GoingOn Kicks Off “Connected Educator” Webinar Series on Aug. 28 with Session on Faculty Commons

In recognition of August as Connected Educator Month, GoingOn Networks today announced that it will kick off its free “Connected Educator” webinar series on August 28^th with the session, “Benefits of Deploying an Institution-wide Faculty Commons: How CUNY, National University and Academia.edu are Utilizing Social Technologies to Improve Professional Development, Curriculum Sharing, Grant Collaboration and Broader Faculty Communications.” The 45-minute webinar begins at 2pm ET/11am PT on Aug. 28 and it will also be offered again at 2pm ET on September 18. Registrations are currently being accepted on the GoingOn website.

In these two sessions, Jon Corshen, CEO of GoingOn Networks, and Dr. Colin Marlaire, Director of the Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching and Training at National University,will explore varying models of deploying an institution-wide Faculty Commons by examining the approaches of CUNY Faculty Commons, National University’s Faculty Networkand consumer offerings such as Academia.Edu. 

“With so much attention focused on online learning, the potential of social technologies to transform faculty communications and collaboration has often been overlooked. But today, many institutions are beginning to recognize the power of creating a common online space where faculty can connect, share ideas, develop multi-disciplinary curriculum and discover opportunities for collaborative work,” said Corshen. “For school administration, Faculty Commons offer a dramatically better way to manage communications, replacing antiquated portals, list-serves and ‘institutional SPAM’.”

In fact, earlier this month in a video about Connected Educator Month, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan remarked on the importance of educators connecting with one another in online social environments. In his remarks, Secretary Duncan said, “We know that online professional learning through communities and networks is powerful, particularly when done in collaboration with a school’s professional learning community.” He continued, saying: “The model of continuous learning and problem solving within these online spaces is integral to teaching and leading in the 21^st century.”

GoingOn Networks serves a spectrum of education institutions including colleges and universities as well as K-12 organizations such as New Teacher Center, National Writing Project and Reach Associates. While Connected Educator month is largely a celebration of connecting educators in the K-12 grades, GoingOn recognizes the value and benefit of educators working with one another to share best practices and collaborate at all levels of education, including at the university and college level.

To help higher education faculty members understand the benefits of participating with their colleagues in an online social environment, GoingOn developed the Connected Educator webinar series. During the Aug. 28 and Sept. 18 sessions, participants will:

• Understand the basic design & features of today’s Faculty Commons
• Examine the various uses, benefits and resource savings of a commons-based approach
• Learn how to avoid common challenges and pitfalls of implementation and adoption
• Gain a better understanding of how a Faculty Commons fits within your broader technology landscape, as well as different deployment and integration models

As recently stated in CUNY’s Faculty Commons Quarterly, “[the Commons model] assumes a definition of faculty professional development as something done by faculty, not something done to them.”

Space is limited for these free sessions. Professionals from the office of CIO, academic affairs and continuing education, provosts, chancellors, deans of faculty and others interested in attending either session should go to the following link to register: http://www.goingon.com/benefits-deploying-institution-wide-faculty-commons.

For more information about GoingOn, visit www.GoingOn.com.