Distance Education Week

            Texas A &M International University held its second annual Distance Education Week throughout November  8-12. The Office of Information Technology sponsored the event. A series of instructional sessions were held for TAMIU faculty, in which the distance education tools were demonstrated. The sessions were held throughout the week. The purpose of the event was to present faculty with the distance tools at their disposal that would assist to enhance their teaching experience as well as enrich the learning experience for their students.

Liliana Delgado, coordinator for Instructional Technology & Distance Education Services, stated "The Distance Education Week is an initiative from the National Distance Learning Association to celebrate the growth and accomplishments in distance learning programs across schools and businesses."

Delgado explained which tools and what sessions were held.

"Such tools include TAMIU's lecture capturing solution ECHO 360, the use of Avatars in ANGEL, using software such as TurnItIn to detect plagiarism, SoftChalk to easily build interactive web pages, becoming familiar with SMART Interactive Whiteboards, using ANGEL Discussions to engage students and even attending a forensic science virtual fieldtrip. Other sessions also dealt with copyright and fair use for digital learning, plagiarism and a session recommended by the PROF Center hosted by Dr. Rena M. Palloff and Dr. Keith Pratt, authors of Building Online Learning Communities."

Delgado commented, "With over 270 attendees, we feel we have met our goal of sharing with TAMIU faculty the exciting tools available to them. Faculty were engaged and the feedback we received was very positive."

Delgado continued, "The TAMIU Distance Learning Week was filled with exciting and informative sessions, door giveaways in every session and two very exciting giveaways of an Online Instructional Package (consisting of a Dell Laptop w/integrated webcam, productivity and instructional software) and an iPad. The giveaway winner for the Online Instructional Package was Dr. Phu Hoang and the giveaway winner for the iPad was Dr. Diana Linn."

(Mariela Rodriguez may be reached at mariela_rod@dusty.tamiu.edu)