Foreign students and tolerance

I'm attaching here a link to an article from Inside Higher Ed about racism toward international students. I don't know how much of a problem this has been for our students, but I remember several unpleasant incidents when I worked at Kansas State. Interestingly, this article was written by a professor at ODU - Chris Glass. Anyone know him? It's interesting to read perspectives on international students from others at our university, and it makes me think there's more communication and collaboration needed across departments.

Foreign Students and Tolerance

ODU Faculty Summer Institute Presentation

Here is the link to Ashley and Jamie's presentation on the blog project we did with the Advanced II students. Check it out and leave a comment below to let us know if you have any questions.

Almost Blogspot On: Blogs as Electronic Portfolios

ODU Faculty Summer Institute

In an email sent to Laura:

Since you participated in (and, we hope, benefitted from) a recent year’s CLT Faculty Summer Institute, we at the Center for Learning and Teaching cordially invite you to participate in this year’s event, as well.

This year’s topic is “Learning and Teaching Connections” and the Institute will take place at Webb Center on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 22 and 23, from 8am until 4:30pm each day.   Our keynote speaker is Dr. Tara Gray, founding director of the Teaching Academy at New Mexico State University, whose address is entitled “Five Ways to Connect with your Students.”  Here is some information about Dr. Gray:  https://blog.clt.odu.edu/si/keynote

The Faculty Summer Institute, as you know, is an opportunity for collegial sharing, camaraderie, and learning.  We hope that you will participate again, this year.  We will be offering three strands of interest:  Faculty Development, Learning in Commons, and Teaching and Learning Technologies.

You are welcome to attend any or all sessions, and, since you were a participant at a previous Faculty Summer Institute, we encourage you to act as an ambassador -- and invite your colleagues to attend!  Learn more at https://blog.clt.odu.edu/si/.

Please register at https://blog.clt.odu.edu/si/registration-and-travel.

And if we can answer any questions about the event, please call Susan Boze at 683-3172 or at sboze@odu.edu.

We look forward to seeing you in May!

Jamie and I are actually presenting at this, so if you're interested in attending, we'd love for you to stop by our presentation! 

Faculty Innovator Grant

I'm sure you all got this email, but Laura let me know that anyone can apply for this (not just tenure-track faculty).  Deadline is December 1, so this year is probably out, but let's keep this in mind for next year!  Nice little grant for technology!

Deadline: December 1, 2011 

http://clt.odu.edu/fig/

Overview

The Faculty Innovator Grant (FIG) program encourages Old Dominion University faculty to explore the use of technology in teaching and learning issues that are targets for improvement and innovation. Proposals involving collaboration of two or more faculty members from the same department, or different departments in the same or different colleges, are encouraged.

Awards

Grant awards will range from $1500 to $3000.

Eligibility

Faculty members who have not been awarded a Faculty Innovator Grant within the last 12 months are eligible to apply. Also, prior awardees from years 2005-2010 who have completed their projects and submitted final reports are eligible to apply.

Outcome

The lessons learned by Faculty Innovator Grant recipients will be shared as an important step in promoting or fostering a campus-wide dialog on innovation in teaching and learning. Final Reports from grant recipients will be submitted when the grant activity is completed. The Final Reports will be published on the CLT portal as a resource for the campus community. Recipients will also present their completed projects as part of CLT's series of workshops, panels, and/or special events.

Support

In the preparation phase, CLT staff will be available to consult with you regarding available and applicable technologies. An instructional designer will be assigned as the primary point of contact for each grant recipient to assist with the implementation of the approach, development of the technology enhancement, and evaluation.

Preparation

As you prepare for the proposal consider the questions listed below. The selection criteria are also available.

1. What are the specific teaching and learning issues being addressed by the proposal?
2. How did you identify the learning issues and how do you perceive their effect on students' learning?
3. What are the learning outcomes related to the issues and how will they be measured?
4. What solution do you propose to address the teaching and learning issues?
5. Will the project have an impact on your colleagues, department, college, or community?
6. What application of technology do you believe would help address the issues described in the proposal?
7. Are there other faculty in your department, college, or other colleges who may benefit from collaboration on this project?

Proposal Submission

FORMS:
Completion of all sections of the RFP is required. Failure to complete all sections will result in disqualification.
In an effort to maintain consistency we are providing the necessary forms in document format. Download the forms and complete them using Microsoft Word.
Each proposal must include:

Request For Proposal
Memorandum of Understanding

DEADLINE:
Proposals are due NO LATER THAN 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 1, 2011.
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION:

1. Email the Proposal Request Form to Dr. M’hammed Abdous, mabdous@odu.edu, with the subject "FIG Proposal 2012"
2. FAX the Memorandum of Understanding to Dr. M’hammed Abdous at 683-3176

HAND DELIVERED SUBMISSION:

1. Deliver printed RFP and Memorandum of Understanding to Dr. M’hammed Abdous, Gornto 336, in sealed envelope labeled "FIG Proposal 2012."

Award

Selection is based on the Faculty Innovator Grant Selection Criteria and will be judged by a team that includes past grant recipients. Selections will be announced on December 16, 2011.

Have a great day!

M’hammed.

Preparing Future Faculty - Technology in the classroom

Today, Kitty and I attended a great workshop through the Preparing Future Faculty Program.  It included three presentations on using technology and social media in our teaching.  I wanted to share some of the things we learned.  They're planning on posting a video of the workshop soon, so I'll link to that once it's available.

Here are the websites we explored during the session:

Twitter
Facebook
Delicious
StumbleUpon
Digg
VoiceThread
Google Sites
Association for Social Media & Higher Education
Higher Ed Twibe

Being a bit of a social media geek, I was excited to learn about new ways to use Facebook and Twitter with students.  With Facebook, you can create a group for your class and post updates or share links and articles you find.  It's a great way to keep the sense of community in the class going even outside of the classroom.

Twitter provides a lot of possibilities for learning.  I've always enjoyed using Twitter for  my own professional development (I follow other ESL teachers, educational technology enthusiasts, and people who work in higher ed.  It's a great way to network and learn from others). For students, Twitter can be wonderful because they can tweet about what they're learning in class and share links to articles or websites they've found.  They can follow accounts on Twitter based on a topic you assign them, and this becomes another way to do research and to learn more about a particular topic.  There are tons of people on Twitter who post daily grammar lessons, idioms, ESL podcasts, etc.  If our students joined Twitter, they'd find a wealth of English learning resources.  You should join Twitter too and follow me: @greenae

Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Digg are all social bookmarking sites.  You can save links to interesting sites you find and then share your links with your students.  These sites are great for supplementing what you've taught in the classroom.

VoiceThread is a site I'm really excited about, and I hope to use it soon with my students.  You can create videos online (which can be posted on your class website, if you have one), and your students can leave audio responses to your video.  What a great way to give speaking/listening homework!  Students listen to your lecture, then respond orally online.  This site is extremely popular for people teaching online courses, but I think it's also a great way to get our students to keep speaking English outside of class.

Google Sites is an easy way to create your own website. One of the presenters today created a Google Site just for her presentation.  It was great - instead of using PowerPoint (which gets boring after a while), she created a website that we can now all visit as many times as we want.  I've used Google Sites before, and it's incredibly easy to set up a website, even if you're completely tech-phobic.

Finally, the Association for Social Media and Higher Education and Higher Ed Twibe are great organizations dedicated to using social media and Web 2.0 tools in the classroom.  If you're on Twitter, you can join the Twibe (get it? cute, huh?)

Wonderful presentations today!  I learned so much from them, and I can't wait to try some of these ideas out in my classroom next session.  Let me know if you have any questions because this is the stuff I love talking about!