Category: Teaching and Learning Collaborative

Personalizing the Web: A Sandbox Summary

Last Friday, some of the staff gathered at the TLC for a Friday sandbox session on personalizing the web.  This was a rich conversation about using tools such as nevibes or igoogle to organize your information streams.  There is just too much information out there on the web – using tools to organize it and put it in one place will save us time.  For more information about how sites like these work or for a simple explanation of RSS Feeds, check out this video.

To help start the process, Kristen Byers put together a public netvibes page filled with the RSS feeds/widgets related to MIIS.  If you sign up for a free netvibes account, you can simple click on share button on the MIIS widgets and directly add them to your netvibes page – no mess, no stress.  Creating your own page will allow you to keep up to date on the happenings at MIIS as well as your favorite non-MIIS sites.  One place for all your web needs.  You can even add goldfish or cartoons!  The other nice thing is that you can log into this site from any computer.

A snapshot of Lynn's Netvibes page
A snapshot of Lynn's Netvibes page

Stay tuned for more Friday Sandbox sessions to keep playing and experimenting with technology & innovation.  The DMC is also offering a number of interactive workshops for learning digital media and communication tools.  As always, feel free to stop by Kade anytime for development conversations and exploration of possibilities.

TLC Friday Sandbox Returns

Please join the folks at the TLC for a Friday Sandbox session on the new blogging community.  The Friday Sandbox started last year as a time/space where staff could get together and play with new technologies.  All skill levels are welcome and the goal is to experiment, have fun, and learn a thing or two.  The TLC hopes to have Sandbox sessions most Fridays and are looking for suggestions for new topics/themes.

In general, the TLC is always looking to help with idea development and innovation of all kinds.  Feel free to stop by Kade – they love visitors and sometimes  even have treats!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/truckpr/2990541126/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/truckpr/2990541126/

What’s happening in Kade?

There have been many changes on campus this summer and Kade is no exception.  In the beginning of the summer, IT moved the printer, scanner and PC computers out of Kade.  Student printing is available in three locations: Pacific Lab (CF 442), Coleman library and Lab & Media Services (Morse A 101).

Kade hours will be posted at the beginning of the semester.

Kade is the exclusive hub for the Teaching and Learning Collaborative (TLC).  Staff who are a part of the TLC are:

  • Bob Cole
  • Sarah Springer
  • Kristen Byers
  • Lynn McDonald

Activities of the TLC staff:

  • Innovation: Pedagogical & organizational
  • Digital & New Media Development
  • Idea Development

We love visitors to Kade who are interested in exploring, learning and sharing.

Academic Technology Resource Fair!

Come one, come all!!

Resource Trade Fair

Students, faculty & staff cordially invited to a collaborative resource and information fair during orientation week.  Representatives from campus technology departments will be on hand to answer questions and help point you in the right direction.

Tuesday, August 25th, 1-4pm in the Samson Center Courtyard.

Get Connected!

Get Connected

Records, IT, and TLC Departments invite faculty and staff who directly support academic departments to attend one of four “Getting Connected” sessions for a detailed update on academic technology resources, tools, and processes including: Bannerweb, Exchange E-mail, and Moodle.

All sessions will be held in B104, Morse Lecture Hall.

Weds 8/19  10-11:30am
Weds 8/19  2-3:30pm
Thurs 8/20  10-11:30am
Fri      8/21  10-11:30am

RSVP for one of the four sessions by following this scheduling poll: http://www.doodle.com/9u6nrvwy5gud6vtp

Ten Percent

Some of you who subscribe to the MIIS Yammer updates may have noticed that many recent posts are tagged “#10percent.” Here’s why:

This summer, a group of IT and TLC staff decided to take responsibility for their own professional development by adopting the “10 percent rule.” We made a commitment to each other: that we would each devote 10% of our time to learning new things that would help us do our jobs better. We agreed to post information about what we were learning to Yammer, so that other colleagues could benefit from our discoveries and be generally more aware of the kinds of things we are working on.

In the last three weeks, a lot of learning has been going on! There are 49 Yammer posts with the #10percent tag. Here’s a sample of what your colleagues have been learning:

Bob Cole has been experimenting with new tools for a MIIS blogging community. Check out the results. He also learned how to deeplink into a YouTube video, so that you can get directly to the portion of a video you want to reference.

Sarah Springer has been broadening her knowledge of emerging learning technologies through the Educause Learning Initiative’s “Seven Things You Should know About…” series.

Amy McGill learned how to build more engaging presentations by reading Presentation Zen, and is now following the associated web site.

