CherylSpace

I have been having computer problems (great way to start the semester,) so am late in joining. I also have a new job as the interim Dean of Instruction, Chief Academic Officer at my college--further complicating my life. But I'm going to try to catch up and be a faithful participant. It's good to be in class with many of you again!


 * October 3**: I am so excited to finally be adding material to my wiki space in this class! I am so thankful for two things: first, my computer tech was able to talk me through the solution to an internet connection problem last night (while he was on vacation!) and second, that Scot and I could connect by phone this morning and troubleshoot why I hadn't been able to access the wiki like the rest of you. For future reference, Wikispaces may not recognize your sign-in if you try it from a different computer. Since my laptop wasn't making internet connections, I had been trying to use my desktop for the last two weeks. Wikispaces thought I was a Guest and not an authorized user...so I didn't have the "Edit this Space" option. If you use wikispace again, this may be a helpful troubleshooting item to remember.


 * October 3**: On another note, while I had Scot on the phone today (what an amazing luxury--Thanks, Scot!!) I think I have changed my mind on what my project will be. I know I want to set up some kind of asynchronous discussion tool for my 300+ faculty to talk about faculty evaluation and classroom assessment. Scot pointed out there are several other platforms he has explored besides Wiki, so I think I will compare/contrast several of them to find one that best fits my purpose.


 * October 10**: I am still up in the air about my project. WHile it may be academically interesting to compare and contrast several wiki providers, the fact is that I want to get one started sooner rather than later. In a discussion today with my leadership staff, the idea of having focus groups with faculty about teaching and learning topics they would like to participate in and take advantage of came up. I would love to be able to have that exchange both synchronously and asynchronously. As the text emphasizes, f2f contact is the most important element of relatiohship building, but once 2 individuals have that working relationship, technological tools can increase their ability to interact over time/place. Now, I really am leaning toward setting up a robust wiki with attachments, etc.

My project for 675 this semester is built around the foundations’ concepts of faith and worldview, technology, and application into professional, personal, or community practice. I will be working on my own since no one else in the class shares my particular set of professional and faith circumstances. Through the reading and interactions in this course, I am increasingly convinced that technology can be a very useful tool //if there is an already established relationship for participants to build upon.// The author of our text takes a strong stand against relying on cyberspace as the sole basis of communication and especially against relying on it for being in relationship, “In short, we are sharpening or informational practices while dulling the habits of our hearts.” (p. 20) He comments on the broader effects on society: “Cyberspace thereby adopts the character of American life in general with floating workers and mobile people who often are unable to make any long-term commitments to their communities.” (p.64) I might tend to agree to this pessimistic view if cyberspace was the //only// locus of interaction. My thought, on the other hand, is that if individuals already have relationship and/or a set of shared beliefs or ends, cyberspace can provide a diverse platform for multiple conversations to take place. The author acknowledges this line of thought, “Of course, there are fine exceptions…through which colleagues can carry on civil and even relatively intimate discourse” (p.66.) but the weight of his argument lies the other direction. My goal in this class is to learn how to use technology between professional and faith colleagues to further shared understandings and interact asynchronously, as a corollary to regular face-to-face interactions. I propose to become the master of two wikis: one for the faculty I supervise and one for my covenant group from church. In both cases, I have face-to-face contact, individually and in groups, but also in both cases, we have limited time to interact as groups. I propose to start wiki dialogues around subjects that we don’t seem to “get to” in the course of our normal face-to-face interactions. Wikis ould be good for this for two reasons: first, the interactions are asynchoronous—they don’t require all the participants to be in the same place at the same time (an impossible proposition with my faculty of 300+ per term,) and second, the writing process itself is a reflection and clarification tool. Word-processing technology allows us to conceive and adapt our ideas, refining as we go. This “journaling” technique is widely used in social sciences as a tool for getting to the center of what is in our hearts. I believe that writing for a wiki allows that same benefit to occur. I am not technologically adept, so the prospect of setting up and being master for two wikis is daunting to me. In fact some of what I thought I knew about wikis has come into question in this class, reducing my self-confidence. I want to do this project for two reasons: to re-build my skill with wiki technology and second to set up a platform for my faculty to reflect on the meaning of general education and for my covenant group to interact on issues of faith, peace and justice beyond our weekly supper meeting.
 * Project Proposal: October 14**


 * October 20:** I had a meeting on Thursday with the faculty committee who is reviewing our college's "Faculty Evaluation" process. We have decided to make this a 2-pronged approach, looking at both evaluation and professional development/support. There will be lots of ideas to share among the entire faculty and when I suggested a wiki as the platform for that sharing I got a less than enthusiastic reception to the idea. They people responding all had at least some experience with a wiki before, so it wasn't that they weren't familiar. Selling this idea may have to be another part of my process/project, in addition to just getting the site set up and working.


