Our theme this week is looking in the rear view mirror. Mirrors are good at reflecting. It’s really all that they do. We could learn a thing or two from mirrors. Well, just that one thing actually. This week, we do a lot of reflecting.
Engaging Teaching
It’s the time of year that many of us are able to squeeze in some real juicy professional development and learn some more about teaching and learning. So below you’ll find a whole bunch of reflecting.
First off, the college sponsored 20 or so faculty members to attend a creativity workshop put on by the International Center for Studies in Creativity from SUNY Buffalo. Those lucky ducks reflect here.
Secondly, Mohawk College, along with the Educational Technology Committee, held the Advancing Learning Conference. Five people from Fleming attended (and delivered 3 presentations as well). Attendees of the conference ponder their experience here.
Thirdly, Jennifer Ramsdale attended the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education in Banff, Alberta. See her reflectJenns here.
Learning Technology
D2L Tool of the Week: Content
The meat & potatoes of D2L is the content area. All the stuff should be there: PowerPoints, html files, readings, videos, dropboxes, quizzes, & discussion boards. Here are some instructions for making best use of this digital landscape.
Did you know you can get to content in just 2 clicks upon entering D2L? This is very exciting news for those of us who are frugal with our clicking. Here’s how: 1) click course name. 2) Click “Content Browser” in the widget header.
Non-d2l Tool of the Week: Nearpod
You are probably asking yourself what the heck is Nearpod? Do you have 2 1/2 minutes?
Alana recently took part in some Professional Learning sessions where Nearpod was used in BYOD (Bring your own device) programs and courses. In BYOD courses, students are encouraged to engage with their own devices throughout the active learning ‘lecture’ or seminar. Find more information on Nearpod and how it works by clicking here.
Policies & Procedures
You can drop the needle any time you want, but dropping courses requires a little timeliness. So here is a date for students to consider:
- June 9th, 2017
This is the final date to withdraw from courses & receive a “W” instead of an “F” designation on your Academic Record. In summary, if completing a course is not an option right now, “W” = good, “F” = bad.
There are also lots of other important dates in the Academic Schedule.
College Departments
The Office of Sustainability website contains lots of information about all of the work that this department does. One tidbit that you may see is that there is an upcoming event exploring the convergence of sustainability and Indigenous knowledge in applying teaching and learning strategies for a sustainable future. This day-long workshop will take place on June 15, from 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. For more information, and to register, please click here.
Service for Students
To be completely honest, we were so busy collecting all our reflections this week that we didn’t have time to zone in on a great and timely thing happening for students this week. Is it Fleming Rideshare? Is it The Student Hub? Is it an exciting student club or event? Who knows? JOEL DOES. Please call Joel Willett, President of the Fleming College Student Administrative Council at ext. 1568 to ask him what exciting things the students are up to this week. Tell him that Jodie told you to call him.
Professional Development
What’s all the buzz about BYOD? What, you haven’t felt it yet?
This spring, 20 faculty are taking part in a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Pilot. They either brought their own devices AND/OR they were given a Surface Pro Tablet (which is more like a powerful laptop) and have been working together to gain an understanding of how to intentionally integrate technology into their courses and classrooms.
We had 2 full day workshop sessions on May 12 and May 19, Workshop details can be found here. During the workshop days we talked about Universal Design for Learning and how to integrate technology with the learning outcomes and the learner in mind. We experimented with individual and group activities that required them to use their devices to create and contribute their newly developing digital skills
At the beginning of the second day, the group agreed that they wanted to keep meeting (on Fridays) for the rest of the Spring development time. I think that is a good sign that folks are feeling both engaged and committed to their own learning; with each other AND for their learners.
Chatter
The Open Faculty Patchbook is a thing that we’ve started that will ultimately (we hope) become a ‘how to teach’ open textbook for helping faculty new and old to pick up new teaching skills. If you haven’t checked in a while, or haven’t heard about it, check out the site to see some new and awesome patches, including this one by Maha Bali and Azzah Awwad from all the way over in Cairo, Egypt!
Information
Visit the LDS Team website, give us a call at extension 1216, follow us on Twitter @FlemingLDS, or send us an email: LDSTeam@flemingcollege.ca!
Photo credit “Reflecting” flickr photo by hedera.baltica https://flickr.com/photos/hedera_baltica/33546696891 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license
The Teaching Hub 
Is Nearpod something that will be available at the college?
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Hi Paige, coincidentally, Amanda Rochon wrote about nearpod on another page of our blog this week, which starts to answer your question. https://fleminglds.wordpress.com/creativereflections/
“To end with, I want to urge each of you (as go-getters) to check out nearpod (https://nearpod.com/). It is very similar to power point (you can even feed your power point slides into it) but it offers so much more (you can embed things in it, like wordgarden and and many other things) – easier to explain in person. There’s a free version, but only 30 students can access it (would work for small seminars but not lectures with more than 30). Or you get the paid version for $120/year. What would be ideal would be a site license (the more you pay, the more features you get). It’s just a tool that takes the traditional power point to a higher level and makes it more engaging and interactive for the students. Also, check out quizlet (if you don’t already know what it is) and quizletlive which is collaborative quiz taking – so many cool tools!!!”
Also, we’re working on a new technology adoption process which requests and questions like this will come through. We will follow up with you regarding how to submit requests and questions to it. Thanks for the comment!
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