eLCC Meeting Notes, May 23, 2014

Guest post by Sally Cordrey, Academic Technology Specialist, Center for Academic Technology, Regis University

The monthly meeting for May 2014 of the eLearning Consortium of Colorado was held at Denver University.

Institutional reports

DU: Kathy, Paul, Molly, Kim

• Going from eCollege to Canvas;
• Molly uses Adobe Connect for affiliate faculty training; 
• 3 people managing chat,      
• 1 hour session comparing old LMS and new LMS, 8 sessions for affiliate faculty, very successful.
• TOW – teach online workshop, 3-week online course for DU faculty. 
• Faculty work on their courses while in the workshop

CSU: Al, Marianne

• CSU has joined the Unizincoop of major universities, going from Blackboard to Canvas, http://mfeldstein.com/unizin-indiana-universitys-secret-new-learning-ecosystem-coalition/ 
• CSU has 3400-4500 course sections
• Master Gardner program available as open badge certificate series
• South Denver campus is offering courses at CH2M Hill. Wants to hire two DTC-area, computer-savvy students to go there and set up for class every week, computer and A/V. $18/hr. 4-5 hours one night a week. 
• Training available to be ready for Fall semester. 
• Contact Al Powell, 970.419.1129, apowell@learn.colostate.edu

AIMS Community College: Cheryl Comstock

• Cheryl will replace Jean Otte as Director, Online Learning.
• They have two ID positions open.

CU Denver: Crystal and David

• UCD uses Canvas and loves it. Offers 10-week faculty training online, not mandatory but paid; 
• Offers faculty training on Fridays when faculty typically are more available, with lunch, several times a year. 
• They offer an all-day faculty development workshop right after semester is over, determined timing is good for faculty.

Professional Development

Guest speaker Sarah Belstock, Director of DU’s Health and Counseling Center provided a stress management workshop.

Other Business

• Next meeting in June hosted by Colorado Mountain College, date and location at a CMC campus TBD
• Professional Development day with Metro will be in the fall

• Annual Report is online, http://elearningcolorado.org/wordpress/annual-report/ . Some of the questions asked on a survey to members were, 

• Faculty training requirements

• Describe faculty development model for distance instructors

• What LMS do you use? (52% responded - D2L)

• What lecture capture system

• Growth rate of online courses

• Challenges and successes.

• Participating institutions: Colorado State University, Emily Griffith Technical College, University of Denver, Johnson & Wales University, Colorado Christian University, Ashford University, Pueblo CC, Pikes Peak CC, Aims CC, Colorado Mountain College, MSU Denver, Regis University, Red Rocks CC, Arapahoe CC, Colorado Community College System, CC of Denver, University of Northern Colorado, Front Range CC.

Nicole's summary of the eLCC Conference

The 25^th Annual eLCC Conference April 16-18, 2014 - Breckenridge, CO

I attended and presented at the eLCC conference this year and celebrated the 25^th anniversary of eLCC. The conference was well attended and it is always a quality production with excellent presenters and speakers.

One of the first sessions I attended was personally exciting for me because it was on two topics of interest for me, badging and gardening!
Michael Macklin and Claire Pettner from Colorado State University Online Plus did a presentation titled “Certified Gardner Program: a non-credit curricular badge pilot”
http://www.online.colostate.edu/certificates/digital-badges/certified-gardener/
They call it “unbundled education.” People can sign up for the whole program or they can take courses ala-cart. The badges are sorted into different levels that you can build on. Trek levels and Quest badges. They actually said that the Certified Gardner Program via badging is much more robust of an experience then if they were to come to the campus and take the face to face courses. The program is also as you can imagine much more community focused because it is non-credit continuing education. What a great way to pilot the badging system. It seems so appropriate. The badges are certified, include metadata and are good for up to 3 years. They are using the Mozilla open badge system but they are also working on building a big data infrastructure for the badging system as CSU. They have a long term goal that one day the badges would be worth credit and can be transferable.

