Photos of #CIEEIFDS Seville

Here are the images I was able to capture during the IFDS in Seville last week. I figured it was best to post this sooner rather than later because I wanted to acknowledge the amazing people that we (the seminar attendees) worked with during our time in Seville. Thank you to Oscar Ceballos, Carlos Pineda, Miguel Romero, Antonio Perez, Carlos Sanches, Ruben Diaz and Emilio Gonzales Ferrin. I would also like to thank the six ladies with whom I shared and collaborated with during the seminar: Collete, Rebecca, Nancy, Kaitlin, Ellen, and Rylan. Learned so much from you ladies!

The Local Hero

Sharing our stories

The Art of Telling Stories

Carlos Pineda

Palace of the Alcazar

Carlos Sanchez

Shared Workspace

Antonio Perez

Torre de los Perdigones

Personal Camara

Views of Seville

Shoeboxes

Group Photo

Building a Story of Spain

Emilio Gonzalez Ferrin

Audiovisual Narratives

Ruben Diaz

Information vs. Comm.

Mercado “El Jueves”

Carlos Sanches

The Metropol Parasol

Radio Podcast

Radiopolis

Recording Studio

On Air

Our Podcast Directors

#CIEEIFDS COMM Summer 2016 Radio Show #Sevilla #Spain

Hopefully you have read my previous posts and understand the context of this post. Just in case: I am doing an international professional development seminar in Seville in which I am learning and practicing communication strategies (and using digital media). One of the assignments in the seminar was to record sounds of the city during our stay in Seville. We finally used those sounds today during the production and recording of a radio podcast. It was a two hour preparation time of scripting and sound editing before recording our radio show. I am really impress with the final product!

I have to upload more sounds that I captured this week (they are now updated). I have many more, including interviews and more street sounds. However, I want to share our radio podcast. Big thank you to Radiopolis for letting us use their space to work on the project and their recording studio.

Here is our story, narrative, experience:

IFDS Communication Strategies in Context Summer 2016 Radio Show

Greetings from Seville! #CIEEIFDS @CIEESeville

Thrilled to be in Seville, Spain for another CIEE International Faculty Professional Development Seminar. Thankful for the CIEE Alumni Scholarship which helped sponsor my participation in this seminar. The title of the seminar is “Communication Strategies in Context: Culture Learning and Community Engagement through Digital Tools.” I hope to provide regular updates throughout the week related to the seminar.

Homework:

Also, as part of the seminar I have a bit of homework and will be sharing (or at least try) to share it every day. The homework consist of audio recordings of sounds, conversations, audio reflections, interviews, and other audio recorded during the next few days in Seville. Each audio recording should be no more than two minutes long.

Now it is bed time. Buenas noches!

Museo del Baile Flamenco (Sevilla, España)

Makerspaces and the Maker Movement: Design Thinking

In February, my students in the Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology course (EME610) and myself visited and toured The HIVE. Then, this past April a group of students and myself attended the Gulf Coast MakerCon event. Both of this activities were an attempt to learn more about Makerspaces and the Maker movement as learning spaces. In all honesty, I initially thought it was all about 3D printers. What I learned since then is that Makerspaces really focused on design thinking. Some spaces are technology heavy (hardware and software), others are more about crafting, others are about innovative ideas, and the lists goes on. Basically there are various views as to what constitutes a markerspace.

12647280_906628236072934_6825368649050924601_n — “The Hive” Makerspace: This is the recording studio.

UT ID&T Graduate Students at the Gulf Coast MakerCon Event

From talking to those involved in the markerspace movement here in Tampa, I also learned that the term Makerspace at times seems too crafty. A few weeks ago I toured a school in Tampa in which there are different Makerspaces for students in different grade levels. It was interesting to talk to instructors from the different grade levels. One instructor in particular expressed some concern over the term “makerspace.” He though that the maker movement should be more focused on design thinking. He was very interested in having students master design thinking with simple tools like paper and pencil before even allowing them to use more advance technology. This instructor also expressed concern with the total lack of guidance in some makerspaces. I consider myself an academic novice on makerspaces (as I am still learning and educating myself on the topic) but I do agree with the notion that design thinking requires guidance and supervision. I practice this in my systematic instructional design course. The graduate students and myself spend a significant amount of time going over different elements of their instructional design projects.

Another interesting aspect of Makerspaces that I learned about recently, while attending AERA, is the lack of diversity. One of the “working poster sessions” (we need more of this at AERA — great session format) I attended was on makerspaces reaching diverse audiences which include individuals in different genders, socio economic status, and cultural backgrounds. There were a total of 7 or 8 posters in the session (below is a screenshot from the AERA online program). If you are interested and want to learn more about inclusive makerspaces, I strongly recommend reading the abstracts and following up with the authors.

