MERLOT: Enhance Teaching and Learning with Technology

With John Prusch, SUNY Learning Network, and Ray Purdom, UNC - Greensboro

MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Their website includes links to online learning material along with annotations such as peer review and assignments. During this workshop, you will not only become familiar with this collection of resources, you will also learn how to take full advantage of the MERLOT’s many features….More Info

Web Communication Trends: Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds, & Aggregators

September 12, 19, and 26, 2006 1-2 pm Eastern
To register, click HERE

Blogs, Wikis, Newfeeds [RSS, et al.] and Aggregators have all evolved rapidly, becoming powerful, inexpensive, and relatively easy-to-use ways of sharing information and expressing opinions. Do you know what they are, how to use them, and most importantly how they impact the learning environment in higher education?
With Blogs and Wikis, single writers or teams of collaborators can prepare and post new entries to the web very quickly, without writing html or other code required by older forms of web page. Space for readers to comment or a list of web links to related web sites are common elements of these tools. Newsfeeds and Aggregators allow constant monitoring of new information on these and other web sources.
This three-week online workshop will help participants understand how and why these tools work well for on-the-run web collaboration and publishing, as well as other educational applications.
Week #1 - Understand the definitions, terminology, and technical characteristics of Blogs, Wikis, Feeds [RSS, et al.] & Aggregators.
Week #2 - Explore the role of Blogs, Wikis, Feeds [RSS, et al.] & Aggregators in the learning environment.
Week #3 - Enable the integration of Blogs, Wikis, Feeds [RSS, et al.] & Aggregators through instructional design.
In addition to the archived hands-on workshop sessions, participants will have access of web resources and links for further exploration with topics such as:

How To Get Started with Information Literacy: Special Selection

An ACRL/TLT Group Online Seminar
July 6 to 20, 2006
Live Webcasts: Thursdays, 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EDT
Seminar Leaders:Rebecca Jackson, Iowa State University, and Sheril Hook, University of Toronto at Mississauga
Workshop Description:This workshop introduces participants to a carefully selected set of basic resources and holistic approaches for launching or advancing local undergraduate information literacy programs.
These resources are selected specifically for librarians, faculty members, faculty development professionals, and their colleagues who are just beginning to help students learn how to use information resources more responsibly and effectively or to set up (or are in the early stages of establishing) information literacy programs for their institutions.
Note: These selected resources are readily available from a variety of sources, mostly on the Web, and include ACRL's guidelines and standards. However, we expect and encourage many participants to adapt the definitions and goals for "information literacy" to the needs and resources of their own institutions and will discuss strategies for this in the workshop. If IL is not the term your institution uses, you may