many of the mobile Web and cloud-computing topics we have been discussing this semester."

I'm away all next week - Nov 14 to 18

I think most of you know this already, but I'm away on annual leave all next week. I'll be checking email sporadically while I'm gone, so if anything urgent (can't wait until next Monday) comes up, please email and I'll respond when I can.

Hope you all are enjoying your long weekend - and have a great week!

Karen

PS - no, I'm not skiing yet, but this is in my dreams! Love that snow . . .

Two more "Above and Beyond" Awards

Yesterday two more EET staff received the "Above and Beyond" award. Mark received it for work he did on study tip sheets for the Learning Cafe, and Lorne received it for the ongoing amazing Angel support he provides to instructors. Both very well deserved!

Summary of PD Priorities for EET - 2011/12

We have a PD committee that meets bi-weekly on Tuesdays and it's this group that has helped to establish guiding principles and prioritize initiatives for the next year. Here they are:

Guiding Principles

• Achieving the overriding goal of the DL Strategy, that all instructors will have a blended component in their courses by June 2013.

• Balancing PD on teaching and technology
• Reaching out to programs and responding to their requests to better meet their specific needs
• Providing PD for all instructors on campus
• Developing sustainable resources. Presentations and resources can be reused and /or re-purposed.
• Designing all PD sessions for maximum accessibility: Consider the geographic distribution of LC instructors - rural campuses, DL instructors, classroom instructors
• Blended delivery wherever possible. This could include pre-session materials, interactive / well-planned sessions and workshops, follow up materials and / or activities.
• Designing the facilitation so face-to-face sessions will, wherever possible, be accompanied by a web conference option (Elluminate or other web conferencing tool) and posting the recordings on the EET (or alternate) website

Priority Projects:

Continue on with

• We Connect monthly sessions: Panel discussions on topics relevant to instructors and staff
• Book Club: Monthly discussions on “What the Best College Teachers Do”
• Technology support (Angel, Smartboard, VC, etc.) ongoing

Collect and showcase instructor stories. These will be short presentations that could be still photos or video, podcasts or vodcasts. Priority is on capturing the story and posting it to the website.

Develop three digital stories that demonstrate instructors’ experiences blending a course

Reach out to programs and respond to requests. Karen will be encouraging programs to request PD that meets their specific needs as well as sharing with the Chairs a list of potential presentations we could do at program or centre meetings, or with individual instructors or groups of instructors. Examples of topics include the following:

• Examples - 5 to 10 minute demo of an advanced Angel feature
• Presentation or workshop on authentic assessment
• Short presentation on making effective presentations - followed by workshops where instructors work on their own presentations
• Attending a program meeting and working with instructors on integrating technology into their lessons (ie Clickers or Smartboards)
• etc

Complete four blended learning projects with instructors

Complete an “Orientation to Teaching at Lethbridge College” blended course

Re-work Learning Connections website, including resources, so we have somewhere to host all resources

Kudos to Rebecca, Lorne, and Chris

Corene from the library stopped by today to pass on kudos to Rebecca, Lorne and Chris for their work on the library logo that is now posted in all Angel courses. She said the library staff are thrilled with it.

Virtual Conference on Online Learning - Nov 9-11

We are registering to have a virtual seat at the Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning next week from November 9 to 11. The theme of this year's conference is Online Learning, Teaching, and Research in the New Media Ecology.

The number of streamed sessions has increased again this year, so have a look to see what is most relevant to you. We'll have to decide on one session / time because we only have one seat available.

I'll be asking Donna to clear TE3213 so we can stream this both Wednesday and Thursday, so if you have meetings scheduled in there during this time, please try to find other spaces.

We'll also be advertising in Connections so instructors may be dropping in as well.

Thank you Christie!

Thanks to Christie for organizing the Hallowe'en party and potluck on Monday. The best costume prize was shared by Christie (Super pink eraser) and Heather (Super woman). Thanks also to everyone who participated! Wacky events like this are fun and great ways to get to know each other.

Congratulations to Nancy

When you have a minute, stop by and congratulate Nancy on accepting a new position within the College. As of November 25, she will be taking on the position of Associate Registrar in Student Services. This means that Nancy's last day as a Curriculum Consultant will be November 25.

Nancy has been a valuable addition to the Curriculum team and she will be missed.

Another thought re revenue generating activities

In follow up to the blog posting on revenue generating activities from last week, I've been thinking about another possibility in EET. We have a lot of expertise in our area, and several people have been doing or organizing PD sessions for external organizations (such as the Teachers Convention, the U of L, Career and Technology Studies sessions for the K-12 system). There may be more opportunities for these types of initiatives and is something to think about for now. Watch for opportunities and pass them on!