"When we think of where people turn for information, we usually think of databases, the Internet, intranets and portals, or more traditional repositories such as file cabinets or manuals. What we may not think of is one of the most crucial sources of all: other people."-Ageless Learner.comRob Cross, Andrew Parker, Laurence Prusak, Stephen Borgatti It's time that all higher ed stakeholders value technology as a vehicle to connect people, share ideas, foster relationships, break down the silos, reduce the redundancy in our work processes, and collaboratively solve the problems that so many institutions and individual faculty are grappling with across our nation.  This is a new way of framing technology which is still viewed as a barrier in the eyes of many individuals, particularly those who resist the notion that online learning can be relevant, inspirational, empowering, and life changing which, I have learned, it can when an instructor is trained and supported effectively. How Google Hangouts Are Rocking My WorldI've been reflecting recently on how Google+ Hangouts have affected my learning and thinking about how free, easy-to-use, social, synchronous video-based learning environments will reshape organizational faculty development programs in the future.  The future is looking much more faculty-centered to me, provided that faculty participate, build their personal learning networks, and engage in online informal learning.So many people have asked me, "What makes Hangouts so different, really?"  Well, in some ways nothing but in other ways, everything.  Really, they deliver many of the same technological features that Skype delivers -- synchronous voice, text, and video communications -- but Hangouts support video conversations in groups up to 10 for free.  Further, the simple fact that a Hangout is "baked into" a social network that I use to cultivate my own personal collection of humans from who'd I'd like learn and with whom I'd like to share sets it apart.  Simultaneously, this is still the greatest drawback to most faculty, as well, as relatively few are using Google+.  Hangouts come in two flavors: the standard "Hangout" and "Hangout On Air." The "On Air" feature allows you to simultaneously stream your video conversation to the web (not always appropriate, no, but it can be quite valuable for certain applications).  The stream appears automatically on your YouTube Channel (which you manually connect to Hangouts one time) and on your Google+ Profile page.  When you launch the Hangout On Air, you also are provided with embed code that you may copy and paste into any html web page (like your course management system, a blog, a wiki, etc.) and point your audience there ahead of time. When the Hangout On Air is over, the stream is archived in video on your YouTube Channel (which you can adjust to either public, unlisted, or private). For the past year, I have been holding a monthly office hour session for VoiceThread in my role as their Higher Ed Learning Consultant.  This is an opportunity for any educator using VoiceThread to ask me questions, share ideas about how they're using VoiceThread, and work through questions or problems they have.  Before August I was holding the sessions in a web conferencing system that required advanced registration.  There were several months when nobody showed up.  In August, my first Hangout On Air month, I had a dynamic group of between 4-7 people join me and last month Amanda, my colleague from VoiceThread, and I were joined by three educators.  The experience is just more fluid, more natural.  And so is the conversation -- at least after I have gotten over my initial stage fright! Anyone who says presenting in front of a webcam is NOT nerve racking like public speaking has never done it.Learning from Other Faculty: Without WallsBut the really compelling idea that I'm left with is probably the most simple. It's about how faculty are learning today on college campuses.  As I reflect on my experiences with teaching, the greatest "Ah ha" moments I've had are those that have come about through the informal learning moments I've had interacting with other faculty members.  I have not worked on a physical campus since 2009; yet, my "Ah ha" moments have not dwindled.  They continue to flourish -- through the faculty development classes I teach (our VoiceThread discussions), the webinars I present and attend; the interactions I have on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and my blog with my PLN; and now my Google Hangouts.  Over the past decade, as state budgets have dwindled higher ed faculty have become increasingly more part-time and more frequently work for multiple institutions. Earlier this month, I Skyped with a colleague of mine who is now teaching for FOUR colleges.  The point here is that web-based social technologies allow faculty to engage in formal learning while immersed in personalized video conversations at a distance.  The boundaries of our campuses are no longer obstacles that keep us from learning from faculty at other campuses.  We really are one big learning community ... if we just participate.On college campuses, faculty development programs continue to be cut along with the budget, leaving the minimally staffed departments (if there is even one!) to be managing responsibilities that reach far outside of their original domain and leaving no time to stay current on emerging technologies.  Exploring, questioning, examining and experimenting with how to teach effectively with social technologies is perhaps the factor that will keep college learning moving forward.  These are the questions that will empower us to recraft a college learning experience that prepares our students for life in a digital, mobile, interconnected, global society -- one in which employers expect new employees to demonstrate their ability to have fostered relationships at a distance (through Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.) and be able to effectively present and converse asynchronous and synchronously through a webcam (for starters).There are a mess of issues that faculty deal with on a daily basis.  How do we navigate the overwhelming world of new technologies? Where do we start? How do we teach with new tools and manage accessibility regulations?  How do I navigate my students' privacy effectively in the open web? How do we balance life and work?  How do we foster active learning with large class sizes?  What LMS should my insitution change to? What conferences are worth attending? We all have the same questions!  Let's ask them together! From my experiences, technology is so often viewed as a barrier in higher education. It is seen as as an obstacle that comes between humans and undermines our genuine ability to interact and engage with each other.  I've never viewed technology that way. To me, it's technology's dazzling capability to bring humans together regardless of their physical location that excite me.  Faculty Development Hangouts?I would like to start arranging Google Hangouts for faculty to discuss hot topics, share ideas, and just converse with one another.  Do you think this is a good idea? Would you attend or be interested in watching an archive of a Hangout On Air?  If so, add me to your Circles and leave a comment here on my blog with your thoughts or ideas for Hangout topics.  If you have questions that you'd like answered, please leave them here in the form of a blog comment and I'd be happy to answer them.

