Do you backchannel?
Do you backchannel? When I attend professional conferences, I often participate in the conference backchannel using Twitter to tweet from the keynote presentation and the concurrent sessions that I attend. I will also follow the backchannel while I’m not in sessions...
December Friday Forum: LearningCommunities@NMC
This Friday, come join your colleagues to investigate the new learning communities being sponsored by CIE. Do you have a group that would love the time to collaborate, problem solve, laugh with colleagues? The December 4th Friday Forum will provide an introductory...
Reading Your Colleagues: The 4×4 Challenge
We have just wrapped up our third annual 4x4x16 Writing Challenge. We invited instructors at NMC to create 4 new pieces of writing for 4 straight weeks. Each piece of writing was to be approximately 16 sentences in length and focused on teaching and learning. That...
Book Review: Mindset
It's been at least five years since I first read Carol Dweck's Mindset, but it still informs many of my interactions with my students and my own children. This book has been around a while--you hear about it at conferences, we chose it as an NMC Reads book a number of...
Around Campus: Carpentry Course = Living Roof
Carpentry is one of the oldest trades around. People have been building since deciding they needed shelter from the elements. Devin Hill is a long time Carpentry Instructor here at NMC and teaches 3 courses every semester that deal with some aspect of the Carpentry...
Will Reading Ever Be the Same?
I was listenting to the podcast "Note to Self" the other day. I really like to download a whole bunch of different podcasts and listen while driving. So much so that I actually look forward to long car trips now. Anyway, enough about me... This episode was titled...
The WRC: Providing Instructor Support
Last week I presented to a biology class about their final project. I provided a lovely handout (if I do say so myself) that outlined the different sections of their project and how to best create their content. But there was one glaring issue: a typo. Of course I...
Kon-Tiki Kind of Times
This weekend I watched the movie Kon-Tiki with my family. Having never read it, I found the whole thing new, and wonderfully so. Thor Heyerdahl and his bride, Liv, are beginning their marriage on Fatu Hiva, near the Polynesian Islands. The question...
My Extra Credit Assignment: StoryCorps’ Great Thanksgiving Listen
Today in my ENG 99 class, I introduced an extra credit assignment for over the Thanksgiving weekend. The assignment is for students to download the StoryCorps app and record an interview this weekend with someone special in their lives. Then, they can join thousands...
Paperless Grading
Moodle attendance feature. I do not use the attendance feature to take attendance, I use it to grade my students’ Prepare Activities. In Moodle, the instructor can set up the attendance feature however she wants. I have it set up with a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 scale. I set...