Content

Save the Date: OSU’s INNOVATE Conference + Extension Post-Conference Event

Save the Date for the 2016 Innovate conference + special Post-Conference Event for OSU Extension professionals!

May 11th & 12th 

 

From the Innovate Community blog: With Excellence as our theme for 2016, we’re sharing innovations that let educators re-imagine their instruction without sacrificing pedagogical quality and rigor. It’s fun to experiment and enjoy the novelty of cutting edge technologies, but a focus on excellence is what drives meaningful implementation.

Innovate is a time for bringing people together across disciplines and across adoption barriers. The conference is built with the educator in mind: you don’t have to be tech savvy to fully participate in this day of presentations, demonstrations and valuable dialog.

Innovate is The Ohio State University’s annual conference exploring teaching and learning with technology. The highly engaging one-day event is built upon six years of successful conferences: 95% of 2014 participants learned something that could change the way they think about or do their job, 96% reported they would like to attend a similar event in the future, and the repeat attendees every year support this number. Innovate is hosted by Ohio State’s Office of Distance Education and eLearning.

While geared toward OSU faculty, with participation numbers growing each year of the conference, so too have professional development sessions relevant to outreach education and Extension initiatives. And in 2016, the OSUE Ed Tech Unit will be hosting a post-conference event for OSU Extension on May 12th. Innovate will be held at the Ohio Union, while our Extension event will be hosted at the 4-H Center. More details can be found here.

To be updated when registration and other details for Innovate become available, you can sign up to receive email updates or follow @InnovateOSU on Twitter. We’ll also share updates here on the Ed Tech blog!

We hope to see many of our Extension colleagues this year at Innovate in May!

 

10 Ways to Repurpose Content

Be Creative Image

Why Recreate When You Can Repurpose?

Repurposing content allows you to take your best content and make it available to multiple audiences in a variety of formats.

1. Expand Individual Ideas From Previous Content

Take an existing blog post or factsheet and expand on individual ideas presented. A listicle (an article presented in the form of a numbered or bulleted list) lends itself especially well to expansion.

2. Develop an Electronic Slide Set

Use a service like SlideShare to create visually stunning slide sets from PowerPoints, Word documents, PDFs, or infographics. Slide sets can be embedded on websites and blogs and shared on social media for maximum impact.

3. Create an Infographic

Blog posts, factsheets, or journal articles that are particularly data heavy can be repurposed into infographics and shared on social media or websites. Use online tools like Canva or Piktochart to create your infographics.

Infographic

4. Share Content on Social Media

Share your best content on social media including Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. Since people use different social media platforms for different purposes, it’s important to compose unique messages for each platform. Find high quality and interesting images to accompany your posts and use online services like Canva to create content specific to each platform. Visit our blog post on royalty free images for image inspiration.

5. Send Electronic Newsletters

Use an online service like MailChimp to manage newsletter subscriptions and send your audience interesting content directly to their inbox. Be sure to include links to your most popular recent posts as well as content from other relevant sources and information about upcoming programs.

6. Create a Video Factsheet

Use a service like Camtasia Relay (free for all CFAES employees) to capture your voice and what’s happening on your screen to easily create video presentations that can be shared on social media and YouTube. You can also create short animated video clips with online services like Wideo (free and paid plans available). Check out the short Wideo I made about repurposing content!

7. Host a Webinar

Use a program like Carmen Connect to hose a webinar. Webinars allow you to expand on a topic and interact directly with your audience.

8. Host a Twitter Chat

­Create a unique and relevant #hashtag and host a Twitter chat with your audience. Choose a time and topic and invite people to participate in your Twitter chat by using your #hashtag. Encourage your audience to use a service like Twubs to curate content.

9. Repackage Content into an eBook or Guide

If you have multiple blog posts or factsheets revolving around a similar topic (e.g. sustainable gardening practices; canning vegetables; tips and tricks on managing finances), consider repackaging that similar content into a comprehensive peer-reviewed eBook or electronic guide.

10. Update and Republish Old Content

Consider updating and republishing your most popular content. This method of repurposing content works particularly well with topics that come up every year (e.g. maintaining a healthy weight around the holidays).

Be creative with how you repurpose and recycle your content!

Questions or comments? Email Danae or Jamie.

Best Royalty-Free Image Sources

Camera

Images are a wonderful, and almost necessary, addition to blog and social media posts, marketing materials, and websites. A great photograph can help convey your message and grab your audience’s attention. Research suggests that social media posts, for example, garner more attention than text-only posts, but finding high quality and royalty free images can be a drag!

