Classroom Spotlight Presentation: The CLC, Skype and Google Docs

The technology in today's world is advanced from what it was a few years ago when online courses started to appear in many university's across the nation. I remember when Grand Canyon started to add online courses and we used video taping of expert teachers modeling good teaching at that time. The university encouraged chat rooms as well. Now, many programs, such as Skype Video Conferencing, have become very popular.

This is what my presentation is all about. I encourage my students to use Skype for their CLC assignments. A few students the last two terms have done just that. They loved it so much that they continued using Skye to do their weekly discussion questions. By doing so, they had greater interest and were able to discuss the issues in depth. I participated in their video discussions as well and enjoyed giving my perspective on those issues as well. 

This presentation was created with the help of GCU graduate (Master of Education in Education Administration), Tristan McElhaney.

Faculty Spotlight

Joe Popma started teaching in the 8th grade in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1951. He had a unique college experience by starting his college experience at Notre Dame, went to St. Edward University in Austin Texas and finished up with his degree at St. John's University, Brooklyn N.Y. This makes him his 60^th year in education this fall of 2011. Can you believe it? Where has the time gone?

After teaching in the 8^th grade for four years, he went to East Pakistan, now  Bangladash, as a Catholic missionary for a few years. After mastering the Bengali language, he taught Jr. High in a small village of Bandura. After coming home to the states, he taught a few years in Cleveland, Ohio before becoming an Elementary and later, Middle School Principal in Grand Rapids, Michigan for 20 years.

He retired from the Michigan Schools and came to Arizona in 1994, where he became an adjunct professor here at GCU to the present time (17 years). Over the years Joe helped design many of the online master courses that we are using still today.