In this newsletter:

• PEI Teachers’ Federation Annual Convention 2015
• Robertson Library Open Access Week Events
• Presentations to BEd Committee
• Important Notice from the Bookstore
• Faculty in the News
• Halloween Decorating Contest!

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PEI TEACHERS’ FEDERATION ANNUAL CONVENTION 2015

The PEI Teachers’ Federation Annual Convention 2015 takes place October 22 and 23 at the Delta Prince Edward Hotel and Prince Edward Island Convention Centre.  A complete program for the convention can be found here.  The podcast will be available here.

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ROBERTSON LIBRARY OPEN ACCESS WEEK EVENTS

October 19-25 is International Open Access Week and Robertson Library is celebrating with the following events:

Wednesday, 21-Oct-2015:  Launch of UPEI’s New Research Data Management Site, data.upei.ca.  This session takes place at 12:30pm in Robertson Library LINC (Rm 265).  Mark Leggott, University Librarian, will provide an overview of open data and the new suite of RDM tools and services for UPEI rsearchers and graduate students.

Thursday, 22-Oct-2015:  Peter Rukavina, Robertson Library’s Hacker in Residence, presents a tour of his work in open data/open government over the last decade, including provincial and municipal examples, and focusing on how open data can be used by citizens to good end.  The presentation takes place at 7:00pm in Robertson Library Room 312 (Upper Level).

For more information on these events, please contact Dawn Hooper.

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PRESENTATIONS TO BEd COMMITTEE

The English and French school boards and the Departments of Education (English and French) have been invited to speak to the BEd Committee as a way to help inform the BEd Committee in future planning and course sequencing, as well as keeping us informed on the needs and wants of our current educational partners. The BEd Committee is extending this invitation to attend these presentations to all faculty and sessionals who have taught with us in this academic year.

In each of these presentations, we have asked that the following questions be addressed:

• What are the current initiatives and those projected for the near future?
• What are your current needs and challenges?
• How do you see the national teaching profession changing and what should the response be?
• How would you describe an ideally qualified teacher?

The presentation times and dates are below:If you are interested, please attend as many presentations as you like. This is a chance for us to have important conversations around teacher education as we move forward.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM THE BOOKSTORE

The UPEI bookstore is once again looking for textbook orders for the upcoming semester. Book orders for the Winter semester can be submitted by email or through the on-line order form.

If you are looking to use resources such as e-books, clickers, on-line access codes, open source materials, please contact the bookstore to see how they can help facilitate that. If there are specific items you want students to have for your course, they can order most items and have it available for students to purchase here.

The bookstore will also be buying used textbooks this fall as we always do. By submitting your book requests now, this allows them to purchase used copies and have those cheaper copies available for sale to students.

If there are books you have ordered in the past and are no longer going to use, please let the bookstore know so that books in stock can be returned. If you are unsure which books they might have that were ordered for one of your courses please contact them. As the majority of publishers do not accept returns beyond 12 months from the invoice date, your attention to this is very important.

The bookstore offers all of their textbooks and e-books for sale online through their website, and each student can access their own customized list of books through their campus login.  For the past few years the bookstore has also offered price matching on new textbooks. If you are concerned that students can get their books cheaper elsewhere, the bookstore does try to match online prices from websites such as Amazon.ca.  The Faculty encourages all instructors to utilize the service of the bookstore as much as possible.

Your cooperation is much appreciated.

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FACULTY IN THE NEWS

CBC News featured a story on the work Sean Wiebe has been doing with students in his English Methods course mentoring students at Birchwood Intermediate School in a writing club.  You can read about the project here.

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HALLOWEEN DECORATING CONTEST

A Halloween door challenge is hereby issued to all residents of Memorial Hall.  An esteemed panel of judges (yet to be determined), will make the rounds on 30-Oct-2015 to determine the spookiest, freakiest, most-festive Halloween door/office/workspace.  Will it be yours?