While a Google image search may help you in diagnosing a pest or plant disease, it is NOT a proper way to find images for use in marketing or educational materials. Many of the images you may find via Google image search are not licensed for public use. If you find an image online that you would like to use, but cannot find any licensing information, you should attempt to contact the original author for permission. Not receiving an answer from the author is not implied permission. If you do not hear from the author, it is best to find a suitable image licensed under Creative Commons.

If you need a refresher on the types of Creative Commons licenses and allowable image uses, you should watch this helpful video.

The following royalty-free image resources can serve as a starting point in your image search. This is not an exhaustive list, but the resources here offer fairly extensive image libraries that cover a wide range of topic areas.


Pixabay

Pixabay tends to be my first stop when looking for high quality stock images. I don’t always find exactly what I’m looking for, but the site offers thousands of images that cover nearly every topic imaginable (unless you’re looking for something ultra-specific). All images are released under the Creative Commons CC0 license as public domain and are free to use for both personal and commercial projects with no attribution required. Be careful not to click the subtle ShutterStock ads that will take you to the fee-based ShutterStock website.

StockSnap.io

StockSnap.io is a new (2017) stock photo website with tons of great images. From gorgeous images of food to business savvy photos for presentations, you’re sure to find a great selection of royalty-free Creative Commons CC0 images here.

Desktop with natural sunlight

PikWizard

PikWizard offers tons of great images across a diversity of topics. From technology to landscapes, PikWizard is easily searchable and offers tons of exclusive images you won’t find on another stock photo sites.

Foodies Feed

FoodiesFeed offers searchable, high quality, and beautifully colorful photos of food. You’ll find tons of well-composed photos of ingredients and prepared meals, but not many shots of people. No attribution is required for using the photos. I did notice images downloaded as very large files. The image below downloaded at a size of 9.4MB so I used Photoshop to resize to something more manageable (181KB).

Lemons

Public Domain Archive

Public Domain Archive has a nice, though limited, supply of public domain images that are high quality and free to use. All images are released under the Creative Commons CC0 license as public domain and can be used for both personal and commercial projects with no attribution required.

Unsplash

Unsplash features a variety of high quality and searchable images. You can even subscribe to receive 10 new photos in your inbox every 10 days. All images are released under the Creative Commons CC0 license as public domain and are free to use for both personal and commercial projects with no attribution required. Below is an example of the great images available on Unsplash.

photo-1423483641154-5411ec9c0ddf

Free Images

Free Images offers many great images that are free for editorial purposes including education. When used for an editorial purpose you should provide proper credit to “FreeImages.com/Artist’s Member Name.”

Public Domain Pictures

Public Domain Pictures is a repository of free amateur images available for download. The free images are released under the Creative Commons CC0 license. Be sure not to click the many ads for fee-based stock photography sites.

Flickr Creative Commons

Flickr offers millions of photos licensed under Creative Commons. You can search for images by each type of Creative Commons license. Always make sure to follow license restrictions for each photo you’re using.

Getty

Another great resource for free images is Getty, though you can only embed free Getty images on websites, blogs, or social media. You will not be able to use free Getty images for printing, PowerPoints, use in 4-H project books, etc.

RGB Stock

RGB Stock offers a lot of great stock photos, all with Creative Commons CC0 license. You will have to register for a free account to download images, but it’s worth it for free access to high quality images!

CFAES Photo Library

The CFAES Photo Library is a great place to find images that represent OSU landmarks, programs, and people.

Bugwood

If you’re looking for images of plants, insects, and plant diseases, Bugwood is one of the best! The database is searchable and offers tons of great species-specific images. When downloading and using Bugwood images, you MUST provide attribution. Images are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 and Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial 3.0. If you’d like to use photos for a commercial purpose (e.g. in a bulletin that will be sold), you must get approval from the image author.

If you’re ever in doubt about allowable uses for stock images, check out the website’s about page. Most sites offer additional information about the licensing of their images and appropriate uses.

Whether you take your own photographs or download images from stock sites, keep the following in mind:

  • Your images should be relevant to their use
  • You should use only high quality and in-focus images
  • When required by the image license, provide proper attribution
  • Never use an image without permission, unless licensed under Creative Commons

If you’re interested in creating great graphics with the images you find (without learning Photoshop), I encourage you to check out our blog post on Canva.

Questions? Contact Danae.

