Wandering Wednesdays - Mobile Computing 5-Day Sprint (Electronic Resources)

Readers,


A couple of weeks ago (April 25-29, 2011), EDUCAUSE sponsored a Mobile Computing 5-Day Sprint. Unfortunately, this wonderful opportunity was held during the busiest part of my semester. 


Here are some ideas from the sprint - http://educause.ideascale.com/


Each day had a different emphasis!

Monday: The Future of Mobile Computing

Tuesday: Teaching and Learning

Wednesday: Mobile Enterprise Integration

Thursday: Security, Privacy and Policy

Friday: Mobile Infrastructure

Each of the links above includes a recorded session, a video of the day, and recommended resources.

Enjoy!

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Twitter in the Classroom - Twitter Meets the Breakfast Club (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Readers,


I incorporate Twitter in each of my online and hybrid courses. However, most of this communication is optional and takes place through extra credit assignments. In a recent post by the Chronicle of Higher Education, David Silver wrote about his classroom experiences with Twitter. Silver requires his students to create a twitter account and to use the account to communicate with him and their peers.


The most interested part of this article when Silver explains that another professor contacted him through Twitter to find out more about his assignment. Then, this professor adopted the assignment for her classroom. Read about their experience here - Twitter Meets the Breakfast Club.


I hope to write a book about Twitter in the classroom and how to incorporate this communication technology in online and hybrid courses.


Sincerely,


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Adopt This Technology! - SIEMENS STEM Academy

Readers,


During Environmental Communication Week 2011, formed co-sponsorships with the Dick Smith Library, the University's Staff Council, and various local businesses in the Stephenville area. However, when we released the first "call for papers", we did not receive any proposals for workshops or paper submissions. This was not a positive start to a week-long program! As a result, we began looking for free webinars online. 


Since we were focusing on environmental communication and my husband is a science teacher who is very interested in STEM education, we started looking for STEM resources. We found the Siemens STEM Academy's website - http://siemensstemacademy.com. Since we were hosting a week-long event, we found a webinar focused on environmental education that occurred during ECW 2011, Earth Day: The Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill One Year Later with Jeff Corwin". 


At first, I was reluctant to choose a webinar from this website because its primary audience was junior high and high school students. However, the information was VERY informative and our audience (myself included) throughly enjoyed the presentation! I would definitely recommendation this wonderful resource for other college classes who are interested in environmental education/environmental communication.


Sincerely,


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Freebie Friday - Seasoning Packets for Professors-On-The-Go Who Love to Cook!

Readers,


As a professor-on-the-go, I strive to create healthy meals for my family. However, my crazy schedule only enables me to go shopping at our local Kroger store only one time a week. To make my life easier, I purchase frozen skillet meals (i.e. PF Changs, and Romanos Macaroni Grill, and Stouffers) and seasoning packets for my fresh meats and garden veggies. 


Recently, I discovered a free sample from Emeril's and I look forwarding to using this seasoning packet with a future meal! :) Enjoy!


Sincerely,


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Wandering Wednesdays - The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group (The TLT Group)

Readers,


Since last summer, I have been a huge fan of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT Group). I visit their website almost every week and I faithfully read their blog. They usually host free workshops, like last week's "FridayLive Twitter: Forbid It, Ignore It, or Use It?" - http://tltgroup.roundtablelive.org/events?eventId=310889&EventViewMode=EventDetails.


In addition to their wonderful free workshops, they also have a great blog, "TLT-SWG". Recently, this blog featured a post titled, "A Course is Not a Pizza", which focuses on the importance of interaction in online courses - http://tlt-swg.blogspot.com/2011/05/course-is-not-pizza.html.


Check out their website as well!  http://www.tltgroup.org/


Enjoy!


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

College Students, Technology, and Free Food = Food-Bot

Readers,

As a former college student, I appreciate free food. As a millennial, I really appreciate awesome technology! Greg Woloschyn, a student at Carnegie Mellon University, created an awesome website titled, Food-Bot. This website searches every mailing list on campus, searching for food-related keywords like “snack,” “cookie,” and “pizza.” last year. Sometimes the website fails to provide accurate results, for example a "bring your own lunch" entry was on the website's fail list. Woloschyn's invention enabled WoloSchyn and his friends to spend their funds on other items.

Check out his website - http://food-bot.com/home

Currently, only a few universities (Stanford, Carnegie Melton, Berkeley, Duke, UIllinois, MIT, Pittsburgh, Wootster, Case Western, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Purdue) are included on the website, but it seems that the website is expanding (i.e. - the sentence on the website "Don't see your university? Request for it to be added so you can get in on the free food"...)

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Green Printing for Students, Faculty, and Staff! - Some Great Tips from Environmental Communication Week @ Tarleton State University

Readers,


During Environmental Communication Week 2011, we were fortunate to have two wonderful presenters from our university's library (the Dick Smith library) and the Center for Instructional Technology and Distributed Education (CITDE) facilitate a session on Green Printing. Our university library (like many other university libraries) usually has a stack of papers that are left on the printers after the library closes each day. This presents a potential problem for our university (wasted paper) and the environment.


Here are some tips from their presentation...


- Be Patient (try not to print twice).
- Print Only What You Need (when listening to a presentation or lecture, ask which notes should be printed and which notes can remain electronic).
- Print Selectively (highlight the section of a document that you need to print and only print this section instead of the entire page)
- Print On Both Sides of Paper (duplex printing).
- Print Power Point Slides as Handouts Instead of the Actual Slides.
- Use Electronic Handouts (distribute a tinyurl link in class).
- Select the CENTURY GOTHIC font to save ink/toner. 


Here's their handout - LINK


This was a neat presentation and I adopted some of the suggestions from the presentation in my classes. I cannot wait to prepare "green" power point/Google Doc slides for the fall semester. 


Sincerely,


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.