Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Fall Faculty Retreat Part III

My past two blog posts highlighted two suggested technology opportunities included in the Fall Faculty Retreat for consideration: Blogging to support reflective learning and using Google+ Circles to enhance the development of the teaching and learning community. This blog will provide resources that were provided for consideration of the Flipped Classroom. If you are new to this idea, please review "What is Flipping the Classroom and Who Is Doing It"?

There are many strategies for Flipped Classroom, but perhaps the most common is to have students read and review resources, online lectures, and videos in preparation for classroom assignments, team-based projects and/or discussions. By doing this, more time is provided for interaction and addressing problems and issues for individual students. Using videos from Ted-Ed or Khan Academy may provide useful content- or you might consider recording your lecture! (Please contact OIT for further information).

Team Based Learning is a strategy that aligns with the Flipped Classroom approach. Review "The Essential Elements of Team-Based Learning" for ideas and methodologies.

Academic Computing support is available for all faculty to assist in utilizing these technologies to engage students. Please contact me for further information: Carleen.Shaffer@cgu.edu

Best,
Carleen

Note: Additional Educause article for consideration regarding screencasting and Flipped Classrooms "Screencasting to Engage Learners"




Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Energy Efficient Technology


The 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year is one of the quickest American four-doors ever built. It has excellent MPGe and it's electric! The all electric super-fast, super-fun Telsa Model S. It drives like a sports car, eager and agile and instantly responsive. But it's also as smoothly effortless as a Rolls-Royce, can carry almost as much stuff as a Chevy Equinox, and is more efficient than a Toyota Prius. Not only are automobiles using energy efficient power sources, we can make our computers more energy efficient too.The solar-powered, wireless keyboard from Logitech does not use any batteries. It runs on solar power. It might not be a Telsa sports car, but it is another new form of energy efficient technology.
Wireless Solar Keyboared K750 
READ THE FULL STORY 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

TEA at Claremont

In my earlier post "CGU Faculty Retreat", I focused on the first of the suggested technology 'opportunities' I provided faculty at the Fall Retreat - blogging. In this post, I will provide information on another suggestion - Google+ Circles - and the Claremont TEA Program. OIT was asked to participate by providing the technology portion of the curriculum to the international students who would be taking part in the program. As a result, Carlos Miranda, User Services Manager, and I were co-presenters for five weeks.

In the first session, students were asked to create gmail addresses then I added them to a class Google+ Circle that I had created. Our 'Circle' would provide a private web-based location for sharing and collaborating - a 'virtual' classroom. Circles are tightly integrated with Google Drive for file sharing, Google Docs for document creation, and Google+ Hangouts for webconferencing. This proved highly successful! Throughout the five weeks, students enjoyed collaborating, connecting, and communicating within their Circle. Even better, now that they have returned to their home countries all over the world they continue to stay 'connected' and keep in touch!

If you would like to know more about the power of Google+ Circles, please feel free to contact me: carleen.shaffer@cgu.edu.

Best,
Carleen

Passwords

Do you use any of the passwords on this list or something similar? Do you vary your passwords between accounts such as CGU, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc? Does your account include an upper case & a lower case letter, a number, and special character? If you said yes to the first question or no to the others, then you are not protecting yourself as best as you can.

Everyday, people's accounts are compromised. While most of the time, this is only to the dismay of the indivdiual and their friends by the hacker's posting inappropriate comments on their Facebook or other similar service, a lot of times this can be much more serious. It can lead to identity theft which can have financial, social and personal ramifications far beyond an inappropriate post on Facebook or Twitter or spamming your coworkers with email.

Please read this page and think about improving your password complexity and variations to better protect yourself, your peers and your friends/family.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Join the Space Race

Dropbox users: Would you like to instantly add 3 more gigs of space to your account? Sign in here and verify your .edu email address and not only will you increase your space, you'll help contribute to giving all cgu.edu users of dropbox possibly more space.... so Join the Space Race!

https://www.dropbox.com/spacerace
https://www.dropbox.com/spacerace