More news, in small bites

Just a few weeks ago we completed the ninth Catalyst Faculty Boot Camp, an intensive pedagogy and technology workshop. At the end, as we always do, we asked the participants for their feedback and ideas on how we could educate the rest of Hofstra's faculty about their technology and teaching options.

As usual the participants suggested that one way to increase participation would be to avoid the four-day time commitment of Boot Camp. Could you have had the same experience if you hadn't spent these days here with your colleagues discussing each other's teaching as well as hearing about the technology tools, I asked? No, they all agreed. But, they added, they would still have liked to hear some of the ideas about teaching with technology, even if they had not had the same luxury of discussing and developing them with each other.

I try to act on what my customers tell me. Clearly not everyone can commit to the full four days of Boot Camp, but if our faculty feel there's a benefit to getting some of that information in nuggets unrelated to a surrounding workshop, then I absolutely will convey what I can.

To that end Faculty Computing Services at Hofstra intends to publish many more case studies, ideas, and news nuggets in the coming year than we have previously done. I am always leery of contributing to information overload for our faculty, and I never want FCS to be one of the groups whose messages are deleted unread because of sheer overwhelming volume. But I realize that our department is often a clearinghouse for information about which Hofstra faculty are doing great, creative things with teaching technologies, and as such we need to disseminate what we know.

This blog will be updated periodically (not more than once a week) with ideas on teaching with technology, and I hope you'll give me your feedback if there are things about which you'd like to hear more. In addition, my own stream of bookmarks of interesting news or tidbits on teaching with technology is always available at http://delicious.com/jtabron/bootcamp; feel free to check it out or subscribe.

As always, FCS stands ready to help you with your own investigations into your own best way of using appropriate technology tools in your teaching. Visit http://www.hofstra.edu/fcs for more info on how to use our services.