Blog – Page 2

MHE622 – Week Six – Reflections on Best Practices in Online Course Design

November 30, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Facilitating our online faculty in soaring?

My position at Bay Path University has me deeply involved in researching, synthesizing, training and supporting faculty in the best practices for online course design and delivery. So, I was really focusing in on ideas I could implement as I assist our online faculty to soar with their online courses.

The article entitled, “Three Ways to Breathe New Life into Your Online Courses,” has some very solid advice for implementing Web 2.0 and social media tools into an online course. As I think about the most common issues our online faculty struggle with I wondered “…how to help instructors stay current in resources, tools and lesson planning.” If some of my online faculty still struggle setting up a proper Discussion Assignment within their Canvas course, would they ever be able to handle the appropriate use of these Web 2.0 tools to engage their students?

How will I ever be able to suggest ‘purposes’ for tools that are: easy to use, have some relevance to the course content and goals, and enhance student learning?
How can our Online Learning & Digital Team best teach our faculty?

When our Team uses social media- such as Twitter, Google Plus and Linked In for example, as tools to stay connected to our professional peers, how do we ‘teach’ our online faculty to engage in some of these same practices? The article concluded with, this reassuring concept, “By relying on and enhancing instructor creativity, we can breathe new life into our online courses.” This is food for thought and I kept thinking,about this as I continued reviewing our list of shared resources.

The Pelletier article “What Online Teachers Need to Know,” contains timeless advice for online faculty. I believed the most important piece of wisdom was this key idea, “One of the most effective types of training I have found is to enroll in an online course yourself. This will give you the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be the learner, and will no doubt reinforce the importance of presence, communication skills, engaged discussion, constructive feedback.” I can relate [and agree to this suggestion] yet I was still curious.

Having just met some of the Brown University Online Team, at the NERCOMP Conference earlier this November, I wanted to read more about their “Best Practices for Teaching Online.” I liked how the Brown Team organized the basic practices and supported each with their recommendations. The content was solid, however, I did find some bad links and I felt the information could use some refreshing. That said, I did find a nugget of advice [for faculty] in assessing student work online:

“We want tangible evidence of understanding! To achieve this, we expect that you will work with your instructional designer to provide the student access to relevant content (even if it requires online research outside of Canvas) and challenge the student to use the information he or she discovers to generate evidence of that understanding.

For example: well-designed online courses ask students to produce a variety of “learning artifacts” including projects, papers, discussions, photographs, diagrams, illustrations, videos, recorded interviews, and collaborative projects, whether produced independently or in collaboration with other students or subject-matter experts in the field of study. A wealth of artifacts allows you to assess the student’s ability to synthesize course content in great depth, and with confidence and legitimacy.”

All these ideas can be synthesized into the work I do with my online faculty and particularly how to enlighten them as they soar within their own online courses. I also want to be thinking of these ideas as I support my most challenging faculty in searching for that tangible evidence of their understanding in properly using the Canvas Discussion forums and Assignments 😉

NERCOMP: Proactive & Reactive Faculty Support

November 21, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Collaboration during our NERCOMP presentation

Last week I drove to Norwood, MA and presented a session with Gail McKenna revolving around out tactics on Proactive & Reactive Faculty Support here at Bay Path University. We had about 65-70 people show up, some who had driven from as far away as northern Vermont. Our session was first on the agenda and despite the early morning hour, people were really engaging and exchanging ideas with each other.

This is what the Q& A session looked like, from my vantage point. We generated a long list of items that fell into being either a challenge or a solution when supporting faculty.

Here is a summary of the Challenges and Solutions the room of experts came up with. We also had some positive feedback. Here is the results of the evaluation sent our by the conference coordinators: Supporting Faculty Teaching Online Eval. I think people liked the whole day. I found it to be very collaborative imaginative and a really nice way to spend the day-good lunch and snacks too- always important.

Challenges	Solutions
Role Definition	Adjunct faculty who gets paid to support faculty-like a pinch hitter Evening training & 2 days during the summer
Buy in-building relationships	Faculty network via a wiki and LMS forum for discussions
Hearts & minds – PR	Flex time to support faculty to develop online courses
Incentives	Release for faculty to develop: rubrics
How to teach online	Use baby steps: first blended or flipped classrooms, then online
Tools & the rapid change	Tech literacy
	Introduction to LMS & to institution- exposure
	Provide examples: gallery of best practices, reception to celebrate & an academy to teach
	Institutional Quality with learning activities & implementation of technology
	Faculty network via a wiki and LMS forum for discussions
	Student feedback-evaluations

MHE622 – Week Four Blog- Reflections on Learning

November 20, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Students reviewing the iPad-based dissection manual in relation to a hemisected head.

I have been thinking about mobile technology more and more these days, perhaps because I know I need to spend some serious time, next week, on my presentation for my MHE622 course. So, this week, I honed in on shared resources revolving around mobile technology.

The Wylie article caught my eye as the premise was to urge educators to take advantage of a new wave of electronic devices that offer portability and ease of use on a budget. Within the third paragraph Marc Prensky, who has written on Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants, was cited saying, “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” Prensky goes on to summarize, that because today’s students are digital natives they used to interacting with technology and indeed actually ‘need’ mobile learning.