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CFAES Online Course Design Workshop

A while back, those in Extension received an invitation to register for a CFAES Online Course Design Workshop. The workshop is being held simultaneously in Wooster, Columbus, and virtually NEXT Wednesday, May 13th. But there is still time to register! The day will consist of walking through hands-on learning to design online curriculum and/or trainings via Moodle or Carmen. (Note that only those with name.# accounts can access Carmen courses, so it may not be an appropriate tool for Extension online programming. Moodle, however, is still appropriate tool for any course or training that requires or offers a certificate upon completion.) This workshop has been a collaborative project between our new CFAES Director of Online Learning and Engagement (Deana Namuth-Covert), Instructional Development Specialists at ATI, myself, and many others.

  Click here to register to attend in-person or virtually.

I will be attending a portion of the workshop in Columbus and will be available for any questions Extension colleagues in attendance might have. I will also send out a follow-up announcement to Extension participants after the workshop. Look for a blog post in the coming days on the differences between formal and informal learning environments, and when which is most appropriate to utilize.

~Jamie

More information on the Online Course Design Workshop:

 

Digital Scholarship is Getting the Attention it Deserves

Eric Stafne, Extension Professor from Mississippi State University, has posted a very interesting and thought-provoking 5-part series on the eXtension Educational Technology Learning Network’s blog this week. In this series, he discusses his favorite definition of digital scholarship, how digital technology and scholarship best connect, outlines barriers to digital scholarship and offers solutions to how Extension can address these barriers.

I encourage everyone in Extension who is interested in traditional media, digital media, and scholarship, as well as the future of academic content, to read this series and offer your input on the digital scholarship blog posts. You can also Tweet your reaction and thoughts using the #EdTechLN hashtag and be part of the conversation.

Click here to access the entire digital scholarship blog post series by Eric Stafne. 

During the entire month of May, the #EdTechLN is shining the spotlight on digital scholarship and its impact on Extension. Next week’s #EdTechLN TweetUp (May 7th at 2:00pm EST) will focus on this topic. You can join and follow the TweetUp by going to: twubs.com/edtechln  If you’d like to take a look at the last TweetUp discussing digital scholarship, which focused on “Traditional Pubs. vs. Digital Content” you can access the summary here.

It should also be noted that we’re addressing digital scholarship questions and issues here in Ohio. The Extension Promotion and Tenure Committee is working hard to discuss solutions to how we define quality digital media and content.  A handout presented to the P&T Committee to begin this discussion is below:

PT-Committee-Handout-Digital-Scholarship-1804j39.pdf.

How to Write for Online Audiences

The Ed Techs have shared several examples of online writing best practices in the past couple of years, including one created by CommTech and one from the CDC. This morning, I came across another one. Below is a Slidedeck from Jennifer Chilek (Ed Tech for eXtension’s Network Literacy CoP) on writing for online audiences.

In the slides below, she includes examples of best practices as well as succinct info that’s usable and to-the-point. If you have questions about converting content that’s currently in a traditional pub or curriculum into quality content more suited to an online audience, please let us know in the comments below or don’t hesitate to send me an email (seger.23).

What Can Live Smart Ohio do for You?

LSO announcement

Today, the new Live Smart Ohio blogsite will be rolled out during the Family & Consumer Sciences annual in-service. FCS Staff will have the opportunity to hear about how and why a new FCS content hub was needed and how the concept of Live Smart Ohio was born. New features of the site will be discussed, as well as the updated FCS social media strategy. One topic that we will not have time to cover in detail however, is how program staff can utilize Live Smart Ohio to showcase and promote their expertise, events, programs, and other efforts. The info below highlights how Live Smart Ohio was created with our program staff’s best interest in mind and that in the end, it really is all about them; showcasing their expertise and the good work they do to a much broader audience while simultaneously streamlining our online efforts.

So, what can Live Smart Ohio do for you? And how will it promote your work?

Live Smart Ohio site:

Become an author of Live Smart Ohio and share your expertise in the area of Food, Money, Mind & Body, or Family & Relationships. Interested individuals (from any program area) can contact Carmen Irving.

Social Media:

“Like” the new Live Smart Ohio social media pages for Food, Money, Mind & Body, Family & Relationships; as well as the main FCS Facebook page and the Live Smart Ohio Twitter account.

By following various Live Smart Ohio social media pages, you can share posts that are relevant to your area of expertise or to the programs you teach on both your personal and professional social media pages. This expands our total FCS online reach and engagement exponentially. Program staff can also post to all of the Live Smart Ohio pages with information regarding events, programs, etc.

