Saturday, September 30, 2006

IT Research Centers at USU

The Instructional Technology Student Association (ITSA) cordially invites you to a lecture on research centers in the Instructional Technology Department at USU.

Research Centers:

1- COSL (Center for Open and Sustainable Learning)
2- IA (Instructional Architect)
3- CREATE (Center for Research on Engaging Advanced Technology for Education)
4- FACT (Faculty Assistance Center for Teaching)
5- CLE (Creative Learning Environment)

Cookies and drinks are served!

Date: Thursday Oct. 5, 2006
Time: 12:15 pm
Place: EDU 282

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Election Results

Elections and appointments are done and I am proud to announce that the following positions will be filled as follows:

Committee Chairs

Academic – Preston Parker
Professional Relations – Brooke Robershaw
Social – Joel Gardner
Service – Seth Gurell
Technology – Heather Leary

Representatives
International – Murat Ozoglu
M.S. – Joel Drake
Ph.D. – Beijie Xu
Alumnae/I – Pete Maiden

I am disappointed that we were unable to find someone to serve as the M.Ed. representative. If, in the near future, there are nominees for this position then we will consider reopening the vote.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Look for the ITSA flag!

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

BBL: Academic and Professional Associations in Instructional Technology

Brown Bag Lunch
When & Where: Sep 21 from 12:30-1:30 in 282

Title: Academic and Professional Associations in Instructional Technology
Presenter: our very own Preston Parker

Ever wonder how to get involved in Instructional Technology on a national and international level? Ever wonder why you would want to? Preston Parker, a third year PhD student at Utah State University’s Instructional Technology program and Research Assistant for the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning, will address these questions. He will offer a “student’s point of view” of what academic and professional associations can offer. As this year’s recipient of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Strohbehn Internship, he offers a unique perspective of the benefits of becoming involved in associations. Topics will include: who the associations are, their contact information, their strengths and weaknesses, their annual conference dates and locations, what they offer, and why to get involved.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Inst. Tech. Tailgate party for Football Game

Who: For all Instructional Technology Students, Faculty, Staff, Friends and Family
Where: In the Football Stadium Parking Lot. We will have trucks and tables with the ITSA flag on them.
When: This Saturday from 3:00-4:30. You don’t have to attend the football game at 6:00 if you don’t want to.
How: Pot Luck!! Bring casseroles, desserts, chips, dips, salads, veggies, whatever you want. ITSA will take care of plates, cups and utensils. Also feel free to bring frisbees, footballs, or anything else you want.

Come have fun and support USU Aggies football team. They need help to beat U of U!!!
Students get in free with ID card. Other's will have to pay for general admission.
Please post comment of what you are bringing for food.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

New School Year - Proposed Projects

As we start a new school year, we would like to solicit project suggestions, practical, doable, and otherwise, that students, alumae/i, faculty, and staff would like to see ITSA tackle in this and subsequent years. For each suggestion we need a few pieces of information, to include: a brief description, which standing committee would be responsible for it's implementation, its potential priority among other ITSA projects, whether it would be a one time or ongoing project, and any volunteers for completing the suggestion (as well as hours each volunteer would be willing to commit to this project). If you would like to volunteer for a standing committee or for a specific project, please let us know which committee/project and how much time you would be willing to commit to this committee or project. (Yes, you may volunteer for multiple committees or projects, but please do not volunteer for more than a total average of 2 hours per week for all committees and projects.) If you have specific suggestions or requests for projects, please feel free to make them known.

Some projects that have already proposed include (all would be ongoing):

