TOAST EDU

When we think of creative tools or workflows, we usually think of pencils, markers, whiteboards and paper. However, Apple has always been a company that prides themselves on creating computers and software for creative folks.

Over the last 10 years, the iPad and other tablets have exploded in the mainstream market. Not just for creative digital media folks, but everyone. I think it’s time we look at the iPad specifically and see what it can do and how it can improve workflows among creatives, but also how it can change the workflow of college faculty.

This podcast will dive into a few aspects of how the iPad can improve workflow, especially using creative digital media tools, accessories, and applications that can benefit anyone. I will give my insight and experiences with using the iPad for over 11 years to create not only just digital media but how it benefits my workflow in my daily work environment.

Creativity is iterative and Caron’s journey with student programming in her classes, Club Z and her hopes for organizational change in higher ed are definitely iterative and continuing to develop over time. 

Today we’ll hear about where Caron’s creative journey is with regard to her new book, Learning and Doing CoCreation: Learning 31 Things We Already Know through The Art and Science of Culture Change. While we’ve talked about the model, framework and set of tools a little in a past episode, this will be the first time we’re talking about the book as part of her creative path.

Dr. Caron Sada's Book

Leading and Doing Co-Creation: Learning 31 Things We Already Know through The Art and Science of Culture Change

Is a longer podcast episode better? How long should a podcast episode be?  This is a nagging question that keeps a lot of podcasters, creators and online instructors up at night when worrying about the length of their content. 

This could be in the form of a podcast as this episode will primarily touch on, but this can be applied to all aspects of digital media and instructional materials.Join us today, as we briefly touch on some trends and standards when it comes to podcasting or audio content that is used in online delivery. We’ll talk about targeting your audience and understanding that longer podcasts or videos doesn’t mean higher quality of instruction. 

Digital content such as podcasting is not a race, it's unique to your own audience.  There are benefits to shorter episodes and hopefully after this episode you'll have a better understanding and confidence to create your own podcast or video content. 

Welcome to the DropZone! Rush In, Roam In, Drag In, Drop In!  What is the Drop Zone here at the Center for Teaching, Learning and Employee Engagement?  The Drop Zone is a program we are offering for all faculty and staff to drop by the CTLEE and discuss technology issues, instructional strategies, all things Canvas and anything related to digital media and instruction.

This podcast episode is a short introduction with CTLEE Director Lynn McCelland and Instructional Media Developer Sam Fraulino on just what the Drop Zone can do for you.  Please listen in, as they talk all things pedagogy, instructional design, and digital media for enhancing and supporting learning and engagement here at PVCC.

Sam Fraulino- sam.fraulino@paradisevalley.edu

Lynn McClelland- lynn.mcclelland@paradisevalley.edu

It’s time to register for that conference, or take that much needed family vacation to the beach, so book the flight, and pack up your tech gear!

This episode of the ToastEDU we are going to discuss some of the best and most useful tech gadgets you’ll need for a digital world. Whether we are traveling for work related conferences or a vacation this episode will dive into a few different tech gadgets that are a must for everyone creating content or consuming digital media content.

As we all pack our bags for upcoming trips and conferences, we will be asking ourselves… ”Do I really need to bring this?”

Social media has endless opportunities for educators, we just never thought of it that way. As a tool, it can help students improve digital literacy and critical thinking skills.  Tools such as Instagram can also help promote your class, your college, and yourself as an instructor.

Some obstacles colleges have when dealing with technology is cost, that is the best part of social media, it's free, and a majority of students are already using the most trending and up to date social media apps on their own.  Instagram is one of the most popular social media applications worldwide, so why aren't we taking advantage of this tool and using it to engage, connect, and inspire faculty to create a more interactive learning experience?

How would you describe your journey with creativity?   Join us in this podcast discussion as Dr. Caron Sada and Sam Fraulino talk about all aspects of creativity, environment choices, and insights.  So if you are not in a creative journey and feeling stuck, how might you change your choices and environment to create a life and experiences that you hope for?

