MERLOT International Conference 2007 (MIC 07)

If you have not heard about MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching), please have a look at this site devoted to sharing digital resources nationally and


Check out the buzz and consider attending the MERLOT 2007 conference August 7-10 in New Orleans, LA. It will be hot in New Orleans in August, but the MERLOT Conference is way cool.

3rd International Forum for Women in E-Learning (IFWE, 2007)

USDLA's International Forum for Women in E-Learning has a call for proposals and a conference announcement out. If you or another woman you know in E-Learning is looking for a conference that allows "attendees, at all stages of their careers, to discuss ideas with experienced women leaders in distance learning", Santa Fe, New Mexico is the place to be November 28-30, 2007.

The call for proposals is open until August 15, 2007. The IFWE Conference is looking for proposals focuses on:

• workplace policies and practices,
• improving the female voice in the workplace,
• diversity and mentoring,
• innovative e-learning strategies,
• the future of e-learning in the workplace,
• mentor/mentee relationships,
• becoming change agents,
• finding female balance,
• wellness, motivation and stress relief

Here's to establishing this conference as an ongoing addition to the nation's conference calendar.

Communication and Gender

Recently, I found an online resource written by a woman for women on leadership issues. The website, bizwomen.com by Connie Glasser provides some good tips to guide women as they work in--or work toward--leadership roles. I bookmarked the resource and plan to go back and to read more, but wanted to share one of her articles, Plan Your Words, Take Credit for Ideas . This article hit me as a particularly effective method to use to prepare for meetings where ideas can be presented.

Glasser advises women that it is important to view each meeting as an opportunity to make a contribution and to gain some recognition. Some of her tips on how to do this are:
1.Don't fly-by-the seat of your pants -- go to the meetings with ideas that are connected to the agenda.
2.Talk about your ideas with key people who will attend the meeting prior to the meeting to get a sense of how they view or support your ideas.
3.Take credit for the ideas you present by preparing a document that include your ideas and your name.
4.Make copies for everyone who will attend and the present your ideas--if your ideas generate some discussion and go over well--pass out the documents you prepared. If not, don't.
5.Plan ahead for conflict and be prepared for it in meetings by familiarizing yourself with issues connected to opposing viewpoints--do your homework.
6.Be sure to speak with assurance and don't be overly concerned with appearing aggressive.

Have you ever presented and idea at a meeting and had it reappear at another meeting and it suddenly belonged to someone else? If so, Glasser's tips might keep this from happening at future meetings.

Web Conferencing Software: Why I Like WebEx

Over the course of last 18 or so months I have spent some time learning how to use web conferencing technologies. Have experienced BREEZE, elluminate, Microsoft Office Meeting, and WebEx. Just wish I had known about the research that Network Computing: For IT By IT, provided for users and those thinking about using web conferencing technology in April 2006.
The research review titled, Tech U: The World is Our Campus provides an overview of detailed overview of nine products and information on which two web conferencing technologies were selected for an Editor's Award. Details 40 products were weeded down to 14 for review are provided. The information on this review would be extremely helpful to colleges and businesses looking for resources to help guide local t decisions on which web conferencing technology they might want to use. It also provides report cards and information on products that received grades of A, B or C in an interactive report card .

In the review and testing process three common applications used by most people in education or business were used in the web conferencing product demonstrations. Powerpoint files, Word documents and Excel spreadsheets were tested for " ease and speed of loading these files into the application" and how well the content displayed. They also tested working in real-time on a blank PowerPoint, how easy it was to record a session and the quality of playback for voice, video and stability (Cogburn & Kurup, 2006). This review is well worth a look and provides a process for people to use to make decisions about these technologies that are similar to process that has been used to make decisions about Instructional Management Systems.

Oh, here is my list of reasons why I like WebEx:

1. Simple process to set up meetings.

2. Easy to edit and make corrections to meetings as you set them up.

3. Deceptively simple interface that allows you to learn how to:

-share applications, desktop, whiteboard, and a host of meeting tools

4. Nice meeting lay-out that is easy to move around in and I don't get lost when I host a meeting.

5. Real time training opportunities, good tutorials, and self-help documents.

6. We have an in-house super-user that helps me troubleshoot.

7. I have become familiar with it and have "meeting confidence" when I host.

8. Easy to allow others to present.

9. I have my own personal meeting room.

10. Received an Editor's Award for use in this study validating my good taste and good experiences using this web conferencing tool.

