Volume III Number 3
December 1996

Technology Day Planned for January 9

Arta Szathmary, who holds the Faculty Center's Professional Development Resource position in support of technological development, is developing plans for a day-long series of workshops for faculty members. Technology Day will be offered on Thursday, January 9, from 10 am to noon and 1 to 3 pm in the Faculty Center. Lunch will be provided between noon and 1 pm.

The day will include an intermediate session on managing e-mail and organizing and maintaining vax storage space as well as an investigation of discussion lists as a class tool. The latter is of particular interest to those teaching integration of knowledge or distance learning courses, but discussion lists can be used to the benefit of students in any course. If you are interested in playing with graphics, the session on digitizing images is for you. This session will offer practice with scanners and digital cameras and computer manipulation of the images. The Web workshop will cover how to find information quickly and will consider issues of copyright and plagiarism as they relate to use of materials from the Web. If you are interested in learning how to create class handouts, newsletters, or flyers, attend the session on MS Publisher 97. If you want something more basic, the day will include workshops to familiarize you with either Windows 95 or the Macintosh.

One particularly helpful feature of the planned day of workshops is that, in case the planned sessions are not what you are looking for, individual mentoring will also be offered. One-on-one mentoring will be offered all day to help you address your particular interests, teach you applications of value to you and your students, or even show you how to turn on a computer and what to do with a mouse.

Arta is intentionally keeping the schedule flexible in order to tailor what we offer to how you want to spend your time. Faculty members will soon receive a registration form. Kindly fill it in and return it to Arta Szathmary. Please contact Arta, also, if you would like to request that a particular topic or skill be covered, if you are willing to mentor others, or if you prefer individual mentoring (968-8130 or szathmarya). Keep in mind--lunch is included.

Rave Reviews for Showcase

The Advisory Board of the Faculty Center hosted the first Faculty Showcase. It will not be the last! The Showcase was a marvelous success. The Center was packed with full- and part-time faculty members, a number of College administrators, and several members of the Board of Trustees.

The spotlight was on teaching and the evening included several presentations designed to convey faculty accomplishments related to instruction. The evening's first presenter, Mary Ann Klicka, administered a short learning style inventory and discussed the results. Bill Ford shared with the group models for developing clear written assignments. Anne Kinnier elicited participation on the impact of procrastination on performance. Doug Rosentrater enthralled the group with his presentation on teaching Shakespeare. Marilyn Puchalski talked about discussion lists and their applications, particularly in distance learning. Jon Alley offered a tour of the Bucks County Community College World Wide Web site and discussed applications of the web to teaching more generally.

The focus on teaching impeded no one from enjoying the delicious refreshments. Barbara Korb arranged for an impressive assortment of cheeses, olives, patés, crackers, and breads. Advisory Board members put their culinary talents to work, baking delectable desserts.

Thank you to Lyn Allison and her subcommittee: Jon Alley, Joanne Drechsel, Bill Ford, Mary Ann Klicka, Jean Konkel, Marilyn Puchalski, and Helen Wilson. Thank you very much, also, to our presenters and bakers.

And the Survey Says. . .

Joan Weiss has compiled the results of her survey. Read below Joan's conclusions from the findings. A compilation of the data follows Joan's comments.

• I am happy to report that almost one third of the faculty (54 members) responded to this survey. This itself is a positive step towards building awareness of the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning. Of those responding, 35 this semester and 41 last semester have visited the center, 22 more than once.

Suggestion: We need a way to track attendance in the center. A sign-in or registry would be a start. This would help us create a mailing list of interested faculty, which would be our primary target market in building attendance at the Center's events.

• Meetings top the list of activities that drew the greatest numbers. Social events, use of the computer equipment and technology followed close behind.

Suggestion: Encourage departments, areas and College-wide committees as well as "private" social events (baby showers, etc.) to arrange their meetings in the Center for maximum exposure. Have a facilities coordinator, encourage these opportunities more actively.

• The most widely indicated programs that faculty are willing to participate in are lectures, the Idea Exchange, meetings, social gatherings and technology updates.

Suggestion: Continue or institute more of these activities. Students In Free Enterprise will reactivate its Idea Exchange in the Spring '97 semester as part of the recommendation of the survey. A total marketing plan of activities will be planned for the Spring to include these other activities.

• An important element of the survey was ways to improve our communication and to encourage participation by our secondary target market, the other two thirds of the faculty. This survey is representative of that group. Therefore we can conclude that voice mail is the most effective way to reach our markets. Also, The Echo, flyers and memos, and E-mail prove to be very effective.

