2017-2018 Webinar Series

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Listings of Past Webinar Series

The listings below document the efforts of past webinar leaders, as well as the evolving interests of online literacy educators.

Members may watch recorded webinars by clicking on the image accompanying each listing.

Webinar Descriptions

Developing Online Writing Classes for Global Contexts

Webinar Leaders: Kirk St.Amant

Date of Webinar: March 28, 2018

Overview

The webinar will introduce attendees to best practices for applying issues of technology and culture in online learning environments, with particular attention to the areas where disconnects and miscommunications take place between online instructors and students. Drawing on research in the fields of information technology, marketing, business, and legal studies, Dr. St.Amant will introduce participants to the friction points framework that helps identify and address various factors affecting online education in global contexts.

Specific to online writing instruction, the webinar will explore questions about students’ expectations when they enter a writing course. What do they call “literacy”? What tools do they expect to use to engage in academic literacy tasks, and in what ways do the plan to access those tools? To what extent do student expectations align with or diverge from the instructor’s expectations?

Webinar Plan

Throughout the webinar, Dr. St.Amant will invite participants to share and reflect on their unique institutional contexts. The end goal is understand the factors that affect online education in international settings, and to generate practical strategies for offering more effective online education to students in other nations.

Webinar Leader Bio

Kirk St. Amant is a Professor and the Eunice C. Williamson Endowed Chair of Technical Communication at Louisiana Tech University (US) and is an Adjunct Professor of International Health and Medical Communication with the University of Limerick (Ireland). He has taught online and hybrid courses in technical communication and in writing for universities in the US, Belize, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Ukraine and regularly consults with educational institutions, companies, and non-profit organizations on the topic of providing online instruction to individuals in the US and abroad.

Contingency, Inclusivity, and Material Work Conditions in Online Literacy: Developing Calls to Action

Webinar Leaders: Mahli Mechenbier, Lisa Meloncon

Date of Webinar: February 8, 2018

Overview

GSOLE’s February 2018 webinar, “Contingency, Inclusivity, and Material Work Conditions in Online Literacy: Developing Calls to Action,” will be led by Mahli Mechenbier (Kent State University: Geauga) and Lisa Meloncon (University of South Florida), and is focused on the roles of contingent faculty in online learning.

Contingent faculty (all faculty members off the tenure track) consistently confront barriers—such as inclusivity and access—associated with online literacy. Given just how many contingent faculty members in technical communication and first-year composition teach online, it is vital to understand what contingency looks like today and why it matters to stakeholders in rhetoric and composition.

Webinar Plan

In this webinar, participants can expect to:

hear an overview of contingency,
learn about some of the major findings from a national mixed methods study of contingent faculty in professional/technical communication and composition, and
discuss ways that administrators and faculty can improve conditions for contingent faculty.

The webinar leaders will invite discussion throughout the webinar, so that participants can share questions, concerns, and issues with contingency at their institutions and in their experiences. Webinar leaders will facilitate conversation about practical solutions and strategies that you can bring back to your institution.

Webinar Leader Bios

Mahli Mechenbier, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at Kent State University: Geauga, teaches Technical Writing, Business & Professional Writing, Introduction to LGBT Literature, and College Writing. Mahli is a certified Master Reviewer and a certified Face to Face Facilitator for Quality Matters. Her research interests include asynchronous online tone and communication methods; how academic administrations manage and budget distance learning; the unionization of professors; and employment conditions of contingent faculty members. Mahli was adopted from South Vietnam through Operation Babylift.

Lisa Meloncon is an Associate Professor of Technical Communication in the Department of English at University of South Florida. Her primary research areas are the rhetoric of health and medicine and programmatic issues within the field of technical and professional communication (TPC). She is immediate Past President of the Council of Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication, Special Projects Manager of the Academic Special Interest Group of the Society of Technical Communication, a member of the steering committee of Women in Technical Communication, manager of MedicalRhetoric.com, and founder and co-editor (with Blake Scott, University of Central Florida) of the journal, Rhetoric of Health and Medicine. Her research and teaching has been recognized with multiple awards and along with other steering committee members of Women in Technical Communication, she is honored to have won the Diana Award for contributions to the field.

Let’s Get Meta: Designing Interactive Webinars

Webinar Leaders: Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo

Date of Webinar: October 26, 2017

Overview

With all of the web at a facilitator’s fingertips, why are so many webinars lectures in active learning’s clothing? We know just talking at people doesn’t make them learn; why are we continuing to do it here? During this webinar we’ll discuss the importance of keeping focused learning objectives and then designing learning activities to support them. Participants will have opportunities to test different types of activities and start developing their own interactive webinar lesson plans. The skills you learn will be applicable to running webinars, or to leading synchronous sessions in an online or blended course.

Webinar Goals

After completing this webinar, participants will be able to:

Discuss how traditional synchronous tools might be used to facilitate interactivity;
List a few web-based applications to add interactivity to a synchronous session; and
Outline a method for designing interactive elements in a synchronous meeting.

Webinar Leader Bios

Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She researches how “newer” technologies better facilitate communicative interactions, specifically teaching and learning As well as co-authoring three editions of The Wadsworth Guide to Research, Shelley also co-edited Rhetorically Rethinking Usability (Hampton Press). Her scholarly work has appeared in Computers and Composition, C&C Online, Teaching English in the Two-Year College, EDUCAUSE Quarterly, Journal of Interactive Technology & Pedagogy, Enculturation¸ as well as various edited collections. In 2014 she was awarded Old Dominion University’s annual Teaching with Technology Award, in 2012 the Digital Humanities High Powered Computing Fellowship, and in 2004 the American Association for Higher Education's Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award.

Your Voice Matters: Publishing in the Field of Online Literacy Education

Webinar Leaders: Jason Snart & Michael Greer

Date of Webinar: September 12, 2017

Overview

Do you have great ideas for teaching online courses but feel there is never enough time to publish those ideas? Are you working on research that you want to publish but aren’t sure how to proceed? Join us for a practical, one-hour session on the hows and whys of getting published in the field of online literacy education. Whether you are a seasoned author seeking to learn new strategies for publishing online or a graduate student new to academic publishing, you will gain insights and practical strategies to help with each stage of the digital publishing process. We will focus particularly on creating multimodal and webtext works for born-digital publishing. And you’ll hear from the editors of two online publications how to prepare submissions and develop your ideas into publishable work. Your voice matters, and this webinar will help you develop skills and confidence to join the professional conversation.

Webinar Plan

Learn how publishing an article is different from writing an essay for class, a thesis, or a dissertation
Explore a typical publication process, from initial inquiry to final publication
Understand opportunities offered by born-digital as opposed to print-based publishing venues
Understand publication as a mentored process, especially in the context of the Online Literacies Open Resource (OLOR) and Research in Online Literacy Education (ROLE)
Learn more about OLOR and ROLE as potential publishing venues

Webinar Leader Bios

Jason Snart is Professor of English and Chair of Literature, Creative Writing, and Film at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He is a founding member of the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators and the founder of the Online Literacies Open Resource (OLOR). His books include Making Hybrids Work: An Institutional Framework for Blending Online and Face-to-Face Instruction in Higher Education (NCTE 2016); Hybrid Learning: The Perils and Promise of Blending Online and Face-to-Face Instruction in Higher Education (Praeger 2010); and The Torn Book: Unreading William Blake's Marginalia (Susquehanna UP 2006).

Michael Greer teaches online courses in publishing and online writing instruction in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is a founding member of the Global Society of Online Literacy Educators and editor of the online journal Research in Online Literacy Education (ROLE). He has worked in the publishing industry for over 20 years, and is the former senior editor and director of publications at NCTE. Michael writes and presents on digital and mobile publishing and is a faculty advisor for mobile publishing startup Gadget Software. Michael lives in Boulder, Colorado.

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