R.B.O. Telecoop

• Telecoop has officially changed its name to eLearning Consortium of Colorado. The name change was rolled out at lunch today with a video homage to Star Wars that I hope will be posted on the Telecoop, oops, I mean eLCC, Website.
• Someone at the conference who I haven’t seen in about six months exclaimed upon seeing me, “You’re looking lean and mean!” I took this as a compliment, and I credit krav maga.
• As at any conference, there are some excellent presentations and then there are the tragic. In the category of tragic, I had the misfortune to sit through the worst presentation I’ve ever seen. The presenters had clearly not rehearsed and I’m not even sure if they had talked with each other about what they were presenting on. They interrupted each other throughout the presentation, and when their technology burped—something that every presenter has to deal with at some point—they completely freaked out. Freaked out. They had no plan B and couldn’t even continue with their presentation because they could only “present” by reading their slides, which weren’t working.
• In the category of excellent, Eric Salahub did a very thought-provoking presentation on what constitutes “teaching” in online course, and by extension, face to face courses. Eric suggested that we reallocate the time we spend on online courses, putting more time and energy into interaction with students, and find efficiencies for making course updates, grading, and other activities that don’t contribute to “instructor presence” in the course less time consuming.
• Another excellent presentation: Peter Jeschofnig presented on his year in Namibia through the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program, which got me thinking things that made T very nervous . . . .
• One more excellent presentation: Jill Salahub presented on CSU’s Writing Studio and her findings in a study of the effects of professional development on instructors’ use of technology in the classroom.
• As always, the community and camaraderie at Telecoop/eLCC are what makes it stand out for me. I’ve had so many great conversations with people in between sessions. No egos, no pretensions—just a varied group of colleagues, ranging from faculty to technical support staff to administrators, sharing ideas.
• Nothing kills a presentation for me like the presenter making disparaging remarks about students. Otherwise interesting and helpful presentations are ruined for me when a presenter repeatedly rolls his/her eyes when referring to students or makes sarcastic remarks like, “Students claim. . . .” I value and respect my students, and I seem to take it personally when presenters don’t.
• The conference hotel has four nice big hot tubs outside. Last night, Lily and I had one all to ourselves. I love being in a hot tub when it’s 20 degrees and the hot tub is surrounded by hills of snow.

tags: academia  composition  conference  education  students  teaching  technology  telecoop  weather  places  elcc  

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