Bonni: [00:00:00] Today on episode 40 of Teaching in Higher Ed, five faculty members share how they’re spending their breaks and what recommendations they have for us on how to take a break.

Production Credit: [00:00:12] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni: [00:00:21] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni: [00:00:49] Hello this is Bonni Stachowiak. And today we’re doing a little bit of a part too although if he didn’t listen to the last episode it’s not like there’s any spoilers and you don’t necessarily have to listen in order.

Bonni: [00:01:00] But I am about halfway through now my spring break I know not all of us have breaks at the same time but I thought upon a recommendation from a friend that it would be fun to kind of look at what we plan on doing for our breaks if we haven’t had a chance to take them yet and how we approach our breaks when we have them.

Bonni: [00:01:18] And I would say that so far I am failing in a number of areas. I am checking email far too much for me to really maximize my productivity and this morning I saw an article from Natalie Houston who was a guest back on Episode 34 talking about practical productivity. If you didn’t have a chance to listen to that episode I would strongly urge you to go back after you listen to this one and just get some of her great advice.

Bonni: [00:01:43] At any rate she wrote an article about 10 things to do instead of checking an email and I thought Well that is absolutely perfect and I’d suggest if you’re struggling like I am at checking it too much to maybe fill in one of the things she suggests that we do instead of checking email and on her list though I can successfully report on her list is to take a short walk instead of checking email.

Bonni: [00:02:10] And I’m happy to report that I’m healed enough from my foot surgery to have gone on not one but two five minute walks with my husband today and that was one of those was initiated by me and the second one initiated by him after lunch.

Bonni: [00:02:24] And I’ll tell you I cannot wait to be back up on our treadmill desk and feeling better and I’m just so happy to be on the path to healing and it’s so fun when we have evidence that what we’re doing is actually working and we’re slowly getting back to normal and maybe even better than we remembered for a long time.

Bonni: [00:02:43] So how to take a break. Well first off we’re going to hear from my colleague at Vanguard University. His name is David Pecoraro and he teaches in the theater department and he has a wonderful podcast called The Student Caring podcast if you want to have a listen. I’ve put a link to that in the show notes which you can find at teachinginhighered.com/40. And here’s what David says is going on for his spring break.

David: [00:03:09] Gosh it’s Monday and spring break week and I’m so excited that I have the rest of the week ahead of me. I hardly know what to do with myself. So far I’ve been taking care of things around the house that have broken that I don’t have time to get to when classes are in session. And also we’re getting ready to head up to Fresno for my son’s swim meet this week. So a little getaway there and a little good family time.

David: [00:03:36] Also taking advantage to read a book. It’s been sitting on my desk for a while but I haven’t got the title is Building Social Business by Mohamed Yunus. Really enjoying that. Take care and we’ll see when we get back to work. Bye.

Bonni: [00:04:08] David, I have not read that one yet. I’m going to have to add that one to my list of books to read. I’d love to hear what you thought of it after you have a chance to finish reading.

Bonni: [00:04:16] And I hope all went well with your son’s swim meet.

Bonni: [00:04:20] Next up I have been corresponding almost every time I put out a weekly newsletter and by the way do those weekly updates where I send all the links from the show notes so you don’t have to remember to come get them.

Bonni: [00:04:31] And also a weekly article about teaching or productivity and if you’d like to subscribe to that it’s teachinginhighered.com/subscribe.

Bonni: [00:04:41] And Christine is so great to let me know what she’s getting out of listening to the podcast and out of reading those articles and sometimes she even includes some of her colleagues. So I asked if she would leave a message for what she was going to be doing during the break and she teaches part time.

Bonni: [00:04:56] And like so many of those who teach part time is juggling a lot. And right now it sounds like fighting with insurance companies over the break too and dealing with snow days. I’m just so sorry to hear that you’ve had some discouraging times. Christina hope there are brighter days ahead for you on those fronts.

Bonni: [00:05:13] And we had recently a day of trying to have awareness for some of the needs for our adjunct faculty and I was able to listen to the Inside Higher Ed podcast where they looked at some of the big challenges for people teaching part time.

Bonni: [00:05:29] And just thanks Christine for being a reminder to me of what a struggle it can be both just in terms of teaching part time and then also with health concerns that are all really be thinking about you in the coming weeks and hope that things get better.

Bonni: [00:05:43] Next step we have Nicholas who teaches in Doha, Qatar.

Bonni: [00:05:48] And by the way that pronunciation I have a hard time with saying because I hear so many newscasters saying it differently pronouncing it differently so you have to let me know how I did but I was able to find an article that actually says that the Arabic for us translates much closer to our word cutter than than Qatar which is how many people pronounce it in the media.

Bonni: [00:06:10] So you have to let me know how I did. Speaking of pronunciation. I had a professor back when I was getting my doctoral degree who said that he knew the person that had come up with the statistical scale that most of us call a Likert scale.

Bonni: [00:06:24] And said that the man’s last name is actually pronounced “lick-ert” because he knew him and that’s how it was supposed to be said. But I can not stand up in front of people and say “lick-ert” because everyone wants to correct me and say it’s the Likert scale in it. It absolutely cracks me up when I was thinking about pronunciation. I thought of a few more of just where we stumble over our words.

