Minutes from Digital Writing Teaching Circle #2.

DIGITAL WRITING TEACHING CIRCLE--MEETING #2
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18--5-6 PM
On WebEx

Present: Brian Lewis (facilitator), Steve Anderson, Jacque Arnold, Bob Bledsoe, Laura Funke, Stephanie Laurey, Laurie Lykken, Brandy Opse-Weber, Sue Taylor

Absent: Dianne Gregory
  

1.  Brian reminded everyone about the wiki: that it's located at http://digitalwritingtc.pbworks.com, that all TC members have been invited to edit it as they wish, and that everyone should contribute to the "technology table."

2.  Brandy presented her voice recognition software, called Dragon.  It costs about $500; the basic version is $100.  It may be used in the classroom for several reasons: for D2L, to give students feedback on their writing, and for use of Outlook.

3.  Bob began a presentation on mashups, but he had video problems and was not able to finish his presentation.  Brian presented in his place--he talked about using Diigo as a research tool for students (www.diigo.com).  It is an online bookmarking and research site that provides RSS feeds daily to his e-mail on specific subjects.  Diigo also tags website so that you can do searching in your online library by subject.

 4.  Next meeting will be IN WEBEX, FRIDAY, MARCH 4, FROM 4-5 PM.   BRIAN WILL SEND EVERYONE THE WEBX MEETING LINK AT LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE THE ONLINE MEETING.  Bob (and Dianne--added later) will share digital writing/new media techniques and explain why they would work well for the English classroom. 
 5.  HOMEWORK FOR EVERYONE BEFORE NEXT MEETING:--Find at least ONE new media teaching technique that you think might be worth sharing with the group if you have not yet done so.--Hold individual meeting #1 with Brian if you have not yet done so.--Work on individual goal/objectives (these need to be handed in to me by 2/28).--Reflection paper #1 is due 2/28--work on it.

Meeting ended at about 6:07 pm.  A recording of the meeting was done and is on the MnSCU WebEx site.

Brian

Summary of Teaching Circle work so far

I haven't been doing much writing on this blog lately.  My major excuse is that I've been busy with my teaching circle.  So I think it's only natural that I blog a bit here about what I've been doing with the teaching circle.  Yes, I've been copying meeting minutes here, but what are my impressions after the first two meetings?  Well here they are:

Digital Writing TC: My Impressions after Meetings 1 and 2. 

For our first meeting, we met at a restaurant in downtown St. Paul.  Everyone seemed to like getting to know each other.  I did have one person who quit the group because she didn't want to meet face to face, but this was fine--I was over-enrolled in the group anyway.  Officially, as of this writing, I have nine colleagues in the group: four from Century College (including me), three from Inver Hills CC, one from St. Paul College, one from Normandale CC, and one from MNSU-Mankato.  During the first meeting, we set our group goal and decided that we'd do presentations of technologies that we've found and talk about how they might be helpful to our English students.  In between the first and second meetings, we talked via e-mail about the objectives that we'd need to achieve that group goal.  And we decided on four, in particular.  A few days before the second meeting, we had a "practice" WebEx meeting to see how the technology worked--it seemed to work pretty well.  The actual meeting, unfortunately, was a bit more troublesome.  Even though one colleague was able to complete her presentation on voice recognition software, one person who was supposed to present did not "show up," and the third presenter had computer problems.  So I had to fill in and give an impromptu presentation on Diigo--they seemed to appreciate this.  Our next meeting will be Friday, March 4, at 4 p.m.

I have also created a wiki for this group (http://digitalwritingtc.pbworks.com/) where we can share our information, esp. our technology info on the "technology table" that I created.  I do wish more people were contributing to the wiki, but hopefully this will change over time. 

I've also been having individual meetings with the TC members; so far, I've completed 5/9.  Mostly, they want to talk about their individual goals/objectives for the circle.  I've heard very few complaints or concerns thus far.

(An added bonus--I met with Lynda today, and she introduced me to a cool new link--http://join.me, which allows for collaboration/screen sharing.  Thanks Lynda!!)

minutes for first teaching circle meeting--what did we do?

DIGITAL WRITING TEACHING CIRCLE--MEETING #1

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5--1:30-3:30 PM

at Great Waters Brewing Company in Saint Paul

Present: Brian Lewis (facilitator), Steve Anderson, Jacque Arnold, Bob Bledsoe, Laura Funke, Dianne Gregory, Stephanie Laurey, Laurie Lykken, Brandy Opse-Weber, Sue Taylor

Absent: Wanda Synstelien

1.  First we ate--heartily.

2.  After lunch, we all introduced ourselves.  We explained where we were from, what we taught, and what we wanted to learn from the teaching circle.

3.  Brian went over the contracts with everyone present.  Everyone present handed in their signed contracts.  We tentatively agreed to have our final FTF meeting on Friday 5/13 at Century College from 3:30-5:30 (to share information).

4.  Everyone signed up for an individual meeting with Brian.  The purpose of the individual meeting is primarily to help participants refine their individual goals and objectives and to ask questions. 

Individual meetings set up so far:

Steve, 2/10, 2 pm, (but where?)

Laura, 2/15, 11 am (Skype or phone)

Brandy, 2/15, 3:45 pm, phone

Stephanie, 2/17, 9 am, phone

Sue, 2/18, (what time?), Facebook

Bob, 2/22, 2pm, Facebook

Laurie, 2/24, 1pm, Facebook

Jacque, 2/25, 10 am, D2L chat

Dianne, 2/25, 1 pm, D2L, Sykpe, AIM, FB, or Adobe Connect

5.  We went over what "SMART" goals were and talked about some examples of SMART and not-so-SMART goals.

6.  We decied that our group goal would be as follows:

To explore, share, and synthesize knowledge about new media teaching strategies for English classrooms in both online and non-online environments.  (Changed slightly from our original discussion for the sake of clarity; in retrospect, "individual" seems a bit vague to me...)

7.  Next meeting will be IN WEBX, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, FROM 5-6 PM.   BRIAN WILL SEND EVERYONE THE WEBX MEETING LINK AT LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE THE ONLINE MEETING.  Brandy, Bob, and Dianne will share digital writing/new media techniques and explain why they would work well for the English classroom. 

8.  HOMEWORK FOR EVERYONE BEFORE NEXT MEETING:

--By 2/18, use "Reply All" on e-mail to answer this question: What objectives do we need to accomplish to achieve our group goal?  (Everyone in the group should be able to read your response.)

--Find at least ONE new media teaching technique that you think might be worth sharing with the group.

--Hold individual meeting (if you signed up for one before next group meeting)

--Work on individual goal/objectives (these need to be handed in to me by 2/28).

Meeting ended PROMPTLY at 3:30 pm.

Brian

prior to my first tc meeting.

Well, tomorrow afternoon is my first teaching circle meeting.  Since I last wrote here, I've had to change the location--it will be at the Great Waters Brewing Company in downtown St. Paul.  Currently, I have ten (possibly eleven?) members--if these numbers keep up, two of them will have to audit.  But we'll see. 

Right now, I have a set agenda for tomorrow's meeting--a lot of paperwork--but the main focus will be on both group and individual goals and objectives for the circle.  Tomorrow we have to do a lot of thinking about what the main purpose of this circle is.  And this is not always easy. 

I will have more to report after tomorrow, once our group has made some concrete decisions.