 * Tom-B-Space, October 20, 21**: I visited Tom Buchanan's space both yesterday and today and left a posting asking him if we could compare notes. He has gone way farther than I have--he has his own space set up (and color-enhanced to boot,) with links to the class added back in. I am still just using the Participant Page of the class wiki page, in contrast. I was intrigued that he found a set of links that explain more about wikis. I haven't explored them yet, but I will--looking for an alternative to the Mr.Wiki's "live presentation" on the class wiki page. I did email Scot yesterday asking for advice on downloading and using the wiki tour, but I haven't heard back. I tried to cut-and-paste the link from the class wiki page and I tried going directly to wiki spaces from the web (not from the class.) and cutting and pasting the link from there. Neither method resulted in a pastable version of the live tour. Interestingly, my GFU wiki "sign in" showed up even when I didn't access wikispaces from the class site. I wonder if wikispaces has identified my computer and adding an identity. Anway, I left a message for Tom B. but haven't heard back.


 * Tim Porter, October 20, 21**: I visited Tim's Participant page both today and yesterday, noting that we seem to have similar projects and asking if we could compare notes. He has not responded yet either. His participant page is pretty empty--sounds like he's had time committments preventing a full start on the classwork. I am farther along than he is--at least in playing around in the class spaces. Interestingly, though, he has added a "journal" link to his page, and his one journal entry was located there. It was there that I found he has not gotten very far due to time constraints. His regular participant page has one entry descrbing his project, and it was there that I figured out the similarities between our projects.


 * October 21**: Kenny had read an article on how Christians in the early 20th century criticized telephones as "instruments of the devil." The premise was that listening to another person's voice without seeing a face was a supernatural phenomena and was to be feared. We googled the topic and didn't find that article but did find one that might have been of interest to the author of our text. Kenny and I wondered if our text's author had the same criticism of the telephone (as an artifact of communication in contrast to personal interaction,) as he does to cyberspace technology. [|1959 article on technology]


 * October 24**: Today, I am struggling with an aspect of technology as I think about the complications VISTA will add into my work life (and maybe my faculty wiki?). Is it just a "have to live with" artifact of rapid growth? Our new CPUs will come with new software that won't interface easily with the software most of the world has. We have to compromise our abiity to communicate with the drive of having the most updated technology for our students. It's hard to be opposed to our students having the latest and best, but at what cost? The faculty are only gradually getting the upgrade that we intstalled on all the student computers before fall term started. The discontinuity within my institution about the upgrade supports some of our text's author's premise that the desire for the latest/best supercedes the content/quality of the interaction.


 * October 28**: I was excited after being in online office hours yesterday, thinking that I was making technological progress. I could understand the concepts of RSS feeds and while salivating over Kenny's new Mac (with a 28" monitor!) I was able to point out the little RSS on the Mac homepage and explain to him what it meant and how it appeared to be a useful tool. I also felt like I had a better understanding of Diigo (both its possiblities and limitations,) and after listening to Amy and Scot, I could interpret what i had been seeing in the tutorial--a set of sticky notes over the top of the text. When I went over to Kenny's with my laptop to sign on to Diigo, I had connectivity issues with his new modem. So I //think// I was able to sign in to Diigo and I sent Scot an email to that effect. He hasn't responded that he has added me to the class diigo list, and while I realize my procrastination does not constitute an emergency on his part, I hope he sees my email soon and adds me. During office hours, he and I talked about the possiblity of our IT folks complicating my desire to set up a wiki for faculty. I don't think they will, as long as I guarantee that I will monitor all entries for appropriateness--which I will. I just realized I FORGOT TO ASK SCOT how to dowloand the wiki tutorial (Seattle pictures) so that faculty can see the demo. Darn.


 * November 4 (this occured on the 2nd at a state meeting in Portland, but I didn't have my laptop with me):** My colleagues in the 17 community colleges (the Council of Instructional Administrators, fondly known as the CIA.) was bemoaning all the issues on our collective plate: funding formula, performance measures, faculty bargaining, outcomes assessment issues from NWCCU, etc. We meet once a quarter and most of us are so overwhelmed at work that we knew there was no way we could meet more frequently or for longer times--nor could our Inboxes absorb much more email and receive any kind of quality reflection. The VP of Instruction at Columbia Gorge CC suggested we use a Wiki for dialogue, rather than clog up the listserve (aforementioned email glut,) with long discussion threads. Many in the group agreed that would be worth trying. I believe this is one setting where it could be beneficial, since we have good working relationships. The group suggested that the listserve host school look into establishing the wiki. I look forward to seeing what comes of it!


