Welcome to Tech and Care of Business in Higher Ed!
The most important day of your life is today, so use it wisely.
On this first day of the year, I am excited to begin this
journey of discovery, and I am happy to share it with you. :) For the next
twelve months, we will explore what it means to be a virtuous online educator
who conveys humanity and supports student development in the 21st
century. I am hoping we discover a great deal about ourselves, and our
profession.
This project is part of my personal lifelong learning
process, which Crick and Wilson encouraged all of us toward in their 2005 article,
“Being a Learner: A Virtue for
the 21st Century.” The
goal of this blog is to archive valid, reliable, current, relevant scholarly resources
from various pertinent disciplines in an ordered manner while carving a path
toward a faculty development program for online adjuncts in higher education.
The hope is this blog, being in a free and openly participatory environment,
will also help other educators as we work toward excellence together.
In 2014, I had a productive professional year. I added a
university to my teaching schedule, became an online student once again, and
conducted my first two speaking engagements. As I build my resume and my career,
I look to many successful role models for guidance, instruction, and example. The
five individuals below are those within my online Professional Learning Network
(PLN) who have provided me the most food for thought, demonstrated the highest
dedication to their craft, and consistently encouraged educational innovation and
the development of its necessary support structure. I am very grateful for
their leadership.
The top five people who have influenced my professional
processes in the past year are:
Melissa Venable
@Melissa_Venable
Education writer for
Online Colleges.net’s Inside Online Learning Blog, http://www.onlinecolleges.net/inside-online-learning/,
#IOLChat Moderator, online educator, and
author of Design Doc Blog, mvenable.wordpress.com
Melissa’s welcoming and engaging communication style shine
through even in Twitter chats. #IOLChat
and the Inside Online Learning Blog are super resources I recommend for
every online educator. I value the discussions on topics relevant to the
profession and supported by helpful academic resources, as well as the community
of educators willing to share tips, tools, and strategies.
Tom Vander Ark
@tvanderark
Author of Getting
Smart, Advocate of blended learning and educational innovations, and founder and
CEO of www.gettingsmart.com
I appreciate how Tom Vander Ark shares and spreads innovative
ideas, and I loved how the book, Getting Smart helped shape my educational
approaches. Tom’s articles and blog posts, as well as those of his staff,
always move my thinking a step forward. My favorite article of the year from
the Getting Smart website is one I believe all online educators can benefit
from reading. It was written by Jessica Slusser, a Getting Smart employee and
former online learner, and published in November 2014, Thanks for the Degree, But Your Courses Sucked.
Check it out to see how your online courses fare.
Christopher Pappas
@cpappas
Founder of The
#eLearning Industry’s Network, http://elearningindustry.com/,
eLearning blogger and analyst, and EduTechpreneur
The endless helpful links, resources, and free e-books are
why I appreciate Christopher Pappas. I cannot wait to open and delve into my
free download of The
Free eLearning Professionals’ Book: How to Become an eLearning Professional!
Med Karbach
@medkh9
Owner and editor of www.educatorstechnology.com, teachers’
library of the best curated EdTech content on the web
Whether I’m browsing Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+, I can
always count on finding a wealth of helpful resources from Educators
Technology. The challenge for me lies in finding the time and opportunity to
try them out. This blog will be a venue in which we can do just that. So, stay
tuned!
Howard Gardner
@OfficialMIOasis
Harvard professor,
author of Frames of Mind (1983), The Disciplined Mind (2000), and Truth,
Beauty, and Goodness Reframed (2012), creator of www.thegoodproject.com and the
multiple intelligences theory
Dr. Gardner’s work thus far is best outlined in the article
I have referenced below. I heartily encourage you to peruse it. My
favorite quote of his from the article is…
“The digital world is at present a Wild West in the ethical
realm,” Gardner says. “We need to recompute what it means to create and respect
intellectual property, to retain a sense of privacy, to determine trustworthiness, to participate in a community, and to create a meaningful,
authentic identity online. There are no convincing models for doing this, and
in a sense we have to start from scratch” (Harvard University, 2013, para. 12).
This line of thinking was a big impetus for the creation of
this blog. I figured, why not start here?
Thanks for joining me. I hope your practice benefits from
the time you spend here. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas in the
Comments below.
Join me tomorrow for the launch of our first monthly survey. Exciting!
See you then,
Melynda
#TCBHigherEd
References:
Crick,
R. & Wilson, K. (2005). Being a
learner: A virtue for the 21st century. British Journal of
Educational Studies, 53(3),
359-374. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3699248
Harvard
University. (2013). Traditional virtues in the 21st century.
Retrieved from http://www.gsas.harvard.edu/news/hollow-man.php
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