ITC eLearning Conference 2012

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Instructional Technology Council conference on eLearning. Here are some highlights and ideas from the presentations:

College: There's an App for That! How Mobile Computing Will Change Online Education
Dean Kohrs, Communication Department at St. Petersburg College

Six Disruptive Technologies of the iPhone 4S

1) Interoperability - all features work together: phione, text, email, web, photos, video
2) Geolocation - it knows where you are and can locate nearby resources and contact info
3) Augmented Reality
4) Cloud Connectivity: Siri, Wolfram Alpha
5) Extensibility
6) Security: your phone knows who you are, what's in it, and what you've done

Using Twitter - sending a question to students (not even requiring a response) pulls info from long term to short term memory and raised test scores

The First Step in Transforming Higher Education: Awakening the Digital Imagination
Gardner Campbell, Director of Professional Development and Innovative Initiatives, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)

Dr. Gardener presented a historical account of those who have championed "digital imagination."

The latest champion:

John Naughton, (2012) What You Really Need to Know About the Internet from Gutenberg to Zuckerberg

• Complexity is the new reality
• non-linear, unpredictable - the butterfly effect
• feedback matters - a lot
• systems demonstrate self-organization
• EMERGENCE - synergies - new phenomena
• Double-Loop Learning - what the students should learn that I (the instructor) didn't know they should learn when we started the course

Addtional Champions:

• John Carrol and Mary Beth Rosson (1987) Paradox of the Active User
• Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think" Atlantic Monthly, July 1945
• Reddit.com - Today I Learned and I Want to Learn
• Doug Engelbart, "Augmenting Human Intellect" (1962)
• Check out Clay Shirky on TED Talks
• Birren and Svensson, "Wisdom in History" in A Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives
• What Do You Love?
• Robert Frost: "begin in deligh and end in wisdom"

User Expectations of Adult Online Learners
Irena White, eLearning Specialist, Flinders University, Australia

Adult online learners are more demanding and less tolerant.

Bloomin' Apps

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The presenter's research found that there were primarily four types of Internet users:
1) Searchers - Google
2) Explorers - Wikipedia
3) Participators - FaceBook
4) Self-Improvement - YouTube

62% of search users don't go past the first page and do not consider the source, accuracy, etc.

2011 will be the beginning of the end of the "you will need it later" model in e-learning - moving to just-in-time learning as resources that are available in the Khan Academy and Hot Maths

Learners need to become a new type of Internet user, Curators, pulling information from multiple sources together into thier own collections to create something new and better and personally meaningful.

• We need to teach learners how to curate efficiently: find the best content, add value, give credit
• Tools to curate with: PebblePad, DIGI[cation], WordPress
• Rohit Bhargava, The 5 Models of Content Curation

Defining digital literacy: interest, attitude, and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools. But is digital literacy enough? Students need digital fluency; not only the ability to use tools but construct things using them. Seymour Papert

Universal Design in Practice - Teach Yourself to Design Accessible Courses
Kimberly Fields, English Instructor/Instructional Designer, Laramie County Community College

Designing for people "in the margins" makes the environment better for everyone. Three basic areas of design include

• Representation: How information is conveyed
• Action & Expression: How students demonstrate mastery
• Engagement: How much opportunity students have to provide input and choose

Accommodation Model: problem lies with the student and the accommodations specialist to deal with
Universal Design Model: problem lies with a poorly designed, inaccessible course for the designer to deal with.

Resources:
Center for Applied Special Technology
National Center on UDL
Association on Higher Education and Disability

Lessons Learned:
1) Review the Technology: Google "screen reader + software" e.g. "screen reader + Prezi"
2) Search for captioned videos. On YouTube, search "subject, cc" e.g. "imagery, cc"
3) DIY captioning isn't that hard - Screencastomatic

Outstanding Online Teaching and Academic Success
Donald Orso and Joan Doolittle, Professors of Psychology, Anne Arundel Community College

Survey of students on what they consider to be characteristics of outstanding online instructors:

1) Available - 68% of the survey responses included this characteristic
2) Compassionate - 58%
3) Organized - 55% (should be able to follow the course like your Garmond)
4) Give substantive feedback - 43%
5) Provide personal information - 18% (most students don't care about personal life of instructor)
6) Other - less than 10% (knowledgeable, technical competence, creative - most expect that of all instructors)

If an instructor meets the student perceptions of an outstanding online instructor, is student success affected?