Bonni: [00:06:43] And oh another one is that in my field and leadership studies there is what’s called the Johari Window.

Bonni: [00:06:50] Most people call it the Johari Window where it’s we think back to Donald Rumsfeld where there are the unknown unknowns so it’s what we know about ourself and what we share about ourselves

Bonni: [00:07:03] So there’s what other people know about us and also how self aware we are with ourselves.

Bonni: [00:07:08] And most people call that that Johari Window and actually is pronounced “Joe-Harry” window because it was two names put together Joe and Harry put together so anyway.

Bonni: [00:07:20] It’s a bit of a tangent on pronunciations but Nicholas says his spring break is already over but he’s spent it on how to use screen flow so he can help his master’s students learn to use Zotero better.

Bonni: [00:07:34] Next up, we have Doug McKee from the Teach Better podcast which if you haven’t had a chance to check out I’d highly encourage you to take a listen. And here’s what he’s got going on for his break and his recommendations.

Doug: [00:07:48] Hi Bonni. This is Doug from the Teach Better podcast. We have to we have a two week spring break at Yale and I spent the first week just catching up on all the work I put off for teaching classes. But next week I’ll be in California with the family during the day and grading papers at night.

Doug: [00:08:07] So I think we actually have a lot in common. I usually stick with Microsoft Word in review mode on the Mac when I’m grading. I like to write a lot of stuff and having the keyboard definitely helps but I also like PDF expert 5 on iPad.

Doug: [00:08:24] I’ve used that in the past and really enjoy it. You mentioned a few tools for creating screencast in this week’s episode.

Doug: [00:08:33] But you didn’t talk about easiest one of all. Quicktime on the Mac will record your screen and even let you do some light editing. That’s what I use. And it comes with Mac iOS 10. Hope you’re enjoying your spring break and I’m looking for listening to future episodes.

Bonni: [00:08:50] Thanks so much for calling in a message Doug even during your break and you are so right I didn’t mention Quicktime on the Mac. And actually someone mentioned it after I was on the Mac Power users as a follow up and it’s one of those things where you think, “Gosh the most obvious answer is sometimes right in front of us.”

Bonni: [00:09:07] And already included among the tools that we have available those of us that are Mac users so thanks for the suggestion.

Bonni: [00:09:13] And next up we have Sandie Morgan, a friend and a colleague with me and she is the director for the Center for Women and Justice at Vanguard University and she does a podcast with my husband Dave called Ending Human Trafficking which can be found on iTunes and all the other major podcast directories.

Bonni: [00:09:32] Speaking of which, so can the Student Caring podcast I mentioned earlier. So can the Teach Better podcasts. It’s so fun how many ways we have to connect with other people with similar interests and passions.

Bonni: [00:09:43] And here is what Sandie has going on for her break. I am going to caution you in advance that at least for me a little bit intimidating with how much she’s able to pack into what for many of us is actually a break and for her is just an opportunity to do something entirely different.

Sandie: [00:10:03] Well for spring break I have a pattern for the last few years of using it to engage people in another area another region of the world or of the state in the issue of what the Global Center for Women injustice is studying – mostly related to human trafficking and the factors that drive that.

Sandie: [00:10:31] And so last year I went to Córdoba Argentina. This year I’m going to Kenosha, Wisconsin which is just outside of Chicago actually and we’re going to be engaging with community leaders, church leaders, and children.

Sandie: [00:10:49] We want everybody to learn how to study the issues so they can be a voice and make a difference in human trafficking.

Sandie: [00:10:58] But at the same time that I’m using spring break to expand the reach of our work at the Global Center for Women and Justice. I also take this break time as an opportunity to expand my circles of influence.

Sandie: [00:11:18] So I downloaded the new app that partners with LinkedIn. It’s called Connect and now when my friends and my colleagues actually on LinkedIn have posted something that I’m interested in following with their work is I get a notification without having to go through all of opening the entire LinkedIn.

Sandie: [00:11:45] And that’s kind of fun to see what’s happening and it’s already just in the first few days of LinkedIn connected me with the professor at another University studying trauma so that we can now partner and work on some of the same issues where there’s overlap in our disciplines. So Connect is my new app for spring break. Thank you. Bye.

Bonni: [00:12:12] Sandie, I just have to tell you as I know I tell you regularly you are such an inspiration to me and after listening to what you’re doing I feel like I should take a nap on your behalf this afternoon. Perhaps so just thank you again for all the ways that you make a difference in this world.

Bonni: [00:12:28] And thanks for the recommendation too I have not heard of that app until now and I went to look at it for. To put it in the show notes which again will be at teachinginhighered.com/40.

Bonni: [00:12:38] It is hard to believe there have been 40 episodes already. It’s so fun and I’m going to put that in the show notes and I’m also going to check it out myself.

