Category: Education

The #OTESSA22 Recap and Resources

One of my favorite things to do after a good conference is to collect the resources acquired in a blog and re-share it with others. It is also a great way for me to tag a resources to a specific event (in my blog) in case I want to go back to it in the future. Don’t ask me why, my brain just works that way. Any who, last week I attended OTESSA 2022 which was her virtually and is organized by the Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association (OTESSA).

Here are a few thoughts on the conference:

  • Really enjoyed the conference sessions, social events, and the schedule.
  • I was also really appreciative of the active efforts to promote all sessions via social media, at times it served as a reminder to a session I wanted to attend.
  • I was not sure how the sessions were going to relate to theme of the conference “Critical Change” but at least based on the sessions that I was able to attend, there were several critical conversations happening about “what is next” and “how we do it in a meaningful, critical way”.
  • Going back to the schedule, it was a bit more challenging to catch the evening talks but glad I can catch the recording until the beginning of June.
  • The conference organizers did a phenomenal effort running is smoothly (i.e., sharing updates daily, the pre-conference info to check login information, and just attending sessions to make sure everything was going as planned).

At the beginning of the week I made a post on Twitter stating that I would be sharing resources during the week but honestly it was too much for me to tweet out every day. Trying to attend sessions, tweet giving proper credit (important to me), and trying to keep up with what is going at home was too much. So, instead I bookmarked and hope to proper share in this blog post. I will include the session the resource was mentioned or shared.

Metaphors of Ed Tech, Martin Weller

Surveillance in the System: Data as Critical Change in Higher Education (Research-Oriented), Bonnie Stewart (University of Windsor), Samatha Szcyrek (University of Windsor)

  • @bonstewart and @samanthaszc discussed findings on research related Surveillance in the System: Data as Critical Change in Higher Education. What do you know about datafication in your institution?

Online or Remote Learning and Mental Health (Research-Oriented), Stephanie Moore (University of New Mexico), Michael Barbour (Touro University California), George Veletsianos (Royal Roads University)

Hide and Seek: On Kids, Power, and Resistance in Education, Sherri Spelic, American International School Vienna

Outside-In: Openness as Subversion, Maha Bali, American University in Cairo

Embracing Feminist Pedagogies in Learning Design, Enilda Romero-Hall, The University of Tennessee Knoxville

Taking Experiential Learning Online During COVID-19 (Research-Oriented), Theodora Kapoyannis, Astrid Kendrick, Patricia Danyluk (University of Calgary)

Exploring university teaching during a pandemic to derive recommendations for post-pandemic times (Research-Oriented), Joerdis Weilandt, Sandra Dixon, Richelle Marynowski, Lorraine Beaudin, Rumi Graham, Stavroula Malla, Angeliki Pantazi (University of Lethbridge)

Multi-Section Open Course Design: Design and Implications for Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Learners (Practice-Oriented), Valerie Irvine, Michael Paskevicius, Colin Madland, Rich McCue, Verena Roberts (University of Victoria)

The social events were lots of fun! The Bhangra dance with @GurdeepPandher was a great workout and I definitely need more of it my life. I was a bit uncoordinated at first and too shy to turn my camera on but I finally got it and still too shy to turn my camera on. The DJ session so much fun too! I didn’t participate in the trivia challenge but I enjoyed all the beats. Thank you again to all involve with planning and organizing the conference (Valerie, Aras, and Terry!) .

I attended my first in-person conference: #NSEE 2021

This past week I attended my first in person conference since February 2020. It was the Annual Conference of the National Society for Experiential Education. Back in early Summer, when I received the email from the Center for Teaching and Learning about attending the conference I felt good with attending the conference. Florida at that time was doing better with the number of COVID-19 cases but that quickly changed and I was starting to become hesitant about attending the conference. Thankfully the numbers are starting to decline after a massive spike due to the Delta variant. Another encouraging aspect was that the conference had a mask mandate for all attendees. It was sent out via email several times prior to the conference. It was also nice that the conference was in Orlando so if I didn’t feel comfortable with the COVID-19 measures, I could drive home in 45 minutes. Thankfully after I walked into the keynote session I immediately noticed that everyone was wearing their masks and wearing them properly. The conference did include a lunch but I didn’t attend because I didn’t feel comfortable attending this event so I just ordered some UBER eats.