Creative instruction and creative instructional development go hand in hand with powerful results that can make teaching and learning much more effective as well as more fun with engaging students, collaborating efforts, and an environment where creativity flourishes.  This podcast will touch on creativity from an instructor’s point of view as well with a multimedia developer artist point of view.

Digital photography has exploded over the last 20 years.  With so many different formats and shooting settings, what is really best for when using your digital camera to capture memories or use it for instructional media purposes to enhance your instructional materials.

Most of us know the term JPEG, that format that allows us to send photos via text, email or post on the internet.  The advantage is a compressed image that is suitable for online use and has a smaller file size.

However, in the digital photography world, there is another format that exists called RAW.  This is that unprocessed image that comes straight from the digital camera and is used for higher quality uses.  Think of this as a negative to your digital photograph.

That is exactly what the TOAST EDU is going to talk about in this episode, it’s a battle!!  Which version is the best?  Which one should you use?  Let’s get ready to rumble!!

When it comes to instructional technology, online creative tools, and digital media, there are hundreds of free and helpful tools to aid faculty in creating innovative and creative media.

Adobe Creative Express formerly known as Adobe Spark is just that!  This online and mobile design app that easily allows all skill levels to create and share impactful visual stories.   The best part, it’s free!

A brief overview of Adobe Creative Express and how it enables users to make rich multimedia content including social media posts and stories, invitations, and marketing materials like logos, flyers and banners.

Discussing the growth of OER- Open Educational Resources, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of education. More faculty are harnessing the power of online tools to create a more dynamic experience for their students in the classrooms and online. There is no better time to be a student as colleges across the country continue their path of innovation.

Paradise Valley Community College began its Open Educational Resource Specialist program in the Spring of 2019. A year later, this innovative team helped faculty find resources to keep their students engaged and thriving despite losing access to on-campus resources and amidst students' financial concerns. That innovative team continues its mission to save students money, give faculty more agency over their learning materials, and give back to colleges around the nation.

As we all know, the world is full of techies, gear geeks, and folks that just have to play with new technology. Well, that’s us!  The TOAST EDU host Sam Fraulino and Lynn McClelland will sit down and discuss all of their favorite technology tools that can be used for creating a wide variety of creative instructional content.

Sam and Lynn have both worked with technology for many years, so between these two techies they have both have a lot of experience when it comes to media tools and tech gadgets, so this podcast will be an insight to some of these great pieces of technology that have used in order to shape the way they create media for Paradise Valley Community College.

This podcast episode will focus on a discussion of all types of technology, hardware, and software that we use to enhance our instructional development.  From cameras, drones, microphones, to gear backpacks. Sam and Lynn will cover a wide variety of technology for all skill levels. Join the conversation and let's learn together and create together !

When podcasting first made its way to the iPod and phones many years ago, there was a great fear that podcasting could in fact be the death of radio. As we know that is far from the truth, but it does offer many ways of offering spoken word to reach all types of listeners.

A podcast can be in the form of a storytelling experience, an interview, crime dramas, or a casual conversation between two sports fans discussing the weekend’s football games to entertain you on a long commute.  

We’ll discuss that today, we will talk about the 4 basic types of podcasts that tend to work well with listeners and these formats are now pretty much standard in the podcast industry.

Podcasting continues to grow rapidly. Since 2016, the number of listeners has doubled. We believe that has something to do with more people owning smartphones, the creation of higher quality content worth listening to, as well as the wave of changes that swept around the world when COVID 19 sent people into isolation looking for digital content.

As summer comes to an end, faculty, staff, and students are now trickling back to the PVCC campus for Fall 2022.  Coming out of a pandemic offered many online and remote learning challenges and as well as learning to work and regaining our working relationships, it’s now time to really get back into creating projects, collaborating with others and using new digital media to enhance our courses.