Greg Harris discovered an interesting new tool called Flow that allows people to track time spent on digital projects. He’s also repurposed one of our older computers to run Ubunto 9.04 (linux).

Wen Lu has been doing a lot of reading on wireless networking, including investigation of Mac-specific issues, since we have more and more Macs appearing on campus.

Trinidad Gomez has been using a Deke McClelland One-on-One book to learn Photoshop. He also posted about a review of Shopcraft as Soulcraft, which prompted Amy McGill to take a look at this book as a possible “unbook club” choice.

Kristen Byers discovered dry-erase paint (after Bob Cole discovered blackboard paint). Check out her door! Kristen is also setting an ambitious learning agenda with 101 goals in 1001 days.

When is your Day Zero?  If you would like to join this initiative, just start learning, and sharing what you learn on Yammer.


Guidelines for Appropriate Use of All Campus Electronic Mail Messages

The following guidelines are adapted from Middlebury’s policy on the use of college email.  We think they make sense for us as well, and would like to ask that all members of the community to follow them.

1. Messages must relate directly to College business. Announcements of non-college events should be handled through other channels.

2. E-mail messages should be avoided for College events already listed on-line or in publications, unless there is significant supplemental information or last-minute changes in location or time.

Currently, everyone has the ability to send an all faculty or all staff message, and it would be wonderful if everyone could voluntarily use these guidelines so that we don’t have to restrict access.

When the students return in the fall, we will need to adopt similar guidelines for messages to all students, and student messages to faculty and staff.

We understand that there is a need for a place to post “classifieds” and other messages of a more personal nature, and we are working on a solution.

Thanks for your patience!

It Takes a Village…

… or, in this case, a campus, to build a web site.

You have seen (and hopefully commented on) some great initial designs, and now, while White Whale digests our feedback and prepares round two, the even more critical task of building content is underway.

We have a tight timeline, with initial content due by JULY 8.

The folks listed below are part of a campus-wide web strategy team charged with organizing content development, but we need all of you to BE THE SOLUTION by telling your piece of the MIIS story. The team members will come to you… or you can go to them!… to engage in the process.

STRATEGY TEAM

Kristen Byers
Lynn McDonald
Jason Warburg
Amy McGill
Leah Gowron
Alicia Brent
Patricia Szasz
Rob Horgan
Gail Lu
Ann Flower
Angie Quesenberry
Nina Dutra
Regina Garner
Linae Ishii-Devine
Bob Cole
Anne-Marie Steiger
Jen Hambleton

You don’t know how to write for the web? Don’t worry… WEB WRITERS Kristen Byers, Rebecca Walters, Chesa Lichauco will shape your content into a concise and compelling narrative.

Alumni Relations Launches New Alumni Website

Campus Invited to Open House

Alumni Relations is pleased to announce the launch of the new MIIS alumni website!
Check out the new site (some areas are still under construction) at http://alumni.miis.edu and please remember to pass the site address along to any alumni you may connect with over the summer.

To introduce the site to the campus community, please join us at the Kade Center’s TLC main area (2nd floor) on Wednesday, June 10th, from 3:30-5:00 p.m., for light refreshments and an overview of the site. It’s because of the hard work and effort of many staff that the site is complete, and we want to take a moment to thank these individuals for their support!

Faculty Research in the Spotlight

Spotlight 1

There’s a grassroots effort taking shape to highlight faculty voices through conversations about current professional interests and research.  The vision of the “Faculty Research Spotlight,” is create a venue for faculty to speak candidly about their field work and research beyond the classroom.  More conversation than lecture, the series, which will be recorded for podcast and hosted on the Institute’s new iTunes U site, offers faculty a unique opportunity to share their expertise with a larger audience.

The spotlight conversations will experiment with a format that will include an Opening Big Idea Pecha Kucha Talk, followed by a moderated question and answer session.  Pecha Kucha (pronounced peh-cha-kcha in Japanese) is a presentation format that has gained a following recently because it places a constraint on the presenter, limiting them to twenty PowerPoint slides and only twenty seconds per slide.  The total time comes to 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  While we could just record a regular lecture, we feel that this special format would allow presenters to be creative in how they choose to frame and introduce us to their topics.

