I sit at a local Panera with coffee nearby, fire at feet and iPad on lap, with thoughts of making the world a better place. However, because the world is a bit aggressive, I choose to focus my attention on how I can take advantage of the technology tools available to faculty to create a more engaging learning envirnment for students to experience.
Though I have more ideas than time or attention span to share all, I will share my perspective and thoughts on transforming that perspective so that faculty colleagues can benefit and experiment with these ideas and concepts.
PERSPECTIVE
My current perspective as a full-time faculty member who teaches face-to-face, hybrid and traditional online undergraduate and graduate marketing courses. Having taught for 10 years, I have experienced the "course in a book" approach where publishers provide syllabi,lecture notes, PowerPoints, Tests and companion websites.
I have also been a student in courses when class materials came in the form of photocopied articles, etc that were cobbled together by well-intended faculty in hopes of delivering a relevant course. And then there is everything in between.
My point is not to stand in judgement on any of the above approaches but to challenge faculty. Explore the numerous online tools that enable us to efficiently deliver relevant content to support courses while also strengthening our credibility with students.
Student engagement starts when we understand our audience(s)learning styles. Understanding learning styles is only one step in the process. It's 2011 and chances are you have a diverse group of students with unique learning styles. Noting this, its critical and yes A CHALLENGE to be sensitive to these learning styles and deliver your courses so that each learning styles can be effectively serviced.
I get it, the three faculty who may be reading this are saying "sure, that sounds great, but how do you build that scenario without burning out with personally?"
LIBRARY RESOURCES AND TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP
If I allow myself to admit that "I can't do it all and know everything about my discipline," I empower myself to get excited about the resources available to me.
One resource that I've overlooked for years is the library. It sounds silly, but generally the library was the last place I would look for help when developing my courses. Library staff and teaching faculty are great partners for creating dynamic learning environments for students. From information literacy to developing course-specific library guides (LibGuides) that support entire courses and assignments for those courses; these resources are invaluable for creating a credible learning environment for all students, while collaborating with colleague and increasing the utility of existing university resources.
In addition to library resources, there a variety of readily available online tools that provide innovative channels for delivering lessons, content and for assessing student engagement and learning.
Below is a list of online tools I am currently using or experiment with and I invite you to share how you are using any of these tools or would like to brainstorm about how to use these to effectively support your course without relying on expensive traditional textbook options.
ONLINE TOOLS OF INTEREST
- Google Blogger
- Google Books
- Google News
- Google Reader
- Google Finance
- Google Sites
- Google Alerts
- Electronic Library Resources Embedded Links
- Jing
- YouTube
- ITunes U
- RSS Feeds
I really enjoy the integration of Google tools and the flexibility they offer students but their are obviously others out there. I will try to expand on specific uses (successes and failures in future posts) and reinforce this idea that experimenting and utilizing programs by enthusiastically share our disciplines with students in multiple engaging ways.
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