Working With Groups at a Distance

In online classrooms and in the world of work individuals can be assigned to projects where they will be working with others at a distance. New Internet technologies are providing people with new methods of working together and some of the tools, along with the pros and cons of working on collaborative projects at a distance are outlined in an online article titled, Working Together at a Distance. The article lists some ways that groups can communicate effectively with each other at a distance:



*Working with people you already know and have a relationship with can help.
*Making assumptions about others while working with groups at a distance can make things go "downhill".
*Everyone should get together at least once as teams "that meet face-to-face are more successful".
*Meeting early in the project helps teams to bond.
*Teams working at a distance are often working separately and should plan to connect at key points in the project.
*Daily checks at the group project site and phone calls are helpful to projects.
*Jumping to conclusions can unravel trust.
*Project sites that act as a repository for documents can assist groups at a distance.

I believe the two statements (Leveton,2007) are especially important for groups working at a distance:

1. "Though e-mails and other written messages are useful tools, Kwo has found that they're often misinterpreted".
2. The importance of being a "grown up" and giving " people the benefit of the doubt".

With today's information technologies opening up all sorts of new ways for people to connect at a distance it becomes increasingly important for groups working at distance to plan ahead. Are you interested in leadership? Working or taking online courses in the 21st century? Reading the Leveton (2007) article along with adopting team behaviors to improve communications should be first on the list of any group planning to complete a project at a distance.

More Research on Women Bloggers

Meandering my way around the blogoshpere again and looking for more research on women bloggers. Found a rich source of research this evening on a blog titled MotherPie. The author of this blog is posting a "female-centric study" and was recently awarded a Masters of Arts degree in Media Studies.

While I did not respond to the study and my blog is not a Mommy Blog I fit in with the majority of the respondents (a parent, female with children)and still recently graduated (Ph.D. in Education Technology 2005) enough to recognize and appreciate the hard work that getting a degree entails. Mother Pie's research on Female Blogging: Issues of Identity, Relations and Play is being parsed out on the blog in excerpts. I plan to keep reading excerpts until the study is posted in its entirety.

As a scholar practitioner, I am always grateful to those who research, write, and make their studies freely available on the web. Plan to read, learn, and think about how I will frame my year's journey in research and reflection some months from now. Was looking around for polling widgets, found polldaddy, went on to look for information on surveys of women bloggers, read some stuff that didn't really interest me and then MotherPie. At some point will embed a poll into this blog, but first will need to think, reflect and post. I am at midpoint in this journey the end of this month.

Women In Art

Gorgeous paintings of women set to classical music.

Women In Art: Learning how to post a video to my blog

This is harder than it looks and was only able to get the video to work on the second try. If you enjoyed this video you may want to see other art videos by a director named eggman913.

eLect Collaborative and Quality Matters

Spent a great day with some Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) women faculty who regularly collaborate, talk shop, work hard, and focus on quality of online learning. The E-LECT Collaborative(E-Learning for Early Childhood Teachers) is unique in Minnesota in that it offers lower division college credit courses on-line through ten MnSCU community and technical colleges. Students benefit from the options, flexibility and access this program provides and earn credits toward a certificate, diploma, A.A.S. degree, C.D.A. renewal, or professional development.

The faculty in this program are continuing on their quest for quality. In 2005 the group received a Quality Matters (QM) Grant and 5 of them were trained as peer reviewers and reviewed each others courses. Spring 2006 found them at a Lake Superior College QM conference sponsored by Minnesota Online, and spring 2007 found them back together sharing courses, the QM review process, and Susan Bradshaw's QM Blog with other ELECT faculty. Am pleased and proud to have supported the work of ELECT Faculty Leaders (Stacey York, Carla Weigel, and Sara M. Hoffman) on QM projects over the past two years. I admire their online teaching expertise, willingness to work, and no-fear attitude in adopting a rubric to improve course quality for students.

eLearning Games and Simulations

Attended the eLearning Games and Simulations Conference at Normandale Community College and was pleased to see a mixed audience of higher education, and postsecondary faculty and others in attendance. The conference had some 200+ registrants for this one day event and a well received mix of sessions on gaming and simulations on virtual worlds and opportunities to learn how to connect students with interactive technologies. Am pleased to report that I was one of many women in attendance at this conference.

