12025

1/12/2012 8:38:39 AM

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (20 minutes, no formal paper)


 * Life in the Retirement Lane**

I have been retired for two years, and previous to that, I was extremely active in distance-online education for 35 years, offering a variety of interactive composition and literature classes using any technology that I could both muster and master. I have flown and driven to distance class sites, used closed and interactive TV and cable transmission, and just before retiring, taught a series of online courses that employed just about every tech tool the students and I could appropriately handle. After an absence of 18 months in the classroom, I returned to teaching, offering several online creative writing classes, that were at first modeled after those I had taught pre-retirement. I was shocked by the "new world" I faced initially. However, I should not have been surprised at how fast things had changed given my history, or by how far more skilled I found the students. This presentation is a broad overview and general discussion about : 1. the evolution of skills and technology that I experienced after an absence of 18 months in the classroom, 2. the ease by which most online students now seem able to handle a plethora of tech skills for class as compared to my previous experiences, and 3, what remains the same/different in terms of student learning, student behavior, learner outcomes, and distance/online classroom environment. When I started my career long distance/online instruction, for most of that time, I required expensive support staff, equipment, and transportation-per diem costs. Today it's just me coupled with my trusty laptop which provides all of the teaching-tech tools I require. In closing, I might add that this presentation in many ways mirrors the 6-7 I have done throughout the years, profiling my 35 year professional development as a distance online teacher.

//Interactivity// Live Q&A Live video if possible e-mail After a verbal/powerpoint presentation, hopefully seen in real time, an open dialog/discussion about my experiences and how they and audience experiences relate to the continuing evolution of teaching/learning. I will offer the presentation in any format the Conference would like.

All Audiences online, skype, interactive collaboration, evolution, skills development