This article’s research was geared more toward the K-12 educational demographic. I would summarize the excellent points shared as being:

We should not ban, we should embrace technology in education and the classroom.
Those [students] not exposed to technology are unprepared to develop a respectable digital footprint [now, also referred to as a digital tattoo].
Students need the knowledge and practice of safely interacting with technology.
I would add, that the K-12 students moving up into the higher education system will be expecting to use their mobile technology in their classrooms.

The Lewis article brings the whole mobile technology discussion to the next level, which is out of our pockets and onto our bodies. The article discusses how wearable technology will transform education. I find this study fascinating, as I believe it further proves how much we are embracing our technology and expecting it to improve our lives. If wearable technology can aid us in monitoring data to track our: fitness, children and pets, etc. the next logical step seems to be to support the personalization of our educational efforts. Costs withstanding [for the moment, as costs will come down] I believe wearable technology will continue to help all of us better understand how we can be more productive and efficient with our personal learning processes.

Mayfied, Ohara and O’Sullivan (2013) discuss using iPad-based multimedia to improve dissection learning in an anatomy course. The investigation focused on how the iPad manual aided learner engagement, achieved instructional objectives, and enhanced the effectiveness and efficiency of dissection education. The study also recommended that, “Mobile technologies can become productive learning tools delivering learning content and integrating into the social learning environment of the anatomy laboratory.”

These resources got me thinking about Bay Path’s own Occupational Therapy and Physician Assistant Graduate Programs. While I have no first-hand understanding if and/or how they might currently be integrating mobile technology into the courses found within these programs…it seems to me that throughout Bay Path’s graduate program [both online and on the ground], there are opportunities to implement mobile technology and improve student learning.

References:

Kessler, S. (2011, May 4). 4 Ways Mobile Tech Is Improving Education. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2011/05/04/mobile-education-initiatives/

Lewis, C. (2014, October 22). Wearable Technology: Will education look very different in the future?
Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/blogs-post/wearable-technology-will-education-look-very-different-future/187878

Mayfield, C. H., Ohara, P. T., & O’Sullivan, P. S. (March 01, 2013). Perceptions of a mobile technology on learning strategies in the anatomy laboratory. Anatomical Sciences Education, 6, 2, 81-89.
Retrieved from: http://baypath.worldcat.org/title/perceptions-of-a-mobile-technology-on-learning-strategies-in-the-anatomy-laboratory/oclc/5156370955&referer=brief_results

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5
Retrieved from: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

West, D. (2013. September 17). Mobile Learning: Transforming, Engaging Students and Improving Outcomes.
Retrieved from: http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/09/17-mobile-learning-education-engaging-students-west

Wylie, J. Mobile Learning Technologies for 21st Century Classrooms. Scholastic.
Retrieved from: http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3754742

Day Three @ OLC

November 7, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Friday, October 31, 2014

Blogging to Create Community

Using Blogs to Improve Student Engagement and Learning
Michelle Aebersold, Dana Tschannen, Christine Anderson from Michigan University

This duo did NOT have an LMS that had a robust discussion format/interaction and wanted to get students enrolled in the nursing program to have more dialog in discussing the nursing activities and patient rounds they were practicing. Their audience were older students 35 age and up. They compared and contrasted similar written activities between Ctools’ Discussions and Blogger Blog posts. Across the activities Blogger reigned supreme in all user happiness and interaction.

Their objectives were to create a sense of community = greater cognitive learning

Cognitive presence – construct meaning thru reflection

Social presence –ability of participants to feel connected

Teaching presence – design, facilitation and process to support learning
Posted activities to do inside the blog

i.e. how to help unmotivated students
find an innovative strategy

Students give advise and goes beyond just typical learning-the blogs created a relaxed atmosphere.

Data analysis

survey about the blog
- feedback

Post Analysis

Categorized the social, cognitive, teaching & multiple elements
Methodology approach based on Jimoyiannis research

Comparison on Discussion Posts

Learning Theories – describe a theory & respond to another student’s post and describe why you choose the same or different
Clinical Evaluation –
Critical Thinking –what critical thinking would you choose?

Social Network Analysis

Sense of community
Teaching the how-tos up front save time in the long run
Course content may impact the level of creativity
Visualization of student social networks can aid in strategically designing blog assignment to increase connectivity.

Blogs are private and instructor monitors the posts settings are so ONLY those with the URL will be able to see the blogs.

Because they are working with students, they are asked not to post the unit or patient [and private info]

Peer Review in Online Open Courses
Phu Vu & Martonia Gaskill, University of Nebraska Kearney

This session covered the results of implementing a Peer Review – grading scoring strategy where learners used a set of criteria to critique one another’s work with the purpose of improving skills. This Peer Review was done within a MOOC and the presentation was not very well communicated. However, these notes do offer some insights and confirmation on peer reviews.

