Hello again, colleagues, students, and friends. It has been a while since I last posted. When you visit shawnalesseur.com again, you’ll see that I’ve made a lot of major improvements. Sadly, as part of this clean up, we did lose some excellent archived student guest posts like “The End of the World Needs Chickens and Cold Cereal.” Best title ever? Yeah, probably. My students are awesome.
What we gained, though, is a new consulting LLP, Umbra Edu. As always, you will find research- and experience-based teaching tips and materials. You’ll also continue to get a “real” Shawna — more like a discussion at the bar after a conference panel than the buttoned-down formal presentation.
As many of you know, since COVID-19 I have been offering pro bono faculty and NGO educational technology consulting of this type. Over the last few months, my business partner and I have realized how much need there is for this kind of support. Many of our colleagues are new to teaching online. New grads might be new to both teaching online and teaching in general. There is a lot of reasonable anxiety.
However, many of us feel let down and alone. Some faculty can’t always get the support they need because their institution’s instructional designers are incredibly over-extended. Other faculty feel aggressively flow-charted or belittled by those who are supposed to be there to help. Looking for our own solutions has led many to pay huge fees for often confusing workshops in which the leaders don’t demonstrate and follow the best practices they teach. We hear you. We see you.
Are you ready for real, practical support to prepare for the daunting challenges we all face teaching in fall 2020? Umbra Edu, the shadow academy of instructional design, is here with a welcoming space and flexible tools to make sure you never feel stuck or alone, for fall 2020 and beyond.
Umbra Edu officially launches Monday, July 23rd. We’ll see you in the shadows.