Bonni: [00:12:46] Thanks again Sandie

Bonni: [00:12:48] And thanks to everyone who was able to make a call in and share what you’re doing and if you didn’t have a chance to make a call but want to let us know what you’re doing or a recommendation that you have as always would love to hear that in the show notes at teachinginhighered.com/40.

Bonni: [00:13:03] Would love to hear what you’re doing and how you’re making those breaks have to maximize the time or maybe you need a rest and you’re having a way of doing that in a more restful way.

Bonni: [00:13:14] This is the time in the show when I share recommendations or my guests do but each of the guest was so kind to give a recommendation.

Bonni: [00:13:21] As far as recommendations, I’m going to scoop up two of them then since I don’t have a guest officially on today’s show the first one I wanted to share about is Mac specific and the second one is applicable to everyone.

Bonni: [00:13:32] The Mac specific one is a new app called BusyContacts. Some of you may have heard of BusyCal before. BusyCal is a calendaring program that kind of lays on top of the one that comes by default on the Mac and it allows you to leverage some additional features that aren’t available in the builtin one.

Bonni: [00:13:53] And people for a long time have been waiting for someone to do something a little bit better than the built in contact manager that comes with the Mac and we’ve been waiting a long time and that waiting paid off.

Bonni: [00:14:06] It’s called BusyContacts and it makes creating finding and managing contacts faster and more efficient. I installed it without any hitches at all and what it did was it went in after I of course gave it permission to do so into my iCloud main contacts it went into Facebook it went into Twitter.

Bonni: [00:14:26] It went into LinkedIn it went wherever I told it to and brought all those contacts together and combined and linked to most of them.

Bonni: [00:14:36] So what does that mean? Well in my husband’s case his contact record of course he is in my contacts.

Bonni: [00:14:41] And I saw him there but he’s also on Twitter as one of my contacts and he’s on Facebook and he is on LinkedIn as one of my contacts and now in his case and in many other cases I just have one card for him that has a link to what they call cards to those various sources that I just mentioned and presents all that information to me in a streamlined way.

Bonni: [00:15:05] Then over on the right hand side what I see for a given contact are future events that I have with this individual coming up.

Bonni: [00:15:14] What calendar invites we may have in common with each other past events so I kind of have a sense of time we have spent either in conference calls or in person or in meetings that type of thing.

Bonni: [00:15:26] Mail that has been shared and Facebook messages that have been shared and tweets that have been sent out recently.

Bonni: [00:15:34] So it’s one snapshot for all communication that that person has either had with you directly or with the public in the case of tweets and things like that.

Bonni: [00:15:43] And oh it’s just a wonderful way of integrating all of our various ways we might connect with someone in a single place.

Bonni: [00:15:51] And it does work like a pretty basic CRM solution where I also can add notes in about each one of the calls that we may have or contacts we may have and that shows up in the notes section.

Bonni: [00:16:05] And it’ll automatically stamp the date and the time and then I can just put a little note in there about the call I just had or any specific areas I want to follow up with.

Bonni: [00:16:14] So I’d highly recommend you check out BusyContacts. Both Dave and I, we’ve installed it and it is just a really nice easy to use solution that works well for people that want to bring various contact points together into one place. By the way it didn’t make all of my contacts happen smoothly.

Bonni: [00:16:35] There were some cases as an example where maybe in my contacts it didn’t include a maiden name but on LinkedIn that did.

Bonni: [00:16:43] And so they had that in parentheses as a last name and maybe it wasn’t recognized as the same person.

Bonni: [00:16:48] But it’s really easy to just click on the two cards and then link and merge them and do manually what it catches most of the time and does automatically for use so it’s just a great great app location for the Mac. I’d suggest people check it out.

Bonni: [00:17:03] And then my second recommendation is that my husband Dave had the opportunity to speak to David Allen who’s the author of Getting Things Done

Bonni: [00:17:13] He wrote Getting Things Done gosh more than 10 years ago and it still for many of us is our go to productivity reading. If someone’s just trying to figure out how to be more productive that is often one that I point out is a great resource.

Bonni: [00:17:26] Well it just launched this week a new version that he completely rewrote from the ground up and added a couple of chapters too. And he was on Dave’s podcast to talk a little bit about that I thought it was a great episode and I think anyone listening to this podcast would benefit by listening to that episode about productivity and Getting Things Done.

Bonni: [00:17:48] So I’ll put a link to that in the show notes. But of course you can always listen to any of our podcasts on whatever your preferred podcast directory is so that will be available for you to search for and download on to whatever it is you use to listen to podcasts.

Bonni: [00:18:06] Thanks so much for listening today to the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. As always, if you have any feedback for potential guests or topics we’d love to hear from you at teachinginhighered.com/feedback.

Bonni: [00:18:19] If you would be so kind as to either consider writing a review for the show on whatever podcast directory you use to listen to it or you can just put the number of stars that you feel were appropriate. Give it a rating.

Bonni: [00:18:32] It helps other people discover the show more than any other thing you could possibly do. Although I’d also love it if you’d tell your colleagues and friends about the show if you think that they have an interest in becoming more effective at facilitating learning. Thanks so much for listening and I’ll see you next time.

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