Learning Out Loud: Is it the Missing Link in Online Classes? Friday, October 19th, 12pm PDT/ 3pm EDTFree Webinar (Registration Required) Join me, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, author of Best Practices for Teaching with Emerging Technologies and associate faculty at Mt. San Jacinto College, as I shares the results of an ongoing study that seeks to discover how online, asynchronous voice discussions affect community college student learning at a distance. I will be joined by one of my former online students who will answer your questions and share her experiences.In 2008, my online teaching studies showed evidence that VoiceThread, a web-based tool that gives users the choice to comment in voice or text, increases online community and enhances the instructor-to-student relationship. But over the years, I found that only 25% of my students regularly selected to comment in voice when given a choice.  I wanted to know why and understand how I could improve this percentage, as well as discover what what would happen if I was successful.In this webinar, I will demonstrate a change I made in my online teaching approach in 2012 that resulted in an increase from 25% to 75% of my students choosing to participate with voice comments in class discussions.  I will show samples of the VoiceThread activities and present the students’ feedback about how this rich, humanized, online classroom affected students.Register for this webinar here.Hangout with Michelle and the VoiceThread TeamWednesday, October 24th at 3pm PDT/ 6pm EDTJoin me, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, and a member of the VoiceThread team on Wednesday, October 24th at 3pm PDT/ 6pm EDT in a Google+ Hangout On Air.  This interactive environment provides seats for up to 10 people to engage in a video conversation and accommodates an unlimited number of online viewers. Come to ask questions about VoiceThread, share your ideas for using it in your class, or raise topics for discussion. To learn how to participate, visit the Hangout page of Michelle’s blog.

