Multilitteratus Incognitus

I didn't quite expect this, but it seems like everywhere you turn you see "a decade in review" news stories (radio and TV), "the internet" (in general) and blog posts, twitter threads, and Instagram stories (more specifically).  I hadn't really thought about doing one of these posts, but what the hay, why not join in? 😜 . The last decade has certainly been eventful.  I kicked off the decade by completing my last 2 master's programs, changing jobs (3 departments and 4 titles in the last 10 years), starting to teach, and participating in research. I absolutely loved Audrey Watter's 100 debacles of Ed-Tech , so I decided to pick a few and structure my post around this since most of these made an impact on my work-life, and some for my leisure. I am not going to pick through every one of those items, but I'll pick a few (and maybe add some of my own). New Media Consortium (Horizon report #100) This one was a shocker for me. The way the NMC...

Found image on Google (not actually a photo of me) Happy Friday dear readers! (umm...anyone still there?  I swear! I am alive! 😆) I've been attempting to write a blog post all week (and trying to do the 10 minutes of writing per day), but I've been failing on that account...I guess Fridays are a better day as things wind down from the week.  In any case, there is an article from the Chronicle that's been on my mind this week titled "Our Hallways are too quiet". Our department chair sent this to us (everyone in the department) as a thought piece, perhaps something to ponder and discuss in the fall - probably because our department is also like the department that is described in the article. I had a variety of cognitive and emotional processes go off, and get gears grinding while I was reading this.  I actually hadn't noticed that the author was from MIT...who only recently "discovered" online learning (like Columbus discovering the New W...

It's been a while since I last just sat down to think  and write about something (like the good old days when I was cMOOCing...).  These past few weeks have been about conferences, and getting back on track with my dissertation proposal (although I think I am the only one who is keeping a score on that at this point). In my attempt to get back to writing, and engaging with friends and colleagues out there in the wild blue yonder which is the internet, I thought I would pick through my accumulated Pocket list until it's almost empty.  One of the ponderings of interest came by means of an article on Inside Higher Ed titled  Academic Identities and Terminal Degrees , where the overall question was:  Does one need an academic terminal degree to identify professionally with that discipline? And, as Josh goes on to explicate Can only someone with a Ph.D. in economics call herself an economist? Do you need a Ph.D. in history to be a historian? How about socio...

OK, so here is the final session that I was an onsite buddy for from this summer's NMC summer conference.  This session has us join Wendy Shapiro, Judith Erdman, and Carol Sharicz from the UMass Boston Instructional Design Program.

What is the NMC? What is its history?  Well, see the following virtually connecting session from the NMC summer conference and find out :-)

Here is a session with Gardner and Christina.  Their session was one of the few that I got to attend and it was really good! The odd thing is that sessions that I wanted to attend were mostly in the same room, and if you didn't get there in time, the door locked behind you (bug or feature?)

Continuing with my virtually connecting documentation activities this week, here is a session with Jill Leafstead and @brocansky. Hey!  Got to meet another twitter buddy in person! Woohoo! :-) We were also joined by Eden Dahlstrom the new executive director of the NMC.  The thing we learned (too late) was that the Mac defaults to the build-in microphone when turned off, so...the wired microphone is just for show :p  Oh well.  The things you learn!

A bit of personal documenting this week, posting some videos of virtually connecting sessions from last week's NMC 2017 summer conference. This was my second virtually connecting series with me as one of the onsite buddies, and this was a fun talk with Bryan Alexander.  I've been a virtual and an onsite buddy for a while now, and I still haven't gotten the timings right! I guess  I have more to learn.  joining me as onsite buddy for this series is Greg Dillon, a fellow local instructional designer, and vConnecting buddy.

Part II of January documenting.  This one is the virtually connecting panel on scholarly networking.

A little self-documenting for this post.  A few weeks ago (was it really that long?) I was in a couple of virtually connecting sessions.  Considering that the winter symposium was at URI I could have gone in person!  Maybe next time :-)  This one is a hallway convo w Renee Hobbs & Natasha Casey.

So, vacation has begun! I've gotten out my movies, video games, and comic books that I want to read, play, or view in the next 20 days until school starts again!  Before that though, I wanted to have a quick look back, a year end review if you will, at this past academic year.  Wow... Now that was a crazy year!  Yes, there was a lot going on in the global and political arenas, but (just to be a tad bit selfish), let's put those aside for now and focus on me (hahaha...typical  millennial , it's all about me, me, me... :p ) The year kicked off with EDDE 804, technically speaking my last course in the doctoral program I am in - but not really.  The course was a course in leadership in distance education (which reminded me a lot of my MBA days actually in terms of some of the discussions we had), and it was facilitated by Marti Cleveland-Innes (of CoI fame).  The course was interesting, challenging, and it definitely moved the doctoral ball forward. It ac...

Another docublog from virtually connecting from a few weeks ago, at OpenEd Berlin with Alec Couros.  This one has the innovation of being the first "pop up" virtually connecting session.  Enjoy!

The last virtually connecting session on my docublogging list.  In this episode we speak to Steve Kossly of Minerva.  This was from OLC Innovate 2016

Coming to your from OLC, this virtually connecting session is the vConnecting/ TOPcast / ResearchInAction crossover!

A little more docublogging, this time from a virtually connecting session from the Wearables conference with George Siemens

I've been thinking about Rebecca's post for the past two weeks, the one titled What Trump means for academic conferences .  Now that the semester is over, and homework is off my plate (for another 35 days) it's time to commit some thoughts to (e)paper.  I'll say first that the whole travel advisory cited would carry more weight if it weren't coming from Turkey. There are things happening politically in that country that have nothing to do with Trump being elected (well, as of this writing there are 14 more days until the electoral college votes, so who knows...) In any case, I would say that academic conferences, both those hosted in the USA, and those hosted elsewhere, are a venue for the academic elite, and in some cases those who are lucky enough to have a conference happening locally that they can either crash or find some other free means to attend. I don't think organizers will see the USA as a second tier place to host conferences.  Even if they did, ...

Trying to get back to blogging, and I'm going back through my backlog - so here is a quick post, documentation post really - from a recent Virtually Connecting session I sat in on on Open Dissertations.

It took a while for me to get this post started.  Conferences are great, but between being physically tired, and having to catch up on other work (that wasn't done while at the conference), it means that some things that require more bandwidth get kicked a little further down the road :-) In any case, I thought I would write a little bit about my first time being an onsite Buddy (sBuddy - "oBuddy" seemed weird as a term) for virtually connecting. I've been a virtual buddy (vBuddy) quite a few times over the past year (or has it been 2? I don't remember), and I thought it would be cool to be an sBuddy at Campus Technology and AAEEBL this year.  I did not expect it to be a lot more work than usual, however I learned that being an sBuddy is actually much more work (or at least I ended up making it much more work, even if it isn't). For quite a few years (7 years by my count) I've been attending Campus Technology and AAEEBL on a press pass.  First, as...

From the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institute at University of Mary Washington this week :-)

A little self-archiving here for a couple of vConnecting sessions that we did last week at Campus Technology and AAEEBL in Boston.  This particular one is with Rebecca Petersen.  Enjoy :)