Treks Explore

Another Great Day!

2011-06-21T18:20:20Z

It was great to hear and have a discussion around everyone's plans for the year. I feel very fortunate to have been part of this group and will be able to build upon the new knowledge and resources I have gained for years to come. Thank you!!

Last Day

2011-06-21T18:18:36Z

This has been an awesome opportunity! Thank you so much for an insightful week. I am leaving with a project plan and high hopes to incorporate many of the items that I learned this past week into my courses. Enjoy your summer and see you at the fall retreat!

Our last day

2011-06-21T18:10:57Z

Great discussions on this final day. Nice to hear from each individual in the group their plans, hopes, concerns.....A lot of fun and thoughtful stuff happened all week. Thank you to co-participants, organizers and tech experts!

final day: Grateful

2011-06-21T18:04:15Z

I want to express my gratitude in two directions. First direction--to Dave and Sheila and all of the IT Fellows for their patience with me and their willingness to go slow with me. Second direction--to my colleagues, fellow trekkers, also for their patience with me, both because they were all so much more advanced in their understanding of many of these topics and because they accepted and responded to my questions that often took us off of figuring out technology tools. Thank you.

Great Week

2011-06-21T17:54:21Z

Thanks to all of our explorer colleagues for sharing so many good ideas and class assignments. It has been a good week, and I now have so many good ideas for improving my classes. Thanks to all the IT fellows for their assistance as well. Thank you, Dean Quam for providing this initiative! A big shoutout to Dave and Sheila, too, for their work on planning and facilitating the TREKS Explorer!

Day #4: Ready, Set, Go!

2011-06-20T19:47:49Z

Today was a good day as we had ample time to work through our project proposals in detail. I'm looking forward to learning more about what my colleagues are planning to do over the next year or so. It's exciting to see how others are focusing on their different courses, and I have picked up some very good ideas to make my courses much better for the students.

I still plan to develop a video for my CEHD colleagues so that they have a better idea of the initiative that I will be involved with tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for making this such a great week!

Great Day!

2011-06-20T19:32:08Z

Today was a day of pulling things together!! It was great to get my ideas written down and develop a structured plan. In our small group we had a great conversation and I was able to even further fine tune my plan. It is always productive to share ideas and be able to look at things from a new perspective! I am looking forward to moving forward with all my new tools and ideas!

Monday (Day 4)

2011-06-20T19:25:57Z

It was nice to have time today to focus concretely on developing project plans, and have a chance to talk through some aspects of a project with peers and IT fellows. A space and structure for facilitating discussion, workshop of, or review of project ideas/drafts is really useful and worthwhile. I hope that tomorrow's "presentations" can continue to build or develop that discussion/process. I am really looking forward to hearing about what other people are planning. I would echo what Dave said the first day of this Trek: that connecting with other instructors from around the college has been one of the most rewarding parts of this experience.

All of the IT fellows and Explore participants have been extremely generous with their time and ideas and I am very grateful for this. I know I have created a bit of a puzzle that has demanded a lot of thought on the part of many -- especially Angela: thank you! I also appreciate (in addition to the great technology support) questions or criticisms that might push me to see and consider my project and assignments in ways that I am not able to on my own.

I am excited to have an assignment in development for my FYI course in the fall that I think/hope will make use of technology (the ipad2 and moodle) in a very purposeful and effective way. Even if my project doesn't work as I think it will (and I'm sure it won't) I will have engaged technology in a very new way -- using it to do something I am excited about.

Day 4

2011-06-20T19:14:08Z

Today, we were given time to work on our project proposals and our project presentations. Having this time to work and discuss our ideas was very helpful and appreciated. Our projects are coming together! Another great day!

day 4--almost there

2011-06-20T19:12:33Z

In preparing for the presentation tomorrow, I got some clarity about possible reasons why, on the one hand, I have been a luddite in relation to technology in my classroom, and on the other hand, I have not at all rejected new technologies in other aspects of my scholarly and personal life.

I'm glad that this happened--now I can ask myself some questions about my teaching practices and goals and how they relate to my larger reading and critique of technical and instrumental ways of being in our society. My larger critique of our society definitely does (and should) inform my work in classrooms--but I think that it has, for a while, functioned as a fairly strong barrier to even thinking about new technological tools in my teaching. I think I can open some of this up, now, a bit.

Yes, I'm leaving this all vague--have to save something for the presentation tomorrow.

Day 3

2011-06-20T05:22:35Z

Before I realized, the weekend came! Thanks to Treksexplore - the time just went by!

Again, a day full of technological knowledge! The biggest take away was the use of Video Ant and Camtesia Relay, which I can outrightly see how I can use for the benefit of my students. Now that I am kind of exposed to many of the cool technologies, the onus is on me as to how am I going to use it. It has been a bit overwhelming but still under control.

The treks team has done their job - now its like - you use or lose it! I am looking forward to Monday, where I can start putting my project plan together.

Day 3

2011-06-17T19:51:08Z

It is amazing to get just a glimpse of all of the technology tools that are available. Some are of little interest to me, though seeing all of them makes me aware of the possibilities and capabilities that are around and supported,and helps me to be more informed about ways my colleagues are working with students.

Yesterday I liked the intro to 2.0 as it provided a good framework for thinking about the Internet world that our students (and we) are living in. It seems an incredibly complex task to think critically about the possibilities and responsibilities that arise from this.

The copyright presentation was very helpful .... I appreciated the librarian's level of expertise in an area that is vague and complicated to me.

I am very, very hopeful that OIT will come through with mBook, as this app would make the project that I want students to engage in really easy and self-contained within the iPad. Oh, how nice that would be!

Friday

2011-06-17T19:50:07Z

I have had a great three days in Treks Explore! I have learned about many tools that will help me achieve my goal of adding more "interaction" in my 100% online course. I feel like today I have a very good "handle" on what tools I will move forward with! One of the great things about Treks Explore is that we are exposed to many useful tools--some I will use now and others I will keep in mind for other projects. Looking forward to next week!

day 3

2011-06-17T19:49:24Z

One of the interesting outcomes of today was learning about technology that will not necessarily be of use in my teaching, but will support my other scholarly work.

An example--I am a member of a group called the Midwest Critical Whiteness Collective, which is made up of anti-racist and critical whiteness scholars and activists from Wisconsin and Minnesota. We meet once a month and try to meet face to face, but inevitably one or more members can't make the sometimes long drives. We have been using Skype in these situations, but I was persuaded that UMConnect might serve us better--I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Friday, Day 3

2011-06-17T19:49:09Z

My project remains the same, however I am learning which software(s) might accomplish my goals more efficiently. We were introduced to mediums that could be used with some of the other courses that I teach. Great week!