Tuesday, March 3, 2009

My EASI Webinar

I am very excited about my upcoming webinar for EASI. It will be four live sessions April 21, 28, May 12, 19 (By the way this was rescheduled from a March date). There will also be three asynchronous discussion sessions. This webinar is built around my recent LRP book on managing AT in higher ed. Select here to go to EASI’s announcement about this webinar.

What is most exciting to me is that it will be delivered on the web. The web is certainly one of the most important educational “venues” of the future and EASI’s Norman Coombs has literally years of experience providing educational events on the web. I think our collaboration will make for a memorable training experience. .

Webinar Focus

Those of you familiar with my work know that I emphasize AT management strategies for practitioners in higher education. Managing AT is a process and the better we understand our goals, the various tech pieces, our resources and our limitations the smoother our operations will run. And that not only benefits the student, but also the harried and overworked DS or AT coordinator.

Of course, technology is central to any workshop on AT, but there are different ways to approach technology; you can take the micro approach and discuss an application’s operational key combinations, installation quirks etc. or you can take a more macro approach and discuss types of AT and how they work in the larger university environment. Both approaches are equally valid, I just happen to take the macro view because it fits well with the management discussion.


Who Should Take This Webinar?

This training is very helpful to DS or AT coordinators who are relatively new to the field and are still gaining experience. Experienced managers who want to integrate their AT offerings into a cohesive program, but are finding it fairly challenging will also benefit from this webinar. If, on the other hand, you are trying to find out things like what the keystrokes the screen-reader JAWS needs to read footnotes, you should seek a different workshop.

A Brief Story

I was leaving a conference in Nevada last summer and the line for the airport shuttle was long and not moving. I turned to the person behind me and asked if he wanted to share a cab and he said yes. On the way to the airport he asked if I remembered him and I admitted that I did not. He told me he had taken my work shop in Pittsburgh a year or two ago and he said that the workshop helped him get a job as a DS coordinator. Well, I can’t promise such results for everyone, but if you are truly interested in successfully organizing, implementing and managing your college’s AT program then you will benefit from this webinar.

A Word About Me

I do workshops, consulting and even wrote a book, but my full-time job is as the AT coordinator for the University of Oregon. I work all the time with real students, real faculty, real campus IT people, real campus web developers etc. You get the idea, I fight the same fight you do every day. The material in my workshops comes from this distinctive and authentic environment.