Welcome to Brittany Dudek, CCCOnline’s New Librarian!

We are delighted to welcome Brittany Dudek, our new Instructional Online Librarian for Colorado Community Colleges Online. Previously, Brittany was the Electronic Resources Librarian for Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Illinois. Brittany received her Masters of Library & Information Science from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her B.A. from Eastern Illinois University, and she was honored as a Library Journal 2014 Mover & Shaker. 

Here’s an introduction from Brittany herself:

I’m very excited to work with you to provide library services to your students. I’ve heard from many that citations and plagiarism is a concern, and am working to create active learning/interactive tutorials which will finish with a short ‘quiz’ on those subjects that can be used in any course at any time.

Aside from the citation and plagiarism tutorials, there are many library services I can offer, and I hope you’ll take advantage of them! I’ve listed a few here, but would love to work with you to develop what your students need!

·      
Research Guides (LibGuides)

o   Subject specific research guides to help students find library and open source resources related to a subject

o   Will also include general citation and research information

·        Tutorials

o   Topics covered can include specific databases or websites, research skills, information literacy skills, or for the particular needs of a course

·        Instruction Sessions

o   Asynchronous or synchronous instructional sessions tailored to your subject or assignment needs

o   These sessions will be recorded upon request, and the video provided to use a reference

Please consider scheduling instruction sessions in your course when it coincides with an assignment. Students benefit the most when library services are provided at their point of need!

I am excited about getting started and truly look forward to working with you!

Brittany Dudek

Feel free to offer any thoughts or comments in the Cultivating Excellence thread, CCCOnline Community!

Registration information: CONNECT to Excellence Conference

Make plans now to join CCCOnline for their free annual CONNECT to Excellence Conference at the beautiful Denver Johnson and Wales University campus on September 19, 2014.  

CCCOnline has invited experts from all over Colorado and the United States to speak to the theme "Measuring Our Success" in such diverse fields as online science instruction, writing across the curriculum, project-based learning and online flipped classrooms.  Our sessions will offer opportunities to exchange ideas and best practices on assessment, student verification and the latest technology tools with colleagues from across the state. 

There will be opportunities for CCCOnline instructors to meet with administrators, share their insights, and learn about new procedures.

We invite everyone interested in online education in Colorado to participate in this one-day conference in Denver. See our CONNECT to Excellence website to read about the 30+ sessions being offered. Registration is now open through Eventbrite!  Select your sessions before they fill up. Conference and box lunch are free of charge for CCCS instructors and staff.

#METAGAME Book Club: July 15 - August 16, 2014

This week, we are pleased to share news from Chris Luchs, our Associate Dean of Career & Technical Education:

ISTE's Virtual Environments Network and the Games & Simulations Network will be doing a summer book club from July 15 - August 16, 2014.

Well, actually it's a Book Club +. It involves reading publications, a really great book, going to websites, watching videos and even going in game.  

This book club has 2 tracks. There are Game Studies (great for English and humanities teachers) academic readings with Sherry Jones, the creator of the Rhetoric and Games or rgMOOC. 

The second track will be facilitated by the educator’s gaming guild, Inevitable Instructors.

The book for the second track is the young adult book, For the Win by Cory Doctorow (great for economics, social studies and anyone looking to engage their students in reading). It is also gives an insider look into massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMOs and MMORPGs). Vasili Giannoutsos will lead up the literary discussion with Kristina Thoennes and Trish Cloud. The Inevitable Instructor guild will livestream from World of Warcraft the endgame play described in the book. For the Win also delves into virtual economics. From World of Warcraft, Chris Luchs and Kae Novak will livestream how the economy functions in a global online game.

For The Win is available on Kindle, in print or you can download the free version at http://craphound.com/ftw/download/

This is an open book club for all educators. The hashtag #metagame will be used for Twitter and all tagging in social media. The model for the book club is based on social network knowledge construction. Participating instructors will be able to be active in the book club in several ways from lurking (reading the discussions) to actively creating content. This will be a great opportunity for you as an educator to build your game based learning PLN (Personal Learning Network), learn about games and have some fun!

To sign up for the summer #METAGAME Book Club please go to http://bit.ly/metagamebooksignup

Recent Reports: Online Learning & Students

Below are a few very recent reports pertaining to online learning and its student beneficiaries. Enjoy.

“The Five Faces of Online Education: What Students and Parents Want” by Allison Bailey, Christine Barton, and Katie Mullen (6/18/14)
From BCG Perspectives (Boston Consulting Group):
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/education_consumer_insight_five_faces_online_education_what_students_parents_want/#chapter1

“Online College Students 2014: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences” (6/14)
From Learning House:
http://www.learninghouse.com/ocs2014-report/

“Online Learning and Student Outcomes in California’s Community Colleges” by Hans Johnson and Marisol Cuellar Mejia (5/14)
From the Public Policy Institute of California:
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=1096

Students & Technology: Articles

This week, we offer a few recent articles pertaining to college students learning with, about, or even in spite of technology:

“Learning in Real Life: Mobile Learning and Non-Traditional Students” by Albert Powell, Director of Learning Technologies at Colorado State University OnlinePlus (5/30/14)
From The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement:  
http://www.evolllution.com/opinions/learning-real-life-mobile-learning-non-traditional-students/

“Facebook in the Back of the Classroom” by Joshua Kim (4/22/14)
From Inside Higher Ed’s “Technology and Learning” blog:
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/facebook-back-classroom

“Confronting the Myth of the ‘Digital Native’” by Megan O’Neil (4/21/14)

From The Chronicle:
http://chronicle.com/article/Confronting-the-Myth-of-the/145949/

“Social Media Scholarship” by Carl Straumsheim (4/7/14)
From Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/07/social-media-may-benefit-international-students-and-group-projects-researchers-argue