Career colleges are experiencing dramatic growth, primarily because they connect directly to the workforce, where learners can train to enter new jobs and careers. Their lives are transformed by their education, and their goals. Welcome to an interview with Michael Platt, PlattForm Advertising.1. What is your name and what is your involvement with e-learning? Michael Platt. I have been

The Center: a new online community, connecting California's community college faculty, staff, and administrators Google+ Community:  http://gplus.to/TheCenterTwitter:  @center_edThis month I began an exciting new project for @ONE, a professional development program for California's community college system. @ONE has a longstanding history within the system for providing valuable technology training programs for faculty and I have enjoyed working with them in the past on other projects including the development of their Online Teaching Certification program, the development of their Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning course, and the course, Building Online Community with Social Media, which I developed and taught for several years. @ONE is a treasure in California's community college system, as most faculty have very limited support resources available to them on campus to assist them with teaching with technology and many faculty today find themselves without funding for conference travel.The exciting program that launched this month is called The Center and it is designed to improve communication, sharing, collaboration, and innovation across California's 112 community colleges. To achieve this lofty objective, The Center is leveraging the power of social media to bring faculty, staff, and administrators together in weekly conversations about meaningful topics.  I am thrilled to be part of this exciting endeavor and can't wait to meet more of my CCC colleagues and learn from you fabulous, creative, dedicated individuals!  :)Ideally, topics for The Center will be suggested by the community but it takes time for communities to develop.  Cultivating community is like harvesting a crop.  We are in the early stages and spreading the word is like planting the seeds (we need your help!).  Until we have our roots, I am reaching into The Center's active group of members to identify volunteers who have practices and stories to share (links are set up in the Google+ Community to volunteer for a Hangout and submit/vote on topics).Each topic will engage The Center for a period of two weeks. First, it will take the form of a Hangout on Air and then a Twitter chat.  The Hangout on Air and Twitter chat are bridge by Center Challenges which offer CCC colleagues an opportunity to try something new and reflect on their new experiences by sharing a post (via a blog, Tweet, or Google+ update) with the community.How The Center's Conversations Foster a Learning Culture Hangouts on Air are live, online video conversations launched in Google+. In these Hangouts, I interview a small, invited group of individuals from CCC colleges to discuss the topic at hand for a period of 30 minutes. The Hangout on Air is broadcast live to a public, online audience and members of the audience are encouraged to Tweet questions using The Center's hashtag, #CCCLEARN. I moderate this feed of questions during the Hangout on Air and share any incoming questions with the participants. After the Hangout is over, it is archived to YouTube (see below), providing for direct viewing access for anyone who was unavailable for the live event.After the Hangout, Tweets (tagged with #CCLEARN) and a G+ update is shared in The Center's Google+ Community to encourage participation in the related Center Challenge. The week after the Hangout on Air, the same topic is discussed in a #CCCLEARN Twitter chat. The Center's Twitter chats are scheduled for every other Thursday at 3pm Pacific (join us this Thursday, October 18th!!). The day and time of the Twitter chats was collaboratively decided upon by the community using a poll in early October.An Example!Last week, we held our very first Hangout on Air. The topic was coordinated in support of Connected Educator month: "Stories from CCC Connected Educators: How Social Media Has Improved My Teaching & Sense of Community." In this Hangout, I was joined by +Jennifer Garner, who teaches Biology part-time at Pasadena City College and Glendale Community College and +Mark Lawler  who teaches Geology online part-time at Lake Tahoe Community College and West Hills College, as well as three other institutions outside of CA and he resides in New York.  You are warmly invited to view the conversation below (my apologies for it being cut short due to a technological issue on my end!).The Center Challenge for this topic is for community members to share how participating in social media has impacted their connectedness as an educator.  Members are encouraged to share these reflections in a blog post (and Tweet the link using the #CCCLEARN hashtag) or share a post in the The Center's Google+ Community (filtered into the category "Center Challenges").We are holding a #CCCLEARN Twitter chat this Thursday, 10/18 at 3pm on the topic of "Becoming a Connected Educator."  Please join us and bring a friend!  This is a terrific opportunity to learn how to use Twitter in a supportive, academic environment.To participate in the Twitter chat, you need a Twitter account and this should be created prior to the 18th to be sure you are ready to go. At the start of chat, you may either go to Twitter.com and enter #CCCLEARN into the "search" box to view the flow of the conversation.  OR you might want to try going directly to the #CCCLEARN Twitter Chat room, which provides a more focused (less distracting) experience for Twitter chats that many users prefer.The #CCCLEARN Tweet Chat room is accessible at: http://tweetchat.com/room/CCCLEARNPlease share this post with your circle of CA community college colleagues and meet me in The Center! Join the Google+ Community today and follow The Center on Twitter @center_ed.

Welcome to an interview with Vikram Savkar, Nature Education, who has dedicated energy and time to promoting science education that is truly collaborative, and which leverages new technologies and social networking to engage students and to make them comfortable with discovery science. He has led the development and launch of a new product, Scitable.com, which offers online learning, a social

Ken Douglas BY-NC-NDIn 2007, I sat down at an edtech conference and took a blogging workshop from two elementary school teachers. I remember thinking, "Hmm. This would be a great, easy way to share ideas and reflections about art with my students."  This is the blog I started in that conference workshop. Quickly, it turned away from a student audience and away from the subject of art and turned towards an audience of educators and embraced topics related to online learning and using emerging tools to improve teaching and learning.  I was at a transformative moment and this blog was a big part of my change.Two years later in 2009, I sat reluctantly at another conference watching a woman on stage talk about this thing called "Twitter." Ugh. I sooo did not want to use Twitter. Where was the relevance in 140 character messages to my deeply, meaningful life? She went on to reference something called a "hashtag," which I did not understand and did not offer any explanation (and that bothered me). I think I kind of took it as a challenge but I was still reluctant...very reluctant.  Until something happened. I had the Twitter feed for the conference hashtag open on my laptop during a session. As I sat there, I could see Tweets being sent from another session that had wanted to attend very badly, but chose not to. I realized at that moment, I had the best of both worlds.  With Twitter, I had access to the reflections and thoughts of others in the alternative session who were Tweeting links to resources and other goodies shared by the presenter. That was it. I was in. Today, I follow more than 2,100 Twitter users. I also use Google+ and have my own YouTube channel. I know what some of you are thinking..."but that's so much work. Who has time for that?"  You're right, it is a lot of work. However, when you have found what you believe to be your calling in life -- the thing that drives you, the thing that you feel such belief in that sometimes it hurts -- and you have learned that you can't make the impact you want towards improving the problems you have identified, life can get difficult.  You can find yourself feeling frustrated...and that can undercut your passion. When that happens, there's a certain fire that burns inside a person to figure something out.  I believe that's where I was when I started blogging.  Before I started blogging and using Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn, I was frustrated with the lack of change in education. Since becoming engaged and connected, I have learned a great deal about myself and about the underlying context of education. And I have found so many amazing, spirited, forward thinking individuals that continue to dazzle me with their new, inventive ideas.  The opportunity to read honest, reflective posts of other educators has shed many illuminating lights on issues for me throughout the past several years.  I have often found myself breathing a heavy sigh or shedding a tear after finding someone else who shares experiences like my own. As I reflect on my journey to becoming a connected educator, there are three characteristics that I believe were most important for me.  They are described below. 1. Be Vulnerable If you have never written a blog post, you really have not experienced vulnerability.  If you have never shared a public video on YouTube with the comments enabled, you have never experienced vulnerability.  Readers and viewers of online educational technology content want honest, genuine ideas.  They don't want to read some polished, robotic assessment of the state of MOOCs.  They want your voice.  They want to know how you use a tool or what your thoughts are about MOOCs.  That is what makes readers come back to a blog.When you expose your genuine feelings in a public web setting, you get a feeling of butterflies in your stomach each time you click that "Publish" button on your blog. And, yes, you need to use professional parameters to negotiate what is appropriate to share and what is not (I have learned some hard lessons about this...I think all bloggers do).  But the more you share openly and genuinely, the more you feel compelled to do it because you learn the value that being vulnerable brings back to your life. As the enlightening work of researcher Brene Brown attests, vulnerability is the key to living a genuine life. And when we share our honest feelings and thoughts openly online, the connections we build with others are authentic and true.  This is not a path everyone is willing to follow.  But they are values in the life long learning journey I push myself to achieve.  And I am hopeful they will be values that spread to all educational leaders (and I use that phrase because I believe any connected educator is an educational leader).2. ShareI enjoy making things and knowing that others are learning from them -- isn't that the essence of being a teacher?  Giving to the community in this way has been a valuable learning experience. I am often greeted by complete strangers at conferences who tap me on the shoulder to say thank you for all they've learned from my blog.  That's an awesome feeling. There have been times I've thought, I worked really hard on this and here I am again, giving it away for free.  I listen to those words because I do really, really believe that faculty deserve to be compensated for their work(!). That's one of the reasons I wrote my eBook, by the way, to push content into one, packaged bundle that I can sell to a particular individual with a particular interest.  I do believe my work has value and I do believe we will reshape the market through how we, as educators, position our content.  Sharing is critical to this shift. In a community, members give what they can and they ask for help when they need it.  I feel comfortable reaching out and asking for help when I need it because I know that I am making contributions.  If you have learned through what others have shared, try to identify a plan for giving back by sharing ideas or content from your own blog, YouTube, Vimeo, Google+, SlideShare, VoiceThread, Prezi, etc. There are so many options!3. BelieveUnderstanding what you believe in is important.  And standing up for those values is even more important.  I believe that technology has the potential to support learners who have not been traditionally supported in mainstream higher education. This means viewing technology as something much more than a method of increasing access to learning. I believe if technology is integrated in inventive, new ways into learning environments, online learning has the potential to help foster rich faculty-student relationships and warm, human student-student interactions, which are links in improving the quality of learning and degree completion. I also believe that each member of the educational community is living during what is potentially the most transformative time in the history of formalized education. Technology has delivered to the masses not only access to content but platforms and environments that shift the power of creation and publication to the masses and enable it in visual and textual formats from the palms of our hands. Each of has the power to speak, to publish (in writing, voice, or video), to just listen and reflect on a global conversations, to step up and make a difference in the future. Now that I look at these characteristics: vulnerability, sharing, believing...what I find intriguing about them is how childlike they are. Seth Godin once wrote a great blog post about the difference between childish and childlike.  I will leave you with Godin's insightful thoughts to close this post. Childlike vs. Childish by Seth Godin Childlike makes a great scientist. Childish produces tantrums. Childlike brings fresh eyes to marketing opportunities. Childish rarely shows up as promised. Childlike is fearless and powerful and willing to fail. Childish is annoying. Childlike inquires with a pure heart. Childish is merely ignored. Perhaps the lesson here is becoming connected educators teaches us to unveil our true values through self-reflections and learning from peers.  In this process, we are returning to our inner child.