The conference this year had an overall theme focused on social justice in experiential education. My first session was the keynote by Dr. Raja Gopal Bhattar (they/them/theirs) on Tuesday morning. As stated in the website of the conference: “Dr. Bhattar is a nationally recognized higher education leader, advocate, consultant and author. Raja will address how effective experiential learning requires intentionality and clear understanding of outcomes for our communities. Through storytelling and reflections, this keynote will offer insights and strategies on how experiential education leaders can incorporate equity, inclusion and belonging in all aspects of our work.” I loved the keynote speaker! I like it when keynote speakers make me reflect and this was a perfect example of this. Some of the questions I had to think about white listening to keynote speaker:

  • How do we show up?
  • Identity versus perception?
  • What is our role in upholding/disruptive inequitable systems?
  • How our students receive us?
  • Whose perspective is not on the table?
  • How do societal systems enhance or inhibit student success on campus?

We also had to do an identity grid that helps us reflect on “how often do we think about who we are beyond our titles? ”

Identity grid.
Identity Grid at NSEE 2021

Other sessions that I really enjoyed were:

  • Social Justice and Antiracism in Career Education and Experiential Education: Session discussed a process for creating a Call to Action with accountability measures, equity-oriented course syllabi, and a 5-step model to consider in your own work. This is a wonderful resources shared during the session: https://tinyurl.com/4j2tmxaw. This resources were used to create the Social Justice and Career Education infographic. Please see image below.
  • Providing career readiness support to female students in male dominant industries: This was a nice round table session focused on different kind of events that staff and faculty can use to create opportunities for networking, grow , and support for female students and those who identify as woman.
  • Using immersive virtual reality in higher education to facilitate authentic learning experiences: This was a very introductory session into VR and how a university had employed VR experiences into the curriculum to provide learning experiences related to manufacturing at the start of the pandemic in lieu of in person field trips. We got an opportunity to brainstorm ideas for our own curriculum.
  • Learner-centric virtual exchanges: No travel, no problem: This session related to a virtual global challenge that an institution took at the beginning of the pandemic in lieu of study abroad programs. As soon someone who has coordinated a study abroad program in the past and who is considering one next Spring I want to think of alternatives in case the pandemic requires me to make a change in plans. This session helped me think about different approaches that I can take virtually.
  • Influencers abroad: Enhancing cross-cultural awareness through social media activities: This session explored leveraging strategically designed social media learning activities to enhance cross-cultural awareness. I thought it was a creative to consider alternative assignments during study abroad experiences. Some of this assignments included: Vlogs, Instagram stories (academic versus personal accounts) every day, Instagram food related posts, and end of a program presentation/reflection.
Social justice and career education infographic

Recent Publications related to Online Teaching and Learning

In this post, as I have done in other posts, I want to share some research that I have co-authored and published so far this year related to online teaching and learning:

“The three-tier design process: Streamlined guidelines for designing and developing a course in a learning management system to promote effective learning” You can access this journal article here

This is a collaboration with Weiwei Ji (Instructional Designer at Arkansas Tech University) and Pauline Salim Muljana (Doctoral Candidate at Old Dominion University). It is a design framework supported by research-based evidence and influenced by the instructional design practice of WeiWei (Will) and his experience as an instructional designer. Of course, it is also supported by the knowledge, skills, and experience of Pauline and myself. As we state in the abstract: “We propose a set of guidelines called the Three-Tier Design Process (TTDP), providing a pathway for faculty and other higher-education professionals who intend to design and develop a course in a Learning Management System and to promote learner-centered experiences. This paper includes detailed discussion about each tier of the TTDP, its subcomponents, and an example of its application. The TTDP borrows from existing theories, models, and literature in the instructional design field that focuses on key aspects that help create positive learning experiences. Tier 1 focuses on course design and serves as a foundation for the next two tiers; Tier 2 emphasizes course development; and Tier 3 concentrates on the user-experience considerations. Examples from a real course are additionally provided.” We were invited to write a blog post about the journal article for the Online Learning Research Center. Here is a link to the blog post: https://www.olrc.us/blog/designing-and-developing-courses-in-learning-management-systems-how-do-we-enhance-learners-experiences