Screenshot 2016-05-19 11.20.16 — AERA Session: “Toward Building Makerspaces for All: New Theories & Practices to Design Inclusive Makerspaces”

The “Quick Update” Post

I wanted to write a couple of posts about things I experienced this last semester and then life happened! So, I am merging it all into this post. Please forgive the imperfection of my writing. I probably will not take the time edit and re-edit. What you are about to read are the words as they flow from my brain to the keyboard to this blog.

Since I last wrote a blog post (not an announcement but an actual blog post) I became a mom. This time last year, I was in Switzerland in a Faculty Exchange program. It was exactly during the exchange that I discovered that I was expecting a baby. Yes, the pregnancy test results read “Schwanger.”

Many things have happened in my personal/professional life in the last year (since I found out I was pregnant) and I want to share them in my blog. However, I am still trying to figure out how to best express those experiences and feelings in a blog post (or maybe more than one). I hope to take some time to write about this experiences in the near future.

What I do want to share in this blog post is that I have officially completed my third year in a tenure track position. At the beginning of the Spring 2016 semester, I submitted all my materials and by mid March had received all the pre-tenure letters. This is a minor milestone but I still consider it a milestone. I guess the questions that I need to answer now is: what is happening past pre-tenure? Well, pretty much just keep on working hard. I have a long term “to-do list” that I have to tackle and of course, the everyday “to-do list.”

The last three years served to connect with really amazing faculty and graduates students with whom I have found common ground (topics of interest) to work on projects. Some of these projects are strictly related to the instructional design practice and others are more multidisciplinary. I am very excited about this projects and some of them will presented in conferences later this years (currently working on getting some manuscripts out for review). Other projects are just starting so more details coming soon.

I also want to quickly mention that I also started professional service with the AERA SIG Design & Technology as a Technology Liaison. I am excited for this opportunity and very much looking forward to working with colleagues in the SIG. This previous sentence reminded me that I wanted to mention how much I enjoyed attending AERA 2016. I did not present a paper but instead had the opportunity to participate in a mentoring program sponsored by the AERA SIG Design & Technology. I met two outstanding graduate students, Amanda and Yi.

I hope the SIG continues the mentoring program in the future. It was a great opportunity to share my graduates student and faculty journey. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to listen to the concerns of graduate students and, hopefully, provide guidance. I also learned from the graduate students in the process. Both graduate students, Amanda and Yi, shared conferences, resources, and research groups that were completely new to me.

During the conference I also participated as moderator in a panel discussion on the past, present, and future of the design and technology field. The panelist included Elizabeth Boling, Pat Hardre, and George Veletsianos. It was nice to listen to the panelists’ perspective on the current state of the field as well as suggestions for graduate students and faculty doing research on topics related to design and technology. The current Graduate Student Representative of the SIG Design and Technology board, Shonn, live tweeted the panel presentation. If you are interested in reading more about it, you can check out the AERA SIG Design & Technology Twitter stream.

That is all I have for now. Hoping to be post more in the near future. Hopefully, future post will not be as lengthy.

JoAnne Scott, #UTampa ID&T Alumna, wins #AECT Award

JoAnne Scott (@UT_IDT alumna) was awarded the 2015 #AECT Nova Southern Award for Outstanding Practice by a Graduate Student in Instructional Design & Technology!

JoAnne’s Professional Portfolio: http://jdscott.weebly.com

Faculty Exchange to @PHLuzern (Switzerland): Overview

Grüezi Mitenand!

In May 2015, I participated in a faculty exchange program at PH Luzern in Lucerne, Switzerland. I was very excited to participate in this exchange because it involved giving a series of guest lectures, a workshop, and several meetings with administrators, faculty, and students. The faculty exchange was initially setup by the Dean of the College of Social Science, Mathematics and Education in an effort to increase the international perspectives and awareness of the faculty at UTampa as well as collaboration between the two institutions. After getting permission from the Dean and setting up the initial contact with the International Office at PH Luzern, I was put in contact with one of the professors in the Informatics Department (Hanspeter). The result of several months of email was a two week program.

Traveling to Lucerne was nice adventure that included flying into Zurich and then taking a one hour train ride from Zurich airport to Lucerne. At the train station, I was greeted by Hanspeter and we walked to a nice restaurant by the river were I met several colleagues that I had already met via email. It was nice to finally see them in person. This lunch was immediately follow with a meeting with Prof. Dr. Michael Zutavern (Vice Rector of PH Lucern) and Brigitte Kursteiner (Head of International Relations). During the meeting I was given an overview of PH Luzern including the different programs that are offered, the student body and the Swiss higher education system. I also had the opportunity to talk about The University of Tampa, the Education Department programs, and specifically, talk about the ID&T program.