Welcome to an interview with Dr Mark Luetzelschwab, of BrainHoney.com, a new learning management system that state standards into the entire teaching and learning process, which, in the past, has been a stumbling block as developers attempt to create K-12 courses for learners in different schools, or as colleges develop Advanced Placement courses for individuals in high schools in located in

Learning Spanish online, in virtual worlds or via distributed instruction (virtual tutors, etc.), continues to expand as people find interacting in real time via avatar or chat to be stimulating, engaging, and effective. Have the reference materials kept up? Have virtual dictionaries expanded their instructional strategies? It is a tough question and one we pose to Christopher Cummings, CEO of

This post originally appeared on the GETinsight blog.by *Psycho Delia* CC-BY-NC I often hear faculty debate the challenges of teaching with emerging technologies at the community college level.  Community college classes are the epitome of diversity — in any given class you are likely to find a mixture of students who are learning English as a second or third language, students with known and undiagnosed cognitive learning disorders (dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc.), students who have not yet passed basic skills requirements, students at advanced levels of learning, and students who are facing unimaginable economic challenges and other forms of personal hardships.  These diverse student groups also hold some of the most stunning, life changing teaching experiences an educator could ever dream of.Generational diversity is often cited by instructors as a significant challenge when implementing emerging technologies.  While younger students aren’t always "savvy" in technology, as trends like to generalize, older students have more fear and skepticism about technology and that can create additional obstacles for success and challenges for facilitators.  How can these be remedied?  Or can they?  What concerns can an instructor mitigate and what accountability falls squarely on the students?  And what is to be gained from having our older students overcome their technological bias or disinterest?  Will they acquire skills that will make them more employable in our digital, mobile society? Learning from DianeLast January, as I prepared for the spring semester of my online class, I reflected on one student from my previous fall semester class.  Her name is Diane (and I use her real name here with her permission).  Diane has shared with me that she is in her late 50s (and given me permission to make that known too).  Her age is important to this story, as she is not part of the typical digital native generation.Before enrolling in my online class, she had successfully completed many online classes.  These other online classes were designed in a traditional course management system and used the built-in discussion board as the nexus of interactivity between students.  By the end of week one of my online class, I had secretly tagged Diane as a "high risk" student and I was seriously concerned that she might drop.  I have my students complete at online survey that allows them the option to share with me how they are feeling about the class.  Diane shared that she was nervous and unsure about using the social tools integrated into my class.  I emailed her directly, making an effort to reassure her that I was there to help but I could sense she was skeptical.My online class is not exactly traditional and it's common for the design of the class to disrupt student expectations.  That is why I pay extra close attention to my students' nerves and anxieties in the first couple of weeks.  I use the course management system but only as a place for students to authenticate, access their list of course assignments and due dates, review their scores, ask questions in a general course Q&A forum, and read my private feedback about their assignments.The core of the students’ learning occurs in two external web-based tools called VoiceThread and Ning. In VoiceThread, students engage in personalized voice and video conversations as they respond to videos and prompts I have arranged about the course content. I am present here too and leave personalized video and voice feedback to my students, providing me with extra opportunities to expand my teaching time with them and take their learning out into spontaneous and relevant niche areas of our content, just as we would in a classroom conversation.  My comments diverge between feedback and "micro lectures" -- sometimes including links to additional websites or images and in some video comments I hold up examples of historic photographs to demonstrate what I'm referring to in my comment.  Ning is a closed (or private) social network in which each student continuously develops his or her own blog throughout a course.  The blog, like the VoiceThread comments, are shared only with other students in the class (they are not accessible by the general public) and commented on by other students, creating a learning community.Most of my online students say, "I’ve never had a class like this one." That comment almost always transforms into a very positive response by the end of the class, but in the first week, students are often unsure.  I work hard to support those who are nervous about these new learning methods. Identifying and Supporting Student ReluctanceThrough many years of online teaching, I’ve learned the importance of designing a high-touch approach in the early weeks of my class so I can understand the needs and challenges of my learners.  As a teacher, I refer to these early weeks as the "red zone."  One of the simple mechanisms I have in place for week one is an online survey that students complete after reading the syllabus and reviewing some essential resources shared in the course site.  