First Class Guest Speakers in your Class! - No Travel required!

I was teaching Organization Theory II in the doctoral program at Dowling College. I got an idea, to ask the students to interview leaders that possessed a doctoral degree and have applied their dissertation findings to their work and/or life. I have invited successful alumni to participate and be interviewed. The results are coming this weekend! I can see the effects already...Networking...mentoring...and learning...! I also asked them to read two books among other materials, one was "The Princessa, Machiavelli for Women" by Harriet Rubin, and the other was The Art of the War by Sun Tzu. Students needed to review the books in different organizational perspectives, such as decision making, communication, and so on. And it happens..what it usually happens when you are in a room with a 135 IQ plus (ok now they will argue that it is a more...or what about Emotional Intelligence, and then, question the validation of the IQ or IE within different cultures...Do you see what I mean? ha ha ha ).

 These future doctors, females and males, foreign and nationals, various ages, races, and ethnicity..enter into a DISAGREEMENT!, They all have different analysis of the book!...yep...the classroom was a war zone..  You can hear comments such as
"In my country,...." "Females are..." "I am a young person who belief..." We were all laughing and interpreting the books under our own perspective... Hey, humor is requirement in this class....
Someone asked, Dr. Morote, What exactly Harried Rubin was thinking when she said "Use your body as a weapon"...? ; Dr. Morote, when Sun Tzu talks about "terrain", is it like organization culture? well, that's it, I said. STOP. I cannot write to Sun Tzu (he passed away more than two thousand years ago) and ask him...but I can write, right now to Harriet Rubin...and she can respond for herself!
Amazingly, Ms. Rubin responded to our call, and we will be interviewing her this coming Sunday..Isn't that exciting? Since this is blog is about technology, now the question is, What is the best technology to communicate one - to many? She won't be able to travel in person...
update: Our guest speaker was in an area of no Internet, we chose to use  a speaker-phone devise
Have you ever attended a world class speaker in your class? Describe the experience interviewing with Ms. Rubin.

Useful Websites for Teaching

As an educators we are always looking for good info to use in our classes. Sometimes we create our own lessons, or sometimes we use others --for example-- videos prepared for others teachers or organizations. I believe that a good teacher should be able to look for the resources he/she needs as well as create her/his own. For example for videos you can go to: http://www.teachertube.com http://youtube.com https://www.teachingchannel.org/ https://www.khanacademy.org/ There are so many websites, and depending on the topic, teachers should find the ones are useful for their classes. You can google them, ask them or use your favorite search engine. Which ones are your favorities?

Copyright and Digital Citizenship

Digital Citizenship. What does this really mean? What is important for teachers and students today is to understand copyright rules. We all have been there. We find something that it is great for our class or speech or lecture...and we are ready to use it! Hey, it is in the Internet, so it is available, right? How come we can't use that video, podcast, music or a map that will enhance my lecture for our students? Here is the issue. There are copyright laws, and you should a) acknowledge where this information come from and b) pay a fee to use (if that is required). HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS LAWFUL OR NOT? You can use this chart that quickly will guide you in some important points that you should know before using something: http: //www.halldavidson.net/copyright_chart.pdf A few days ago, I was an honorable speaker in the Latin American International Trade Forum. They asked me to talk about the state of competitiveness on Latin America. To prepared for it, I used a) Competitiveness Report 2) Current News 3) Some videos. I watched the videos to get ideas for the style, but I did not use it in my presentation...but I did get ideas from it, Should I acknowledge it? I worked on the presentation until 2 AM to have the perfect lecture. I analyzed several Latin American countries and used it to discuss competitiveness.

I knew that tv reporters and several experts will be there, therefore I was careful that all my comments or analysis are based on serious research. I gave the presentation, and it was phenomenal. At the end, several people asked me for the PowerPoint presentation. I said, sure, I will email you the last version (I wanted to make sure I had all slides properly cited). I did not think that I needed to put citations in each graphic but I put only one at the beginning of it to refer all. One person took part of presentation and posted it in a website, but they cut out all information about other countries, they wanted a specific country (don't blame her/him). However, when they reduced the presentation, they deleted the slide that have citations..YIKES!!! DOUBLE YIKES...!!! I can have a copyright issue here!!! I asked them to take the presentation down from the Internet, and I promised them to send then a new file with only their country - with the appropriate citations. No damage was done. What do you think? Have you been in a sitation like this?