Student success defined as course completion with a grade of A, B, or C.

Study completed previously by a colleague found student success rates og 66% in traditional courses and 59 % for online courses at their institution.

Doolittle/Orso study had 5 instructors respond to email 3 times a day, grade all assignments with substantive feedback within 48 hours and student success was 83%. A 49% improvement in student success.

From Here to 2020: Forces Reshaping Teaching and Learning in the Next Decade
Josh Jarrett, Senior Program Officer for Postsecondary Success, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Challenges facing higher education:

• The Completion Challenge
• 25-34 year olds are the first generation in the US to not do better than their parents
• more students are attending college than in the past, but the same amount are graduating - access is not the issue, retention is
• 40% attainment levels of Associate's degree or higher, but the job market is shifting with fewer jobs available with less than an Associate's degree 
• The Quality Challenge
• What do students need to know?
• Academically Adrift - students are not gaining skills in critical thinking and writing
• The Economic Challenge
• states are taking money from higher ed to pay for health care
• 75% of postsecondary students are non-traditional with jobs and families, etc. but 80% of postsecondary education is structured for traditional college students

If you could pick one factor as a child born in poverty to escape poverty, you would want to choose a mother with a college education. Children whose mothers have a college education are least likely to live in poverty.

Gates' Work: Everyone should have access to a healthy and productive life.

High school work focuses on making sure students are college ready.

Postsecondary work focuses on

• strategies to facilitate completion, not just access
• restructuring developmental education and bridging the gaps
• unlocking the power of technology

Three areas postsecondary can focus on:

• Personalize the learning moment
• make the content and experience rich and engaging
• pedagogy on online course design and instructor facilitation is key to quality online learning
• let students spend more time on content they find they have bigger gaps and less time on content they are familiar with
• Proactively manage pathways to completion
• Experiment with unbundled delivery models
• improvement in postsecondary education will be changing from a solo-based sport to a community-based research event
• use social media to connect students with each other to help and support

What does society want from college? How can technology be used to meet the needs?

1) Knowledge and Skills - Web resources
2) Facilitation and Instruction - Udacity, 2tor, web talent
3) Socialization - Facebook, open study
4) Accreditation - MITx, Mozilla Foundation (validate that content is mastered-when business and indutry validates and hires people with these certifications, they will be seen as valid and expand)

Building Quality Online Courses through an Online Faculty Mentor Program
Greg Kaminski, Instructional Computing Facilitator and Tani McBeth, Adjunct Psychology Professor, Portland Community College

Faculty mentors are assigned by discipline and work with faculty on other campuses via travel or technology. Mentors work for the Distance Ed Department and work with the designers, instructional technologists, and media specialists. Program information is available at www.pcc.edu/is.

Mentors are selected by

• the need in a discipline
• the chair/dean recommending as an excellent online facilitator
• their expertise in quality course design
• their mentoring skills
• the credibility they have with thier peers

Mentor responsibilities:

• assist in designing new instructor training
• assist in delivering the training
• mentor new online faculty in related disciplines
• help new faculty with course shell selection
• review and recommend new, revised, and takeover courses as ready for students
• provide guidance in course design
• assist with development of standards
• promote collaboration in the discipline and among online instructors
• assist in migrating courses
• focus on mentoring sound pedagogy
• provide 1-on-1 mentoring the first term an instructor is teaching online

Training for Mentors

• 1-on-1 with the Distance Ed staff
• QM training - Using the QM Rubric and Peer Reviewer
• Quarterly mentor and Distance Ed staff meeting
• Annual retreat

Portland Community College is trying to move in the direction of a master-shell developed collaboratively with the department. Sometimes multiple shells are developed that individual instructors can choose from.

Instructors cannot make changes while the course is being taught, but keep a log of recommendations for revisions that take place annually.

Consistent course design benefits students with a focus on outcome/assessment alignment and accessibility/universal design.