The content they review before completing the survey introduces them to many important things about the class, including my policies and philosophy about teaching, grading information, the fact that they will be participating in voice or video conversations using VoiceThread, and also creating their own blog in a closed social network referred to as Ning. Diane, and the rest of my students, completed the online survey and I reviewed the responses.  In the survey, there is one question that I always hone in on quite emphatically.  Toward the end of the survey, I asked students, "In one word, how are you feeling about the class?"  This single-word answer was a golden nugget for me.  Nearly all students responded with a word that was either positive or neutral, like "excited, "good," "fine," "curious."  But there are usually two or three students (out of about 30) who reply with something more concerning like "overwhelmed," "scared," "nervous."  These are the students I reach out to.  And this is the group that Diane fell into.I reached out to Diane after week one and mentioned, in an e-mail, that I had read her survey response and I wanted to assure her that I’d be here to support her through any questions she might have.  I asked her to elaborate on her response and to help me understand her reasons for being "nervous" about the class.  She wrote back and explained to me that she had taken many online classes before and she had been successful in those classes too.  But none of those classes had been like this one.  She was not comfortable with the idea of speaking in the VoiceThreads and also shared at one point that listening to her own voice was like "nails on a chalkboard." She was not familiar with VoiceThread or Ning (by the way, I do not expect any of my students to be familiar with these tools) and she was skeptical about the value they would bring to her experience. Fading OutI soon also began to learn that Diane also was a very busy woman.  She worked more than one job and these extra technologies were intrusions into the flow of her life, intrusions that weren’t planned and weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms.  I candidly shared with Diane why I use VoiceThread and Ning and just how valuable they are to my online learners in creating community and motivating students to learn in relevant contexts.  I asked her to keep an open mind and wait three weeks.  By week three, I assured her, things would settle in.Well, by week three, Diane was blossoming and I could begin to scale back my high-touch support.  In her VoiceThread group, she was quickly becoming a leader to her peers.  And on our voluntary "check in slides," she was candidly reflecting on how surprised she was to be enjoying the VoiceThreads so much (sigh of relief!).  On Diane’s blog, not only did I observe thorough, critical writing in response to my prompts, but she was actively enhancing her blog with non-required posts that were "inspired" (her word) by our readings and other course content.  She was reaching out and engaging her peers in dialogue by leaving valuable comments in their blogs that both engaged them in critical conversation and encouraged them for jobs well done.  Diane was emerging as a community leader in the class, a role that is filled to some degree each semester by one, two or three students and she was really flying to new heights. Overcoming Fear Leads to New JourneysDiane had been faced with a risk. Rather than running away from it, she tackled it head on.  As a result, she grew in new and unexpected ways. And one more unexpected outcome would arrive soon too.  Diane, apparently, was a budding freelance writer.  After conquering her unfamiliarity and fear of technology, she acquired the skills and the confidence to be hired by a major newspaper as a blogger.  Wow! My class — an online, History of Photography Class at a community college — resulted in a reluctant, older student securing a 21st-century journalist position.  Quite an unexpected outcome, I’d say?As Diane completed her journey in our 17-week class, I invited her and all my students to record a comment on my Wisdom Wall, a special VoiceThread in which I invited departing students to share advice with incoming students.  This tradition is a great way to end a class and provides a beautiful, warm entrance experience for my next group of nervous, reluctant learners.  Please take two minutes to listen to Diane’s reflection by clicking on the video below. (Shared with permission.)The Golden Rule of Teaching with Technology: "If you do not believe your students can do it, you are right."Teaching with the right technologies is essential when you are teaching online.  And your decisions should always be guided by pedagogy.  Once you choose to adopt tool into the design of your class, you are the key to your students’ success. Technology, no matter how powerful it may seem to be, will never replace the emotional value of a human mentor in a learning experience.  When you have students who are reluctant, overwhelmed, and nervous, only a person will be able to shepherd them through that experience successfully.  Thus, much of the success of these "reluctant learners" comes down to you. If you do not believe your students can do it, you are right.  If you are skeptical about whether or not your students will succeed, they will smell your reluctance and they will not perform.  You must be a strong, motivational, inspirational, leader.  Look within yourself.  If you don’t believe that your students can and will succeed, you need to adjust something in your class.  If you exude confidence in your online students and do so through warm, video communications so they can know who you are (something that can’t be obtained through text), they will be more likely to be motivated to want to make you proud. For more teaching tips and strategies, visit the resource site for my book, Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies or pick up my eBook How to Humanize Your Online Class with VoiceThread Kindle or Nook.