This episode is just an update on the new location of the CTLEE- Center for Teaching, Learning and Employee Engagement and as well to discuss a few online tools that I have been using over the last 2 and a half years to create digital media to support instruction while working remotely during COVID-19 and while our new CTLEE was being remodeled to move us closer to the center of campus.

I will briefly discuss Canvas, Google Sites and touch on a new tool that I used over the summer that I am sure faculty and staff will find a lot of fun as well with easy to learn and implement into your course materials.

This podcast of the TOAST EDU, Sam Fraulino, the instructional multimedia developer will discuss digital media.  So what exactly is digital media? Is it graphics you upload to your Canvas course?  It’s video, audio, software, or other content that is created, edited, stored, or accessed in digital form.  We know in today’s fast paced digital world as well with the rapid changes in higher education, the distribution of digital media will soon outpace the creation and distribution of standard print newspapers, magazines, and textbooks.

The main benefit of digital media in education is that it can increase student engagement. In addition, it helps students work through difficult concepts with multiple resources.  It can fuel creativity as well, especially if your student has a hand in the creation of the content.

This podcast of the TOAST EDU, CTLEE Director Lynn McClelland and Instructional Media Developer Sam Fraulino sit down for a discussion about the upcoming development of PVCC’s New Media Lab Experience.  Join in on this conversation to learn about what exactly the New Media Lab Experience is, who is involved, and the many positive learning opportunities it can bring all faculty, staff, and students to enhance their digital media experience.

The New Media Lab Experience at PVCC's Creative Commons welcomes students, faculty, and staff to a space where they can create multimedia projects, collaborate with others, and utilize the latest content-creating technology for videography and podcasting.

For faculty and staff, we will provide opportunities for personal and professional growth. For students, we provide the opportunity to develop their written communication with a focus on digital publication. Whether researching a topic for a website, podcast, or video documentary, students will need to develop their written content and support their information with credible sources before transferring their work to a digital form.

Welcome back Pumas! Spring 2022 is about to begin, as we know the beginning of a new semester brings back a fresh energy and an excitement that we all look forward to as we welcome back students into the classroom and connect with faculty and staff to create an innovative and fun learning environment both in person and online.

As we wrapped up 2021 with some new projects, a new podcast, a new video series called Puma Playback, along with an Employee Engagement Canvas resource site.  We look forward to the 23rd Annual Spring Learning and Leadership Week for our employees offered in virtual, hybrid and in-person formats next week, January 10-14, 2022.  We are excited to bring back the Adjunct Faculty semester start-up session including a break-out just for new adjunct faculty.

We at the CTLEE hope all PVCC’s faculty and staff have a wonderful start to what we hope is a very successful and productive Spring 2022 semester.

Bits-N-Crumbs Segment!

So in the last few weeks, the CTLEE has released a series of short videos highlighting a faculty member or staff member here at Paradise Valley Community College.  

Puma Playback? What is that?

For the last few weeks, the CTLEE released a series of short videos highlighting a faculty or staff member here at Paradise Valley Community College: who they are and what they do.

Collaborating with fellow faculty and staff, these short, casual, and fun videos created by Lynn McClelland and Sam Fraulino highlight the innovative projects and programs at PVCC. Their fresh ideas can inspire us all to be more creative.

So, pull up a chair, sit back, relax, and listen in, as we talk a bit about the Puma Playback video concept and how you and your projects or programs can be featured.

Bits-N-Crumbs Segment!

YouTube is one of the world’s leading video hosting websites for hosting all types of online videos.  From piano playing cats to educational documentaries, there are millions of videos on YouTube that can benefit student learning.  

So how do you get those videos to play inside your Canvas course/content?  Sure, you can paste in a long complicated URL into your page and have your students click on a link, but there is a much better way.

