Grossmont College Library and Tech Lab...

I came down to Grossmont College (in El Cajon, near San Diego) since Jeff had a meeting here. I had never been on the campus before and I loved the openness and spaciousness of the campus. Since I come from a landlocked, urban college, this campus environment with its low profile buildings and open spaces seemed so refreshing!

I love to ask students where the library is...and this student I asked actually was walking that way so he escorted me. He suggested that instead of walking around to the main entrance, that I walk through their Tech Mall. Grossmont College now has a "Tech Mall" where the old library used to be. The new Library is at the very end of this large facility that houses approximately 200 open lab computers on the main floor with a second tier of offices of other Learning and Tutorial Resources.

Although it was a little strange to have the main entrance of the library not easily accessible, it was interesting to see how this mall could be kept open 24/7 (it maintains similar hours to the library).

Once I entered the library, I found everything to be easy...walk up workstations in carrels where all I needed to do was to open the browser and begin my work. I had hauled my laptop in since I thought I may want to use wireless (if it was available to me). What really struck me was how seamless everything was...no network logins, no time restrictions, no hoops to jump through. No one asked if I was a student or resident...no problem.

Now granted, their enrollment is 17,000 students compared to PCC's 30,000...so that demands for services and computers is much greater at PCC. You can easily see an online orientation of the Tech Mall, by clicking ont his link...(Unfortunately their was no online orientation to the library that I could find...however, there is a tutorial that students can take.

http://www.grossmont.edu/techmallorientation/

Using Podcasting for Teaching: Part 1 - Find & Use Online Content/Donna Eyestone (@ONE Seminar Training)

In this one hour session, Donna provided an overview on podcasts: what they are, how to find them, and how to use them in a course or other learning environment.

Podcasting has risen from 28 podcasts in August 2004 to over 379,000,000 in August 2006. Donna walks the viewer through iTunes, the most popular site for accessing podcasts and discusses a variety of podcasts that could be used in the educational arena.

Some of the issues covered in this podcast included:
Accessibility issues (transcripts must be made available)
Advantages in a learning environment (Portable access, Assisting auditory learners, provides unlimited opportunities for “guest lectures”, includes rich media material to complement texts, provides an ability to review materials for classes, tests, exams, etc. (anytime anywhere)

Donna mentioned Duke University’s podcasting experiment where all faculty and incoming students were given IPODS and then were set free to explore the realm of use in the educational arena. After the class, I went to Proquest and found that Stanford and Berkeley are also experimenting with podcasting class sessions. (see http://tinyurl.com/yx5wmk)

To get started, Donna suggested that an instructor select appropriate content, determine instructional goals, design podcast, produce it, and then incorporate it into the course. She also showed how we could produce a podcast.

I thought it was particularly interesting to explore ItunesU -- a shared podcasting in education site.
http://itunes.stanford.edu

Donna also mentioned a MAC resource called Profcast that takes Powerpoint presentations and converts it easily to podcast sessions. She acknowledged that right now it is much more difficult to do in the PC environment. She also mentioned the software Audacity, use of Quicktime Pro, and Live State pro as podcasting resources

A very interesting seminar, especially for me who has used iTunes and podcasts before.

www.ccone.org/de/index.htm

View the PowerPoint slides in your Web Browser

View the CCC Confer archive of the live presentation

Visit to Mesa College, Mesa, Arizona

Last week, I visited the Paul A. Elsner Library at Mesa Community College. IMesa is one of the 10 colleges in the Maricopa College District. It is a 128,000 square foot library and academic support center (including faculty support services, classrooms and college administrative offices.) It reminded me of Shatford Library in so many ways. It is a building that takes advantage of natural light and open space. It is clear that it was designed to accommodate a variety of learning styles and experiences. There are computers everywhere...over 325 work stations as well as wireless connectivity throughout the campus. One interesting architectural feature is that this library was designed to relect an open book. Marie Brown, the Instruction Coordinator, gave me an extensive tour of the Library as well as the campus. Her enthusiasm was so refreshing and it is clear that she loves this institution.


I spoke with the director Jane Mente and she shared with me the administrative perspective as well as the planning perspective. I was interested in their extensive materials budget as well as some of their unique collections. The Library has 53 databases, 36,000 E-books as well as a special collections room that houses their Southwest collection.

Like PCC, Mesa has a Library Technician program and we exchanged information about our planning processes as well as technology iniatives. Their Strategic Plan is called "Focus on Learning" and she provided copies of the 2002-2005 plan as well as the 2005-2008 plan.

I shared with her the work of the Technology Master Plan Writing Group and offered to send copies of our faculty, staff, and student technology surveys. She will share my blog with her staff and said she will follow along as I pursue various agendas this year. She is also interested in seeing the results of the IMLS technology and digitization survey which I am adapting for use for the California Community Colleges.