eXtension's professional development opportunities are open to all Cooperative Extension faculty, staff and employees.

This month, eXtension is offering "30 Minute Sessions" on topics related to the collaborative work tools such as the wiki and FAQ, and also a new topic, Blogging. Give eXtension 30 minutes and they will teach you something new.

These sessions will be held via Breeze and your telephone. Plan to join the session 5 minutes before the starting time. Each session will be held at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Sessions include:
* March 6, a "30 Minute Session" Wikimedia Bare Essentials - what you need to get started working in a wiki.

* March 7, a "30 Minute Session" Google Juice -- Help search engines find your information and ours! The basics of search engine optimization.

* March 13, a "30 Minute Session" MediaWiki Finishing Touches, ­using templates for final stylistic touches in the Community of Practice (CoP) wiki.

* March 14, a "30 Minute Session" Categories in the Wiki. Categories are the primary mechanism for navigation that lets you find what you're looking for at the right time in a wiki.

* March 22 a "30 Minute Session" Blogging -- So you think you want to be a blogger? How you can use blogging to enhance your educational programming? What's involved, how it's done, and how to get started. Participants will be exposed to several blogging tools with an emphasis on Blogger.com, Google's newly revamped blog hosting site.

* March 27, a "30 Minute Session" MediaWiki Finishing Touches ­using templates for final stylistic touches in the CoP wiki.

* March 28, a "30 Minute Session" Frequently Asked Question (FAQ session - An orientation for agents/educators to find answers to your clients' questions and how everyone can contribute to enhancing the quality of the FAQ System to make it a more valuable resource.

To participate in any of the 30 Minute session:

Five minutes before the start time, go to the Breeze .

You will be presented with a login screen that has an "Enter as Guest" option.

Enter your first name, your last name, and your institution/university, then click the "Enter Room" button to join the conference.

To hear the audio of the workshop and participate in the Q&A portion of the workshop we will be using a built-in teleconferencing capability of Macromedia's Breeze conferencing software. Once you log into the meeting, you will be presented with the option to enter your call-back number and your phone will automatically be called. You can then join in the audio portion of the Web conference on your phone.