While current research reports that women game less than men, some groups are doing what they can to grow female gamers. Found some information on the web about sholarships that WomenGamers.Com (valued at $945) were offering two female students ages 8-18 for one week at the National Computer Camp (Nccamp.com) . The camp experience has already been snapped up by two essayists who submitted an application and and essay by the May 18th deadling deadline. Applicants were asked to respond to the following question:

"What will video games of the future be like and if you were in charge of designing a game, what would it be like?"

The essays from the young women who responded to the scholarship challenge are fun to read and provide some real insight into what they think about games and the kinds of games they would create and play.

Sifry: The State of the Blogosphere

Just found an excellent resource information on the state of the blogosphere. Sifry's State of the Live Web has data from October 2004 through April 2007. Lots of visuals for are provided and are freely available for use under a Creative Commons license. Users are asked to keep Technorati logos and links when charts and data are shared. Sifry's most up-to-date portrayal on growth of weblogs is as follows:

• 70 million weblogs
• About 120,000 new weblogs each day, or...
• 1.4 new blogs every second
• 3000-7000 new splogs (fake, or spam blogs) created every day
• Peak of 11,000 splogs per day last December
• 1.5 million posts per day, or...
• 17 posts per second
• Growing from 35 to 75 million blogs took 320 days
• 22 blogs among the top 100 blogs among the top 100 sources linked to in Q4 2006 - up from 12 in the prior quarter
• Japanese the #1 blogging language at 37%
• English second at 33%
• Chinese third at 8%
• Italian fourth at 3%
• Farsi a newcomer in the top 10 at 1%
• English the most even in postings around-the-clock
• Tracking 230 million posts with tags or categories
• 35% of all February 2007 posts used tags
• 2.5 million blogs posted at least one tagged post in February

I started this blog because I wondered, Where were the women bloggers?", but now as I learn more about social networking and blogging I wonder, where was I when people started blogging? While my adult children were telling me about MySpace and Facebook I was dismissing what they told me because when I did look at these social networking sites I saw much of it as juvenile, bawdy, and in poor taste. The sites did not hold my interest. What I did not know until I began to research women bloggers and blogging sites in general was just how informative and learning focused well-done blogs could be. While there is the not-so-good and seamy content, there is a wealth of well-done, well written, and education friendly writing going on about the topics I am interested in.

Who knew? Well it appears that since 2004 through 2006, a whole lot of people blogging knew.

Webheadsinaction.org; Global Webcastathon

Just received an email invitation to this happening. It's free, easy to register, great venue, and looks like it will be fun as well as educational. I registered to attend and will take in as much as I can when I can at the WIAOC 2007 WORLDBRIDGES WEBCASTATHON - MAY 17-MAY 20. The information below is copy/paste from my invitation.

Posts that contain Webcastathon per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

"Begins at 2200 GMT and wraps up at EdTechTalk 75 hours later.In between, there are 47 planned sessions, including keynote presentations by Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Etienne Wenger, Robin Good, Barbara Ganley, Teemu Leinonen, & Leigh Blackall. This is also likely to be an unprecedented unconferency very global gathering of educators and technologists who like to play with collaborative social media tools ... shouldbe fun. So, stop by when you can to check out some sessions and/or hang out in the virtual hallways. You can tune in from any Worldbridges site, but the real action will be at [http://webheadsinaction.org/].
A presentation schedule is at:
[http://www.webheadsinaction.org/wiaoc2007/Presentations]We will also try to bridge to a teleconference when possible. 1-712-451-6100, Access Code: 999374#"

The conference hasn't started yet, but there are lots of places to poke around, things to read, links to resources, and tutorials. This looks like a winning combination of people, places, and things!

Using Notebook PCs to Breathe Life into Presentations

Just finished a quick, two-page read in a Campus Technology article titled Beyond PowerPoint: Building a New Classroom Presenter. Provides an overview of how presentation techniques impact faculty teaching, from blackboard and chalk to electronic presentation software like today's Powerpoint. The article goes on to discuss how use of slide presentations have "sucked the life" out of lectures and emphasizes the importance of adjusting presentation materials to audience reactions and allowing for on-the-fly additions to materials during the presentation.

