Reviewing Proposals for Virtual Worlds – Best Practices in Education

I’m going to be helping some colleagues from Front Range Community College review proposals for a conference coming up next month:  Virtual Worlds – Best Practices in Education.  I’ll be looking at ones for the blended teaching/learning and educational tools and products streams.  Abstracts/proposals are due today.  The conference will take place March 27 through 29 in Second Life.

Proposals for 5C’s Conference

I submitted two proposals for this year’s 5C’s Conference (Colorado Community College Conference on Composition):

PROPOSAL #1

Title:  Weblogs and Bookmarks and Feeds—Oh, My!

Abstract: What is Web 2.0? For that matter, what was Web 1.0?  Will there be a Web 3.0? What are weblogs, social bookmarking, RSS feeds, and wikis? Where can I create, find, or use them? What options are available? Which ones are best? How much do they cost? Are they hard to use? Learn the answers to these questions and more along with ideas for using these tools in teaching research.

PROPOSAL #2

Title: Beyond Google: Oodles of Internet Search Tools

Abstract: How many of our students start a research project with Google—and end it there? In this session, we’ll explore other search engines, metacrawlers, and web directories, as well as tools to find invisible web content, blogs, wikis, web rings, listservs and groups, and message boards and forums. I’ll share an activity you can use with your students to evaluate different search tools, and we’ll talk about how to keep up to date with the latest in internet research.

I hope one of them is accepted.

5Cs Conference

Friday I went to the 5Cs Conference at Aims Community College in Greeley. The weather forecast promised 10 or more inches of snow, but we didn’t get any. The speaker and sessions at the conference were interesting, but the best part was talking to other writing instructors.

5C’s Conference

On Friday, April 13, I’ll be attending the 5C’s Conference. Some of the sessions look pretty interesting. Several of them are on grammar, so I’m hoping to get some ideas for my developmental classes at Red Rocks this summer.