Third Annual Online Educator Symposium

Thursday, August 27, 2009
Denton, Dallas (Parkland) & Houston

Our keynote speaker will be Dr. Ron Carriveau*, Assessment and Measurement Specialist for the Center for Learning Enhancement, Assessment, and Redesign at UNT. His presentation will be given in Denton and videoconferenced to Dallas and Houston.

We also want to invite you to submit a presentation proposal for the concurrent sessions. If your proposal is accepted, you’ll have the opportunity to present on your own campus face-to-face, to all three sites at once through videoconferencing or online using synchronous presentation technology! This year’s OES is going to be a collaborative showcase of all TWU’s extraordinary online courses and the people that make them happen! Hurry – the proposal deadline is July 1!

For more information and to submit a proposal, please visit http://www.twu.edu/de/special-events.asp

* Tentative

Call for Proposals for the 2009 TBUG Conference

2009 Texas Blackboard Users Group
October 14-16, 2009 in historic Nacogdoches, TX

The annual T-BUG conference is a unique opportunity for Blackboard users to discover, discuss, learn, and share best practices in using the Blackboard learning management system. This year’s conference theme is “The Best of the Old, The Best of the New” and will encourage attendees to explore and utilize the very best of proven pedagogy and technologies and the very best of innovative pedagogy and technologies.

We encourage you to participate in the conference as a break-out session presenter! All break-out sessions will be 50 minutes long, including 15 minutes for questions and answers. Presentations should be designed to encourage audience interaction. Breakout sessions are organized along these tracks:

• Teaching and Learning
• Professional Development
• Support
• Administration

If you are interested in presenting, please visit www.t-bug.org/Proposals.html for more information and a submission form.

Mini Reading Club Invite: The Courage to Teach, by Parker J. Palmer

I know that all of us are unbelievably busy! Between work and home life, there is often little time to relax and reflect. However, I believe that taking some time to rejuvenate your intellect is a beneficial task! And, one of the things that never fails to motivate me is a good book.

I'd like to invite anyone interested to read The Courage to Teach along with me. Last year, a friend loaned me a copy of Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (also by Palmer), and I found it to be a timely and appropriate recommendation. Palmer is very good at explaining and providing examples of how to connect our internal lives with our professional lives. Through this process of connection, I think that we all become more complete and conscious individuals on a daily basis, and this can manifest itself as more self-confidence and engagement with our profession.

So, please join me over the next few weeks in examining some of the more interesting and relevant ideas that I find in this text! Comments are welcome and encouraged!

Useful Online Links to Help in Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom or Online

With the ever changing Internet and the availability of information, images, audio, and video it is hard to determine sometimes what can be considered fair use for educational purposes. I have looked at several helpful sites that Stephany Compton sent me and wanted to pass them along to you.
The first website is the KOCE Classroom from PBS at http://www.koce.org/classroom/copyright.htm. A clean site that is very simple to navigate to just the right area you want to find. The KOCE site has streaming videos as well as PDF downloads of guidelines for teachers and checklists for different copyright scenarios. They also have a copyright Quiz to test your knowledge. See how well you do! http://www.koce.org/classroom/pdfs/copyrtQuiz.pdf.
The next website is from Baruch College and has a great interactive flash guide to using copyrighted media for your course: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/copyright/.
The interactive guide will cover the use of audio, images, and video in your courses. It has complete information on how to obtain permission for copyrighted items and how to use copyrighted items in a F2F or online course. The interactive guide comes complete with a robust set of tools that include a brief copyright history, common faculty scenarios, and resources for supplemental materials, reference guides and helpful links to assist you as you learn more about copyright issues.

Houston DE Faculty - Online Pedagogical Techniques workshop

Houston Faculty who are teaching online this spring...

Register today for this face-to-face workshop at the TWU Houston campus!

Online Pedagogical Techniques
Thursday, January 15
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
IHSH 4115

Session Objectives:
1. Increase skills for utilizing Blackboard for teaching and learning
2. Increase skills for managing and moderating Discussion Boards (DBs), providing feedback, and promoting communication with students and instructor
3. Be able to manage tests, pools, and solve common problems associated with tests and assignments
4. Increase skills for basic course design, build and management
5. Promotion of good practices for communication and feedback.

Have questions? Contact Valerie Shapko.

Space is limited! Register today!

Trainings for TWU Distance Education Adjuncts and TAs

TWU adjuncts and TAs who teach online,

Prepare for the spring semester with these face-to-face trainings.
The Blackboard and Blackboard Advanced trainings have two sessions to choose from. For more information, or to register, please click here.

Teaching and Learning with Blackboard
Friday, January 16, 2009
6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
ASB 211

Teaching and Learning with Blackboard Advanced
Friday, January 16, 2009
6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
ASB 105

Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0
Friday, January 16, 2009
6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
STOD 308

Teaching and Learning with Blackboard
Saturday, January 17, 2009
8:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
ASB 211

Teaching and Learning with Blackboard Advanced
Saturday, January 17, 2009
8:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
ASB 105

Space is limited! Register today!

How to stay informed of upcoming, DE Faculty events

· Email from Distance Education – Don’t ignore these emails that come from Distance Education! They really do contain important announcements about upcoming workshops and development opportunities. Please make sure these emails are not going to your junk-mail/spam folder.

· DE Faculty Website - http://www.twu.edu/de/faculty.asp. Bookmark this page and check it periodically for upcoming events, new resources and professional development opportunities.

· The Online Instructor Blog - http://theonlineinstructor.blogspot.com/. This blog is designed just for DE Faculty at TWU! The posts will be not only about upcoming events but also helpful tips and tricks on how to make your online class even better than it already is! You can subscribe to it, so that anytime a new post is made, you are notified.

· TWU Calendar of Events - http://www.twu.edu/cal_default.asp. This is a University-wide resource that lists events from a variety of departments. Distance Education posts all of its workshops and events here, so be sure to check it periodically.

· Look for the Logo - All of our emails and any print pieces we send out will have our Distance Education logo: