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!