* Planning and conducting student orientation (High - Steering) - handle the planning and conducting the annual fall orientation, in conjunction with faculty and staff
* Setting up and managing a mentoring program (High - Steering) - handle the initial setting up and subsequent management of a mentoring program
* Promoting publishing opportunities for students (High - Academics) - identify and make known to current students, various publishing opportunities
* Facilitating scholarship in the field (Medium - Academics) - identify and make known to current students, various non-publishing and non-conference related scholarship opportunities
* Promoting professional conferences (High - Academics) - identify and make known to current students conference related scholarship opportunities
* Leading fundraising efforts (Medium - Professional Relations) - identify and implement various fundraising methods
* Reaching out to alumae/i (High - Professional Relations) - identify and implement various methods of strengthening relationship between current students, the department and alumae/i
* Managing employment and graduate assistantship announcements (Medium - Professional Relations) - initiate a method of disseminating employment activities, to include graduate assistanships, to students and alumae/i
* Managing networking activities (Medium - Professional Relations) - identify, organize, and desiminate opportunities for networking for students and alumae/i within the instructional technology field
* Planning and managing weekly, monthly, and special occasion ITSA social events (High - Social) - solicit, plan, organize, and manage a variety of reoccurring and special occasion events ( e.g. NOD 'n NOFs, USU vs. BYU games, tennis matches, hiking trips)
* Assisting in departmental social events (High - Social) - assist in the planning and management of departmental social events (e.g. the fall and spring socials)
* Reaching out to international students (High - Social) - ensure that international students have additional support in acclimating to American culture
* Planning and managing student service and outreach activities (High - Service) - identify and organize opportunities for students to perform community service and outreach ( e.g. literacy mentoring, habit for humanity)
* Creating and managing an online, peer-reviewed journal (Medium - Technology) - identify the needs of our students, as related to a new, online peer-reviewed journal; implement and manage a journal based on the needs analysis results
* Creating and managing an ITSA wiki (Medium - Technology) - identify the needs of our students, as related to a new wiki; implement and manage a wiki based on the needs analysis results
* Managing the ITSAcast blog (High - Technology) - manage membership and postings on the ITSAcast blog
* Planning and managing podcasts of department and ITSA related podcasts (High - Technology) - organize, conduct, and publish podcasts of department and ITSA events ( e.g. guest lectures, lunchbox lectures, OpenEd presentations)
* Planning and managing the conversion of opensource texts to podcasts (Medium - Technology) - organize, conduct, and publish podcasts of opensource texts, book chapters and journal articles, of interest to the instructional technology field ( e.g. Wealth of Networks)
* Planning and managing an ITSA website (Low - Technology) - identify the needs of our students, as related to a new ITSA website; implement and manage a website based on the needs analysis results
* Planning and managing an ITSA newsletter (Low - Technology) - identify the needs of our students, as related to a new ITSA newsletter; implement and manage a newsletter based on the needs analysis results
* Organizing weekly lunchtime events (High - JOINT: Academics, Professional Relations, and Social) - organize weekly lunchtime events; can be purly social in nature, or have a variety of academic and professional activities ( e.g. just a lunchtime gathering, guest lectures, alumae/i visits, recruitment meetings)

Amendments to Student Constitution

There are currently six proposed amendments to be voted on by the steering committee. While the vote will be made by the steering committee, we are soliciting feedback, comments, and suggestions from all ITSA constituents.

The proposed amendments are:

1. Amending Article III, Section 2: The Vice President office is jointly considered a President-Elect office. Therefore, the elected Vice President becomes the President in his/her second year of officer service (after the year of service as Vice President is completed). Thus, the candidate for the office of Vice President must be prepared to serve two successive one year terms.

2. Amending Article IV, Section 1: The Program and Social Events standing Committee will be split into two standing committees called the Professional Relations Committee and Social Committee. The duties of the Professional Relations Committee are leading fundraising efforts, reaching out to alumni, handling employment and Graduate Assistantship announcements, and managing networking activities. The duties of the Social Committee are assisting in department social events, and managing weekly and monthly ITSA social events.

3. Amending Article IV, Section 1: Two new standing committees are to be created called the Academics Committee and the Technology Committee. The duties of the Academics Committee are promoting publishing, facilitating scholarship in the field, and promoting professional conferences. The duties of the Technology Committee are to create and manage technologies requested by the steering committee.

4. Amending Article III, Section 1, A: Along with the four elected officers (President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer) and appointed Committee Chairs, there will be five elected Representatives: (1) International Representative, (2) M.Ed. Representative, (3) M.A. Representative, (4) Ph.D. Representative, and (5) Alumnae/i Representative. The elected Representatives act as a voice to ITSA for a particular student group, therefore, he/she must be a current member of the respective group being represented. Only current members of a group can vote for their Representative. The Representative is also the point of contact for the represented group. The four executive officers, appointed Committee Chairs, and the five Representatives make up the Steering Committee.

5. Amending Article III, Section 3: Elections are to be moved from the Fall to the Spring at a time chosen by the Steering Committee.

6. Amending Article III, Section 2: An added duty is that the President is required to attend faculty meetings and the Vice President is required to be a member of the Graduate Senate. Both positions can be reassigned, as needed, to other executive committee members.