Embed it!  Make the video that is hosted on YouTube play right inside your Canvas content, without the student having to leave your course or copy and paste a link.  This podcast will talk about how easy it is to take any video on YouTube and embed it right inside your Canvas content.

This podcast is a quick discussion and introduction to podcasting and the basics which also includes a breakdown of what audio gear I use to record, edit and publish my simple educational podcast.  We’ll dig deeper into what equipment I use, settings, what types of microphones and how the TOAST EDU podcast is created from beginning to end. We will also cover hosting and the ideal place to house your podcast for easy use of sharing and listener subscribing.

What I hope faculty and staff will get out of this episode is an understanding of just how easy it is to create a basic podcast, host it for free on Anchor, and feel comfortable with creating audio content for their students.

This podcast is a discussion about what it was like to teach during a pandemic, what did faculty learn, how did some adapt and five questions to ask yourself to improve or enhance how you teach students from this point on.

As we know, for the last year in a half, students adapted to online learning and a remote style of communication with their instructor. So reflecting on my own experience, supporting a college and handfuls of faculty who never taught remotely was a significant challenge, that had both rewards and huge amounts of obstacles as well. Our CTLEE team here at PVCC adapted quickly and I believe successfully to keep things going and hopefully keep instruction solid with the support in Canvas and the growth of remote/virtual teaching tools such as Canvas Conferences and WebEx, Kahoot, etc.

As well, we have two instructors who pre-recorder their insight to this subject as well.  Dr. Caron Sada and Lynn McClelland both share their experiences with teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We’ll also hear a brief statement from Loretta Mondragon on what occurred behind the scenes at PVCC to support faculty, staff and students.

The Art and Science of Culture Change is a strength based approach to inclusion that creates a safe, welcoming and even fun environment where diverse groups of people can learn, unlearn, learn and solve problems together. With both individualism and collectivism in mind, Dr, Sada's bold vision could be described as creating better cultures for each of us and for all of us.

This podcast is focused on The Art and Science of Culture Change designed by Dr. Caron Sada. Caron teaches psychology at Paradise Valley Community College but Caron is also a social entrepreneur, artist and organizational consultant beyond her internal role at PVCC. Caron’s specialty is industrial-organizational psychology, sometimes called the “psychology of the workplace” and she is especially interested in the social contexts that best facilitate problem solving with the potential to lead to more inclusive, innovative and entrepreneurial cultures.

This podcast is focused on the next generation of students coming into our college system.  As each high school year ends, more young teens graduate from high school and make their way into “your” classrooms. Ready and armed with a virtual backpack of digital skills of interactive media knowledge and creation skills, online course experience such as Canvas knowledge, along with other advanced skills.  

These are the students that are extremely tech savvy and will be needing much more from their instructors to keep them engaged and better learners. Sit back and listen to a conversation with a 15 year old sophomore who will give us an insight to what she loves about her high school experience with her instructional multimedia and Canvas usage.

Club Z: Expanding Our Comfort Zones Together, is focused on Club Z’s culture that is based on the Art and Science of Culture Change, and what’s happening at PVCC in this new virtual world. We talk a lot about how college classes have adapted, but what about co-curricular experiences for students? Join Sam Fraulino from Paradise Valley Community College's Center for Teaching and Learning along with Dr. Caron Sada creator of Club Z and Psychology Faculty as they discuss everything Club Z. Club Z is still saying, “Everyone is Invited!” and students have led projects including Calm Talk by Peter Tometi and Jovana Vincic’s International Day of Human Rights event.

Episode 01- What’s So Great About Canvas?  This episode is a look into the course management system we use here at Paradise Valley Community College called Canvas, developed by Instructure.  A very basic introduction on what exactly Canvas is, and what it can do other than just be used for an online gradebook or syllabus.  This podcast will go over a few of the features and a few basic benefits to using Canvas to enhance a student’s experience.  Along with a summary of a few key points in the Canvas’s State of Student Success and Trends in Higher Education- 2020 Global Research Study