“Hybrid flexible instruction: Exploring faculty preparedness” You can access this open access journal article here

I was excited to see this journal article finally published. This journal article is the result of a collaboration with University of Tampa undergraduate elementary education major, Caldeira Ripine. It is a research project supported by the Undergraduate Research and Inquiry Grant from the University of Tampa. The data was collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic during Fall 2019. As the pandemic started and plans for continuity of instruction were shared by higher education institutions, I knew that the data Caldeira and I had collected needed to get publish as soon as possible. But, due to a number of factors (including lack of childcare) it took a while a to get this out into the review pipeline and of course, then it had to go through the peer review process. In any case, as stated in the abstract: “The aim of this investigation was to survey faculty members on their perceived level of preparedness to design and implement hybrid flexible (HyFlex) instruction. Participants included 121 full- and part-time faculty. Using an electronic survey, faculty members: a) rated their preparedness to engage on different HyFlex instruction competencies, b) shared which pedagogical strategies they felt prepared to use in this instructional modality, and c) listed the resources and support that they felt were needed to successfully implement their course.” The journal article is open access, you are welcome to download, read, and share.

Photo by Samantha Borges on Unsplash

Writing during “Stay at Home” Orders

How much fun was it to write manuscripts during “Stay at Home” orders without childcare? Well if you have not experience this during the last year and half of the COVID-19 pandemic then consider yourself lucky! It is not fun at all. I wrote the following in a reflection I was putting together on what April 2020 was like:

“Upon our return to the U.S. we were faced with the news that, due to the pandemic, our childcare center had closed indefinitely. My partner and I had to adjust to working from home while providing childcare for our 4-year-old son. I had to quickly realize that some of the projects that I was hoping to start before the end of my sabbatical were going to be delayed or canceled. The projects that I was planning to complete were going to require a massive amount of focus and dedication. In order to accomplish all our work requirements, my partner and I had to divide our days into three “shifts.” The morning shift (8 am to 1 pm) in which I worked and he would care for our son. The afternoon shift (1 pm – 6 pm) in which my partner worked and I would provide care for our son. The evening shift (6 pm until midnight) in which were are exhausted but aimed to spend time together as a family.”

In April 2020 during a three week period during my “morning shift” I wrote a manuscript for a special issue that was published in the Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D) journal. The realization that I was going to have less than the estimated amount of time to write this paper stressed me so much. But I had to channel that stress into getting the work done. During the process of writing the proposal I had gathered and read most of the literature and had put together an outline. Having this things done was a lifesaver! During the three weeks of writing I had to buckle down and eloquently put the literature and my ideas into a document.

I should give a little bit of context: I initially thought I was going to have a month of full-time work hours during a term in which I was on sabbatical. But because of the lack of childcare (due to COVID-19) I actually had three weeks with 4-hours per day (during week days) to write the paper. I do not know how fast others are at writing papers but gosh I am such a tortoise. To make it more interesting, this was a solo-authored publication.

Kind of funny, I can write without problem in a busy cafe with all sorts of background noise. I pretty much wrote all of my dissertation in a Panera a few blocks from my apartment when I lived in Norfolk, VA. But it was so hard to write this paper from home while having my family members’ voices in the background. I remember putting on my headphones and close the door and still every now and then I would still hear their voices and conversations in the background.

I think that been really passionate about the topic I was writing about made a huge difference on how I approached this writing project, despite the hardship endured in the process. I am grateful for Reviewer # 1 and the editors of the special issue for such wonderful and detailed feedback. I truly helped me improve the paper during the R&R submit process. The manuscript was published “online first” this January 2021 and is titled: Current initiatives, barriers, and opportunities for networked learning in Latin America .

