The first in this series is: Building Your Web 2.0 Website with WordPress (Completed: 28 in attendance)

Friday/Saturday, November 4/5, 2011, 9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (Friday) & 8:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.  (Saturday), Bellevue College, $100

 What do you get for the $100 registration fee?

• Two-days of excellent instruction from Juan Ulloa
• Breakfast, lunch, and a p.m. snack
• Curricular materials as well as textbook(s)
• An exciting give-away opportunity

Faculty Audience: All disciplines

Prerequisites: 1) Ability to create and organize files and folders using Windows is essential; and, 2) Web Savvy: comfort with browsing the web and using web-based resources.

Course Description:  Do you want to build a Website using Web 2.0 tools and technologies to better talk about the work you do and classes you teach?  This workshop will teach how to quickly build a website that utilizes blogging and uses web-based video (YouTube/Vimeo), RSS feeds and integrates with your communications in Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.  You’ll also learn the basics of tracking the usage of your website to measure how your website is being used.

You will learn how to do this using WordPress, the most popular open source content management system.  You will also learn how to tap into the WordPress community so you can do all of this with minimal knowledge of web development.

Objectives:

• Learn and build a website with WordPress
• Learn to use themes and plugins on your WordPress website to get your site to look and behave the way you need it to
• Understand and apply the aesthetic elements of user interface (UI) that create an appealing website.
• Understand and apply Web 2.0 tools to enhance a website
• Understand and apply Google Analytics to track and monitor your website’s traffic and why people visit your website

Register here!

Updates & News for Fall & Winter Quarter 2011-2012

Welcome back Washington State Educators to fall quarter/semester 2011.  While the summer passed quickly, and only now in September are we seeing hints of the sun, the Center of Excellence was busy working on and planning for you and your educational institution:

• Professional development training opportunities: Building Your Web 2.0 Website with WordPress (November 4^th and 5^th, 2011)
• Degree/certificate reviews (November/December 2011)
• The Washington State ICT Community/Technical College Program Directory (Publication: January 2012)
• The second annual STEM Summit (February 9^th and 10^th, 2012)
• The Life of an IT Professional: A Five Minute Story (an IT professional competition/video series)
• A new IT Programs of Study Template focusing potentially on Software Engineering (Applications/Systems)
• New informative and Web 2.0 upgrades to the Center Website

The Center of Excellence for Information & Computing Technology invites you to apply to participate in:  How to Make the Most of Web 2.0 in Your Classroom

The Center has identified 10 Web 2.0 and related technologies* as ones that can help improve learning, make instruction more engaging, and/or foster connections among and between students and faculty.

A total of 10 faculty from Eastern and Western Washington will be selected to participate and they will plan, implement, and assess a project that will use one or more of the Web 2.0 tools for a course they teach.

Faculty Rewards and Responsibilities:
1.   Faculty will plan and complete a project incorporating one or more of the Web 2.0 tools to use in their teaching. View some examples.
2.   Faculty will assess the effectiveness of the project by collecting feedback from students about it.
3.   Faculty will receive one-on-one onsite training and support to learn and integrate the tool(s) into their teaching.
4.   Faculty will work with the project manager, Jean Kent, to produce a short Camtasia video showcasing their project from its plan to implementation and assessment. The video will be shared with other community and technical college faculty via the CoE for ICT web site.
5.   Faculty will receive a stipend of $250 upon completion of their project.

Who Should Apply:

• Faculty in the information technical technology field who teach hybrid and online classes are especially encouraged to apply to address some of the following challenges:
• Lack of community and feelings of isolation among students – Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube can help.
• Text heavy online instructional materials that overwhelm students – Jing, YouTube, Slideshare, and Flickr can help.
• Staying current in rapidly changing fields – RSS, Google Reader, YouTube and Twitter can help.
• Easily collecting student feedback for quick, mid-quarter course corrections – SurveyMonkey can help.

* They include YouTube & digital video planning and production, Google Reader & RSS, Flickr, Twitter, SurveyMonkey, Facebook, Slideshare, and Jing Project.

Please apply here.  The deadline for applying is Friday, January, 15, 2010. Participants will be notified by Monday, January 25, 2010,  if they have been selected.  Projects must be completed by Monday, June 14, 2010.

Please contact CoE for ICT Web 2.0 project manager, Jean Kent, at jean.kent@comcast.net or at 206.200.7096.