Closer to Full Professor

I just had my official meeting with the dean and my school director and I am being recommended by my college to be promoted to the rank of full professor! Of course, this won't be official until May, still several more layers of protocols to get through, but I am feeling relieved and excited.

For those unfamiliar with this (shall I say antiquated?) process, we tenure and tenure-track profs spend decades trying to prove our worth in teaching, scholarship and service...creating massive PAPER giant notebooks supporting our case. Yearly reviews by department, college and university committees and administrators document the journey...

And I might (in May) be called Professor Banister.

The learning community members are making their blogs...and everyone is ignoring me! Apparently, I'm not that interesting. :)

Anyway, we are discussing what criteria we are using to evaluate digital texts for K-12 students. here are my initial thoughts:

• Content Accuracy
• Aligned to Content Standards
• Viewpoint/perspective/bias
• Age-appropriate
• Pedagogically sound
• Interactivity (audio, add notes, highlight, etc.)
• Takes advantage of the digital tools related to content
• Inquiry based/constructivist
• Promotes creativity/problem solving/ P21
• Motivation (games, points, etc.)
• Addresses diverse learning styles/abilities (differentiation, individualize)
• Teacher-ready materials (assessments, lesson plans, resources)
• User Friendly
• Stable Interface/Smooth Navigation

Since I am requiring all the members of our Digital Texts Learning Community to host a blog about their experiences in exploring K-12 digital textbooks for their academic content areas and grade bands, I decided I needed to revisit my blog. 

Our work as university teacher education faculty continues to become increasingly complex. Some days, I'm not sure exactly what priority to focus upon, as they seem to be at odds. For example, we have been asked to increase our class sizes (both online and face-to-face), reduce part time costs, not replace faculty lines of those resigning or retiring, increase enrollment,retain students, and acquire more grant funds. So I wonder, what is most important?

I am enjoying directing the Center of Excellence for 21st Century Educator Preparation, though. I have been given the opportunity to explore innovations such as digital texts and iPads in K-12 classrooms. The Interactive Whiteboard Olympics was awesome and watching the BGSU social studies sophomores implementing mobile technologies this semester is cool.  Guess I can't complain...