Educational Technology Committee

Minutes: December 6, 3:30-4:30 p.m., Plover Library, Room 1

1. Call to order and approval of minutes (11/07/02), and agenda: approval given, 3:35

2. Selection of Minute Taker: Robert Ethington and Jennifer Royal

3. Roll Call: Members Present: Carmen Sheldon, John Hemenway, Robert Ethington, Jennifer Royal, Linda Hemenway, Tom Boag, Eric Umeharra, Rich Sapanaro, Will Baty, Peggy Goebel, Joel Werring, LaDonna Bachand. Guests: Rich Abrahams

4. Discussion:

q Brown Bag Lunches: Discussion about what workshops would serve the needs of faculty and staff. Ideas included how to work with i-movie, networking home computers, connectivity and PDAs. Robert Ethington will put these workshops together.

q District Resource Project Update: Linda Hemenway pointed out that the project is still on hold while we wait for the people who will design the data processing procedures.

q Spring Field Trip to Tech Academy. A field trip was planned for Friday, February 8th, 11-3. Lunch plans are not firm yet (Jeromes recommended). There was some discussion of a second field trip—what destination would make a meaningful trip. Linda suggested that we might want to plan a field trip to enhance communication between SRJC and local businesses. Will suggested a trip to Pixar or Lucas Arts could generate enthusiasm for cutting edge multimedia as a component of our educational technology at the college.

q Letter to the PDA Committee: The committee read and then discussed Carmen Sheldon's proposal to the PDA Committee about possible changes to PDA activities. Carmen presented an overview of her key points which include hanging on to one PDA day in the fall for the "State of the Union" gathering and department activities, but then moving all other PDA activity days together so that instructors could get more involved training in areas relevant to their teaching (16-24 hour workshops). Specifically, Carmen proposed that there be technology training workshops long enough that instructors could really learn skills. Linda agreed with Carmen that the current training received at PDA sessions was not effective, only enough to whet a person's appetite. Others argued that it would be very difficult to change PDA altogether, but that a supplement of 12-24 hour workshops might be feasible. It was also pointed out that we cannot receive credit for attending workshops, since PDA activities are already a part of our contract. Others pointed out that instructors for these workshops should be compensated because, otherwise, no one would be willing to put in the time and effort to produce a quality workshop. might be feasible. Will suggested that funds might be available to support people offering workshops (in-house and from outside the district). Will also pointed out that the "flex" option for Spring might be used to handle the new format of a workshop alternative to PDA, and suggested that we involve staff development in the discussion. Members of the committee suggested that Carmen revise her proposal to be a request for an alternative to the usual PDA activities (2-3 day workshops). There was some question at the end about whether Carmen's proposal was to be representing a request from the ETC, or if the ETC was endorsing her proposal, or if this proposal would be a private interaction between Carmen and Staff Development.

Meeting Adjourned at 4:35.