In my previous blog post, I wrote about using Google+ Hangouts for faculty development and learning, particularly to connect faculty beyond our physical campus boundaries and reduce some of the redundancy in our workload.As a follow up, I'm arranging what I'm referring to as a "Teach & Share" which is simply a one-hour Google+ Hangout On Air dedicated to a hot topic in college teaching.  Here is our inaugural event -- I hope you can join us!Tuesday, October 16 at 3:30pm PDT/6:30 EDTTeach & Share: a Google+ Hangout on AirTopic -  Canvas by Instructure: The hot, new LMS on the blockCanvas is a new, open source LMS from Instructure (http://www.instructure.com/) that has grabbed that attention of many institutions recently.  This "Teach & Share" is an open, informal invitation to faculty who are teaching with Canvas or considering adopting Canvas to share their experiences with other faculty who are beginning the process of evaluating it as a possible LMS solution. What do you like? What do you dislike? What works? What needs to improve?  Bring your ideas to share and questions to discuss with your peers!What is a Teach and Share? A "Teach & Share" is simply an hour-long Hangout On Air in which faculty are invited to come together to share their teaching experiences about a particular topic and learn from one another.  The event will be recorded. You must receive an invitation to the Hangout to be able to join.Have a suggestion for another Teach & Share topic? Share it here in the form of a comment!Two Ways to Participate: Join (active participation) or View (passive/lurking)There are seats in the Hangout for up to 10 participants (including me).  So please be mindful about what your preferences are to ensure those who want to contribute have a chance to get a seat.  If you want to "join," be sure to follow the instructions below.If you just are interested in "view" the event, you may watch the live feed that I will embed on the Hangout page of my blog.How to receive an invitation to join the Hangout on Air (this is for those who wish to actively contribute, rather than passively view the event):Log into Google+ with your Google account. (If you do not have a Google account, you will need to create one.)Search for Michelle Pacansky-Brock or click here to go straight to my profile page.At the top of the page, hover over the red "Add to Circles" button and select the Circle you wish to add me to or create your own.  Click here to watch a brief video that illustrates how to add a user to your Circles in Google+. Once you have added me to your Circles, I will "Add you back." When this reciprocal relationship has been established, you will receive invitations to join my Teach & Shares.  On the day/time of the Hangout, open Google+ and look for the invitation that will appear in your feed.  Click on "Join Hangout."  If it's your first Hangout, you will need to download a plug in the first time. Have an topic in mind for a future Teach and Share? Please make your suggestion in a comment below!

Direct link to archive: http://youtu.be/dhVFRLj_xnsI just wrapped up our inaugural Teach & Share, my experimental effort to use Google+ Hangouts on Air to discuss "hot topics" in teaching and learning.  Today, I was joined online by Mike Smedshammer, Jennifer Garner, Tera Ulbert, Jacque Harris, Christine Sibley, and Brad Belbas who shared their experiences about Canvas. We also had up to 18 viewers of the live Hangout stream during the event.  My big takeaways from our conversation are 1) the ways that Canvas is improving the faculty adoption barriers for integrating rich media into classes by streamlining media content into the LMS without an instructor needing to mess around with embed code and 2) how various features in Canvas (built-in of audio and video communications and a continuous, threaded collection of all communications an instructor sends to each student) can increase instructor-student relations (as cited in the feedback shared by Mike Smedshammer in this Hangout).Thank you again for participating! I learned a lot from you and, honestly, now I'm aching to have the opportunity to teach with Canvas. I hope this archive is a resource to many! Have a topic in mind for a future Teach & Share? Leave it here in a comment or Tweet it to @brocansky.

Moran, M, Seaman, J, Tinti-Kane, H. (2012). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and Facebook: How today's higher education faculty use social media. Pearson Learning Solutions and Babson Survey Research Group.A new report was recently released by Pearson and Babson Survey Research group which examines the personal, professional, and instructional uses of social media by more than 4,000 college faculty of varying age groups. Who participated in this survey?4,534 faculty members 75% of respondents teach full-time25% of respondents teach onlineslightly over 50% of respondents are femaleover 1/3 of respondents have been teaching for 20 years or moreSome key findings, cited in the press release, include: 64.4 percent of faculty use social media for their personal lives, 33.8 percent use it for teaching41 percent for those under age 35 compared to 30 percent for those over age 55 reported using social media in their teachingFaculty in the Humanities and Arts, Professions and Applied Sciences, and the Social Sciences use social media at higher rates than those in Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Computer ScienceBlogs and wikis are preferred for teaching, while Facebook or LinkedIn are used more for social and professional connections88 percent of faculty, regardless of discipline, reported using online video in the classroomSome additional interesting observations include:Only 14.4% of faculty use blogs or wikis in teaching to "post or create" Twitter is used by only 7.9% of faculty for "personal use" but isn't even included in category of tools used by professors to "connect professionally" While LinkedIn surpassed Facebook as the #1 tool used by professors to "connect professionally," it is still used by less than 25% of faculty for this purpose33.8% of faculty create their own videosAll perceived barriers to using social media have decreasedThe survey and infographic(s) are available for download online after you submit your name, email address, institution, and title.  The infographics are embedded withing a PDF document. Thanks for the great info Pearson and Babson.  One thought...it would be quite nice if the format of this survey was more "social" and akin to sharing, keeping in line with its topic. Also, some additional topics that I'd personall love to see would be data about *why* faculty use social media in their teaching.  That is, what is that drives them to integrate tools outside of the learning management systems that their institutions pay so much money for, when there are so many widespread barriers.  And how are institutions responding to this shift?  Are we seeing a shift to enterprise-wide adoption of social media tools? Who pays for the tools that are not free?  What is the breakdown between 4-year and 2-year institutions and full-time vs. part-time instructors?  Thanks for sharing!

Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout on AirWednesday, October 24th at 3pm PDT/ 6pm EDTJoin me, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, and a member of the VoiceThread team on Wednesday, October 24th at 3pm PDT/ 6pm EDT in a Google+ Hangout On Air.  This event will be recorded and streamed live.Come to ask questions about teaching with VoiceThread, share your ideas for using it in your class, or raise topics for discussion. This interactive environment set within Google+ provides seats for up to 10 people to engage in a live video conversation and accommodates an unlimited number of online viewers.  To learn how to participate, visit the Hangout page of Michelle’s blog.

Thanks to Torria Bond, Brad Belbas, David Detwiler, and Michael Kieley for joining Sadie Anderson, of VoiceThread, and me in today's Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout on Air! We covered lots of ground including ideas for encouraging faculty adoption of VoiceThread, how to moderate comments in a VoiceThread, a practical example for teaching Spanish with VoiceThread, and clarifying the steps and benefits involved with using the Groups feature in VoiceThread. The archive of the Hangout is below and may be viewed on YouTube at this link: http://youtu.be/hhie_PVh8VgJoin us for the next Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout scheduled for Friday, November 9th at 1pm PDT/4pm EDT.  To learn how, please visit the Hangout page of my blog.View archives of past VoiceThread webinars here!

Blending Business Learning with VoiceThread Monday, November 5th, 12pm PDT/ 3pm EDTThis webinar, hosted by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, will feature the teaching innovations of Kathy Bohley Professor of Marketing and International Business at the University of Indianapolis, School of Business.The presenter, Dr. Kathy Bohley, has successfully utilized Voicethread in her undergraduate and graduate business courses, as well as conducted training for the faculty and students on "best practices" of Voicethread.  During this webinar, participants will learn how Dr. Bohley is utilizing VoiceThread to engage and motivate students, while reducing "classroom seat time".  Examples from various business courses will highlight usage of Voicethread for ice-breaker assignments, mini-lectures, group work, FAQ’s, and substantive feedback.  By the end of the webinar, participants should have a better understanding of how they can implement Voicethread into their course to improve student learning.Register for this webinar here. Online Office Hour: Hangout with Michelle and the VoiceThread TeamJoin Michelle on Friday, November 9th at 1pm PST/ 4pm EST for her online office hour in a Google+ Hangout On Air.  This interactive environment provides seats for up to 10 people to engage in a video conversation and accommodates an unlimited number of online viewers.  To learn how to participate, visit the Hangout page of Michelle’s blog.

Webinar: Learning Out Loud from VoiceThread on VimeoAbove is the archive of a webinar I recently presented for VoiceThread.  In the webinar I shared results of a semester-long teaching experiment that resulted in increasing the percentage of voluntary student voice or video comments from 25% to 75%.  I also share student feedback results that demonstrate how learning out loud in an online class improved the students' perception of how well they understood of the material, improved their verbal skills, kept them motivated, and made them feel more connected to their peers and instructor.View a list of all VoiceThread webinar archives here.