A handful of faculty have stepped up to the plate to kick the series off:

Fernando de Paolis and Bob McCleery: Development and Connectivity
March 12, 12:15 – 1:45
McCone Boardroom

Jason Scorse:  Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism- evidence from Indonesia in the 1990s
March 17, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101

Lyuba Zarsky:  Climate Resilient Development: Models for Government and Business
March 19, 12:15 – 1:45
Morse room A101

The Spotlight series is being recorded for podcast on iTunes U with assistance from the Digital Media Commons staff and participants in the Digital Media for Change workshop.

Pizza Party Success!

The Pizza Innovation Process is off to a good start. 47 faculty, staff & students enjoyed some pizza and brainstormed ideas to help shape MIIS. To get involved, join the Pizza Process Social Network.

The party started with a small group icebreaker activity where teams created pizzas with a topping for each member and a name that described the whole pizza.  The pizza process was then introduced followed by great conversations about the definition of innovation, barriers and drivers to innovation, and some tips for success in the process.  The party ended with pizza for all and ideas shared with the group.

If you couldn’t make the party, you’re not out of the process!  Interested innovators can join our social network and form a pizza group.  To “officially” register your group, set up an appointment with Lynn McDonald.  Groups should be diverse, passionate and fun to work towards finding solutions and making a better MIIS.  Ideas will be shared with the entire community on April 16th at the Idea Fair.

Last years pizza process produced the DMC, CNS Second Life and Delcats along with some good ideas that just didn’t stick.  Innovation is a risk, but also an invaluable learning experience with idea sharing and organizational development.  Groups this year will be working on building community, connecting with alumni, understanding and incorporating competition, building a knowledge base and so much more!

For more information, contact Lynn McDonald at lynn.mcdonald@miis.edu or ext. 4633.  Join us for this pizza journey!

MONTEREY INSTITUTE & NPS HOST AWARD-WINNING CYBER-ACTIVIST

–Founder of MideastYouth.com Harnesses Internet to Promote Human Rights–

The Monterey Institute of International Studies will host award-winning activist and writer Esra’a al Shafei beginning at 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 24, in the Institute’s Irvine Auditorium in the McCone Building at 499 Pierce St., Monterey.  The event is being co-sponsored by the Naval Postgraduate School.

During her “Activism 3.0” presentation, Shafei will discuss her experiences as founder and executive director of Mideast Youth, and how cyber-activism can help to combat human rights abuses and foster peace.  Her accolades include the Harvard University’s 2008 Berkman Award, and her live podcasts and blogs from Gaza during the recent conflict there were featured on CNN.

This event is free and open to the public.  NOTE: Photography and videotaping will not be permitted at this event.  Audio recording is permitted.

The Podcast Army is in Training

The Teaching & Learning Collaborative in coordination with the Digital Media Commons at the Monterey Institute is training an army of podcasters.  The one unit, fifteen hour workshop titled Digital Media for Change meets Friday afternoons from 2-4pm.  Participants are exploring new communication skills with digital media with a particular focus on affecting change.  We’re reading and discussing the workshop text by Garr Reynolds, PresentationZen, and we have gathered online on a homegrown social network hosted by Ning: http://dm4change.ning.com.  Participants will be helping the Institute build our capacity to capture campus events, speakers, and other stories that distinguish our community and reflect our mission.  We’re building an army of graduate students, staff, and faculty to help us!  And yes, we like cupcakes.

As the workshop coordinator I am using this as an opportunity to experiment with alternative course management tools and blogging.  We welcome any and all who might be interested in what we are up to, so please feel free to join us on our Ning, or grab the RSS feed for the DM4change blog that is being piped into the main page for workshop updates and thoughts from yours truly.

MIIS Staff Members to Attend WeAreMedia Workshop

Next week, Kristen Byers and Rob Horgan will be attending a two-day intensive workshop on social media and non-profits sponsored by the Non-profit Technology Network in San Francisco. TLC and Recruiting have generously provided the funding for this. The conference requires that two people from an organization attend: one broader marketing staff member and one person in charge of technical implementation.

They will be keeping a blog to record their participation and implementation of a media project.

The goal of the conference is to provide participating teams with an understanding of how to craft a social media strategy and to experiment with tactical approaches. Thanks to some advice and input from Caroline Mansi, Lynn McDonald, and Bob Cole, Rob and Kristen have decided to explore the merits of using Twitter for promotion, recruitment, marketing and information sharing at MIIS. Kristen has extensive experience in new media projects and is a regular user of Twitter. Rob recently created a Twitter account for the Recruiting Department: http://www.twitter.com/miis

The workshop aims to help participants plan and effectively integrate their media project (in this case, Twitter) into their organization’s overall web communications. They hope to return to campus with some ideas for implementation.