Why are there so many Facebook pages?

The updated FCS social media strategy separates our Facebook presence by topic area, which allows Facebook users to like and follow the topics they’re most interested in. On Twitter, while all Tweets are tweeted out using one main Live Smart Ohio account, topics are “labeled” with different hashtags (#LSOFood, #LSOMoney, #LSOMindBody, #LSOFamily). In the coming months, with additional staff support, our social media presence will also expand to include Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Events:

The creation of a new, modernized content hub allows FCS to showcase and house in one central location our new methods of educating online clientele, including webinars, Twitter Chats, and other virtual events hosted by FCS program staff. The Live Smart Ohio site will feature information on such events, while our new social media feeds will promote this information. Program staff interested in presenting webinars and other online events can contact Jamie Seger to get further information from the Ed Techs, as well as get more details about how Live Smart Ohio will help promote their events.

Programs & Resources:

As FCS fact sheets are updated, they will be posted to Live Smart Ohio and featured on the side bar of each topic area’s home page. Videos are also showcased this way (see below).

LSO Food page

Infographics created from our updated fact sheets will also be featured content, as well as program information. To share or blog about specific program information, contact Carmen Irving with a request or suggestion. Some local program information may be best to share via social media, instead of the blog.

For specific information on how program staff can promote or share Live Smart Ohio to their clientele during face to face programs or events, contact Betsy DeMatteo or Jamie Seger. 

Using Webinars to Teach: Training Slidedeck, Recap, and An Opportunity for Staff!

Last week, the Ed Techs hosted an online training about utilizing webinars as a teaching tool. The PPT is below, as well as a summary of the main points. A recording link to the webinar itself will be included as soon as we receive it.

Are you interested in presenting an educational webinar?

We know how busy you are, and so the Ed Techs are offering to provide preparation training, hosting, and “back-end” support for program and support staff who wish to present educational webinars in 2015!  These will not be professional development webinars we are all used to, but rather webinars intended to educate our online clientele (How to Respond to Temper Tantrums, 3 Simple Ways to Stick to Your Budget, How to Diagnose Pest Disease – as examples). We are requesting that individuals interested comment on this post, or contact us directly with the following information:

  • Webinar Topic
  • Title and Category (if you would like to call it a “Webinar” or “Lunch & Learn” or something similar)
  • Target Audience
  • Requested Date & Time to Present Webinar

Send the above information to any of the Ed Techs-

Jamie Seger: seger.23

Kim Roush: roush.143

Heather Gottke: gottke.4

Training Slidedeck

 

Summary

7 Tools for Using Webinars to Teach

Planning:

  1. Basic Plan: timing, marketing, brief content

Design:Webinars screenshot

2. Visual Appeal: large images, one key point on each slide

3. Layout/ Structure: divide content into 10 minute segments or less, set up webinar session to promote interaction with different pods, discussions, polls, and activities

Interactive Elements (demonstrated in CarmenConnect):

4. Polling / Quiz / Questions

5. Chat Box

6. Whiteboard

7. Online Search

Link to Recording: TBA

Quickly Create Modern Looking Graphics for Anything with Canva

Allergic to Photoshop but still want pretty looking images to share on a blog or social media page? Canva is a cool (and very new) web tool that lets you easily and quickly create images that you can save and/or share online. The best news of all? It’s free to sign up and Canva has thousands of images and graphics that you can use for free. The real kicker is that the extra cool photo that you might want to use will only $1. That’s right, if it’s not free, it’s only going to cost you a buck. Good news for those of us in Extension.

Getting Started

You’ll need to sign up for a free account to use Canva. Then, you get to choose a template based upon what you will use the image/graphic for – which I think is a great feature that makes Canva super easy to use.

By selecting what you'll be using your image for, Canva will automatically select the best formatting and size.

By selecting what you’ll be using your image for, Canva will automatically select the best formatting and size.

After you choose a design to get started, you’ll come to what looks like a “dashboard of sorts”. Honestly, if you take just a few minutes browsing the tools on the left side of the screen, you can get acquainted with Canva’s features rather quickly.

 

Here are a few images I created in Canva to show everyone the possibilities of how those of us in Extension could use it:

COOKING Eat & Move-O-Matic (2)carrots

All of the above images and graphics could be shared on social media sites. You can also create PowerPoint presentations, posters, and marketing materials within Canva. 