This week, I sat down in a Hangout with Deborah Lemon to learn about how she uses a private Facebook group to teach spanish fully online and in a blended format.  I must say, I was impressed and inspired!  I've found myself thinking long and hard about some of the examples she shared in the Hangout.  Deborah's point, to me, is that Facebook allows for her to seamlessly and fluidly interact with her students but also, and perhaps more importantly, the students can spontaneously stream their lives and experiences through their feed updates, functioning as authentic assessments. As Deborah explained to me, this type of fluid connection to students is essential when teaching a foreign language.  For example, (you'll see this in the video) Deborah showed a video of a student who set up her smartphone phone and recorded herself interacting with customers at her place of employment -- using the spanish skills she had just learned in class.  Deborah likens the video clips that the students share in the Facebook microblog feed to an ePortfolio.  Nearly all college students are on Facebook already so having them shift to a private FB group to share their spanish skills with their phones makes a lot more sense than requiring them to get to a computer and log into Blackboard or Moodle.To me, I had always been a bit stand offish about microblogging because it's so fragmented but Deborah demonstrated how the Facebook Group function provides a simple way to sort the contributions made by each student.  This gives a comprehensive view of the students' activities in one place.  Deborah covers a lot of other important topics including dealing with reluctant Facebook users (which is very rare, she says) and archiving content.I find myself thinking about how using social technologies push us, as teachers, into new and unexpected territory.  We might start using a social technology for one particular reason but what blossoms from there is the exciting and unimaginable part -- that's the piece that we need to be cultivating and that's the piece that will not happen in traditional course management systems. Finally, Deborah invites you all to join her Facebook Group "Using Groups for Teaching." In this group, you'll find lots of tips and resources for learning about how to teach with Facebook, as well as the chance to interact with other like-minded educators.  To check it out, go to Facebook.com, sign in, search for "Using Groups for Teaching" using the search box at the top, and click "Join group."Enjoy the video!

I've been doing a great deal of reflecting and discussing lately about some of the "ah ha" moments I've had in my Google Hangouts these past few months (my next on is this afternoon, by the way -- see my Hangouts Page for details!).  This morning a read a great, brief post on the Chronicle written by Robert Talbert titled "The social element of learning about effective teaching strategies" and it seems to fold many of my own realizations into a nice summary.Building off ideas from Theron Hitchman's Circles and Tangents blog and citing research from Henderson, et al., he notes that, "Publishing about effective teaching strategies in journals is somewhat effective in getting others to become aware of and adopt those strategies, but not as effective as going to to workshops, and that's not as effective as one-on-one interaction with a person who uses such methods."  And this is precisely why the social era is disrupting our traditional "workshop based" model of faculty development, in a good way. Today, faculty members can develop their own Personal Learning Networks on Twitter and/or Google+ and join Hangouts on Google+ to share teaching practices.  A Hangout is a group conversation between up to ten people from anywhere in the world and when you start a Hangout as a Hangout "On Air" (which is optional) it is streamed live to the web so an unlimited number of people can view it and it is also automatically archived to your YouTube channel.  Check out the Google+ for Universities page to learn more about getting started.I teach an online faculty development class called "Building Online Community with Social Media, " and in that class I observe faculty (mostly who teach online or who are preparing to teach online at community colleges in California) share problems, challenges, and reflect on opportunities.  What I have learned is that faculty are struggling to solve many of the same huge problems, often in complete isolation or with small groups at their local institutions, rather than opening outward and leveraging the robust community of which we are a part. As faculty, we must recognize that we are all lifetime learners understanding how to design and facilitate effective, meaningful, relevant learning environments for our students.  That's not an easy task in an ever-changing technological society with financially strapped faculty development budgets. In the social era, no longer do part-timers (who teach most of the college classes in the U.S. today) need to feel marginalized from institutional teaching communities.  No longer are faculty restricted by our physical campus boundaries to learn only from those who teach on our campus.  In today's digital, mobile society, each of us may construct our own teaching community and learn together. The social era is changing the landscape of many elements of our society and faculty development is certainly on the list.  As most of us who work at public institutions sit back and watch our faculty development budgets be slashed and our technology and pedagogy support staff vanish, these are crucial ideas to ponder and discuss. Thoughts, ideas, reactions are welcome, as always!

Today I had a really exhilarating "Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout" with Brad Belbas, Suzanne Friedman, Deborah Lemon, Jaime Vandergrift, and Amanda Volz.  Great ideas and tips were shared!  Deborah Lemon shared her screen and showcased a fabulous and practical application of VoiceThread in which her Spanish students create their own VoiceThreads that include brief webcam recordings of themselves demonstrating their Spanish speaking skills.  Their peers leave comments using their own webcams (a required component of the assignment) and the student (creator) joins in by commenting back.  The result is an asynchronous video dialogue in Spanish.  We had a great, reflective discussion about the importance of creativity as a skill in the 21st century, the value of VoiceThread as a digital ePortfolio tool in higher education and I had a chance to demo how to use Identities and the Move feature to facilitate an effective conversation with feedback in VoiceThread.Join me next month!I hope you enjoy the archive!  If you'd like to join in on our next "Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout" scheduled for 10am PST / 1pm EST, please go to my Google+ page and add me to your Circles.  The live stream of each Hangout is always embedded on the Hangouts page of my blog if you'd just like to watch.