Details on how use of a tablet PC allows lecturer to add personalized notes and use of product called Classroom Presenter that can be used in real time and in online courses is provided. Includes information on how Classroom Presenter can be used with One Note and how it supports student interactions and additions to notetaking process in the classroom. Just got an IBM tablet PC through work, albeit without a pen [still trying to figure that out!].Once I get a pen plant to integrate use of the table feature and One Note into my work.

Also found an online resource that encourages people to Just Say No to Microsoft with some good information on presentation software such as Keynote (for Macs) and Astound which I used in the mid 90s and loved, but forgot about once Microsoft Office Suite was adopted in my workplace. This site and the information it contains is worth a visit. Not suggesting we all mutiny and quit using Microsoft, but am suggesting that there may be other presentation products out there that are worth a look-see. Keynote creates very sophisticated and beautiful presentations.

Stifling Women Bloggers

This posting is connected to my dismay over reading about the harassment that women face in the blogosphere. My intent was to write and post my thoughts and opinions on technology, higher education, and leadership, but increasingly I find this project like going through the "looking glass" and my thoughts and opinions shifting as I learn more. It appears the blogosphere is mirroring many of the same iniquities, prejudices found in the real world and Internet harassment includes death threats for successful women bloggers like Kathy Sierra.

Ellen Nakishima’s, article is filled with scary eloquence on the seamier and darker side of what can happen to some women bloggers as they "gain visibility in the blogosphere" (April, 2007). The Washington Post article, Sexual Threats Stifle Women Bloggers, is full of information guaranteed to promote use of pseudonyms for women and they may"censor themselves" or use "private forums and closed comments" while blogging. Nakishima and the people she interviewed believe this will "make women reluctant to join in online -- undercutting the promise of the Internet as an egalitarian forum". Arianna Huffington (Huffington Post) a blogger who gets a lot of press and traffic of said, "anonymity online has allowed "many those dark prejudices towards women to surface."

So, in the blogosphere people are writing about the lack of women bloggers and the harassment of women bloggers. Here is another medium built for and by all that appears to be serving some more than others and allowing some to frighten and silence women in a brand-new way. I probably should not be at all surprised there is carry over of these kinds of issues from one medium to another, but I am.

HLC motto: Serving the common good by assuring and advancing the quality of higher learning

The 112th Annual Meeting of the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), is in full-throttle this Sunday, April 22, 2007 and I attended two conference sessions this morning illustrating the HLC organizational motto of, "serving the common good by assuring and advancing the quality of higher learning". The first session, Using Student Ratings to Improve Program Quality and Student Learning, included a panel presentation and overview of Kansas State University's The IDEA Center and first hand accounts of how use of The IDEA Centers "learning -centered" surveys support an institution's ability to demonstrate an "understanding of teaching and learning and improve the use and interpretation of information" to provide statistical evidence of meeting AQIP's Category One: Helping Students Learn in systems portfolios.

The second session's panel, What Remedial Freshman Can Teach University Administrators, focused on issues of remedial students in higher education and how their issues were connected to administrative issues at their university. This panel presented in an engaging, humorous, and story-telling manner and at the same time pointed out the serious problems underprepared students have when they enter higher education.While I found value in each presentation panel it was this one that fired me up.

Higher education knows underprepared students are a serious and growing problem. Long's (2005), The Remediation Debate: Are We Serving the Needs of Underprepared College Students, reported that "only one-third of students leave high school prepared for college" and while national research suggests that students provided remediation "have better outcomes than students with comparable backgrounds and preparation who do not take remedial courses" (Long, 2005)", national debates rather than action are still common place.

As the debates about cost, appropriateness of course work below college level, and squables over who, when, and how students might be served take place, 2001 saw the California State University system kicking out over" 2,200 students-nearly seven percent of the freshman class-for failing to master basic English and math skills " (Trouson, 2001).