The days after my arrival in Lucern included:

– Guest lectures to the graduates students in which we discussed the use of use and implementation of instructional simulations and educational games. During the guest lectures the students also shared their projects related to Robotics in the K-12 classroom.

– A brown bag lecture to faculty in which I share my current multi & interdisciplinary research efforts and collaborations. It was fantastic to share some of my initial findings and the significance of my research with others. It serve as a way to get feedback and, in some cases, it served to think about potential future collaborations.

– A visit to a middle school with a 1-to-1 tablet program in which students are taught about media literacy. It was nice to learn about the collaborations of the school with universities in the U.S. and to learn about the implementation of the tablet program for specific parts of the curriculum. Spending the day in the middle school also gave me plenty of time to talk to the teachers and to discuss the challenges and benefits of the implementation of the tablet program.

– Several meetings with administrators and other faculty members. I met with the EduWeb team which basically serves as the instructional design and educational technology support for the faculty and staff at PH Luzern. I also met with the head of research and development at PH Luzern (Werner Wicki). We discussed some of the research projects that faculty members have published and some upcoming projects for the future. During my meeting with Dr. Wicki we also discussed our own research interests and topics.

– Cultural activities such as Ascension Day traditions and celebrations, hiking the Titlis and Burgenstock, the Swiss Museum of Transport, the Rosengart Museum, cruising Lake Lucerne, and exploring the beautiful city of Lucerne.

I want to thank my colleagues at PH Luzern for their warm welcome and hospitality during my visit in May. It was great to learn about the higher education studies in Switzerland and to learn about the programs offered at PH Luzern. Also, thank you for giving me an opportunity to share some of my research efforts and my knowledge with the faculty and students.

I truly enjoyed the experience! It was more than a professional exchange, it was also a cultural experience. I was able to learn about your holidays, geography, food, and the people of Lucerne (and surrounding areas). Again, thank you all for taking the time to meet with me. I look forward to our planned future collaborations (coming soon)!

EERA & #AERA15: My Two Cents

This semester, I had the pleasure of presenting and attending at two different conference. At the regional level, I attended the EERA (Eastern Educational Research Association) conference in February which was hosted this year in Sarasota, Florida. A nice one hour drive from Tampa. Some of the highlights for me from the conference were a session on:

Mindfulness practice in schools
Partnerships between institutions of higher education and private organizations to develop multi-institutional online courses
Large scale datasets

My objective when attending a conference is always to attend sessions that relate to my research interest but I also like to attend sessions that are on topics completely new to me. I was very interested on the mindfulness practice in school presentations primarily because I am a yoga practicioner and I was curious to know the research behind mindfulness/mindfulness-related activities and it how it affected learning (if it did). The presentation helped me understand the benefits and challenges of mindfulness in schools but it also made me realize that it can be applied to higher education. I immediately started to think how I could apply this with my students in the graduate classes. We are pretty lucky at UTampa because there is an active initiative called “the mindful mediation hour” which, I believe, is hosted every Monday. Other colleagues mentioned that this would be extremely difficult to implement in their institutions.

The session related to partnerships was a great opportunity to learn about a topic but it was also great to meet Barbara Lockee (Past AECT president). We had met in the past via email but I’ve never had the opportunity to talk to her face to face. It was wonderful to talk about AECT, Virginia Tech, the field of instructional design and she even gave me some great advise for the tenure track journey!

Similarly to the two previous sessions, I was interested in learning about large scale datasets and I thought it would be beneficial to sit in this session. It definitely was worth the time. I have never given much thought to the idea of using available datasets to conduct research but after sitting in this session I was considering it for my own research, research with my students in the classroom, and potential collaborations with colleagues. It was good to learn from others that use large datasets on a regular basis and to learn some of the do and don’t of large datasets analysis.

During the conference, I also presented on the use of VoiceThread as an interactive tool for audio/video discussion boards in a hybrid class. This presentation was reporting on a data collection that I had done earlier in 2014 in which students provided feedback on their experience with VoiceThread through the semester and provided suggestions for improvement. It was nice to share some insight into the use of audio/video discussion boards in a hybrid class. Overall it was a nice of groups presentations in the session and good questions.