Podcast for Learning and Teaching

This summer, I decided to ask my doctoral students to prepare a podcast about different topics about teacher leaders, school leaders, and assessments as part of the major assignment. I asked them to research the topic, and use research and experience to discuss the topic in a podcast style. Some of them added to "case studies" and other creative things, like background music to their podcast. The final product was posted in Dowling Leadership sitehttp://www.dowling.edu/library/leadership/leadership.asp?id=97. It was a learning experience for my students and for me. I had one day to learn how to use Audacity - a free software for podcast, and how to edit it. My students learned by themselves reviewing the manual and some youtube videos. Previously, I participated in a research with a colleague Dr. Beard, analyzing the effects of podcast in learning. We published the article "Using Podcast With Narrative Pedagogy: Are Learning Objectives Met?" published in the Journal of Nursing Education Perspectives. I can say, podcast are effective. I use at least once in the semester in my classes. Sometimes I ask the students to listen a already prepared podcast, or sometimes I prepared it myself. I have to admit, some of students are not familiar with my accent. They take some time to get familiar with it!!...but sure they have a big laugh of it!...Did she said that? I always joke that I am helping them to developed more their left side of the brain. The effect is always good. Because they will remember the material. I am currently using other people voices in my podcast. Do you see yourself using podcast in your lessons? or while you learning something?

Flipped Classrooms...Really?

Flipped Classrooms...I heard it last summer! One of my students wanted to do a dissertation in flipped classroom. Flipped? it sounded like a using a flip camera or something.. After she explained me what it is, and how effective it is, I become interested on exploring it more and more. It seems like it requires some preparation, and you have to move some of the traditional class time (such as explaining concepts) outside of the classroom, and use the class time to follow up with activities or questions. I have researched this subject further. I have to tell you, the concept is not new. We have been using podcasts during the last years before class. Now this is video. What is new, is the content of this video, and the follow up in the classrooms. It is all about how we organize our lessons. Flipped classroom have demonstrated that increase learning!...Watch this TED video: http://youtu.be/nTFEUsudhfs Flipped classrooms has some advantages and few disadvantages. Some of the critiques is that teachers are assuming the students will have computers and internet in their houses. I do believe learning to use the flipped technique correctly is key to having a successful flipped classroom, and do not confuse it with simply showing a video to the student.

Creating portolios

Doctoral Cohort - 2012 - Wisers 1. http://brianbiscari.yolasite.com 2. http://christopherdillon.yolasite.com http://homeofthehurricanes.yolasite.com/ (Chris Herr) 3. http://eriklandgren.yolasite.com 4. http://janinepayton.yolasite.com 5. http://benedicttieniber.yolasite.com 6. http://www.susantietje.com/ 7. http://bwaitewilson.yolasite.com/ 8. http://apaci.yolasite.com/ (Ana Maria De Cobo) 9. http://dwbdowling.yolasite.com (Dionne Walker-Belgrave) 10. http://gailesanto.yolasite.com/ (Gail Santo) 11.http://cohenenterprise.yolasite.com/ (Yair Cohen) 12.http://denisemtoscano.yolasite.com/ Doctoral Cohort 2012 "Up" 1. http://michelledemarco.yolasite.com 2.http://debranicosia.yolasite.com/ 3. http://cnsupward.yolasite.com (Claude Stuart) 4. https://sites.google.com/site/exceptionaleducatorkms/ (Karen Sealy) 5. http://patriciathinks.yolasite.com/ (Patrica Murphy) 6. http://deanarinaldi.yolasite.com/ 7. https://sites.google.com/site/dariahseportfolio/ 8. http://wilhelmappr.yolasite.com/ 9. http://culturalchangeineducation.yolasite.com/ (Frantz)

Blogging and teaching

It took me a while to decide to use blogging for teaching. My major fear was that English as my second language I may have some grammatical mistakes and the whole word will see it! I would need someone to proofread my posts every time I write something. Let's face it, I don't have a proofreader 24/7. I have to overcome my own fears. Other teachers have different fears, such as the fear of talking to a larger audience is one. Another is the fear that someone can use their words against she or him or and try to sue them.However, because teachers want to motivate their students to learn in different ways, I believe those fears go away when they learn the benefits of blogging. When we read our students postings and we see how they develop critical thinking while writing their ideas, opinions and answering other people blogs. The rewards of seeing this effect will overcome any fears that you may have with blogging. One of my favorite teacher blogger is my former student E. she took the blogging for teaching to another level! I actually got ideas from her. She has created a database of her students work! Very valuable. What can you blog? Well, you can blog just about anything or a specific topic. Blogs are useful and and bloggers provide valuable information from it. For example, I am in Disney world right now.. Yes, I am sitting in front of a pool blogging! Before coming here I talked with my fellow blogger RB, a professor who blogs about Disney. He gave me so many tips, such as download apps to check waiting times in the lines. Fabolous! I have saved time, that I can use for to write this blogging! And you? Do you have a blog? How do you use it?