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