Thanks to Tom Harbison, the hardest working man in show business, or, at least, CUNY, we have minutes from our seminar on Wendesday. I’ve also included the agenda and the links that we shared with attendees.
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CAC.OPHONY is a weblog on communication-intensive instruction at the college level and its implications for students about to face the challenges of writing and speaking publicly in professional settings. CAC.OPHONY is written and edited by the Fellows of the Bernard L. Schwartz Communication Institute, Baruch College, City University of New York.
Baruch College is the 2008 recipient of TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award in recognition of the Schwartz Institute's outstanding faculty development programs.
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I’m responding here in the point of view of a Lecturer in Global Business and Transportation and the Director of Online Programs at SUNY Maritime.
Jim Russell: This blog is not hosted at Baruch, and if so, this type of usage would not be something he would condone.
The copyright protection on material is usually quite clear and just as usually ignored on blogs. We’re facing the same issue at Maritime and are concerned about protecting the institution from legal actions. My advice is that, when in doubt, don’t. However, there ought to be a center for authority on these matters. To me the library seems to be the most obvious choice. I’ll let you know how our deliberations turn out.
By the way, we also have issues with teachers’ materials appearing online in a course.
Jody Rosen: Notes the importance of images embedded alongside text in a blog. This can’t be done with Blackboard.
Let me underscore the power of this. We use a Lotus Notes based course management system at SUNY that makes it very easy to embed images with the text. You can see the same thing in my personal blog (http://jmsdrgn.squarespace.com/droganbloggin/). Even if Blackboard can’t manage this, one ought to be able to link out of Blackboard to facilitate this sort of thing. If your course management system does not do what you want and need it to do, go some where else. Revolution is not always a bad thing.
Audience (Doug Lackey): Is anybody keeping track of how these new systems affect students time budgets, because if they are putting more time into this stuff, it must be taking away from other stuff. When he asked his capstone seniors whether they have checked out a book from the library during their time at Baruch, most said no. When he asked how many books they own, most said less than 10 books. The question is: is anyone keeping track of the pluses and minuses?
I’ve tried to do some of this. See http://jmsdrgn.squarespace.com/storage/Connect Communicate Learn.pdf for a limited view. What I can’t get a good handle on is the pluses and minuses from the student’s point of view. I do ask for feedback from my students at the end of courses, but not all respond. I suppose what one will need to do is a more formal, mandatory survey.
Audience (Robin Root): How about time demands on professors?
See http://jmsdrgn.squarespace.com/storage/Connect Communicate Learn.pdf for some ideas here. The environment in which I work is very much like blogs.
While time demands are important, let me hazard a bit of idealism: the learning experience may improve.
Finally, hats off to Tom. This is an informative and useful set of notes. I particularly want to commend Web Sites of Interest.
Jim
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