The Storm Report

February 2, 2023 | Volume 9 | Issue 21

Five Things to Know about Jeff Ferguson

Three horses and a donkey standing in a circle

Hi, my name is Jeff Ferguson and I am the Program Director for the Truck Driver Training (TDT) program. I started at DDCC part-time in 2014 and became full-time in 2015.

Quick Facts

Hometown: Born in Winston Salem, currently living in Advance and looking forward to moving to the NC mountains in the future.
Education: Davie High and DDCC with a degree in Global Logistics Technology
Courses I teach: Truck Driver Training. Our course is an 8 week course with first year earnings potential of $50K+ for our students.
Pets: 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 donkey, 3 horses (one of which is a draft horse and weighs about 2,000 pounds) and several thousand honeybees.
Hobbies: Anything outdoors especially if it involves a mountain trail whether hiking, riding horses, four wheelers or side-x-sides.

Five Things to Know

Travel: I enjoy travel whether it’s a day trip, weekend getaway or weeklong vacation. I especially enjoy destinations that showcase a slice of Americana.
Music: Eclectic. Very eclectic.
Food: Anything that someone else cooks.
Streaming Show: Recently watched Yellowstone. The plots were somewhat far-fetched but the scenery was fantastic.
Joyful Experience: Watching a lot of our students totally turn their lives around in eight weeks.

Upcoming Events

Summer camp in Paris: Live from France: February 2 from 10:00-10:45 am
World Chat: Live from Argentina: February 6 from 10:00-11:00 am
ZuZu Acrobats: February 6 from 12:00-1:00 pm in Rittling Conference Center
Culture Café: February 8 from 12:00-1:00 pm in International Ed Center Gee N139-N142
How To Utilize Community as Context: February 8 from 2:00-3:30 pm
Global Employability Skills Panel: February 9 from 10:00-11:00 am (Location TBD)
Active Learning Strategies Workshop: February 9 from 4:00-5:00 pm

Ed Tech Update: VidGrid & Zoom

By Gretchen Benton

VidGrid and Zoom are not currently communicating. Zoom cloud recordings that were automatically sharing to VidGrid are no longer populating in the platform. As we await a solution from these vendors, please consider one of the following alternative solutions:

Download your recordings from your Zoom cloud, upload them to VidGrid, and then share with your students.
Implement the new Zoom LTI Pro external tool. Zoom LTI allows easy access for students to view your Zoom cloud recordings!

Attention: All instructors using Zoom in Moodle will need to implement the Zoom LTI Pro external tool by June 30, 2023. The Zoom Plugin in Moodle will be deprecated by the developer. Begin using the Zoom LTI external tool in Moodle now to avoid any disruption in service. Learn more about implementing Zoom LTI Pro in Moodle.

2023 DDCC Faculty Symposium - Request for Proposals

By Gloria Johnson

The CTL invites full-time and part-time Davidson-Davie faculty to share their expertise with their colleagues by presenting at the 2023 Davidson-Davie Faculty Symposium on March 7th.

The symposium will be virtual and participants have two options for sharing with their peers: presenting a live session on Zoom or participating in a virtual poster room.

Presenters should plan a 40 minute session with a presentation of approximately 30 to 35 minutes, followed by 5 to 10 minutes for questions.
Poster participants would provide a virtual poster with written notes or a brief pre-recorded accompanying video overview.
Posters will be a 1 to 3 slide Google Slides presentation.
Posters should include Speaker notes or an approximately 2 minute overview recorded in VidGrid.
Please make sure your Google Slides are accessible and VidGrid overviews are captioned.

Applications should be submitted on or before February 8th. Applications will be reviewed on February 9th.

To apply, please complete the 2023 Faculty Symposium Call for Presentations Google form. If you have any questions, please reach out to a member of the CTL Advisory board.

Meeting Owl Pro for HyFlex Meetings

By Phil Tietjen

Are you planning a HyFlex (Hybrid-Flexible) meeting with in-person and remote participants? Would you like to give your remote participants a 360-degree view of the room where the on-site meeting is happening? Then a Meeting Owl Pro could help you with this. Contact learning_design@davidsondavie.edu to check it out.