Tech Tuesdays

I love conducting workshops and in the past I have had great attendance from our faculty. I typically do a few workshops throughout the year and also conduct a bi-weekly brownbag tech session called either Tech Tuesday or Wired Wednesday. We try to stream and record those sessions using Ustream. However, over the past year we've had a significant decrease in attendance. I've been brainstorming with my colleagues about why this could be happening; are the topics not interesting? is the time bad? do my faculty just not have time to come? is it a combination of them all? I don't want to give up on my sessions, but I can't devote time and effort to something that no one shows up for.



So this semester I will be trying something different.  All of our Tech Tuesday sessions will be streamed live from my office. Instead of having a hybrid model of in person and online we will be completely online. I hope this will allow me to give the online participants more attention as well as create a better product to be viewed later. I'm worried how some of my session topics will lend themselves to this online format, but I'm sure we will find a way. I also hope that this will give others outside the college the opportunity to join us on a regular basis. Here is our Tech Tuesday schedule:

February 1st Web 2.0 Tools and how they fit within the Digital Blooms Taxonomy
February 15th Creating Screencasts to share with your students
March 1st Keeping up to date with news and information using RSS and Google Reader
March 15th Using Smartboards in the classroom
March 29th Integrating Turning Point Clickers in your classroom
April 12th iPads for Teaching & Learning

Our Ustream channel is at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tech-tuesdays

View one of our older sessions to ensure you can see the video and hear the audio.  In order to watch the live stream you will not need a Ustream account. However, if you would like to participate in the chat you will need to sign-in. You can sign-in with a Facebook account, a Google account, a Yahoo account, an OpenID account, OR you can create a Ustream account. If you would like to create a UStream account, please do so before the session.

I hope to see you all on Tuesday!

Finding my Purpose

I have found myself wondering aimlessly in the past few months. So much of last semester was wrapped up in my trip to China, that everything else has been reactionary. I have found myself barely trying to keep above water and my life a series of questions and answers. I haven't blogged, I haven't tweeted and I have barely facebooked. I have cut myself off from the one community that could have supported me, and I'm not really sure why. One of the blogs that I read recommended everyone chose a word for the year, and have that word as a theme direct your plans and vision for the year. So my word for the year is purposeful. I will be purposeful with how I use and organize my time. I will find the time to do the things that matter to me and I will work on continually finding my purpose in life.