Soaring?
Another PD filled week. I attended the ITLC Lilly conference and got some inspiration from some of the speakers. I attended almost all of the plenary sessions and couple of round tables. I liked the energy of the kick-off speaker Jessamyn Neuhaus (author of Geeky Pedagogy). A lot of this content is not new to me but it is really valuable to be reminded of it especially as I am building the Blackboard course for instructors. One of my favourite quotes from this session – I think quoting Victoria Nesnick – “your course is not a crock pot – you can’t set it and forget it”. There was also the thought of responsiveness to students being separated by time and space. That’s a concept I use a lot when I’m facilitating anything to do with online Teaching and Learning – and funnily enough ‘Time and Space’ was the topic I chose to do a short video for BCcampus on facilitation tips. I usually add the caveat that I am #notascientist. That was another ‘out of the comfort zone’ moment for me, but they asked nicely and I’ve decided to embrace opportunities like that and have fun with them.
I really enjoyed Lilian Nave and Kevin Gannon’s sessions – didn’t realize he was the ‘tattooed prof’ on twitter until the other day. I have loads of resources from the plenary sessions open to follow up with and a few synchronous sessions to finish (and start) watching. I think five days is a bit long for a conference but it was resource packed and very well put together.
Tuesday was also the ‘Teach in Against Surveillance’ I had to split the cognitive load a little on that day to get to both events. Fortunately, any bits of plenary sessions I missed were recorded. It was a very powerful session. The passion, the solidarity, the shared outrage but also hopefulness, the speaker list… just.. inspiring. Ian urged us to call proctoring software what it is -academic surveillance software – not ed tech.
One more quote “Students are allies, not adversaries” from Kevin Gannon’s plenary, resonated this week.
Other than that I’ve been writing. Each day something comes from a plenary, or from twitter that I want to to add to to the Sampler course. I realize that each section could probably be its own micro-course. There’s so much to understand about why engagement, community, accessibility, presence, are as, or more, important than course content. I’ve been writing and organizing and outlining. Now it’s time to start putting in some media and some activities to make it more interactive. It will be good to get another set of eyes on it Monday. I still need more graphics, more colour but it will come. I’ve started a powerpoint on all the things I want to say about metaphorically opening the doors and turning on the lights so that students, all students, feel like they should there. Thanks Flower Darby.
I almost forgot that I also listened to Brenna Clark Gray’s session on caring Friday – there were three NIC faculty in attendance.