Wallenberg Blog

I love enabling video conference connections, and we do get a LOT of requests. It was bound to happen that word would get around campus. Tomorrow, October 17, we are hosting three separate video conference events in addition to our normal workload. We have a visiting professor lecturing to a class in London, UK. We have a PhD student interviewing for a job with the International Atomic Energy Authority, in Vienna. And we are also hosting a day long connection to the NCAA, involving presentations by the President, John Hennessy, and a plethora of other important campus people! Most of the connections tend to be early morning, as they are most often to the east of our timezone, and I am greatly indebted to the tech team for their support in the testing and presence on the day and time of these connections. I take the reservations willingly, then land them squarely at Bob Smith's feet... and he always says "no problem"!

"Blending Face-to-Face and Online Teaching: Successes and Challenges"
by Dr Kim McShane, The Institute for Teaching & Learning (ITL), The University of Sydney

Thursday, November 15th 2007, 12.00pm – 1.00pm
Hartley Conference Room at the Mitchell Earth Sciences Bldg
Brown bag. Light refreshments will be served.

Cosponsored by the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Stanford Center for Professional Development

Presentation Outline:
Drawing on examples from her recent research that investigated faculty experiences of “making the move online,” Dr. McShane will outline some of the successes and challenges associated with online and blended teaching. There will be an opportunity for all to share examples of what they know does work well online – and face-to-face. In these times of “student-centred learning” is it useful to reflect on what is learning and what it is becoming in our universities and colleges? In this presentation, Dr. McShane will review how online learning might be changing university teaching and, indeed, changing student learning, in significant ways. When distance learning is not the only option, what case can we make for taking up online teaching, and what case do we make for integrating face-to-face and online teaching?