Category Archives: Professional

Streaming made easy

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One question I am consistently asked over and over again on my youtube channel is ‘How did you make this?’. The easy answer – I recorded a video of my screen and myself at the same time! The hard answer – I used specialized software to record my screen, a video camera to record myself, a microphone to record the sound, a green screen in the background, specialized lighting, and then video editing software to edit the video and finally publish it.

So as you can see, streaming and recording a video takes a lot of work. It involves specialized software and hardware. It takes a lot of time. But its fun. I love it. If it wasn’t a passion of mine I would not be doing it.

To learn about the software and how to get set up check out the following video which goes through the entire process:

Here are links to the hardware I recommend for streaming:

Logitech Webcam – https://amzn.to/2KLOXrK

Blue Yeti Mic – https://amzn.to/2Z8XaLS

lights – https://amzn.to/2H4pTeg

Green Screen – https://amzn.to/2Z3hQ7R

Professional Presentations

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Giving a professional presentation? Look no further than this presentation analysis on the late Steve Jobs. This is a great breakdown and can give anyone a lot of great pointers on make a boring presentation much better.

 

Call for Proposals Now Open: Global Learning Technology Conference

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Call for Proposals Now Open:  Global Learning Technology Conference

We invite you to submit a proposal to present at the annual Global Learning Technology Conference to be held October 10-11 in Wilmington, North Carolina.

This year’s conference theme, Journey from Learning to Life focuses on Instructional Design from K-12/higher education/business and industry.

Proposals must be submitted by April 30, 2013

The Innovative Instructional Strategies category, instructors/teachers from higher education or K-12 will share successful cutting edge methods. These sessions may range from strategies for individual domains or interdisciplinary strategies for multiple domains.  The sessions will be identified as K-12 or higher education focused.

 

The Community Partnership category is for both business and any level educators.  These sessions will be for both business partnerships and educators to learn how educators are preparing students and skills businesses require for gainful employment.

 

The Training & Professional Development category will be for the community business members to share training and professional development strategies that are successful in obtaining and keeping employee’s knowledge and skills current while maximizing transfer of knowledge and minimizing cost.

 

Topics for the above categories may include:

·         Emerging technologies

·         Mobile learning

·         Professional learning

·         Team-based learning

·         Design thinking

·         Assistive technology

·         Social media

·         Virtual learning environment

·         Distance education/e-learning

·         Applied learning

·         Assessment and evaluation

·         Digital Content

 

To submit a proposal or for additional information on the conference, visit our website at http://www.uncw.edu/ed/gltc or email gltc@uncw.edu

Why you should not leave college without your own website

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I tell all of my undergraduate students that they should not leave college without their own website. I also tell all of my graduate instructional technology students that they MUST have their own website, they are in a technology based field for goodness sake and Learn which UK reseller hosting is right for your brand.

Why have your own website? Well let me ask you to search for yourself on Google, what comes up on the first page? Anything about you? Do other people have your name? Does your facebook page come up? Well guess what, when you graduate and begin to interview your potential employer is going to search for you as well. So if your facebook page is coming up it’s time to make is private. So if you are going to be searched online, why not intentionally point people searching for you to a website that is designed to ‘show off’ your work? That’s right, send them to a site of your choosing on purpose. So, just as an example, search for me, ‘Ray Pastore’ and you will see that this website you are on comes up first. I WANT people to find this site.

Why else do you want a site? You can put it on your resume. Showing a potential employer that you have enough technical skills to build a website can help in almost any career. Plus if they choose to, they can go to the site and this is your chance to show them your portfolio. Show them sample writings, projects, as well as your philosophies toward your field.

Now if I buy and create a site is it automatically number one on search results? NO! You need to make it SEO friendly, with the help of SEO experts from sirlinksalot.co.

So how do you buy a website?

I always recommend Icdsoft.com because that is who I use. In fact, if you go through my link that I give my students, you can own a web address and build a site for $38.50 a year. Here is that link: http://icdsoft.com/promo-code/course359. And I do not get anything if you use that link, so don’t think I am trying to sell you something here. Another company I like is bluehost.com, however, they are more expensive, around $100 a year, which is usually out of a students price range. Godaddy tends to be another popular one however I have only had bad experiences with them, so I do not recommend them.

When you do buy a site, I recommend a .com address. You can choose from .net, .org, .info, etc.

How do I build my site?

Well that is also for another blog post. You can take classes, teach yourself online, etc. I would recommend hiring Shopify web developers though so that you are doing things correctly. Correctly means that your site will show up on all browsers, mobile phones, and be optimized to show up first in search engines.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any questions:)

Instructional Technology and Instructional Design Conferences

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Many of my Master’s students ask me which conferences they should be attending so I have made a list to help them out. I have only put a few of the bigger conferences, so remember there are many more. Also I have organized them by career choice as my students go into corporate, higher ed, and K-12 fields.

Corporate

–ASTD (http://www.astd.org/)
–ISPI (http://www.ispi.org/)
–SALT (http://www.saltconference.com/)

K-12

–ISTE (http://www.iste.org/conference/ISTE-2012.aspx)
–SITE (http://site.aace.org/conf/)

Higher Education/Research

–AECT (http://www.aect.org/newsite/)
–AERA (http://www.aera.net/)
–SITE

AECT 2011

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Gearing up for the AECT conference this week. I will have 3 presentations, a roundtable, and a panel discussion – talk about busy! I will be posting conference updates here in the comments section of this post. My presentations will also be posted to this blog (see placeholders on blog).

Hope to see you in Jacksonville!