Wednesday Keynote Alan Levine http://cogdogblog.com/
 “Enquire Within Upon Everything: True Stories of the Wondrous Web”

You can take a look at the slides here. http://www.slideshare.net/cogdog/enquire-within Alan’s presentation was an entertaining look at where we were with technology 25yrs ago and what he calls “amazing stories of openness.”  You can view some video stories here: http://stories.cogdogblog.com/
His presentation was quite interesting as he dug up the proposal of Tim Berners-Lee and his vision of openness and the exchange of information on “the World Wide Web.” It was just the start to HTML webpages as a method to share information. It did seem like it really fell into place as it was conceptualized.

Increasing Student Engagement in Online Discussions with SNAPP presented by Holly Chandler from Front Range College
The Social Networks Adapting Pedagogical Practice (SNAPP). This was interesting. There’s a free browser plugin that can be accessed that will take the data (in real-time) in your discussion forum and create a sociogram of interactions.
A network diagram of your students’ discussions online can:

• identify disconnected (at risk) students;
• identify key information brokers within your class;
• identify potentially high and low performing students so you can plan interventions before you even mark their work;
• indicate the extent to which a learning community is developing in your class;
• provide you with a “before and after” snapshot of what kinds of interactions happened before and after you intervened/changed your learning activity design (useful to see what effect your changes have had on student interactions and for demonstrating reflective teaching practice e.g. through a teaching portfolio)
• allow your students to benchmark their performance without the need for marking.

As a free browser plugin, it’s a potentially very useful tool for reflecting on teaching outcomes when refining pedagogy for the next delivery. (http://blog.le.unimelb.edu.au/2010/03/snapp-bookmarklet/)

Also visit http://www.snappvis.org/  for more info. I can also forward you the handout to help interpret the sociograms that Holly provided. Just let me know. She has a variety of articles that support this as well.

“Effective Preparation for instructor success in online education”
Jacqueline Cahill of Colorado State University Global Campus
I have to say I was impressed at the rigor and robustness of how they prepare instructors to teach in their online ed programs at the CSU Global Campus. New faculty coming in must take some courses and pass just to get in the door. If for some reason they don’t pass in the beginning they can’t teach. For current instructors they must keep up with ongoing training as needed or identified. They also have a mentoring program (that seemed a little big brother to me, but they feel they need to stay on top of policing what is going on in all their courses in order to meet the standards of excellence they require.) All faculty use a checklist to make sure they perform certain tasks expected and on time! They have yearly peer reviews as well.

Ms. Cahill explained that they have a high rate of faculty satisfaction and retention. They have a faculty resource center that provides a variety of robust teaching strategy training opportunities.

Thursday Keynote
John Sener, Sener Knowledge, LLC.  John has written a book called “The Seven Futures of American Education: Improving Learning & Teaching in a Screen-Captured World” http://www.thesevenfutures.com/vision

John’s keynote was entertaining and interesting but it is tough to stay awake after a big lunch and long morning.  Here are some key take-aways and notes from his presentation.

First he defined “Melioristic” – The world can become better or can be made better by human effort. Then he defined a fun word “Cybersymbiosis” – being dependent on technology. Here’s how we can be more melioistic for the future of education in 3 easy steps:

1. focus on making things better; Go beyond status quo, move beyond equal quality, move beyond effectivenes
2. deal with changes by aligning education with the foundational shifts that are reshaping it.; refine knowledge; redistribute access, renegotiate authority
3. deal with the powers that be by incorporating the influential futures that will be shaping education in the years to come; free market rules, free learning rules, standards rules;

“Just in Time Teaching (JiTT)”
Jeff Loats from Metro State
Here’s a good resource on the topic: http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/just-in-time-teaching-jitt/  and a video overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbzmIMY-g5U

I actually attended another one of Jeff’s presentations on the same topic at the Teacher Scholar Forum at Metro State earlier this year. I have a blog post on the topic. http://rhchplearningtechnologies.blogspot.com/2014/03/just-in-time-teaching.html

Notes on 2014 eLCC conference

Guest Blogger: Sally Cordrey
Academic Technology Specialist
Information Technology Services 

What is eLCC? The eLearning Consortium of Colorado (eLCC) http://elearningcolorado.org

The eLearning Consortium of Colorado (formerly Colorado TELECOOP) is a non-profit organization based in Colorado. The membership consists of a coalition of public and private colleges, universities, K-12 education, and private sector business dedicated to the enhancement of educational opportunities through eLearning since 1986.