I just learned this today and thought there would be other VoiceThread users who would appreciate knowing. If you are a Mac user who also uses VoiceThread, you should be aware that the most recent version of Google Chrome (23.0.1271.64) has disabled the ability to record audio with with flash based applications (like VoiceThread).  If you've noticed your voice or webcam comment sounding robotic or not working at all, this is likely the culprit.  Switch to Firefox or Safari until the issue is resolved. There is no known issue with recording into flash when using Chrome on a PC that I'm aware of.

As a member of the 2013 steering committee, I invite you to submit a proposal for the 6th Annual Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International Symposium, to be held April 9-11, 2013 at The Planet Hollywood Resort in Las Vegas, NV. The Emerging Technologies for Online Learning International Symposium, a joint Symposium of Sloan Consortium and MERLOT, is designed to bring together individuals interested in the review and evaluation of online teaching and learning technologies.Proposals for presentations must be submitted by December 10, 2012 at:http://sloanconsortium.org/conference/2013/et4online/call-for-presentations.The ET4Online Symposium offers you an opportunity to study best practices, understand applications, discover new technologies, and connect to others who share a love for and belief in the promise of educational technology. In 2012 the symposium developed a new mission statement designed to emphasize the innovation and invention that is the focus of the conference: A conference devoted to the emerging and innovative uses of technology designed to improve teaching and learning online. Symposium tracks highlight and demonstrate research, application and effective practices and noteworthy technological tools in the following areas:• Learning Spaces and Communities• Open and Accessible Learning• Evidence-based Learning• Faculty and Student Development• Innovative Media and ToolsFollow the conference on Twitter @et4online.Free Webinar -- Gain Tips for Writing a Successful Proposal Faculty, students, instructional designers, instructional technologists and academic administrators are encouraged to submit proposals which are engaging, informative and interactive. These sessions can be targeted to all attendees or beginners, intermediates, or experts.If you are interested in submitting a proposal for this conference, plan to join us for our FREE webinar "Five Tips on How to Submit a Successful Conference Proposal". The goal of this webinar is to assist you in submitting a successful abstract to the Call for Presentations.The webinar is scheduled for:November 29, 2012 - 12:00pm PST/3:00pm ESTFor today’s educator, selection as a conference presenter is often required in order to attend a conference. For every online learning conference, educators submit and conference committees evaluate hundreds of proposals in order to create a robust program for conference attendees. The number of proposals accepted for a conference depends on program size, topics covered and quality of abstracts submitted. Join this free webinar to learn from experts on the Sloan Consortium and MERLOT Conference Team what they are looking for in proposal submissions. Topics covered will include the importance of topic selection, what reviewers look for in a proposal submission, and tips from track chairs on how final selections are made. Please login or register to sign up for this webinar.

Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout on AirFriday, December 7th at 10am PST/ 1pm ESTJoin me, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, and a member of the VoiceThread team on Friday, December 7th at 10am PST/ 1pm EST in a Google+ Hangout On Air.  This event will be recorded and streamed live.What's a Hangout?  It's an online video conversation that seats up to 10 people with unlimited capacity for online viewers.  Click here to view the archives of a past VoiceThread Hangouts.Who's welcome?  Anyone who has questions about teaching with VoiceThread, has ideas to share, examples of VoiceThreads they'd like show, and/or issues or problems they would like help with.  The Hangouts bring together educators from diverse disciplines and levels to talk about how VoiceThread is being used in education.To learn how to "join" or "view" the live Hangout (your two options for participation), visit the Hangout page of my blog.*This Hangout on Air is sponsored by VoiceThread.

If you are currently teaching online at a college or university, I please consider participating in this important survey which is focused on collecting data about faculty working conditions in the online environment. Survey of Online Working Conditions For the Coalition on Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL X) and the OnLine Teaching Working Group, UALE, this survey is for anyone who is teaching on line in colleges or universities. We are trying to collect a range of working conditions -- how much people get paid, how many hours they work, whether they have union representation, how many students they have in a class, etc. When we have collected enough responses to get a sense of what's out there, we will categorize the examples as "good," "bad" and "ugly," in an attempt to set some kind of standard of what decent working conditions for on line teachers might look like. Click here to take the survey.

