Endings... and Beginnings

Congratulations to Dr. Zoila Tovar-Blank, the winner of the "How Well Do You Know Tech Tuesday?" Challenge!

Yes, the rumors are true – I am 3 months away from retirement*, which makes this my very last Tech Tuesday message to all of you. If there is anything that I have done in my 26 years here at CGCC (I began as an adjunct instructor in 1996) that I am most proud of, and hope will continue to have an impact, it is Technology Tuesdays.
 *Technically, 3 months and 10 days – but who’s counting…?

15 years ago I took my first sabbatical, looking into technologies for instruction. Instead of the solo effort that I had anticipated, I found that every day I discovered something new that I would share with colleagues. By the end of that sabbatical year, an idea had formed – why not offer faculty development workshops on all of these awesome tools that were out there? From there, I asked my Chair, who asked the administration, who (in true Chandler-Gilbert fashion) said, “Sure – let’s give it a try!”

Given the go-ahead, during Summer 2008 Linda Zehr & I worked with Phoenix College colleagues Julie Magadan & Juliane Roybal (later to be our first CTL Director, and now Dr. Roybal...), to map out the first year. Linda suggested the name “Technology Tuesdays,” we offered our first workshop on August 26, 2008, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Click the timeline image to enlarge.

Here is my final challenge to all of you: Keep Tech Tuesday going in the future!! ​

I have learned so much from all of you over the years, especially when we conduct our workshops in real time, or when you respond to the weekly Tech Tuesday emails with your ideas.

I propose that Tech Tuesday be crowdsourced, so that you continue sharing ideas, tips & tricks, and tools from faculty with other faculty, which is how it all began.

Watch this 1:39 video for a glimpse of Tech Tuesdays gone by!

To this end, I have created a 2022-23 Guest Blogger Signup Sheet  – just pick ONE Tuesday during the 2022-23 academic year, and be a Tech Tuesday Guest Blogger for that date! You don’t even have to know right now what you would share; just make a commitment to share one awesome thing that you believe would benefit other faculty and their students.

For those of you who sign up, the CTLA will provide more specific information to you in the Fall as to how to submit your information for YOUR guest blog post.

As always, HAPPY TUESDAY!!

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Did you know that there are now 100 Tech Tuesday (and Tech Tuesday-adjacent) blog posts on the CTLA's Teaching & Learning Blog?! It's true - this is my 100th blog post!!

You can always visit the blog at any time (Helpful Hint: Use the CTLA website search feature to quickly locate anything you might need!), but my parting gift to you is a complete PDF of the Spring 2020-Spring 2022 Teaching Tip blog posts, so that you have them for offline use.

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Click the image for a downloadable PDF.