Underprepared students (Bettinger& Long, 2006)are a growing concern for all of higher education and and might be alleviated by collaborative curriculum endeavors. There are content experts trying to address this need. One example is Minnesota's Mindquest Academy a series of online Adult Basic Education modules created by grant dollars and successfully used to get many Minnesota underprepared students prepared.

Because remedial course work is resource intensive; money, people, and vetted curriculum to effectively move underprepred students content is needed. Online digital content projects that were funded to create these kind of resources for the underprepared should be culled and harvested. I am sure that there are other successful curricula and courses out there to tackle this problem one place to look for them might be Curriki.

Curriki might provide an opportunity for good minds and good content to be massaged, manipulated, and shared to move students through content designed to get to the courses that "count" in a degree plan. According Curriki , "Anyone with access to the Internet can contribute and use the material found on Curriki to teach themselves or others. Whether its algebra, reading, or physics, they will be able to access the curricula online, print it, and/or save it to a CD".

According to Dr. Barbara"Bobbi" Kurshan, when fully operation Curriki will provide easy-to-use tools and a place to create shared curriculum from content developed by world wide contrubutors. Curriki is unique in that its focus will be on complete curricula solutions and not just textbooks and lessons plans(Wikipedia, 2007). The collaborative work that will take place in Curriki will use technology to provide users worldwide access to quality digital content. Founded by Sun System Curriki is an Open Source curricula .

Arts, music, language and information literacy resources

Have you heard about Karen Ellis and the Educational Cyber Playground? Well, neither had I until just a few days ago. Developed to improve literacy through arts education the site provides numerous web base resources to promote art, music, language, and information literacy. Educational Cyber Playground received a lot of media attention and awards during the late 90s and early 00s and provides a lot of free instructional content and information about online resources to educators, parents, and web surfers.

According to the information on the site, Ellis has been online since 1991 and her site has been used and visited by people all over the world. While the site looks like it could use some updating and has broken links there are many good resources to support educators and home schoolers. Why am I blogging about this? Well, the point of this blog is to find, write about, and link to women who are leaders in education technology.

Karen Ellis' site indicated that she is one. A self proclaimed "webmistress, site architect, curriculum content developer and RingLeader for the Educational CyberPlayGround" she has helped "over 2 million people a year" through her website. She has collected several "Hot Site" awards, USA today, MSNBC, The New York Times Learning Network on the Web: Parent Connections, and several Grammys . More recently, she created the National Children's Repository of Folksongs in 2003.

Women's Voices on Learning Objects and Learning Objects Repositories

In my first search of women blogs connected to learning objects and learning objects repositories found an article by Diane J. Goldsmith on Assessing Learning Objects: The Importance of Values, Purpose, and Design. It was unusual to read a woman blogging on learning objects and issues surrounding their use in education and I hope to find more over the next year. Besides citing some of the energetic male discussions surrounding the use of standards to create learning objects (Downes, 2006:Norman, 2006:Wiley, 2006), Goldsmith (2007) proposed there is opportunity in integrating assessment principles into developing learning objects.

While the discussion surrounding learning objects is focused on definitions, standards, context for use and reuse Goldsmiths’ (2007) article discusses learning objects and connects them to faculty values, purpose of LOs that is connected to what the objects might assess. She poses a set of questions to frame developing LOs and ask faculty and development teams to consider:

1. Why should a particular learning object be developed?
2.Who are the stakeholders? Users?
3. How will one know if the learning object is successful?
4. What determines success?
5. How can the cost of developing a learning object be justified?
6.What is the intended purpose in developing the learning object?
7. How can assessment of the learning object be factored into the development process?
8. If the object is published to a learning objects repository (LOR) how will data be collected on its use, reuse, and outcomes be assessed?

Finally, Goldsmith (2007) asks faculty and developers to consider what they will do with the data they collect and how any need for improvements will be communicated. This article also provides a list of assessment models for learning objects that included, MERLOT, the University of Wisconsin, Connecticut Learning Consortium, Center of Academic Transformation, AliveTek, and Wesleyan University's LOLA project.

This article is a good one for people looking for information that goes beyond the debates about defining what a learning object is or is not and whether or not the whole notion of learning objects is dead. I favor two simple definitions for the term learning object, the first is the Southern Regional Educational Board's (SREB, 2005) definition of learning object (LO), "a LO is any digital resource that can be used and reused to support learning". The second is New Media Consortium's (Smith, 2004) definition that connects LOs to materials grouped in structured, meaningful content contributions that are tied to measurable education objectives.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering... I believe that the promise of learning objects to improve teaching and learning is still very much alive.

