Updates

For those of you that don't have your picture up here and want it up, please send me your photo through e-mail. I don't want to leave anyone out!

If you get the chance, please join in me in congratulating Theresa Stevens for getting some of her work published. Congrats Theresa!

Kevin and Kathleen: Thank you for our input about blogging! It's fun to discuss our different experiences with workshops.

David has suggested some excellent tools for us to use in guest lecturing. Have you had a chance to check out Audioboo or Voicethread? Do you plan to try it out?

In other news, I have decided to discontinue using Google calendar for our schedule. I will still be using the Master Schedule in Google docs. Some of you have trouble opening it, but I will be sending it in a PDF or Word document via e-mail very frequently and I will be in touch with you all through e-mail whenever I have assigned you a lecture with the assignment details and any special requests the professor has for the workshop. In most cases, I will be forwarding you the email interaction I have with the professor. I believe this will prevent any miscommunications from happening and you will feel more on the same page when it comes time to retrieve the materials and post them/contact the professor. This will create more interaction in your inboxes. I apologize for that and I my suggestion would be to create a folder in your email account for all assignment details or guest lecture related information. I'm sure you all have your own methods to organizing your assigned lectures at home as well :)

Eventually, we should have a system more like John's to sort out GL requests and you will have your own GL accounts to sign into to retrieve those requests. In the meantime, I think using the Master Schedule and communicating with you over e-mail is the best way to continue on.

What does/will summer be like? Time will tell! For those that have looked at the schedule for summer so far, it's filling up slowly and this is before David and I have sent out invitations to professors. Once I notice classes starting to fill up in mid-May, we will begin contacting all the summer professors and filling up the schedule. If you get any free time, it would be great if you worked on your video messages (if you haven't perfected them already). Since you can embed an Audioboo message anywhere in David's materials, it might be fun to create a few different personalized messages that you could use for all of your guest lectures. I always begin by writing out a script and practicing it a few times first. If you need tips on this, David is obviously our audio/video pro! :)

Have a great weekend!
Michelle

Blogging Workshop Discussion

Hi All:

I would like to share this brief email from Ginna Babcock. Any input from you would be much appreciated.

Hi Kathleen,

You sure know a lot about Blogging!  Your advice and supportive comments were perfect!  I’ve already asked Michelle to set up a visit for my summer BEHS 210 and 343 classes. I hope you will be available!  I mentioned in my note to EWC that you, Anna, and Kevin have all given the workshop. Is it possible for you three to get together to debrief as it were? David made up great materials for the workshop, but I wonder if the same kinds of questions are coming up in the two classes and if so, if there are answers we can provide within the structure of the workshop?

The Critical Insight Blog is very popular with the students and I think they learn the material better in this way than in the traditional library paper. It also gives them skills to make their own family blog, which I think is important for this population. Anyway, I plan to continue to use the assignment in future, so any further materials from EWC would be well used! Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks again for your visit,

Ginna

Google Calendar Issues

Hi GLers!

I am having trouble with Google Calendar today. It won't load and when it does and I record a lecture, it responds with an error message. This happens from time to time. Have you noticed issues? Anyhow, Frances Fister Stoga's Writing 391 class needs to be recorded in the calendar (Alicia will facilitate it) for April 18-24th. This workshop is for proofreading, run-on sentences, subject-verb agreement, and fragments. I will keep trying to plug it into the calendar.

With that said, I'm considering sticking to just the master schedule in Google Docs for summer. I know there have been problems with this system as well at times (merely uploading can be an issue). If I do this, I will be emailing you the assignment details each time instead of plugging them into the calendar. I will let you know as it gets closer what I decide to do. 

Dan is looking into getting us a system similar to John and Anna's database. This would be wonderful. Stay tuned. 

Also, I have come to solely rely on your emails to roster you out of classrooms instead of Google Docs. I realize it is difficult for some of you to comment within the document. Please keep those coming so I can keep your class lists organized for you.

So far this spring semester, we have done 158 guest lectures. Wow! Keep up the hard work. You guys are amazing! Thank you for you patience with the technical glitches we sometimes encounter. 

Best,

Michelle