Welcome to #DigPINS!
#DigPINS is a cohort based faculty and staff online learning community designed to introduce and expand how connected digital environments impact pedagogy, identity, networks and scholarship.
What is Week 0? Week 0 is just a fun name to give the time before the learning community activities actually start where we will give some orientation information. It can be shorter than a week!
If you are in a hurry and only have 10 minutes to spare today, please at least do these two things:
When you have an hour or so, please take some time to read through week 0 (overview, participation, structure and tools – all links at the bottom of this overview page).
There are no activities during Week 0 though we encourage cohort participants to at least join DigPINS Slack, create/share their blog, and maybe also create a Twitter account (which will come handy in week 2 especially). This is also a chance to reach out to facilitators with questions before we start. Week 0 may be of more importance to those who are new to #DigPINS and working in connected learning and online environments.
Setting Learning Goals
Having a clear goal is part of being successful in this kind of learning community. As Yogi Berra said, “you can observe a lot just by watching,” but you’ll learn more if you set some targets for tools you’d like to try out, topics you’d like to explore, or activities you’d like to do. So we encourage you, in these early weeks, to spend some time thinking about your goals for the next month of #DigPINS.
You can share those goals in a blog post, in the backchannel on Slack, or privately with the facilitator or some other cohort members.
Building an Online Community
In the weeks that follow we will explore the possibilities of using digital tools to extend, expand, and further connect our community to each other and beyond.
Working in partnership
Note that this site (auc.digpins.org) is the public hub for those participating in the American University in Cairo cohort.
The University of Michigan-Dearborn, St. Norbert College, Colgate University and Kenyon College will have their own cohorts with their own public hubs.
The content info for each focus area (pedagogy, identity, networks, and scholarship) that lists activities and content may slightly differ between hubs. Cohorts will also author blog posts only on their public hub. Blogposts of AUC participants will be curated on this hub.
Facilitators for each school are:
- Autumm Caines – University of Michigan – Dearborn @autumm on Twitter. Website: autumm.org
- Christine Moskell – Colgate University @csmoskell on Twitter. Website: cmoskell.colgate.domains
- Joe Murphy – Kenyon College @joefromkenyon in Twitter. Website: tweedyimpertinence.josephmurphy.name
- Maha Bali – American University in Cairo @Bali_Maha on Twitter. Website:
blog.mahabali.me - Taylor Jadin – St. Norbert College @taylorjadin on Twitter. Website: jadin.me
Week 0 focus areas
Besides this high level overview information these following pages focus in on helpful information about #DigPINS
Participation – #DigPINS is an online connected learning experience. If you have never been part of a participatory networked learning community before you will find this info helpful.
Structure – How will this course be structured over the month?
Digital Tools – #DigPINS uses a variety of digital tools and this page has details about many of them.