What would a social higher-ed institution look like? How would decisions be made? How would unions evolve? How would the institution look if each person contributed -- and if each person's contribution played a role in starting conversations and evoking critical dialogue? And why are these questions critical to the future of education?These are some of the questions I explore in my new post, Imagining a Social University, on the GETInsight blog.  Each month I write a sponsored blog post for Cisco's GETInsight blog on the topic of global educational innovation through technology.  To view a collection of my GETInsight posts, click here.Image courteousy of Oana Roxana Birtea http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Thanks to Dana Howard, Brad Belbas, Jaime Vandergrift, and Amanda Volz (of VoiceThread) for joining me today for my Teaching with VoiceThread Hangout.  This was the most instructionally diverse Hangout we've had, as our participants represented K12, high school, and college instructors.  That made for a fresh and lively conversation about many topics.  Amanda shared an exciting update about some new LMS integration features on the horizon for VoiceThread site license holders -- this will appeal to Blackboard users!  And Dana gave us a peek into one of her AP art history VoiceThread activities.  Still working through some audio hiccups with Google Hangouts, folks, sorry about the sound glitch with the screenshare.Enjoy the archive. It is also available on the "Hangout" page of this blog (where you can learn about my next Hangout scheduled for Tuesday on the topic of "Online Learning: the Good, the Bad, and the Awesome."And take a moment to join the brand new "VoiceThread for Teaching and Learning" Community on Google+!

I was joined today in a Google+ Hangout on Air by a group of nine fabulous online educators encompassing k-12 and higher education institutions in California and Australia.  The conversation was dynamic, the reflections were heartfelt and inspirational including stories about students and personal growth as teachers, and the tips and strategies shared were invaluable. And the Google+ Hangout archive didn't work.  :(  As fabulous as that hour was, I am so very disappointed to not be able to share it with more of you.  Sorry, folks.  Better luck next time!

Why are emerging technologies valuable in an online class?  And what additional challenges do bring to the role of the course instructor, particularly at the community college level? How and why should college educators encourage older students to be open to experimenting with learning with new tools?  And to what extent can technology assist instructors with supporting students through their learning success?  As online instructors, we must always remain active, warm, human mentors in our students' learning.  In the post I have written this month for the GETinsight blog, you will read a true story about how one of my older, online students, named Diane, transformed from reluctant and fearful of technology to stunningly successful and leveraged her new digital skills to secure a position as a blogger with a local newspaper by the end of the course.  Here is a comment Diane left at the end of the course, intended to be heard by my next, incoming group of students (shared here with her permission). The full blog post is available at: Believing in Students: What Technology Can’t DeliverEach month I write a sponsored blog post for Cisco's GETinsight blog on the topic of global educational innovation through technology.  To view a collection of my GETInsight posts, click here.

The 6th Annual Sloan-C/MERLOT International Symposium for Emerging Technologies in Online Learning (@ET4Online) has been moved from July to April 9-11 this year in Las Vegas!  Also new to this year's festivities is The Launch Pad, a chance for a small group of leading edge educational technology startups to be featured in a showcase role at the conference for a special price. Read more about the event and the cool ways EdSurge's Tony Wan will be partnering with us on their awesome site here.I have the great pleasure to be the Chair of the Launch Pad committee this year and it's been an exciting opportunity to cultivate this new dimension into the ecosystem of the conference.  As an online educator myself, I believe the overcoming many of our current educational challenges will require a more fluid dialogue between educators and entrepreneurs.  Those who are envisioning the tools with which we, as teachers, will use to facilitate our learning environments, must understand the challenges and obstacles educators face on a daily basis. The Launch Pad is one step towards improving this dialogue and fostering a learning community between educators and entrepreneurs.6-8 companies will be selected to attend the ET4OL conference in Las Vegas on April 9-11, 2013. The lucky Launch Pad participants will receive:A booth in the specially designated "Launch Pad" area within the conference floor planFull conference registration (a $575 value)A seat on the "Art of Innovation" conference plenary panel, moderated by EdSurge’s Tony Wan, on the morning of Thursday, April 11thAn invitation to attend "The Art of the Startup", a workshop on Tuesday, April 9th featuring presentations by: Frank Bonsal, General Partner, New Market Venture PartnersHarris Goodman, VP of Development, Late Nite LabsMichael Hageloh of Michael Hageloh, Inc.Phil Ice, VP of Research & Development, American Public University SystemSpotlight promotions on the ET4Online website and EdSurge newsletterThe priceless opportunity to speak with and the world’s leading online educators and learn how to improve your product to meet their teaching needsSpecial Introductory Launch Pad Price: $400*(*There is no fee to apply. The fee will be paid by selected participants only.) Apply for the Launch Pad now! Application period closes January 23rd.