Annual Conference – The 25th anniversary conference for the eLearning Consortium of Colorado conference was April 16-18, of 2014. This year’s conference was packed with practical tips and techniques to help faculty teach, facilitate, and coach online, blended, and technology-enhanced courses.
The highlight of the conference was that I was nominated for the eLCC four-year institution co-chair position. This was quite an honor and I am humbled to have been nominated. The co-chair position was won by Paul Novak, DU Senior Instructional Designer. He asked me to lend a hand on the board.

My presentation

Build Your Own TEDTalks: Record a Class Guest Speaker, Sally Cordrey, Academic Technology Specialist, Regis University

Whether online or in a classroom, there are a variety of ways to use video technology to capture a guest speaker, edit video and share with colleagues. Use again in future classes. Build a video library of experts (your own TEDTalks) and have them available to use in the classroom again or online.

I presented to 25 faculty and faculty support people from various institutions. I reviewed the technology requirements, easy and free tools, and showed examples of videos created here at Regis. The audience was engaged and asked good questions. My hope is that they were able to take away some good ideas and ready-made strategies to create their own guest speaker videos. Presentation found at: http://elearningcolorado.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Build-Your-Own-TEDTalks.pdf

Sessions I attended

Building Community Across Groups using Evernote, Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Writing Center Director, Metropolitan State University of Denver

The MSUD Writing Center uses Evernote, a notetaking app that can be used on PCs, tablets, and smartphones to save, tag, and search text, webpages, and files. Explore Evernote to collaborate with multiple groups, including Writing Center staff, students, and the larger writing community.

 They have a wide age range 18-60s, level of expertise and technology comfort. Share notes, videos, articles, assignments, PowerPoint, templates. Evernote allows shared “notebooks”. Each person creates their own account, notebooks are categorized, share presentation, templates so that everyone is on the same page. Evernote can tag searchable terms.

From Ho-Hum to That Was Fun! Sharon McPherson, Mathematics Faculty, Pikes Peak

Community College

Tired of speaking to a deadpan sea of faces or more and more empty seats? Explore ideas to convert your lecture to an interactive learning environment through the use of technology and engagement techniques. Presenter uses Mimeo Studio which is similar to BrightLink. Using a whiteboard and the tools, she created colorful ways to interact with the content by drawing and typing onto the board. Files can be saved. She uses it for math equations, Venn diagrams, able to drag and drop numbers. She also shared an activity using clickers.

A Cloud of Documents,  Nate Wadman, Pikes Peak Community College http://bit.ly/acloudofdocuments

Ever wondered what the big deal about Google Docs and SkyDrive is? Find the advantages, tools and pitfalls of using cloud-based documents. Nate created his presentation in OneDrive, Microsoft’s version of Google Docs. Also has Excel, Word, OneNote, file hosting service, collaboration. Free. Access files anywhere. Don’t have to log in to OneNote, can use for sharing notes with students. Works for large file sizes, zip files.

Tricking Out Our Course Proposal Design Process, Debra Warren, Lead Instructional Designer, Nik Hunnicutt, Media Production Manager, CU Boulder

The new course proposal and development processes were working against us rather than for us. Learn how we approached this problem, made changes, what we did to make the new process work for several different programs and how we tricked some faculty into creating better courses. When you have processes in place, you get more done! Word spreads, they find you! Be ready, be prepared for anyone who walks in the door, calls you, or emails you. Have the documentation ready for the meeting with information of what your department does and a guide of the process. This clarification helps define job duties and adjust faculty expectations speeds up the process so that the meeting is 30 minutes instead of 2 hours. The key is to have them send their syllabus ahead of time and have them go through the Community Faculty Course D2L course first. Everyone is on the same page when meeting.

They shared an organizational guide, proposal form. All is tracked by project manager. IDs teach faculty how to teach online.

