Tour Des Moines Farmers Market
http://www.desmoinesfarmersmarket.com
If you arrive early, check out one of the top 10 farmers markets in the country, the Des Moines Farmers Market. Every Saturday morning in the summer, 20,000-30,000 shoppers buy homegrown food and crafts at the market on Court Avenue between 5th and Water Streets. It's an easy half-mile walk from the conference hotel and there's plenty of free parking on nearby public ramps. In addition to fresh-from-the-farm fruit and vegetables, you'll find artisan bread, meat, cheese and wine, also the famous breakfast burritos and new this season, ethnic Bosnian fare.
ACE member Laura Miller will lead a tour of favorite vendors; meet promptly at 9:30 a.m. near the entertainment stage, 5th and Court Avenue (look for the ACE-NETC sign).
Fee: none
Moodle Workshop
Learn how to create your own online educational program in a Moodle workshop, Saturday, June 6, 2009, as part of your ACE-NETC pre-conference activities.
Many institutions, including eXtension, have selected and are using Moodle as their online course delivery system. Moodle effectively reaches public audiences with in-depth learning content, and eXtension provides Moodle space for anyone in the Cooperative Extension System to develop an online course. Participants in the workshop will have their own course shells in which to work, and will learn how to create various resources and activities supporting a course topic of their choosing. Courses begun during this workshop will be available for participants to complete and actually release for enrollment as desired to support their respective Extension education efforts. The only pre-requisite is to have an eXtension ID and an idea for a course you would like to develop. It will be helpful to bring a flash drive with supporting files (graphic images, word processing files, etc.) that can be uploaded or copied into Moodle. A limited number of computers will be available; bringing a laptop for use during the session is encouraged.
Fee: $50.00
Session includes a 32-page Moodle workbook, and lunch. To know more about Moodle, go to http://pdc.extension.org/course/view.php?id=37.
Writing Wizardry: A Writing Workshop with Jacqui Banaszynski
Immerse yourself in the art and craft of writing with Jacqui Banaszynski, Saturday, June 6. Banaszynski is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 30 years. She will lead a day-long, hands-on workshop focused on some of the key elements of writing: how to find and focus stories, how to conduct interviews that yield killer quotes and dazzling detail, how to diagnose your individual writing habits so you can become your own best editor. The interactive sessions will be built around your questions, challenges and best practices.
She now teaches at the Missouri School of Journalism and the Poynter Institute, and coaches writers around the world. She grew up in a small Wisconsin farm town, and learned to pick stones, pull mustard and clean the barn at her grandfather's dairy farm. She has reported from every continent, writing about AIDS and gay rights, famine and refugees, dogsled expeditions and the Olympics, politicians and the pope. But she remains a daughter of the heartland who understands that, no matter what else is going on in the world, the cows must be milked.
Pre Conference Schedule:
- 9 - 10:30 a.m.: Where Stories Are Born (Finding and focusing creative and do-able stories for your publication and your deadline. We'll introduce some techniques for identifying fresh story potential out of almost any even, topic or idea.)
- 10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.: Coaching Writers (Understanding the writing process so you can get the most out of stories and writers. We'll explore a process that helps editors (and writers) work through the stages of a story to get the best product with the least pain.)
- 12:15 - 1:30 p.m.: Lunch
- 1:30 -2:45 p.m.: The Art of the Interview (How to get active anecdotes, dazzling details and killer quotes from subjects and sources. We'll also review basics of interviewing ethics and accuracy checks.)
- 3 - 4 p.m.: Writing Diagnostics (A tool to help editors and writers identify individual writing patterns. Editors will gain language for talking to writers about specific issues in their copy. Writers will gain a better understanding of their own writing habits so they can lean on their strengths and work on their weaknesses.) For this session, participants should bring printouts of 3 original stories of their own, or if editors, stories of one writer they work with regularly. The copy needs to be the writer’s original work—i.e. not yet edited by someone else. Bring two different colored highlighters for this session.
- 4:15 - 5 p.m.: Round Robin: Q&A session to problem solve remaining issues or concerns. We'll end with some "best practices”
Fee: $75.00