January is upon us and the start of a new semester got me a little behind with the planning of this month's "Teaching with VoiceThread" Hangout -- but it was great, nonetheless!  I especially enjoyed the terrific reflections shared in the first part of the Hangout by +Michael Kieley and +Deborah Lemon about how teaching with VoiceThread has improved their connections with their students, their understanding of their students' needs, and their ability to measure their students' abilities and growth.  We also had an interesting dialogue about the value of "community" in foreign language classes, which is a strength of VoiceThread.   I also had a chance to answer some "how to" questions about "Identities" and adding video files to a VoiceThread by using the 'screenshare' feature of Hangouts in the second half of the session.View the entire playlist of Teaching with VoiceThread Hangouts here. To be notified of future Teaching with VoiceThread Hangouts, please join the "Teaching with VoiceThread" community in Google+.

VoiceThread, a tool that has transformed the way I teach and the way my students learn online through warm, multisensory, community-building online communications, now integrates with any course management system -- Blackboard, Moodle, Desire 2 Learn, Canvas, and more!Faculty who teach online with a course management system and who use external, web-based tools to add increase interaction, collaboration and more to their students' learning are familiar with the added management tasks of navigating the student account creation process, eliminating students from the web-based activities who have dropped the class, and other steps that add to the time of teaching a class. VoiceThread has always been easy to embed in course management systems with any type of VoiceThread account, even a free one.  And that has not changed a bit.  But this week, VoiceThread announced the availability of LTI or Learning Tools Interoperability which now makes VoiceThread integrate seamlessly with any course management system, creating a single-sign on experience for students, automatic account generation for students, and more! What does this mean to me?LTI is a next-generation, standard created by the IMS Global Learning Consortium that allows for streamlined, agile integration of learning applications and tools.  In our rapidly changing technological teaching and learning landscape, it's a solution that is welcomed with open arms and seeing VoiceThread make the adoption of LTI a priority is really an exciting moment.  It demonstrates an organizational commitment to students, faculty, administrators, and willingness to respond to the challenges educators face in today's online teaching landscape. In a real-world contact, LTI creates some spectacular time saving realities for instructors and other academic stakeholders.  For example, with LTI integration in place, VoiceThread becomes a "seamless part of the LMS" for students, allowing for a single sign on experience for learners using Blackboard, Sakai, Moodle, Desire 2 Learn, Canvas, and more!Faculty will rejoice upon seeing VoiceThread accounts automatically created for students on their course roster and having those accounts sync with the ebb and flow of the add/drop period (that's right, no more manual adjustments necessary by the instructor!).Also, the integration automatically creates a VoiceThread Group at the start of each course without the instructor clicking a single button. To read about the advantages LTI brings to ITS and organizational leaders, read the blog post. Who has access to VoiceThread's LTI feature?LTI is automatically included with all VoiceThread site licenses. And Department license holders may purchase LTI integration as an added upgrade.  If you are a K12 school license holder who utilizes a course management system, you are also eligible to upgrade to LTI and it's included for K12 district and state license holders.If you'd like to learn more about VoiceThread's LTI feature, please email info@voicethread.com

I recently joined the contributing editorial staff at edCetera and will be writing brief posts that offer strategies for fostering community-oriented learning in online classes through the use of emerging technologies.My new post, The Online Teaching Welcome Mat: Energzing Learners with Animoto, showcases a simple (and fun) way instructors can utilize Animoto, an easy-to-use web-based tool, to create a warm, inviting welcome video for their online class.  Why is this a good idea? Read the post and find out!  It will also share how to get your own free Animoto educator account!If you are using Animoto in other creative ways, please share your ideas!