Lunch Presentation: John Sener, author “Seven Futures of American Education – Improving Learning and Teaching in a Screen-Captured World”

Good speaker with a message reminding us to focus on making things better beyond status quo, beyond effectiveness; deal with change, shift to producing results, performance-based; openness wins.

Just in Time Teaching–A 21st Century Teaching Technique, Jeff Loats, Associate Professor, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Just in Time Teaching is an effective, evidence-based teaching technique using internet tools for face-to-face courses. Students and instructors are better prepared for class, allowing for better use of their time together. Explore the “Why should I?” discussion that should surround any new teaching technique. Presenter uses clickers to quickly engage students and gauge students on apprehension of lesson. Also asks for “Warm Up” questions to be answered and turned in before class, instructor reads them and plans class lesson accordingly based on responses. These are graded questions. Value to the instructor, “I know what they are already thinking!” Self-reporting gives a measure on how things are going. Value to the students, “I have a concrete vision of what we will cover in class, I am prepared!” Students are more engaged in class, compare themselves with their classmates.

Student Perceptions of Great Online Courses, Eric Salahub, Online Instructional Coach/Philosophy Faculty, Front Range Community College

Front Range Community College had 90 student nominations for Online Master Teacher for AY 12/13. An analysis of the nominations found overwhelming consensus that faculty engagement was the most important aspect of a great online course. Dig into the data and consider a new model of course quality. The guidelines were 1. Instructor-generated content; 2. Quality feedback from the instructor to students; 3. Instructor presence in the online discussions. Great to see the quotes from students promoting the faculty who are showing engaging presence, variety of teaching techniques, and timely feedback on assignments. Presenter has details on his blog: www.engagingideas.com.

Using Google+ Hangouts for Online Classes (F2F Classes, too!) Larry Giddings,Writing Center Director/CCR Faculty, Pikes Peak Community College

Get real-time practice with Google+ Hangouts (free download) to enhance online teaching and online tutoring. Explore Hangouts for office hours and teacher-student conferencing and tools including screen sharing, application sharing, chat, and video/audio. You should preload free software at http://www.google.com/hangouts/ and establish Google+ accounts as well. This presentation was somewhat chaotic but I came away with some tips on how we could help faculty use this free tool with their students and possibly bring a panel discussion into the classroom.

I will add to the documents I saved from this conference in a folder on the W shared drive. Feel free to ask me to expand on these notes. scordrey@regis.edu

eLCC 2014 Conference

I have recently returned from the E Learning Consortium of Colorado Conference. This is an excellent local conference that celebrated its 25^th year as an organization. Perhaps its most endearing quality is that the same faces keep returning and strong local relationships are forged. These relationships help to address common issues and look for common solutions.

A good example of cooperatively working common issues pertains to the LMS. A large number of Colorado Institutions use Desire2Learn and even though implementation is very different, many of the problems are shared. At this conference I co-chaired a roundtable discussion of LMS Managers and Administrators. This was the second meeting of this group whose goal is to share knowledge and information about updates and changes to the LMS configuration. Discussions resulted in some solutions or strategies for addressing problems, awareness of issues that are still to come, and some common agreements to voice disapproval of design changes to the LMS that seem defy common sense. 

I presented for the first time at a conference on the topic of Designing New Student Orientations with retention in mind. My key points were that higher education enrollments have been and are continuing to decline over time and that retention is the job of everyone on campus. My main presentation outline included:

•  Importance of finding departments on campus that were crucially involved with retention and work with them to identify what users needed.

•  Keep the content focused and start with the end in mind.

•   How to manage users and the importance of facilitated orientations.

• Provide good directions

• Seek user feedback and implement their suggestions to improve.

• How to orient to upcoming LMS upgrades

There was another session I attended titled Strategies for Designing Effective Online Student Orientations. This was complimentary to my own presentation and I came away with several new strategies for evaluating the New Student Orientations currently used at Regis.

I highly recommend that you consider attending either next year’s ELCC or the upcoming COLTT conference on CU campus in August. These two small conferences pack a large value. Contact rhadmin@regis.edu if you would like to find out more about these conferences.