ELI Fall Focus Session Begins Today

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative offers online mini-conferences known as focus sessions twice per year. The Fall 2009 Focus Session is taking place this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon. The theme of the Focus Session is "Flattening the Classroom: Building Collaborative Learning Environments."

As part of CTIP, we are hosting a group participation site for this event. About 10 faculty members are registered to attend each day. Several are members of the CTIP Faculty Cohort, but this event is open to all NMU faculty, and I'm glad to see that several who aren't cohort members are also planning to attend.

Most presentations are about 30 minutes each, so faculty can squeeze sessions into their busy schedules and don't necessarily have to commit an entire afternoon. The program is posted on the event website.

It isn't too late to register to join us, or if you don't have a chance to register and want to drop by, don't worry . . . we can add you to the attendance list on-site.

Late MERLOT Conference Entry

This is a late Merlot Conference entry, but one I've wanted to make. Most memorable for me was Perry Samson's presentation on the software his students developed with him for students to enter comments and questions while he was running a PowerPoint lecture and speaking. The student questions were monitored, in Perry's classroom, by a teaching assistant, who would answer their questions real-time. Perry also walks around his classroom with a tablet computer that allows him to draw or underline his PowerPoints for emphasis -- shades of the overhead projector, incorporated into the computer age. I'm interested in getting his "free" program to try in my Myth class -- haven't done so yet, as I am just clearing the crush at the start of the semester. --Diane

Kenn on the MERLOT YouTube Channel

Kenn Pitawanakwat was interviewed between sessions at the MERLOT International Conference. The video of that interview is on MERLOT's YouTube channel and is also embedded below.