Issues with the program

• some veteran online instructors have not received mentors well
• mentor time
• takeover course selection (master shells)
• promoting collegewide program collaboration

Product Demo: Get Your Head in the Cloud with Canvas
Instructure

New learning management system - Canvas

• easy to create and embed links, video, audio, photos
• embedded peer review component
• easy grading with assignment and rubric side by side

A Framework for Collaboration in Online Course Development
Stacy Erickson Whiddon, Instructional Designer, Schoolcraft College

Courses for collaborative development are selected by the largest course offerings and enrollment. Developed courses are called Ready to Teach (RTT) courses.

Collaborative course development takes place over a 12-month timeframe.

The course development team consists of a project manager, an instructional designer, and subject matter expert(s) (SME). The subject matter expert(s) must be credentialed to teach online and to build online courses.

To teach RTT courses, faculty must complete 3 online courses: Blackboard Online Instruction (2 weeks), Is Online Right for You? (2 weeks), and Online Teaching and Learning (3-4 weeks). Faculty already teaching online were grandfathered.

To be the SME on a collaborative team, instructors must complete an additional course: Online Course Design and Development (3-4 weeks). SME's earn a $4300 stipend to develop a course. If more than one SME is on a team, the sum is split.

SME completes the course development matrix in a Word doc that aligns outcomes, learning activities, and assessments before the course is built in Blackboard. All outcomes must have practice activities and meet the criteria on a course development chacklist. The Instructional Designer is available to help as mush as needed.

The course is created in Blackboard by the Project Manager. Instructional Designer reviews the Bb course.

Completed course is reviewed by one faculty and one staff member from the college who have completed the QM Peer Reviewer training. Then the course is ready to be used by instructors.

The Obviousness of Open PolicyCable Green, Director of Global Learning, Creative Commons

March 5 is Open Education Week - openeducationweek.org

Open Educational Resources (OER) take one of two forms
1) reside in the public domain
2) have been released under open license that permits free use and freedom to modify

College Presidents have identified the "Iron Triangle" of course offerings:

• Increased Access = decreased quality and/or increased cost
• Increased Quality = decreased access and/or increased cost
• Decreased Cost = decreased access and/or decreased quality

Fundamentally, we have a policy problem.

Why open access? If public funds are used to create, they should be shared with the public.

Take a look at http://openstaxcollege.org/. There are many open source resources available and more are shared every day.

The Power of Open - thepowerofopen.org

2011 Highlights

December 2011
I hope this letter finds you warm and in good health.
January sent Greg back to UW LaCrosse for a second semester and Sammi finishing her junior year at Spooner High School. It’s usually a pretty quiet month around our house, except that this year there was a little hubbub about the Superbowl.

We finished out the rest of the winter with a regular routine, then March Madness sets in and things start to get crazy. Sammi was in the spring play, Becoming Juliet.

 In track, she almost qualified for regionals in the high jump and their relay team took second at the conference meet.

She did well at the solo ensemble competition, was on prom court,

was inducted into the National Honor Society and elected Secretary,

was elected Student Council President for their senior year, and Senior Class Vice President.

The high school baseball team that Dan helps coach made it all the way to the Championship game at the state tournament, so we all made the trip to Appleton to cheer them on.

Spring was polished off with Sammi’s dance recital.

Summer was pretty low key this year. Greg came home and worked full time at the grocery store and part time at Pair ‘O Lakes restaurant and played on a couple of baseball teams. He and a buddy had coached a 7th grade team in LaCrosse, so he had been playing a little,

 but took one between the eyes at one of the first practices and ended up with two black eyes.

Sammi worked part time at both Pair ‘O Lakes and Victory Fireworks and drove down to Rice Lake two mornings a week to take a college algebra course at UW Barron County. Dan painted a few houses and took a couple of motorcycle trips with friends. Dan and I took a ride up in the UP of Michigan for a few days. It was hot – until you got near Lake Superior.

There were some pretty big changes in the fall. The biggest was the arrival of our foreign exchange student from Belgium, Malvine. It’s been interesting learning about the similarities and differences between our cultures.

Greg transferred to the University of Minnesota – Duluth. He is still majoring in computer science, but now has season tickets to the Bulldog hockey games, a season pass at Spirit Mountain, a Frisbee golf course out his back door, and has been active in Campus Crusade for Christ.

