The 2018-2019 Digital Learning Community is a year-long faculty learning community focused on the effective use of digital technologies for teaching and learning. This community is a natural evolution of the CTE’s Digital Learning Track. Originally a series of traditional face-to-face sessions, the Digital Learning workshops have been gradually moving to an online self-paced format over the last few semesters. The Digital Learning Community combines the resources available in these online workshops with the collaborative potential of the Academic Commons (The CTE’s online platform for faculty communication and collaboration), creating a rich environment for the sharing of knowledge, resources, and experiences related to the use of technology in education at GGC. It is our hope that this virtual community will provide new opportunities for experimentation, discussion, and collaborations that will strengthen the GGC community and enhance teaching and learning across the campus.

This year, all of the Digital Learning workshops from the CTE will be available in Brightspace as online, self-paced workshops. Once you sign up for the 2018-2019 Digital Learning Community, you’ll have access to all of the workshops in one online course. Although these emails will highlight a different workshop every couple of weeks, you are free to complete any of the workshops at any time (and at your own pace) over the course of the academic year. We’ll also be adding more workshops over the course of the year, so keep and eye on the Course Contents link in Brightspace.

Remember that this is YOUR community. The more that everyone engages with and participates in the community, the more everyone will get out of it.

 

This Week’s Focus: Introduction to the Academic Commons / Introduction to Digital Learning:

 

Introduction to the Academic Commons
The Academic Commons (https://commons.ggc.edu/) is a virtual community of practice intended to support digital scholarship and digital citizenship at GGC. The Commons is an online environment (based on the WordPress platform) that allows GGC faculty, staff, and students to collaborate and share their research, scholarship, interests, teaching successes, and learning experiences with their peers and colleagues here at GGC and around the world. The Commons also provides a platform for displaying faculty badges earned through the CTE’s digital badging initiative, and for establishing a digital identity, allowing faculty, staff, and students to create, maintain, and control their own digital narrative.

The Academic Commons is the home for the Digital Learning Community, as well as for a number of other campus learning communities and groups. In this workshop, you will learn how you can use the Commons to expand your digital presence at GGC (and beyond), create an ePortfolio, showcase your research, and collaborate with your colleagues.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the purpose and features of the Academic Commons
• Demonstrate how to access and edit your profile on the Academic Commons
• Demonstrate how to access and edit your personal website on the Academic Commons
• Discuss how to use the Commons to enhance your digital presence at GGC (and beyond)

 

Introduction to Digital Learning
What is Digital Learning and how can it help me to teach more effectively? In this self-paced online workshop, we will discuss the nature and benefits of (as well as student expectations for) Digital Learning. Participants will then explore some simple and effective tools and techniques for using technology to facilitate learning in their classes.

This is a self-paced workshop, so you can complete it as quickly or as slowly as you wish. We recommend that you not wait until the last minute and/or rush through the material, however. In order to increase your opportunities for engagement with other participants in the discussions, try to complete each module on a different day, going back the following day to read new responses and to post your own.

Learning Objectives:

• Define Digital Learning
• Explain why Digital Learning is important for higher education
• Discuss some of the potential benefits of Digital Learning
• Discuss some of the best practices for Digital Learning
• Develop a plan for using Digital Learning tools to facilitate learning in your classes