Bebo in the News: Safer Social Networking

While reading Danah Boyd I found a great research site about youth and their learning and experiments with digital media. Boyd and others at Berkley are contributors to this current and readable website. This site on "ethonographic investigation of innovative knowledge cultures" titled, Digital Youth Research: Kids Informal Learning with Digital Media is impressive.

Dipped into several articles, but the one that engaged me and kept me there for awhile was on Bebo and information about the safety that this social networking provides for its users and parents of users. Bebo has a BlogSafety Forum that provides educational information on safe blogging and social networking. Bebo states that this safety blog is about " social networking about the social networks" (Bebo, 2007).

I read a lot about Facebook and MySpace, but had never heard of Bebo a social networking site ranked third most popular and the most sticky site in the in the world(Stoller, 2005). Also voted Peoples Voice by Webby and Best Social Networking site of 2006, Bebo recently appointed Joanna Shields Managing Director of Strategic Partnerships for Google EMEA, as President in its new London office.

Shields' 20-year work history includes senior management positions in several leading technology and internet companies. In her previous position at Google, she built syndication networks around the world and was instumental in developing partnerships with "some of the world's largest media and telecompanies (Gavin, 2007).

Am always pleased to learn new things when blogging and through my research this week found out about the world's third largest social networking system and Shields, a woman making the news as leader in the field of technology.

Steven Levy(2006) asked, Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem? and then goes on to talk about Halley Suitt positing on same. The problem is the Halley's Comment blog is by invitation only and can't be read unless one is "invited". Not sure how to get invited, but will keep looking as it appears that Suitt may be a good read.

Can what Levy called a "grass-roots phenomenon" of self-publishing in the blogosphere be exclusive rather inclusive? Levy quotes Suitt as asking "people to each find 10 bloggers who weren't male, white or English-speaking—and link to them. "Don't you think," she says, "that out of 8 million blogs, there could be 50 new voices worth hearing?"

I certainly believe that there are many worthwhile voices out there and would love to hear them, but can't read Suitt's by invitation only blog. Would very much like to read a blog by a woman who writes on the "clubbiness" of blogs and of white people writing to white people. Will instead try to track some of her ideas down through open articles and conversations going on by others on the same topic.

Just learned something new through persistence (kept trying to read Halley's blog) and here is a copy & paste of what I found out.

"Halley's Comment: I've stopped blogging here and Halley's Comment is no more. There is a screen which says you need to be a member to read the blog, but there is no list of "members" or select people who can read the blog. That screen is just a standard feature of Blogger which comes up when you close your blog off. I'll be taking the blog down for good soon. Loyal readers, thank you for your loyalty. If I decide to start another blog, I'll post a link here to that new site."

Not sure where she went or if she will blog again, but will keep checking back. All the postings and writings I am finding about Suitt illustrate she is a good read.

Research on blogging and women bloggers

Still wandering all around the web looking for research on women bloggers, women bloggers who blog about education technology, leadership and higher education. I found a directory resource for women bloggers and an article (Taylor Eisenman) citing research on how infrequently popular male bloggers include female bloggers on their blogroll. This article was based on Clancy Ratcliff's dissertation research. Ratcliff's (2005) research focused on a "case study of gender differentials in discourse on weblogs (often called the “blogosphere”). To that end, I am analyzing the “Where are the women?” debates to ascertain the ways both men and women account for the gender gap in blogging"(Ratcliff, 2005).

Some of the reasons outlined for the gap in this study included:

women aren't self-promoters

women "can't handle agnostic nature of political discourse" of blogs

women use pseudonyms more than males

women don't blog about politics

While Clancy's(2005)dissertation research has a focus on rhetoric and politics it does ask the question, "Where are the women" and will provide me with more research based information to answer my questions about women blogging about this blog's areas of focus. I am looking forward to learning more about blogging and the discourse about women who blog over the course of this year and will link this site to Blogs by Women soon.

English posts that contain Women Bloggers per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!