Todd Conaway on No, not that kind. Not one of the one of the policy laden, awash in lawyerese filled jargon that you skim through like a privacy notice made so small you cannot actually read it. No, not that kind. Not one of the handbooks that is printed and has all kinds of phone numbers and links in it. You know, the full 37 character URLs that someone imagined you might take the time to type into your browsers address bar. No, […]
Todd Conaway on I am off the the Online Learning Consortium Innovate Conference in Denver later this month. My presentation for the event is about adding a bit more “play” into the process of faculty development. Over the years, I have attended enough presentations about the hows and whys of academic technology and teaching pedagogy to know that even the best session, with tons of “audience” participations, get a bit dry. So, my amazing colleagues and I have created some good strategies, and […]
Todd Conaway on I cast my 9x9x25 vote for Terry Greene and pin upon him this badge of Wrangler of Writing. Perhaps it can go by his other notable badges. Particularly, the True Friend badge from the infamous Talky Tina. He used his true friendship techniques to wrangle a group of us together to share some ideas. He managed to do so humanly and digitally, and led us there by his own example as a sharing open author. Terry has wrangled writing before. […]
Todd Conaway on We have a wonderful cobalt blue KitchenAid mixer. It is well used. And it is well loved. It matches the hand towels in the kitchen, the antique blue vases and glasses, some of the art on the walls and our dinner ware. It matches the matting on some framed pieces of art in the kitchen. But mostly I love it because it makes cookies. Or I should say my wife and daughters make me cookies with it. I know that […]
Todd Conaway on What are we doing here? As we share these grand visions of learning or terrible stories of woe, what are we doing? I remember when I changed my mind about how all this writing was all beneficial to me, or us. Initially, I had thought that by sharing these remarkable and not so remarkable stories with one another we would grow our collective intelligence and become better educators. And I was happy. But then I realized that the “doing” of […]
Todd Conaway on Not only is the Talking Heads album “More Songs About Buildings and Food” one of my all-time favorite collections of music, but it reminds me of many of the challenges I come across in my work with faculty. And administrative people. For today, the buildings are classrooms and yurts. The food? Well, we all know who shows up for the workshop when there is food and drink. Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Symposium 2018: Scholarly Teaching […]
Todd Conaway on In 1933, John Dewey, wondering how an alien race might see the American educational landscape pondered, “The Utopians believed that the pattern which exists in economic society in our time affected the general habits of thought; that because personal acquisition and private possession were such dominant ideals in all fields, even if unconsciously so, they had taken possession of the minds of educators to the extent that the idea of personal acquisition and possession controlled the whole educational system.” Essentially, […]
Todd Conaway on I have lost a lot of listeners. My arms waving around wildly as I talk is just too damn distracting. In headshot videos, I blink so often that certainly people watching are just counting all the blinks knowing I am going to blink over 60 times per minute. Faculty peek into the workshop door to see a long haired and heavily bearded dude in a Captain Kirk outfit. Or a damn red rain suit. People walking into presentation rooms ready […]
Todd Conaway on In response to Laura’s Challenge, I accept! Will you accept the challenge? Calling all #9x9x25 video creators! https://t.co/ytl8Q6h74z pic.twitter.com/lU3LyVqSs2 — Laura Killam (@NurseKillam) October 3, 2018 Here you go. And I challenge you as well!
Todd Conaway on The idea behind our current Canvas, Coffee, and Cookies is as old as time. Be it Bagels and Blackboard, Donuts and D2L, or Cereal and Sakai, they all use food to drive some faculty towards our doors in the hopes that we can field a couple questions, meet new faculty, or put out a fire or two. It is a tried and true strategy that is nothing more than a food bribe. It works. We do have one small twist […]
