Thanks for Your Interest in #DigPINS 2021
Currently being planned for the month of June
What is #DigPINS?
#DigPINS is a social online faculty development learning experience focused on conversation and community around the topics of “Dig”ital – “P”edagogy, “I”dentity, “N”etworks, and “S”cholarship. In the past each of our weeks have focused on one of these topic areas but this year we are doing things a little bit differently by looking at how each of these PINS are present in new topic areas:
- Course modalities
- Equity, Inclusion, and Access
- Assessment
- Group choice – we will be polling participants across the previous weeks to come up with a topic for the final week
What will I do in #DigPINS
#DigPINS is an emergent online community and social place of learning where we:
- Think about and question digital influences on education
- Consider how your identity, as a teacher and a scholar, is perceived in a digital context
- Experience an online community to gain practical knowledge of student perspectives
- Practice navigating (both socially and technically) different digital environments – both open and more private
- Find overlaps and intersections of these digital topics with colleagues from our network schools at:
- St. Norbert College
- Kenyon College
- The American University in Cairo
#DigPINS strives to be a social faculty development experience based in conversation and collaboration. We read articles together, we write on our blog together, we backchannel chat with each other, sometimes we meet on Zoom, and also may dive into some other digital tools such as social media.
To get a feel for things is to check out last year’s UM-D #DigPINS Blog and check out this testimonial from a participant from 2019:
“#DigPINS converted me! It made me excited to explore my digital identity as a researcher and teacher. In recent years, I have been slow — truly resistant — to online education. With #DigPINS, I was energized by colleagues and able to ease into various pedagogical tools in a low stakes manner. I also finally launched my professional Twitter account, which I wanted to do for years. In the midst of the transition to remote learning during COVID-19, I tapped into my new Twitter network to identify virtual guest speakers and find ways to convert my teaching on the fly. While I know it will be challenging, I am now actually excited to build a virtual learning community during my first fully online course next year.” – Natalie Sampson Assistant Professor, Public Health, and a UM-D participant in #DigPINS 2019
Time
We are still building #DigPINS but we do know it will encompass the month of June.
Time commitment for active participation is estimated at between 3-5hrs per week though someone could spend more time if they were so motivated. #DigPINS has many asynchronous activities like blogging/commenting and text chat that can take place on a very flexible schedule. However, there are usually a few synchronous activities like video calls and twitter chats that happen at a specific time. All synchronous activities are scheduled via polling of participants availability with times chosen based on what works for most people. Suggestions are made to those who cannot make synchronous times about how they can participate in other ways. We like to offer lots of opportunities for participants and then they can decide how they would like to spend their time in them – it is okay to focus on some more than others or to even miss some activities.
Stipends
This year stipends will be based on “visible participation” and will be modular with $50 available for each week and $250 for all 4 weeks. Visible participation is evidenced by communication and interaction with the group using one of our several communication tools either in the public (our blog, twitter, etc) or in our more private spaces (our backchannel). Awards will not be processed till after #DigPINS as a whole ends in July. Participants will be asked to submit a very short mini-portfolio curating their participation. Applications for stipends are not necessary and every year we get requests from those who have no interests in stipends as they would prefer to do more reading and listening than participating – and that is fine too.
Sign Up Now
#DigPINS is an openly licensed template for adoption and adaptation in college and university environments by faculty development professionals, instructional designers, librarians, and others looking to create a significant online learning experience for faculty. DigPINS has been implemented at:
