Events
- Great Teaching Round-up
- Leading from the middle
- fall conference for faculty leaders
- The Texas Network
"I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision."
Events: Annual Convention 2010
Technology Seminars
All sessions will be conducted at the Renaissance Hotel on Friday afternoon, March 5. No fee or pre-registration is required, but seating may be limited. Room locations will be published in the program, which is distributed at convention registration.
Attendees who have laptop computers may wish to bring them for any "hands on" training or software that may be available at some sessions.
"Beyond E-Texts: How Open Texbooks are Bringing Instructional Quality Up and Costs Down"
4:00-5:15
Presenter: Eric Frank, co-founder, Flat World Knowledge
Education is the black gold of the 21st century. Increasingly, technology enables the free flow of information and knowledge to those who need it. Old business models, however, often stand in the way. Whereas e-texts are “Act I” in the transformation of educational publishing, this session looks beyond to Act II. Specifically, this session covers what open textbooks are and how an open approach can result in higher quality textbooks that deliver (1) cost savings to students (2) enhanced choices for students to access textbook content in the format that best suits their learning style and (3) flexibility for faculty to adapt textbook content to better suit their teaching style and control timing of new editions and (4) a forward-looking compensation model for authors.
"Facebook and the Community College Professor"
4:00-5:15
Presenter: Ashley Cruseturner, History Instructor, McLennan Community College
Once you are on Facebook—what are the parameters? How promiscuous should you be with your friendship and your information? How adventurous should you be in this online frontier? Are there “dos and don’ts” in the FB world? Perhaps most importantly, what are some ways to be creative and use FB to add to the quality of your life as an instructor?
"Facebook for Smarties"
2:30-3:45
Presenter: David Sorrells, Professor of English, Lamar State College - Orange
This session is for smart people who have more things to do than try to learn a social networking site, but who think they may want to use facebook. We'll start with creating a facebook account, completing display information, and uploading pictures. We'll review how to use facebook's privacy features, and then we'll learn how to post messages, responses, and email. Finally, we'll take a quick look at applications, groups, and fan pages. This session is not pedagogical in nature; it is simply designed to help you learn to maneuver around facebook.
"Hybrid Courses 201: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"
4:00-5:15
Presenter: Carol Barbay, Professor of Psychology, Lamar State College–Port Arthur
Do you know what to expect if you venture into hybrid courses? Dr. Barbay will discuss the pros and cons of this course format, and suggest how you and your students can benefit from it as well as the pitfalls that can cause problems for everyone. This discussion will offer strategies for enhancing the positive features and minimizing the potential negative aspects. You will leave the discussion with a toolbox of tips and strategies that will give your hybrid courses a sparkle offering you and your students the best advantage!
"Introduction to SoftChalk LessonBuilder"
2:30-3:45
Presenter: Dave Evans, Director of Learning Services, SoftChalk
Discover the power of SoftChalk LessonBuilder. SoftChalk is an easy-to-use web lesson editor for which every public, two-year college in Texas holds a perpetual site license. Colleges that didn’t already have a license at the start of this school year were provided one by the Virtual College of Texas.
With SoftChalk, you create engaging, interactive web lessons without knowing any HTML or programming. You spend your time developing content, not learning how to use complex software. And the results are impressive: polished, professional-looking online lessons that include interactive learning games, multiple types of questions, pop-up text annotations, friendly navigation, and other student-engaging features.
April will guide this tour of SoftChalk. She will demonstrate its key features, answer questions, and explain how creating sophisticated, student-appealing, interactive eLearning lessons is within the reach of every instructor.
"Taking Teaching to a New World: Introduction to Second Life and it's Many Uses in Teaching"
2:30-3:45
Presenters from San Antonio College: Frances Crawford, Writing Center Director; Dawn Elmore-McCrary, Writing Center Summer Director; Jon McCarter, Writing Center Assistant Director; and Fred Kinman, Internet Course Coordinator
Find inspiration in a Second Life! Transform yourself, your students, and your teaching with this virtual world platform. Second Life is a user based program that every person can use for free. You don't need special equipment to use this product. There are no licensing fees per user, student, or computer. With Second Life, you can have synchronous and engaging classes, field trips, and other learning experiences without knowing any HTML or programming. In fact, all of your training can be hands on. Teach your entire class, offer tutoring, hold conferences, provide counseling-- if you can do it in real life, you can do it in Second Life. Whatever works in your face-to-face teaching can be reproduced in Second Life, only better! Instead of going to France, you and your students can teleport to the Eifel Tower together. Instead of taking a field trip to the Sistine Chapel, you and your students can visit the 3-dimensional Sistine Chapel. Immerse your students in Spanish by visiting Spain. Take your students to NOAA and visit the inside of a hurricane. The only thing stopping you is your imagination!
Second Life can be used to transform distance learning into virtual classrooms with whiteboards, document sharing and freehand drawing, all in real time. Frances and Fred will lead you through a tour of Second Life and help you explore the opportunities it presents. Dawn will offer you research and anecdotes for your consideration, and Frances and Jon will provide you with information about what not to do, and the challenges involved with training, security, technical support, upcoming tools, and property that you or your campus might encounter. Come join us as we transform learning into an engaging experience for you and your students.
"The Texas Network for Teaching Excellence in CTE: Everything You've Been Looking For and More!"
2:30-3:45
Presenters: Terry Mouchayleh, Director of Professional Development and Evaluation, Austin Community College, Marcos Molina, Technical Support Manager, Fund for Professional Excellence in the Community College, and Richard Moore, Executive Director, Texas Community College Teachers Association
Join this session to learn about this Perkin-funded project, The
Network, which is the result of a unique partnership between community colleges, statewide professional development consortia, and TCCTA. Now in its second year, The Network provides online modules, webinars, a portfolio system, a variety of resources, and a robust search function, all at no cost to the user. The session will provide a demonstration of the site content and capabilities.
"Professional Development Modules: Free Web-Based Assistance for Texas Teachers in Critical Thinking, Language Acquisition, Reading Comprehension, and Online Instruction"
4:00-5:15
Presenter: Allen Michie, Program Director, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has sponsored four grants for institutions to produce Professional Development Modules in areas that reach across academic disciplines and address core concepts within the College Readiness Standards. The modules, which will be available for free to all instructors in all Texas public institutions, address the “best practices” for improving both teaching and learning. They include teacher interviews, sample lesson plans, overviews of key concepts and recent research, bibliographies, discussion forums, and more. Each module can be taken in its entirety, or in stand-alone units can be viewed as needed. Representatives from the Coordinating Board and from the participating institutions will be on hand to preview the modules and answer questions. Module topics include Critical Thinking (UT-Austin), Second Language Acquisition (UT-Austin), Reading Comprehension (UT-El Paso), Teaching College Mathematics (UNT), and Online Teaching (Lonestar Community College).
Convention Headquarters:
Learn more about...
Registration &
Hotel Reservations