Romero-Hall, E.J. (2021). 
Current initiatives, barriers, and opportunities for networked learning in Latin America. 
ETR&D.
 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09965-8

This was the first of many experiences like this. Our son stayed home for 6 months while we worked from home without childcare. And, even after he went back to the childcare center, there were other instances in which he has stayed home and we had to maneuver the same dynamics of still completing our work. Having the deadline of special issue submission did add more pressure in this specific instance (shared in this post)! It made it hard for me commit to any special issue submissions for almost a year (hence why I missed out on so many opportunities to submit for COVID-19 related special issues in 2020, sadly)!

Happy Monday everyone!

Your Goals

Unless you are independently wealthy or a master manipulator, you will have to work hard and make sacrifies to achieve your goals. I know to most people this may sound like a pretty obvious statement, but for some reason I get the impression that there are some who think that success just happens overnight. Trust me when I tell you I have made plenty of sacrifices to achieve pretty much everything that I have been able to accomplish including becoming a mother, purchasing materialistics things, and my professional accolades.

Right after I completed my undergraduate degree, I went on to do my master and doctoral degree. I studies non-stop for from my associates degree to my undergraduate to my master and then to my doctoral degree. Yes, I was a professional student for 12 consecutive years of my adult life. This does not include the two previous years of undergraduate studies that I did while I live in Panama (after graduating high school). By the time, I started my masters program, most of my friends (in Canada, the Unites States and Panama) were buying cars, buying houses, getting married, having kids, going on fancy vacations, and affording a lifestyle that I could not live because I was on a graduate student stipend.

But, I had a goal in mind. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Therefore, I just stayed focus.

Why do I share this? I share this because I see graduate students comparing their journey with the journey of others. Trust me when I tell you that those who made it to the end (who earned their degree) also made sacrifices. You may not see how they worked hard or the sacrifices they made, but as someone who has been there I can honestly tell you it was not easy for them either.

It is also here where I would like to re-share a prior post I wrote called “Failure.” Here is a quote from that post:

“In academic circles, it gets really competitive. Heck, in life people get really competitive. We start looking at what others are doing and assuming that everyone is “doing things,” “going places,” and basically just “living the dream.” But the reality is that we are all working towards our goals and we all have moments of failures. That is just life.”

I would like to modify the last sentence of that quote and say: But the reality is that we are all working towards our goals and we all have moments of failure, sacrifices, and hard work. Stay focus on your goals and what you want to achieve.

By the way, sometimes I need this reminder too.

CFP: Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online

The curators of the Feminist Pedagogy for Teaching Online guide (Jacquelyne Thoni Howard, Clare Daniel, Niya Bond, Liv Newman, and myself) are putting together a new edited collection on this topic. A list of potential topics is included in the call.

Please consider submitting a book chapter proposal by July 2nd, 2021. The book will be proposed to the Distance Education series at Athabasca University Press for publication in an open-access format.

For more information about the CFP or to submit a proposal visit: http://tiny.cc/FemTeachOnline

Recent AECT Interactions Post about #FeministPedagogy

I was recently invited to write a post for the newly established AECT Interactions digital publication. I welcomed the opportunity to write about a topic of my choice and was honored to be amongst those invited (which included colleagues who I deeply admired and whose work I value). Since I am starting to explore and write about feminist theories in various ways in my work, I decided that I wanted to write a short practical piece about feminist pedagogy. The lead of this new AECT initiative, Dr. Michael Grant, encourages us to write pieces that serve as a reflection of our own teaching experience and/or research outcomes. It seemed natural to me to write about my own experience embracing feminist pedagogies in my teaching. You can read my published post in AECT Interactions here: How to Embrace Feminist Pedagogies in your Courses

I shared the post widely online in different social media outlets and received fairly positive feedback on the topic and content covered. One of my favorite comments was shared in a Facebook group. It put a smile on my face. Below is a screenshot of the comment.

Facebook Comment’s Screenshot

I know that AECT is looking for authors who would be interested in contributing posts for this new publication. To learn more about AECT Interactions or how to submit a post for publication, click this link: Launching a digital publication to impact educators and learning professionals.

