Focus on Faculty Newsletter

Each semester, the Center for Teaching and Learning puts out a newsletter. Below is the Spring 2010 version. Check it out!

FOFSpring_2010

Visual Communication – Timelines, Screencasts, Concept Maps and More

This workshop discusses ways to visually share information with students.

Technology of the Month -- WIKIS

This month, the Learning Technology Committee at Montgomery College decided to select wiki's as the technology of the month.

It was my unit's turn (Center for Teaching and Learning) to take the lead so here's a little video on wikis. The next post will be the flyer:

Comic Life for Fliers

I really like Comic Life as a tool for making fliers. Here's a flier I made the this month's Technology of the Month at Montgomery College.

WIki's Technology of the Month

Wiki's, March's Technology of the Month

Along with the Learning Technology Committee, the CTL will be offering workshops on the use of Wiki's in the Classroom this April. Register via PDS.

Wednesday	April 14, 2010	12:00 pm to 1:00 pm	-	Online
Monday	April 19, 2010	1:00 pm to 2:30 pm	GT	GT170
Thursday	April 22, 2010	2:30 pm to 4:00 pm	TP/SS	RC211
Friday	April 30, 2010	11:00 am to 12:00 pm	-	Online

[scribd id=29753560 key=key-tz29197xp0nlyl1xa0b mode=list]

Screencasts are your friend

Screencasts give you an opportunity to share your screen with audio. While expensive products like Camtasia will sell you bells and whistles you really don't need, quite a few free tools exist which do the job just fine.

I use screencasts in my teaching and training to provide an easy way to follow step-wise tasks and procedures, review online quizzes and summarize assignments. [Sample 1 | Sample 2]

I've used a bunch of tools but I really like the following:

Jing: Passively sits on your desktop and then records anything you want. It even keeps an online archive and allows you to save files online, to FLV or will even provide a SWF. (Available for both Mac and WIndows)

Screenflow: I like ScreenFlow over Camtasia since Screenflow is made ONLY for a Mac. It also has some automation features which make screencast creation a bit easier to accomplish.

Screenr: An online tool (no software needed) that will allow you to create screencasts from any computer.

Using Prezi in the Classroom

Prezi.com is easily my favorite web 2.0 tool. I have used it effectively in presentations. Below is a presentation I gave to the CTL Advisory group. I'm still investigating classroom uses. This week will be the unveiling.

CTL Advisory Group Presentation on Prezi

Teachinology in the Learning Space Initiative

For the last year, I've been leading an effort called the Technology in the Learning Space Initiative. Here's an article I wrote for our newsletter on it.

Montgomery College Center for Teaching and Learning October 2009