[DG: Teaching & Learning] Nominations for Final Judges: Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award 2011

[Rob Coyle]

Sakai Community Members -
The Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award (TWSIA) committee is seeking distinguished individuals to serve as judges for the fourth annual competition for this international award. We are looking for judges who have a passion for teaching, and whose life-long work includes championing effective learning opportunities first, and technology second but who are not currently involved in the Sakai community.
 The purpose of the award is:
 -       To drive innovation on teaching and learning within the Sakai community.
 -       To share best practices, understandings and experiences among faculty members and between faculty and other Sakai community members.
 -       To communicate the goals and issues of the teaching and learning community to contributors in Sakai including developers, user interface, system administrators, documentation, support, and quality assessment.
 As you know, Sakai is an open source project and an all-volunteer group, so while we are unable to offer financial compensation to our judges, there are other advantages to participating. The judges' reward is an intrinsic one in helping to identify exemplars of effective courses, which use innovative teaching practices and technology. The process also allows judges to learn firsthand about educators and best practices from all over the country and the world. We hope the opportunity is intriguing to potential judges so that they see value in lending their experience to this endeavor.
 We also offer publicity; judge's names would appear in all official press releases and stories about the award. We will provide links to biographies, books or other publications, and any other endeavors identified as important work. The awards presentation for 2011 will take place at our International Conference in Berlin, Germany in July. Judges will be invited to attend the conference and we will waive the normal conference fee. We anticipate the judging process will demand about 15 hours of time.
 A team of volunteers from the Sakai Teaching & Learning Group will check all the applications first, and select 10-12 candidates for review from each of the following categories:
-       Higher Education
-       Fully Online/Hybrid Courses
-       K-12 Courses
-       Non Traditional/Non Course Sites including Project and Portfolios.
 Judges will select the finalists using the award evaluation rubric and through interviews with the finalists which are conducted through web-conferencing technology during the Spring 2011 semester.  If you know anyone who might be interested or whom you would like to nominate, we would be delighted to hear from you to discuss this further and answer any questions.
 Past entries, finalists and the rubric can be found at www.openpractices.org<http://www.openpractices.org/>.
 Please email any nominations or questions to Sue Roig (Susan.Roig at cgu.edu<mailto:Susan.Roig at cgu.edu>) no later than Friday September 24, 2010.
 Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to hearing from you.
 --Rob Coyle,
2011 TWSIA Committee Chair
Robert M. Coyle,
Instructional Designer | Instructional Technology and Distance Education |
Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals | 6810 Deerpath Road | Elkridge, MD 21075  |
o: 410.516.2291 | c: 443.271.0453 | rcoyle at jhu.edu<x-msg://18/rcoyle@jhu.edu> | www.ep.jhu.edu<http://www.ep.jhu.edu/>