#AERA21: Session Info, iPoster, and Published Paper

It is that time of the year! The American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference is here. However, this year it is a virtual conference. I will miss getting to learn from, connect with, and meet 15,000 other educational researchers from around the world. I don’t want to make this post about the AERA21 virtual setting experience. Perhaps I can write about that topic in a future post. Also, I am sure someone is already collecting tweets for a paper about it! I do want to share our session info, link to our iPoster, and link to the published paper.

Session Information

Presentation Date:
Sunday, April 11, 2021  [10:40 AM ET – 11:40 AM ET

Instructional Technology SIG Poster Session:
Instructional Technology in Higher Education and Corporate Settings

Title of our Presentation:
Critical Competencies for Practice Among Educational Technologists in Latin America and the Caribbean

Event Link: https://aera21am.simcita.net/fast/evt36972

iPoster

Use this link to explore and read our iPoster: https://bit.ly/32236Kc

iPoster Presentation Screenshot

Published Paper

If you want to learn more about this topic. We published a book chapter discussing our research project and findings. This is the citation and link to our book chapter:

Romero-Hall E., Adams L., Petersen E., Vianna A. (2020) Educational Technologists in Latin America and the Caribbean: Perceived Importance of Competencies for Practice. In: Spector M.J., Lockee B.B., Childress M.D. (eds) Learning, Design, and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17727-4_169-1

Hope everyone has a good conference and hope to “see” you next year!

“We should all be feminists” Yup. I totally agree.

I put together a list of feminism related books that I want to read and I am very slowly starting to read them. One of the books that arrived this week and was in my list is “We Should all be feminists.” It is a book but honestly you can read it in 40 minutes. I feel like I am going to put it right next to my bed and just re-read it whenever I feel I need some words of wisdom. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the authors of We Should all be Feminists, said it all so well! It felt as if she could read my thoughts.

I laughed out loud when she discussed the views that others have of feminist women: angry, hate men, who refuse to shave their legs, don’t like to wear make up, and refuse to wear high heels. I wonder if people still have these views of feminist? I bet it is very different in different regions of the world, countries, and even within countries.

Anyways, there are three specific quotes from the book that made me nod my head and say “Yes!“:

“What struck me, with her and with many other females American friends I have, is how invested they are in being ‘liked.’ How they have been raised to believe that their being liked is very important and that this “likeable” trait is a specific thing. And this specific thing does not include showing anger or being aggressive or disagreeing too loudly.”

I have countless example of this in academia. God forbid your disagree too loudly! lol I will just leave it at that.

“We teach boys to be afraid of fears, or weakness, or vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak, a hard man.”

As a mother, this is an important message. How are we raising our sons? Feminism is not about a bunch of women trying to change the world, it is really about women and men working together. The way we raise our sons today, will have an impact on the type of men they are tomorrow.

“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femininity. And I want to be respected in all my femaleness. Because I deserve to be. I like politics and history and am happiest when having a good argument about ideas. I am girly. I am a happy girly. I like high heels and trying on lipsticks.”

It is truly disappointing when people think that you cannot be girly and be an academic. Wearing make up, red lipstick, and wearing a dress? It probably means you are not smart enough. I have actually heard women in academia say that the more they behave like a man, the more accepted they are in academic settings. Sad! I love embracing my femininity and I plan to continue doing just that.

There is a lot more that I can quote, but I just want to leave it there for now. I am moving on to read Audre Lorde “Sister Outsider” and I really need to finish “I am judging you” by Luvvie Ajayi (this is not a book about feminism, but about keeping it real).

Let’s talk about ID Project Management

For the last few years, I have taught an ID Project Management course. I normally teach this course during the Summer term, which is a 6-week intensive session (and I mean truly intensive!). However, the rotation of electives in our program now allows me to teach the course during the regular 14-week term. This meant, that I now have room in the course for guest speakers who share their experiences related to project management in instructional design in various settings.

This semester, I was able to record the guest speaker sessions and share them with the students who are not enrolled in the course. These recordings are now uploaded to YouTube. Apologies in advance if YouTube is unavailable in your area due to Internet restrictions.

Guest Speaker: Camille Dickson-Deane, Ph.D., PMP.

Guest Speaker: Adriana McKinnon

Guest Speaker: Kiran Budhrani