Developing technologies that facilitate discussion and encourage learners to engage is critical to maintaining student engagement and motivating them to stay active in the course. Welcome to an interview with Bryan Orme, co-founder of CreateDebate, an online debate forum.What is your name, your affiliation, and your connection to e-learning?My name is Bryan Orme, I am a co-founder of CreateDebate

How do we innovate education with technology? That question is such an important one for educators to think about in our digital, mobile society, as we continue to find new challenges and opportunities upon us.Last week, I had the great pleasure of presenting a keynote at the 12th annual Focus on Teaching with Technology, a regional conference held at UMSL (the University of Missouri, St. Louis). The event was fabulous. My presentation was titled Humanizing Learning with Emerging Technologies and I was elated to engage the participants with an energetic backchannel via Twitter.View the Storify archive of the keynote Twitter backchannel here!Now that I'm settled back on the west coast, I have been reflecting on the energy, enthusiasm, and innovation I witnessed at UMSL and am left with a great deal of respect and admiration for the solid teamwork, professionalism, and appreciation for treating people with courteosy that I experienced in my brief visit. That may seem like a simplistic take away when attempting to examine the question "How do we innovate education with technology?" but I don't think it is.  Carl Hoagland was the individual who introduced me before I spoke on Thursday.  Carl had taken the time to read my blog and shared an excerpt that I had written just a few weeks ago that told the story about how I had started my blog in a workshop led by two elementary educators in 2007.  He credited me with being a "learner," which I found very refreshing coming from an educator of such high achievement.  Carl is a noted visionary at UMSL and credited with leading the effort on campus to create the E. Desmond Lee Technology and Learning Center. Carl walked me through the center and quietly shared with me that the team in the center has always been taught to understand that the way people are treated is always more important than the fancy tools and technology contained within the center itself.  Carl's message and the warm, welcome I received from Keeta Holmes, Margaret (Peggy) Cohen, Michael Porterfield, Dylan Herx, and the rest of the CTL staff resonated with me.  In many ways, I saw connections with the presentation I shared that day.  Meeting a passionate leader who not only has a track history of taking a vision and implementing it successfully but remains connected within his/her community as a learner him/herself seems like a rare find to me and that shouldn't be.  As I look back at last week, I feel like I met about a half dozen Carls within the Technology and Learning Center staff. As we all continue to seek ways to leverage technology to improve learning, we must never lose sight of the importance of the human touch.  Ensuring people are treated like individuals with unique needs will always be central to effective learning.  Thank you for a memorable visit, UMSL. :)

E-Learning Queen is launching a case studies series to discuss applications of e-learning, including mobile learning. We're excited to kick off the series with an investigation of how elearning was used in the Special Olympics World Winter Games. Welcome to an interview with Heather Hill, Special Olympics World Winter Games, and founder of H2 BrandWorks, LLCPlease describe a case in which you