etc 12-2014
DESCRIPTION
How a best-selling author uses ed-tech skills to promote her book. Plus fall graduates and spring courses.TRANSCRIPT
Boise State graduated 1,718 students on Dec. 19—53 of them with EdTech master’s degrees and 19 more with EdTech graduate certificates. Hi, Jerry.
I just received the EdTech news-letter with information about the Dr. Thorsen medal. It’s wonderful!
Congratulations to all of you in EdTech for the wonderful achieve-ments. I graduated with the M.S. in 2002 and met everyone at com-mencement and the special lunch. I didn’t realize that I was an early graduate of the online M.S., but I just want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed everything about the pro-gram and faculty.
Please pass this note on to Dr. Thorsen who was also my thesis ad-viser.
I am still teaching in the class-room and fully online in the Thea-tre Arts Department at San Fran-cisco State University.
Jo Tomalin, Ph.D. Professor, Theatre Arts San Francisco State University
EdTech Connection
Published three times a year by the Department of Educational Technology
at Boise State University
Jerry Foster Editor and academic adviser
208-426-4008 [email protected]
LETTERS WELCOME
2 Boise State EdTech Connection
E dTech student Buffy Naillon published a novel in late
November and Amazon.com has already christened it
an international best-seller.
Naillon is a writer, rather than an educator, so she is not a
typical EdTech student. Teachers are communicators, of
course, but Naillon works on a broader level. She interned
years ago at Der Spiegel, Germany’s most respected maga-
zine, and later worked in newspapers, public radio, and the
motion picture business.
So what’s her angle? Why is a late-career journalist with a
bachelor’s degree in German literature enrolled in an educa-
tion-focused master’s program?
Because of the skills.
Mobile app design, video game design, web design, pod-
casting, digital story telling—these are book-promotion skills
as much as teaching and instructional design skills. Book pro-
motion and merchandising used to be the purview of publish-
ers and stores. But, authors today, particularly unknowns and
especially indie authors like Naillon, are finding they have to
promote themselves because traditional publishers focus
most of their promotional time and money on big-name writ-
ers with large followings of loyal readers. Left-over allotments
of funding to promote less-known authors is usually too little
to break through the media clutter that smothers book buyers
and other consumers. It’s a sink or swim world.
So, it is little wonder that many writers, like Naillon, are
taking their publishing destiny into their own hands by
choosing to self-publish on Amazon.com because they can set
their own prices and change them as market forces and mer-
chandising strategies dictate. Writers under contract with tra-
ditional publishers don’t have that option.
Because she is a first-time novelist with no following,
4 Boise State EdTech Connection
Naillon has chosen to sell her book
electronically for 99 cents and the
602-page on-demand paperback
for about $11. Ninety-nine cents is
cheap enough that anyone in-
trigued with the book’s description
can buy it without much risk. If
they don’t like it, they’re not out
much. But Naillon is betting that
readers will like it and tell their
friends, which means more book
sales.
For the next few days, she’s offering a free
holiday recipe
book to attract
readers who, she’s
betting, will want
to buy the novel.
The story is a
modern re-telling
of King
Thrushbeard, a
European folktale
in which a self-
absorbed princess rejects all the suitors sug-
gested by her father. When she turns her nose
up at Thrushbeard, a handsome and rich
young king, her father forces her to marry the
next eligible bachelor who comes along, and
that happens to be King
Thrushbeard again, but this time
clean-shaven and disguised as a
penniless minstrel. In Naillon’s
version, The Girl Who Fell into
the Sky, temperaments are re-
versed. The kindly king-father
character is replaced by a media
mogul and the princess is a reluc-
tant reality television star. Every-
thing she says and does—
including dating—is scripted by
her father to manipulate ratings.
Naillon said she has always
wanted to write a book that people couldn’t put
down, so, when an adult friend finished the book
and hugged a pillow
while rocking back and
forth on her couch, Nail-
lon knew she had
achieved intensity.
While most young
adult works are held to
fewer than 200 pages,
Naillon’s book measures
600, which means she
has the courage of J.K.
Rowling, Stephanie Myers, and Suzanne Collins,
whose YA novels boldly exceeded the limit of
conventional wisdom. “If I bucked the trend,”
she said, “it wasn't a conscious decision. I wrote
the story that needed to be told.”
EdTech assistant professor Patrick Lowen-
thal has co-authored a chapter in a new book
called Student-Teacher Interaction in Online
Learning Environments.
The book discusses social presence as a means of improving performance, interaction, and a sense of community in online courses.
Lowenthal’s chapter, co-authored with University of North Texas doctoral student Whitney Kilgore, is called The Human Ele-ment MOOC.
Boise State EdTech Connection 5
Teachers can prepare for the Google Apps
Certified Teacher Exam Jan. 25-31 at Go-Go
Labs, the spin-off professional development
company developed by EdTech faculty members.
The workshops will be facilitated by Sean
O’Neil, a Google Apps for Education certified
trainer. Regardless of experience level, teachers
will learn at their own pace in a quest-based
game environment. Some synchronous events,
which model classroom integration strategies,
will be required.
Email [email protected] for more
info.
EdTech adjunct instructor Jackie
Gerstein has written a chapter in a just-
published book called Experiences in Self-
Determined Learning, in which she traces
education from the monastic model
(version 1.0) to the present constructivist
model (v. 2.0) and predicts that education
in v. 3.0 will be based on personalized, self
-determined or interest-based learning in
which problem-solving, innovation, and
creativity drive education.
Education 3.0 is similar to what Ger-
stein teaches in EDTECH 543-Social Net-
work Learning.
Discover more at her blog:
Http://
usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/
2014/12/01/.
6 Boise State EdTech Connection
Boise State’s Department of Educational Tech-
nology has received two platinum MARCOM
awards for marketing projects designed to promote
the online graduate program to a nationwide audi-
ence.
The projects, a series of posters and online vid-
eos, were created by EdTech chair Brett Shelton in
collaboration with Sovrn, a Boise-based creative
design and branding firm.
“We are honored to receive the top awards in
this year’s competition,” Shelton said. “These pro-
jects reflect the same level of excellence, innovation
and quality we offer in our courses. We strive for
excellence in all that we do and it is great to be ac-
knowledged for that effort.”
The Association of Marketing and Communica-
tion Professionals hosts the prestigious MARCOM
awards competition each year to honor individuals
and organizations who produce exceptionally crea-
tive print, visual, audio or web promotional items.
This year more than 6,000 entries were submitted
from Fortune 500 companies, media conglomer-
ates, advertising agencies, public relations firms,
associations, nonprofits and government agencies.
Educational technology is a graduate degree and
certificate program in the College of Education. All
coursework is offered completely online and is de-
signed for teachers and other working professionals
who want to improve student engagement and
learning through technology integration and online
teaching. The department offers both a master’s
and a doctoral degree, as well as fast-track certifi-
cate programs.
To see the posters, visit edtech.boisestate.edu.
Boise State EdTech Connection 7
QUESTION #1—If the Department of Edu-cational Technology offered a second mas-ter’s degree—related in some way to educa-tional technology—on what topic do you think it should focus?
QUESTION #2—If the Department of Edu-cational Technology offered an Educational Specialist degree (an Ed.S. is an intermediary degree between master’s and Ed.D.), would you be interested in enrolling?
8 Boise State EdTech Connection