At the national/internationals level, I attended the AERA (American Educational Research Association) conference in April. The AERA meeting was held in the Chicago. I still consider myself a newbie to AERA but I feel that every year I learn something new about the organization, the different divisions, and the special interests groups. In previous years, I have carefully crafted my schedule to figure out exactly what sessions I am attending before arriving to the conference but given the intensity of the Spring 2015 semester, the best I could do was download the app and figure out my schedule a day before the conference started. I think my ability to put together a schedule was also influenced by the fact that I was attending the New Faculty Mentoring Program (sponsored by Division C — I am working on a blog post about my experience — coming soon) and I knew I was going to have two days of back to back sessions. In a way, I was not sure how energetic I would be by the first day of the actual AERA conference.

Once I did get around to selecting the sessions I was planning to attend, I focused primarily in divisions sessions and SIGs that related to topics that are a research interest to me and that I would like to present in the future at AERA. I wanted to get an idea if anyone else was doing similar research, using the same tools, similar methodology, or what it was like to present to individuals in specific SIGs. One of the SIGs that was of interest to me was Educational Neuroscience. I am currently working in a project with JoAnn Scott, Alumni of the UT ID&T program, related to cognitive processing in geriatric learners and we are considering submitting a paper in the future about this topic. One of the big takeaways of attending the Educational Neuroscience sessions were that: 1) the sessions are very well attended (I was standing in the back of the room for the three different sessions I attended on this topic), 2) there was significant talk about methodological concerns and the use of EEG to collect data, and 3) we (researchers) have to be carefully with broad generalization of the findings.

During the AERA conference, I also presenter a poster titled “Computer-Based Simulations: An Instructional Design Perspective.” This poster related to research I’ve been conducting using since I was in my doctoral program. Here it is in a nutshell: I started reading about computer-based simulation in the educational technology literature and I noticed most of the theoretical and conceptual work was back in the ’80 and early ’90. Since then, we have primarily focused on computer-based simulation within a specific context (is it a math simulation? is it a biology simulation? — you get the point). Yet, we (researchers) are rarely focusing on research related to the design of computer-based simulations (regardless of the context) based on instructional design components to make the simulation instructional, interactive, engaging, functional, and realistic. That is the short version of the story.

In summary, I truly enjoyed my experience at EERA and AERA15. I know I didn’t say much about the locations but I want to say that been able to drive to Sarasota for a conference was nice (except for the rush hour traffic back into Tampa) and Chicago was just amazing! I was a first time visitor to Chicago and I love it!

CIEE IFDS – Istanbul Photo Journal

Day 1:[Walking Lecture: Cultural Heritage & History of Istanbul with Dr. Alessandra Ricci @ Mosaic Museum] http://bit.ly/1zAvhgQ

Day 2: [Lecture: Istanbul between the Global and Local with Prof. Dr. Çağlar Keyder, Site Visit to Beyoğlu Municipality and Site Visit to Museum of Innocence] http://bit.ly/1CVNzao

Day 3: [Lecture: Space, Power, and Politics in Contemporary Istanbul with Associate Prof. Dr. Ayfer Bartu Candan and Site Visit to Tarlabaşi Community Center/Migration and Urban Transformation in Istanbul] http://bit.ly/1CVOFmp

Day 4: [Lecture: Cultural Policies & Cultural Politics in Istanbul with Dr. Asu Aksoy @ Bigli University and Site Visit to Bigli University Santral Campus] http://bit.ly/186FEh0

Day 5: [ Lecture: Challenges of Freedom of Expression and Journalism in Turkey with Independent Journal, Cultural Activity: Cooking Workshop @ Istanbul Kitchen’s Academy Tophane and Walking Lecture Tour: Consumption, Space, and Spectacle with Dr. Begüm Başdaş @ Beyoğlu] http://bit.ly/1AYDo2a

Day 6: [Ferry from Kabataş to Kadiköy the Asian side of Istanbul = Historical Haydapaşa Train Station and Moda Neighborhood] http://bit.ly/1Bku7Eq

Day 7: [Lecture: Migration in Turkey with Prof. Dr. Ahmet İçduygu and Lecture: Gender Issues in Turkey with Deniz Yükseker @ Koç University] http://bit.ly/1y86cU3

Day 8: [Artist Talk: Serkan Taycan, Lecture: Politics of Public Art Events with Dr. Banu Karaca @ Sabancı University building and walk around the Galata Tower] http://bit.ly/1ClPtma

Istanbul!

I am excited to start blogging about my experience as a participant of the CIEE International Faculty Professional Development Seminar in Istanbul titled “Consuming Istanbul: Politics of Space and Spectacle.” It has been a long journey and I am eager to share my views and perspectives (coming soon).