The SLATE mission is: To support learning and technology in education through communication, collaboration, and innovation while developing a community of practice.

The SLATE Star Award was established in 2004 as a way to recognize an individual who has shown leadership, demonstrated initiatives, presented new ideas, improved procedures, established effective relationships or provided substantial resources that have effected the success and promotion of SLATE, the educational experience, and/or the general Blackboard Community of Practice. For more information about SLATE, visit slategroup.uchicago.edu

It is free. It is non-commercial. It is an open opportunity to collaborate. Here are a few more of the details:

When: Registration is Free and Open now! The course runs 6/27 – 8/20, 2011

Resource site is now open…you can see where we are going, the course will evolve
Live Webinar panel discussions every Thursday 2p EDT, 1p CDT, Noon MDT, 11a PDT beginning with the first session on June 30

Where: http://sites.google.com/site/edumooc is the home/resource site. Discussions for those who register will be hosted by Google Group eduMOOC

Twitter hashtag is #edumooc

Diigo tag is edumooc to share additional resources

Why: To learn, collaborate and network with interesting and knowledgeable colleagues

Join us in building resources; discussing today and the future of online learning. Sign up today. It’s totally free – do as much or as little as you choose – no advertising – just collaboration, communication and networking with colleagues in online learning. Simply register with an email address at the site below and join in this worldwide collaborative event!

http://sites.google.com/site/edumooc

Full-time 12-month position responsible for developing and delivering programs and consultations on teaching, technology integration, and related areas for faculty, teaching staff and teaching assistants; providing training and support on the use of web course management system; preparing online and hard copy materials; working closely with various academic and support units at NIU to address their needs on instructional technologies; and participating in various activities of the Center.

Required: Master’s degree in instructional technology or related field, with knowledge of instructional design principles, pedagogical techniques, Web-based course management system and office productivity tools; experience in developing and delivering workshops in a university; ability to develop training materials and documentation, handle multiple tasks and function collaboratively and collegially in a team environment.

Preferred: Doctoral degree; experience in teaching in a higher education environment, offering training programs on web course management systems, ability to learn and show how to use new instructional technologies in teaching, and plan and coordinate programs.

Send: Letter of application, resume and three current letters of professional references related to this position to: Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center, Instructional Technologies Coordinator Search, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115. Preference will be given to complete applications received by July 31, 2008, however, applications will be accepted until position is filled. AA/EEO Institution.

To download a complete position description, visit http://www.niu.edu/facdev/positions/instructechcoord.shtml

I spent June 13-20th with my brother-in-law Justin and father-in-law Terry riding across Colorado on our motorcycles. We loaded the motorcycles on my trailer and left Friday evening, June 13th after work and towed them 18 hours to Colorado Springs where we spent the night at Justin’s cousin, Travis & Britta’s house. From there, we drove on the bikes to Pagosa Springs to spend a couple of days with Justin’s family and in-laws before hitting the road and spending 3 more days on the road en route back to Colorado Springs and then finally home. In total, we put on 1,027 miles on the motorcycles and another nearly 2,000 miles in the Explorer towing the motorcycles to Colorado and back. All in all, we had a great trip and many fond memories that will no double be talking about for years to come.

All the photos from our trip are available here. For the slideshow, click here.

Anyone interested in the route we took, here are the maps for our routes that Justin planned out using Google Maps:

• Day 1 (Sun, June 15): Colorado Springs to Pagosa Springs
• Day 2 (Tue, June 17): Pagosa Springs to Hotchkiss
• Day 3 (Wed, June 18): Hotchkiss to Fairplay
• Day 4 (Thu, June 19): Fairplay to Colorado Springs

Stop by and say hello!

My wife and I are forward to heading to Atlanta this next week for my commencement ceremony on March 1st. We’ll be flying into Altanta Thu. afternoon, 2/28, with my in-laws and my dad. My brother who is currently stationed at Barksdale AFB in Shrevoport, LA is going to try to make it over as well if his schedule permits.

We’re going to try and get a bunch of sight-seeing in before the ceremony on Saturday afternoon. It should be a lot of fun! For those who are interested and want to try and sneek a peek at the commencement ceremony, it will be webcast live on Saturday, 3/1 at 2PM CDT. More details are at http://www.capella.edu/commencement

Biographies of the 5 fallen NIU students are now available on the NIU memorial site at http://www.niu.edu/tragedy/memorial/biographies.html

Apparently, the young man who died, Daniel Parmenter, was actually shielding his girlfriend from the attack. Click here to read the complete story.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the press conference, Chief Grady discussed the rapid response of the NIU campus police force in response to first reports of the shooting. I can attest personally to the responsiveness of NIU police…they certainly are a highly trained and VERY responsive unit. There’s no doubt that police were on the scene within 29 seconds as Chief Grady noted.

Please continuing praying for the entire NIU community.

Thanks to everyone who has called or emailed to check and make sure that I was ok. It was a chaotic scene on campus yesterday with media and emergency personnel flooding the scene. The news of what was happening on campus initially spread faster by word of mouth and cell phone text messages than any other means. It was a surreal experience to be watching events happening live on CNN while also watching it happen through an office window. Waking up the day after, it still is hard to believe that such a horrendous event could take place in DeKalb.

Here’s a video with a few photos from the past day at NIU:

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more details on the healing process on campus in the days ahead as well as any further news, you can check the NIU website at www.niu.edu. Please keep the campus administration, faculty, students, and most importantly the students and families of those directly affected by the shooting in your thoughts and prayers. The university community has a long road of healing ahead…

Here’s an example of the low-res version of one of the presentations available on YouTube:

Click here to view the embedded video.

For links to other formats of the presentation, such as hi-res online and the text transcript, click here.

The Northern Today, NIU’s weekly online newsletter, recently did a feature article on the project. To read the full story, click here.