Sammi’s senior year is in full swing. She was on the volleyball team,

the student director for the senior class play, The Teahouse of the August Moon,

was the Master of Ceremonies at the annual Veteran's Day ceremony

and is applying to colleges and trying to figure out what she wants to do next year.

During Thanksgiving break, Sammi, Malvine and I took a trip to Orlando. We walked in the waves of the Atlantic,

spent a day hitting the highlights of Disney

and another day at Sea World.

I continue to work at the technical college and am plugging away one online course a semester toward my Ed.S. in Career and Technical Education from UW Stout. Hopefully, next year's Christmas message will include a picture of me in a cap and gown!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy 2012.

Assessment of or for Learning

I've been looking for online resources on the topic of using assessment to improve student learning. So far, I've found two that I really like.

The first one is a Pearson Issue Paper titled Using Assessments to Improve Learning and Student Progress. This paper makes the distinction between assessment for learning (formative) and assessment of learning (summative) and the reasons both are needed to improve student learning and the organizations that support them.

The second is titled Using Assessment to Improve Instruction from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and outlines an eight-step process for data analysis and action. They promote their book outlining the steps, which I might just have to get a copy of.

Any other sites you know about on this topic?

The Whirlwind Has Quieted

The last several weeks have been exciting and full. My mantra, "Who wants a boring life, anyway?!" was put to the test.

Besides my regular job and facilitating two online courses and taking another, we had many extra social events: the end of my son's hockey season for which I volunteered to put together the team yearbook, and his Eagle Scout ceremony and reception. Then to round out the month, both kids were in the musical Oklahoma with seven performances in two weekends (I attended five - it was sooo good!).

Now the online courses are finished and the track and baseball seasons are just beginning. And graduation will be here before you know it!

Making Connections

Though it might drive me to my grave early, there have been some advantages to teaching two different certification courses and completing the practicum of my eLearning for Educators Certificate simultaneously. The biggest advantage is seeing the connections. Like most professions, I suppose, teaching is a science as well as an art. There are some strategies that have substantial research to back them up, but when it comes to the moment, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What works for one teacher, one learner, and one piece of content has so many variables to consider. As educators, it's our job to know about as many of the variables as possible, know ourselves, know our learners, know our content, and then use our expertise in these things we know to create the most beneficial learning experience for the moment.

Good Stories

What was your best learning experience? What was your worst? What learning theories are reflected in your classroom?

These questions were the prompts for some good story telling this week. We realized that one of the best factors for best learning experiences is teachers who are passionate about their topics and the success of their students. We also realized that how we teach is dependent on who and what we teach. Or maybe we're drawn to who and what we teach because of how we like to teach and feel most effective?

The Love of Chaos

The first week of certification courses I am facilitating is now complete. I'm facilitating #50 Curriculum and Course Construction and #53 Educational Psychology. The first week is always a little hectic getting the technology and expectations figured out. Both courses have the benefit of being filled with learners with a wide variety of educational and experiential backgrounds. Sometimes people who might be seen as having the least amount of experience in a given topic are the ones who have the ability to see things the oldtimers overlook - similar to not being the best person to proofread your own paper. On the other hand, those who have been around teaching and learning for awhile have great stories to illustrate points. The mix creates a rich learning environment.

I'm also using the Curriculum and Course Construction course as my practicum for the E-Learning for Educators graduate certificate from UW-Stout. It's interesting being a facilitator and learner at the same time. Though I do just as much learning as a facilitator and facilitating as a learner - there's something in that thought...

These facilitating and learning experiences are enjoyable and enlightening. But note to self for next year - running the courses sequentially rather than concurrently might be better for everyone involved. I love chaos. I must; whenever I put one thing to rest I seem to replace it with at least one new thing. (My husband is a bit apprehensive about what will replace our children leaving the nest.) From Margaret J. Wheatley's book Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World (1999), "But the greatest challenge for me lies not in adopting any one new method, but in learning generally to live in a process world. It's a completely new way to be. Life demands that I participate with things as they unfold, to honor the mystery of it, and to see what emerges...It's not easy to give up the role of master creator and move into the dance of life" (153-154). My goal: Let go, embrace the chaos, dance.