Teaching With Technology Certificate Hub

Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State. Many topics are available over spring break, including scientific computing, Blogs at Penn State, podcasting, PowerPoint, EndNote, Teaching with Technology Certificate Portfolio, Creating an Electronic Portfolio, and more. Visit the ITS Training Services Web site to register for any of these sessions at http://its.psu.edu/training/ .

FYI - I will be presenting an overview sessions of the TWT program in Spring Break sessions. The talk will cover the structure of the program, resources and show example portfolios and answer questions you may have.

If you have friends or colleagues interested in the program, but aren't sure about some details, this may be a good session for them as well.

Dates/Times
Mon March 8, 8:30-9:30 AM
169 Willard
Register at https://register4its.psu.edu/Public/ShowDetail.asp?scheduleid=107541

Scanning vs. Reading on the Web

The TWT Portfolio does require some writing, particularly pieces such as the Teaching Philosophy statement. But you should know that writing for the Web is a little different from writing a traditional academic paper.

For those of you interested in using the Blogs at Penn State to create a portfolio, I wanted to announce that a link to a sample TWT portfolio on the Blogs platform has been added in the left Create Portfolio requirement.

Other non-TWT samples can be found at http://portfolio.psu.edu/gallery/

About Usability

For this semester's tips, I thought I would focus on creating the portfolio itself, specificially enhancing it's usability. What is usability? There are lots of technical definitions including this definition of usability from Jakob Nielsen, but it does boil down to making a visit to your portfolio as simple and pleasant as possible.

FYI - We've been interviewing TWT departmental coordinators and some students about the program to gain their insights. So far, we've interviewed Stuart Selber, the English department coordinator and Nuria Sagarra, the Spanish program coordinator and Aroline Seibert, a student in Spanish.

You can see their videos at http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/twt/videos or find them on YouTube at the psutlt channel.

The Digital Media Commons service of ITS has changed its name to Media Commons (http://mediacommons.psu.edu). For story details, please see http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2010/digitalcommonschangesname

If you're not familiar with the Media Commons, it's a series of facilities with video studio space open to students and computer stations for editing video. University Park locations also include a station for recording podcasts.

FYI - ITS Training is currently running a survey aimed at instructors and staff at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PHTTNYJ

Deadline is Jan 29, 2010.

Please consider filling this out so ITS Training can improve its services.

If you are completing a portfolio this spring and will graduate in the spring term, the suggested date to submit your portfolio to your TWT Coordinator is Monday, March 29. This date is selected to portfolio to be reviewed and finalized before a candidate graduates.

If you intend to complete a portfolio this semester please contact your TWT coordinator if you have not already done so.

As always, if you need to submit a portfolio at a later time, please work with your coordinator to set an appropriate date. This is intended to be a flexible program.