Multilitteratus Incognitus

Part VI of my ponderings on all the things and wayfinding in academia. This is the last part of this series - at least for now. I don't know. I think it's time to move from retrospection to some kind of next phase 🤓 Anyway, I saved the most controversial topic for last hahaha 😂 OK, so before I get the rotten tomatoes🍅🪰, hear me out!😅 I am a big proponent of lifelong learning. In fact, I joke, on this very blog, that I am "Pondering what my next degree should be 😂" Go ahead, look to the top of this page, I'll wait. In case you're from the distant future and my blog's subtitle has changed, it basically said what's in the quotes, and I added this subtitle after I completed my doctorate in 2021.  Anywhoooo.... where was I?  Ah yes, Lifelong learning ! Since completing my dissertation and graduating in 2021, I've tried my hand at professional development through various means. I've done a month-long synchronous online workshop on coaching (one...

It's hard to believe, but the summer is in the rearview mirror.  Next week the fall semester begins and as I look back over the summer  I see some things I learned (or observed) in these coronatimes: The FoMo is still strong! I thought I had beaten back FoMo (fear of missing out) but I guess not :-).  This summer many conferences made the switch to online this summer due to the ongoing pandemic and their registration was free.  This made them accessible both in terms of place (online) and cost (free) for me.  So I registered.  I might have registered for far too many because there weren't enough hours to participate synchronously and attend everything I wanted to.  Luckily most sessions were recorded, so I was able to go back and review recordings of things I missed.  Between the Connected Learning Conference, IABL Conference, OLC Ideate, Bb World, HR.com's conference (and a few more that I can't remember at the moment), I got more Professional...

The question of synchronous sessions in online learning has been swirling in my head over the past few weeks.  So has the term "remote" instruction (🙄).  I usually tend to sit on the sidelines these days, maybe throwing a few potshots on twitter here and there when I have time, but this article on IHE today was one where my eyes rolled too hard, and there was an audible grunt in the room... First of all, I guess I should explain my aversion to the term "remote" instruction.  Our field, distance education, has many terms to describe learning at a distance that actually mean something, and have actually had decades of research behind them!  Because the existing terms mean something, and usually have legalistic implications, it's like administrators are using a synonym for "distance" in order to avoid any sorts of contractual agreements that they have made.  For instance, at my institution, if a faculty member develops an online course from scratc...

For as long as I can remember (well...for the last 10 years anyway) I've been able to participate in at least 2 our of 3 virtual conferences that the OLC (formerly Sloan-C) put on.  I've never been able to attend in person (for a variety of reasons), but I've always liked to have the ability to participate, even remotely.   I am often on twitter during the live sessions tweeting away with commentary. It's a lot of fun, and I've "met" a variety of interesting individuals through this. A couple of years ago I was not able to participate in #et4online (now #OLCinnovate) because the school I work for didn't have the funds to "send" me virtually. I have to say that I really missed the opportunity to participate, even remotely, at this professional development conference. I kept an eye on the twitter stream but things didn't make as much sense. The reaction, and #OLCsnark didn't connect with me because I was missing a piece of the puz...

 This is also cross-posted on VirtuallyConnecting.org The final virtually connecting session of the DigPed Lab Institute (don’t call it a conference!) was on Friday August 14, 2015 and despite the fatigue as people crossed the finish line for this lab institute we had an engaging and lively discussion for our vConnecting session! Joining us in the virtual realm in this vConnecting session were my co-facilitator Autumm Caines ( @autumm393 ), Greg McVerry ( @jgmac1106 ) who was also joining us from EdCamp, Patrice Prusko ( @ProfPatrice ), Scott Robinson ( @otterscotter ), Stephanie Loomis ( @mrsloomis ), and Jen Ross ( @jar ).  Onsite we had our onsite vConnecting buddy, Andrea Rehn ( @ProfRehn ), as well as Amy Collier ( @amcollier ) who delivered the Friday keynote with Jesse Stommel, Hybrid Pedagogy’s Chris  Friend ( @chris_friend ), and Sonya Chaidez ( @soniachaidez ) There were three broad topics of discussion: emergent learning, and connecting to it was ...

One of the things that participants need to do in #bonkOpen in order to receive a badge for being part in this MOOC, was to attend (or view the recording of) each weekly live session. I've said it before, and I will say it again: I am not a fan of synchronous conferences; I just don't like sitting there for an hour...or two...or three...listening to people do their thing.  I prefer my visual channel to be better engaged when listening to mostly audio information, and most synchronous conferences are just powerpoint, powerpoint, powerpoint...yawnnnn.  At least in class (face to face) you have body language, movement, people coming and going, neighbors and so on. In any case,  with the help of a piece of software called Elluminate Publish (thank you Blackboard person on Twitter!) I was able to download the recording in video format (just a bit over 130MB if I recall correctly) for the entirety of the two hours.  It was a nice presentation, nothing good, noth...