Suggestion: For any event presented in the Center, ensure that all modes are used to get the word out. A valuable suggestion was that we introduce a Web page. We would need to test this to evaluate its effectiveness.

After discussions with the Center's Advisory Board, I recommend preparing an activities schedule for next semester along with a marketing plan to reach our target markets. This must be undertaken every semester to ensure continued implementation of the Center's mission.

SIFE Idea Exchange

In part as a result of the survey, the Idea Exchange Series, sponsored by SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) will re-convene in the spring. These sessions allow an opportunity for interaction between students and faculty members in an informal environment. The series is scheduled for the last Wednesday of every month at 3 pm in the Faculty Center.

Internet Service at a Discount

Have you been considering investigating Internet service providers? In order to connect to the Internet with graphics and interactive capabilities, read on. What follows might inform your decision.

The College has contracted with Voicenet, a local Internet service provider, for its new high speed connection to the Net. In addition, Voicenet is offering students, staff and faculty remote access to the Internet through discounted, personal dial-up accounts. The cost is $15 per month with a one-time set up fee of $25. If you have a computer at home with a modem and want full graphical access to the Internet with local phone number connections, contact Academic Computing for an application form.

Notebook Computer Arrives

With support from the Strategic Initiative process, the Faculty Center is making available a Toshiba multi-media laptop computer. Faculty members may check out the computer for use through Academic Computing.

Future plans include purchase of a video projector, which will allow display of computer output to an entire class without having to darken the room.

Project Ideas?

It's not too early to begin thinking about ideas for projects you want to carry out in support of the goals of the Faculty Center. As is the case every year, all full-time faculty members will be invited to submit proposals for Resource Faculty positions. In addition, applications will be invited for the position of Facilitator of the Faculty Center.

The deadline for submission of proposals and applications will be established by the Advisory Board, but is likely to be early in March.

FLC Update

FLC, the Faculty Center discussion list, was instituted last month to provide a vehicle for discussion on issues related to teaching and learning and on professional development. An added benefit is that the list provides an opportunity for faculty members to try out an online discussion list to see if it is something they might like to institute for their students.

A number of faculty members are already making use of discussion lists in a variety of ways, including, for example, to continue discussions begun in class or to investigate issues supplemental to those addressed in class. In some instances, students who are not comfortable participating in class discussions will actively contribute to interaction over a discussion list. Discussion lists have become a mainstay of distance learning.

FLC has been used to post announcements of conferences, calls for papers, grant possibilities, and to request comments on issues of concern campus wide, such as the Middle States Report.

If you have not yet subscribed, please follow directions below.

To subscribe to our discussion list, use your mail account and follow this example:

1. MAIL>send
2. To: majordomo@shemp.bucks.edu
3. Subj:
4. Enter your message below.
5. Press CTRL/Z. . .
6. Subscribe flc
7. Then send your message as you would any e-mail message (CTRL/Z). Be sure to leave the subject line blank.

To post a message to the list, address it to flc@bucks.eduAnything you post to this address will go to all subscribers. For help, call Maureen McCreadie (8055), Arta Szathmary (8130), or Jean Konkel (8128).

Spring Schedule Planning

The Advisory Board will extend the discussion group series into the spring semester. Techno Teas, the discussion series on Learning Styles, and the presentations on student success will continue. In addition, the Idea Exchange series, sponsored in part by SIFE, will get going again in the spring, as will a series of roundtable discussions on distance learning.

Techno Teas

Under the guidance of Susan Darrah, faculty members from diverse disciplines have been meeting to talk over their fears and triumphs with regard to incorporating technology in teaching and learning.

Discussion Series on Learning Styles

This group is operating a bit like a graduate seminar in that the participants are taking responsibility for investigating published research on learning styles. Plans for next semester include reports on a variety of research perspectives and development of a proposal for a multi-year research project designed to investigate learning styles and needs of BCCC students.

Program Series on Student Success

Mary Ann Klicka has offered a series of presentations on factors that contribute to student success. The series will include repeats of some sessions offered this fall as well as brainstorming sessions.

SIFE Idea Exchange

The Idea Exchange Series, sponsored by SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) will re-convene in the spring.

The series is scheduled for the last Wednesday of every month at 3 pm in the Faculty Center.

Distance Learning Roundtable Series

With the growing participation in distance learning, those involved are finding a number of issues of interest and concern. This new discussion series will focus on a variety of topics this semester, including retention, agoraphobia, and the prison population, as they relate to distance learning.

The Distance Learning Roundtable Series will meet the second Tuesday of every month at 3 pm in the Faculty Center.