Reaching Out Globally—Virtually

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Help me out. It is official. My 6 very talented undergraduate  research assistants and I have successfully "won" a university-wide competition with our proposal to create a pilot Cross Cultural Experience (CCE) at Carroll University with a focus on an in-the-classroom emersion experience. Each student will be awarded a new Ipad and will receive two-credit hours for pioneering this course development project.

"Dr. David Simpson, Professor of Psychology,
along with students Phoumany Phouybanhdyt, Ryan Waters, Catrina Duncan,
Amy Peterson, Elizabeth Firkus, and Maxine Venturelli,  
proposed
a pilot that focuses on a single culture/nation for approximately 2 weeks.
By the end of the semester students will be able to compare and
contrast several cultures to the United States. The goal of the
classroom experience is to give the students the
ability to have an immersion-like experience through the different uses
of technology incorporated within the course through class discussion
and student reflection. Students will have the ability to interact
globally through the use of various 21st
century technology learning tools."
We have already created a wikispace and will no doubt be using among other tools Skype and VoiceThread. This is a wonderful opportunity for me to cascade into the larger Carroll community several teaching tools I have been invesigating since 2007.
What a joy to work with, develop, and learn with such student talent. This is going to be fun.
We welcome ideas, contacts, and interested virtual observers as we learn together.
Thanks in advance to Drs. Lynne Bernier and Terri Johnson for creating this educational opportunity and special heart-felt thanks (or is that Hart-felt thanks) for my wise, generous, indefatigable virtual mentorship by Jane Hart for sharing her social media wisdom and insights across the years.

 

Appy Daze Is Here Again! Making Lemonade from a Rotten Apple

This summer I was overconfident about my multi-tasking capabilities. Stupid. Careless (oopsie). Hypocritical. "Save regularly, backup often," I repeatedly tell my students. Practice what you preach, Dr. Simpson. Somehow I managed to make my faithful MacBook Pro inaccessible and inoperable. In addition I created considerable havoc and access confusion on its backup hard drive. Duh. Ouch.

I tried to no avail offering sacrifices to the computer gods and appealing to their intervention.

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After many days and considerable expense experimenting with trial versions of data repair and data recovery software I called a well-known tech support recommended by Robin.

 

Pensive Robin

 

 

In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have kicked her off the couch before I asked Dogbert  for help.

I believe that I have recovered all the apps and succesfully transferred them to my new MacBook Pro. Of course within a month after I purchased my replacement laptop a new MacBook Pro was released and the new Mountain Lion operating system became available (for which many of my apps need to be upgraded).

Over the rest of the semester I hope to revisit each of the 200 apps I have (re)installed. Why do I have so many?  How many of them do I regularly use? Which are critical to my success as a teacher, as a learner, and as a consultant? Which are more than "Mac Gems" or POPULAR  technology tools? Which has demonstrated their value acoss the years? Which can be retired before I retire? Stay tuned.

 

What corporates can learn from the Top 10 Tools for Learning 2012 | Learning in the Social Workplace

Few can rival the vision of Jane Hart. As I move in and out of the academic and business worlds I treasure her inspiration and wisdom.

What corporates can learn from the Top 10 Tools for Learning 2012 | Learning in the Social Workplace.

The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 list is revealed | Learning in the Social Workplace

The Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 list is revealed | Learning in the Social Workplace.

Jane Hart continues her valuable service by sharing this list sorted in a number of interesting ways. Which of these tools have you found most useful? Which would you like to see more used in the classroom or to learn more about?