How to Brand Your Images and Grahics

As for proper branding protocol when it comes to using Canva, you probably noticed that all of the above images use our scarlet color – one of the University’s primary branding colors. Anything that is created within Canva should include at least ONE of the primary branding colors, shown below. Scarlet is the preferred primary color, since it is the most recognizable color associated with OSU.

Canva branding colors

 

What do the numbers below the colors mean? This is where we’ll do a little walk-through in Canva to show you how to change color using the HEX color code (last line of text under each color above). We’ll use one of the graphics I included above as an example. When I first clicked on the template to edit it, the original color of the ribbon was teal. I needed to change this to a branded color. First, click anywhere on the color in your graphic or text that you need to change. Then, click on the “+” sign to open up the color wheel (circled in red below).

Canva changing colors

This will pull up a color wheel, with an option box to enter an exact color code. This is where the HEX color code is entered. The color code for our branded scarlet color is bb0000 (entered in the box circled in red).

Canva changing colors 2

This changes the color of the ribbon. To change text or any other graphic, simply go through the same process. Other logos such as the block “O” or our Extension strip at the top do not have to be included if you utilize any of the primary branding colors, as well as a branded font. In Canva, we’ll need to use Helvetica as the only font… which limits creativity I know. But it is required to be brand compliant.

brand

Want more info about Canva? The site features a great support blog that gives advice on how to create different layouts, work with color in your graphics, how to create infographics, and much more.

Still have questions or want advice on how to create something specific? Leave a comment and we’ll help!

~Jamie

 

How to Create Your Personal Learning Network on Twitter in 5 Steps

twitter-logo

One of the themes mentioned throughout the National eXtension Conference last week was the increasing importance of Personal Learning Networks. Many of us who have been using social media for years have tapped into the informal learning that can easily take place in online social spaces – specifically on Twitter. PLN’s help Extension professionals learn from each other, as well as learn from other experts in our fields of work and study.

1. Create a Twitter account if you don’t already have one. Ed Tech Heather Gottke wrote a great blog post on how to get started on Twitter here.

2. Begin following people by adding people you already know; colleagues and clients. Then add people who you know are experts in their field. For example, I follow Mashable and Beth Kanter to get social media info; TechCrunch for general tech updates; Paul Hill for 4-H STEM programming; Mike Gutter for financial education; Let’s Move for nutrition education, and the Pew Research Center and NASA just because I’m a geek. You’ll also want to add CFAES, Keith Smith, and Dean McPheron, to stay up-to-date on our college’s goings-on. Feel free to see who else I follow and add them to people you follow.

3. Organize the people you follow into lists and use a social media managing tool. I use Hootsuite. But some people like Tweetdeck better. Both are free to use the “regular” version. You’ll have to pay to go Pro and get extra perks like analytics, but I use the free version and feel like I have access to everything I need. You’ll need to create your list categories in Twitter.

  • Once you have “followed” a Twitter account. Click on the settings icon beside the “Follow/Following” button. This will pull up a drop-down menu, as shown below:

twitter list example

  •  Click on “Add or remove from lists”. A separate box will appear asking you to “Create A List” or choose which list to add this person to:

twitter list example 2

  • Next, you’ll pull your lists into Hootsuite or Tweetdeck (whichever you choose to use). In Hootsuite, you can do this by adding a stream to your dashboard for each one of your lists. Click on “+Add Stream” and then click on the “Lists” tab (highlighted in yellow below):

twitter list capture hootsuite

  • Once you’ve added a stream for each of your lists, your dashboard will look like this (if you are as list-happy as I am anyway!):

hootsuite dashboard

4. Find more experts to follow by searching and following hashtags. For example, I have found people to follow by searching for #socialmedia, #edtech, #food, #money, #parenting, #4H, just to name a few.

5. Build upon and share what you’re learning by networking with those you follow. Retweet what they’re Tweeting and put their ideas into practice. Reach out to them and start a conversation. Let them know how you’re using their expertise, concepts, ideas, etc. I’ve networked with colleagues all across the country via Twitter and have met some amazing and inspiring people. They’re Educators, Program Specialists, Faculty, and Techies. Once your Personal Learning Network grows, you begin to realize how we can all work together across the nation to make Extension much stronger and our programs more impactful. Cooperating, collaborating, and sharing ideas and resources also reduces our time spent on reinventing something that someone in a different state already does well. Meeting via Twitter can put all of these things in motion.

For more info, Beth Kanter has an excellent blog post on using social media for professional learning here.

Other ideas? How have you built your own Personal Learning Network and who have you included in it?

~Jamie