Posts made by Karen Baker

Thanks, Scott, for your response and request to others on my behalf.  The two references you provided on Connexions are in the right ball park.  If I may take a moment to explain, my area prepares graduate students for leadership positions for post-secondary or tertiary education institutions rather than elementary and high schools.  These graduate programs provide knowledge and teach the applications of the history and philosophies of higher education in the U.S. (primarily), organizational and leadership theories, adult student development and support services, and multicultural issues impacting leadership and influencing the ways in which we work with adult students. 

Because the U.S.A. has a fundamental value that every citizen should be able to go to college, our system of postsecondary education is diverse to meet the needs of an even more diverse population.  The Intute Gateway reference you also listed is interesting because it provides me a peek into what postsecondary leaders in other countries do and how they administer at their colleges, universities, polytechnics, vocational schools, etc.  I hope this further explanation is helpful.  For additional data on the U.S. educational system, see: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/progressing.doc.

Thanks, Scott, for providing an opening in the conversation for me to weigh in. I am one of the consummate SCoPE lurkers, Karen Baker.  I used to teach at Morehead State (KY-USA) but have relocated to TX-USA after following my husband for his new job.  Presently, I am job searching in deep east TX. 

Yes, I am new to this topic.  Because my graduate teaching area is higher education/student affairs administration and college student development, I find it difficult to find good media resources to incorporate into my online courses.  If I am lucky to find one, it’s usually so expensive that it is out of reach. 

For an applied field for educators working in postsecondary education settings, as far as I know, there are few low cost or freely useable repositories of supplemental curricular resources available.  There may be two exceptions.  There is the syllabi depository collaboratively sponsored by the American Educational Research Association Postsecondary Division (AERA-J) with the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)   (http://www.higher-ed.org/syllabi/index.html)/. The other is the College Student Educators International (ACPA) Syllabus Clearinghouse (http://www.myacpa.org/syllabi/) which is accessible only by its members (so how "open" is that?).  

But beyond syllabi sharing, if there are OERs for postsecondary educators, I am sure many of them would appreciate direction to them.  This particularly is true for supplemental resources for teaching online courses where copyright infringement issues are particularly grey mine fields. For these reasons, the idea of OER appeals to me.

I like the idea of the Venn Diagram Ovals that Jo Ann mentioned as a strategy for managing multiple social networks in a time constrained world but am not sure how to go about doing it? As I ponder that notion, I probably have done what Jo Ann suggested by prioritizing which ones are most important, usually job-related, to the exclusion of ones just for personal reasons. Yet, I feel I am missing out. I'd like to hear more about how that works in real world practice.

And I also am asking the question to the group: what advice or strategies do you have or use to maximize your involvement in multiple online social networks in the most time and cost-efficient way?
Greetings from Texas, USA.  I am Karen Parrish Baker, 3rd year lurker and occasional poster on SCoPE.  As an associate professor, I teach at Morehead State University in an adult and higher education administration master degree program completely online.  However, because of our family's relocation to Texas this fall, I will be on the job market after the first of the year.  I belong to a number of online social networks, but as Heather aluded to, I do not participate on most in any substantial way due to time constraints.  However, as an African-American professor teaching at a predominately white university, the online social networks that I do participate in are invaluable to me feeling connected in a way that is not possible on my campus located in rural eastern Kentucky.  Yet, I know that I am not getting the most out of them which is why I am interested in this topic.  I want to learn how maximize the impact of my involvement in multiple online social networks in the most time and cost-efficient way.  Specific strategies would be appreciated greatly.

I am Karen Parrish Baker. I teach adult and higher education leadership masters degree program at Morehead State University (KY) in the U.S.A.  I have taught online using Bb for three years both as hybrid and totally online courses.  I have been pretty much a lurker with an occasional posting on SCoPE for two years.

I am reacting to Jim at SDSU's posting. I found it difficult to use the synchronous tools/activities because one of the reasons students take these courses is because of incompatible schedules which make it a challenge to find a common time for 20-25 graduate students to meet online.  For those of you who have had success with this, I would appreciate any strategies and suggestions that would be helpful and strategic in utilizing these tools to maximize learning.