 * November 4:** I was excited to get back from Portland and get my laptop fired up again into school work (well, maybe excited isn't the exact word--I just didn't want to get any further behind!) I found that Tom B. had added a Discussion to my Participant Page asking if I needed any help. I filled him in on my plans and asked if he had any thoughts. I know he has his wikispace up and going and it looks good. It feels good to have someone looking in on me! I also (finally) got into Diigo, read the article and added highlights, stickies and comments to classmates' stickies. I was distracted by the appearing/disappearing stickies and what seemed like a pretty random highlighting tool--but I did like the concept of adding discussion points right into the document that multiple are reading and reflecting on. I don't think I am technologically ready to use Diigo since I don't know how to convert docments from Adobe or Word to HTML, and Diigo seems to require that the docments be in HTML. (Maybe that's easy to do and I just don't know it. ) I'm glad I got to play around with it, however. If the tool becomes more user-friendly or some other software exceeds it, I could see using it at work, as well.


 * November 17:** The last 2 weeks have been frustrating for me and my project. On the one hand, I have been telling faculty to be prepared for a discussion board with me to talk about ways to revitalize our flagging Professional Development Program. My new-faculty powerpoint is nearly ready to be launched (just letting the HR department have one more chance at it,) so faculty are recognizing that I really do care about this issue. The President told me he is hearing good things about my leadership. So I am eager to keep up the momentum by adding the wiki in. I was contemplating doing a demo of the Wikispaces page at my faculty meeting last week, and then I asked if I could merely use the college's email "distribution lists" for full- and part-time faculty (over 300 names,) assuming that since I was launching the wiki from within the college web presence, that would work. But to my great dismay, it doesn't. I would have to enter all 300+ names individually and that is not feasible.

So I am back at square one on this project. I was in a meeting with one of the college webmasters this past week, and I inquired if there was some way to set up a discussion board similar to wikispaces within the webpage. He has not returned either my phone calls or my emails. I then approached the college's Media department, asking if something could be set up in WebCT that would simulate a discussion board. The Media staff were more encouraging, and said they would look into it. They could set me up as the teacher of a 300-person class. But they are still trying to figure out how to load the names. Student names are automatically loaded into WebCT when they register, but faculty are not. However, the staff said they would "work on it." I am conflicted about pressuring them. On the one hand, I am their boss and this effort is designed to build on the Faculty Development efforts that used to be housed in their area. On the other hand, however, the department has just lost a key member and until he is replaced, the staff are all overloaded with his work.

So a technological hitch and an ordinary staffing hitch are stymying my forward progress on my project. And now that Thanksgiving week is upon us, I don't hold a lot of hope my needs will get addressed this week. How depressing!


 * December 1:** HALLELUJAH!! Late Thursday afternoon (November 29,) the Media staff notified me that my WebCT Discussion Board was up and running, and all 510 full- and part-time faculty for this term were ready to be invited. GIven that huge number of participants, this seems like the best way to go. I immediately went into the site and was reminded what I didn't like about WebCT (in contrast to Moodle that we use at GFU.) The discussion board is set up like a class and I am the teacher, which is okay...but I don't have training in how to be a WebCT teacher. Wikispaces seemed much more "naive user" friendly. There are buttons on the screen with strange-sounding labels like "create equation" and "threaded and "unthreaded." Luckily, there are some recorded orientations, done by our Media staff, available for new users--I just wish I was at this point about a month ago. Now I have to learn the technology, start the discussion threads, invite the 510 users, and hope that some of them will respond during Final Exam week so that I have some results.


 * December 1** (this occurred on November 30, and I am a day late getting it posted): Today and the Department Chair/Coordinators meeting, I demonstrated my Faculty Discussion Board as part of our agenda on Facualty Support and Evaluation. Since we had meeting attenders on all 3 campuses, I was able to use the computer video component along with the video of the meeting, showing all 3 sites my live demonstration of the discussion board. I showed them that there is Micromedia Flash demo on how to participate in the discussion, as well as links for configuring their browser. Except for forgetting that the page "sleeps" after a certain number of inactive minutes, it went well!!


 * December 16** (recorded, but the disappointing results were evident by Thursday, December 6..) Only Marie Mueller has responded to my Faculty Discussion Board, and it is the next to the last day of the term. I know people are busy, but I thought I'd get more response than that...how disappointing after all the "pushing" I had to do to get this final solution set up..