Facts:

Students who involve themselves in peer review perform better that those graded only by instructors
Peer review is build on the notion of collaboration and shared understanding
Peer feedback seem s to be associated with improving student academic achievement
Students write more carefully when they know the audience includes their peers
ESL studies suggest peer feedback exceeds instructor feedback

Concerns:

Students are biased or not honest in giving feedback.
Students in F2F reviews express anxiety in sharing their writing for fear of being wrong in front of their peers
Students have difficultly giving negative feedback esp to friends and worry this exercise will damage their relationships
Uneven quality of feedback.

What is an Open Course?

Web based
Open enrollment and free courses w/o enrollment caps
Contains all the content for the course
Low or no instructor involvement after course begins-auto pilot

Peer Review in Open Online Learning Environments

MOOCs remain limited in ability to effectively evaluate and provide feedback in qualitative assessment [i.e. essays].
Peer review makes the task of teaching at scale manageable for instructors

In the test course: discussions, lectures, resources, videos, delivered in Moodle LMS

Research Study.

Compare peer feedback rating with instructor feedback
512 participants- all ESL teachings, not new to teaching
20 different countries

Methodology:

Data collection
- Assignments audio instructions,
- Visuals
- Content
- Video presentation
- Online assessments
- Online learning materials
Data scores went into an excel spreadsheet
Results indicated instructors scored the assignments significantly higher than the peers.
- Critique vs. criticizes i.e. simon vs. Jennifer
Has qualitative data- but didn’t analyze it-why would she mention this in her presentation?

Discussion

Instructors scoring were consistently and significantly higher than peer review
Participants peer professional teachers
40% completion –enrollment was low
- they didn’t try to find out ‘why’ the teachers dropped
- no cost for class

Limitations

Qualitative peer review needs to be completed
No extra data was collected mid-way- to determine why the completion rate was so high
- Instructor not visible in course
Low enrollment in open course when compared to recent enrollment numbers

Need:

MOOCs will not survive w/o feedback from instructors
There are too many students, and students can not make connections

Day Two @OLC

November 7, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Presentation Day: Thursday, October 30, 2014

Poster Outside Our Session

Collaborative Creation: Challenges & Logistics of Launching a Fully Online Graduate Writing Program:
After a quick breakfast, Leanna and I got to the Americas Seminar room around 8:15 a.m. to prepare our Keynote. Our presentation clicked into place thanks to the help of our fabulous Educational Technologist, Chris Gaudreau. I want to give a HUGE shout out to Chris for all his assistance creating our presentation. Embedded videos and audios seamlessly played without a glitch. During the final practice run we made a few minor tweaks to our script and deemed ourselves ready.

As participants came in, we each worked the room introducing ourselves and asking where our guests were from. By 9:25 a.m. we had nine dedicated souls –coming from Utah, Tennessee, Kentucky, Connecticut, Georgia and Washington and elsewhere, all were truly interested in learning what we were presenting. By that point it felt like we were sharing stories with good friends.

During the presentation, I watched the audience take notes and the 30 minutes flew by. Before we knew it, we were into the Q&A session and then packing up our show. We are hoping to repackage the show and present it to a gathering of our Program Directors at Bay Path.

One audience member met up with us in the hallway to chat. He was interested in becoming a MFA faculty member. Peter was able to snap some pictures and also shot a video of our presentation. I hope to upload that in the near future-so stay tuned. After texting the office our gratitude for the flawless Keynote and grabbing a quick lunch we were onto the next session.

Secrets to Teaching Online:
In the afternoon, I choose to support Bill Hettinger, another adjunct faculty member, with whom I have been supporting online and had never met face-to-face. Besides teaching for the MBA, BUS, NMP and CIM programs at Bay Path, Bill also runs his own consulting company called Effective E-Learning and he has written a book on his experience supporting and guiding online faculty.

What I learned from Bill is that we are doing many things right at Bay Path and that we need to continue to re-fresh our online courses to keep them up to par. Nothing we didn’t already know-all this just takes time. One tidbit I did pick up from Bill, which is a good reminder: online courses need to have some consistency. Bill was referring to courses across a program and/or institution. Bill’s nugget to remember is that just as with an Amazon [or any other online] experience, the user wants to arrive feeling welcomed, easily find their way around the course and enjoy the whole learning experience.

Competency-Based Learning [CBL]:
I moved onto a session called, Competency-Based Education and Lessons: Our First Year Swimming in the Deep End, presented by Natalie & Robert Lupton and Laura Portolese Dias from Central Washington University. Their colleague Laura Portolese joined the session via a Google Hangout [with BTW very good results].

They vacillated between explaining their experience implementing competency-based courses revolving primarily around a retail management program of studies with content provided by Cingage.

This team told it like it was and did not spare any details of the pain they went through. However, it did seam like they had plenty of support & budget to bring this to fruition.

When approaching this new learning delivery model there are many aspects to consider as many institutional systems are impacted with the implementation of this approach such as: financial aid, curricular, registration, etc. across campus. This is not something that can be done in a bubble.

Modalities are turned upside down, as Competency-Based Learning:

requires educating the faculty as CBL measures learning rather than time spent on the assessment.
becomes a challenging shift for traditional teachers and professors who think in terms of schedules & seat time.
introduces the concept of fluid movement utilizing technology similar to online programs.
utilizes technology in seamless fashion to meet course outcomes in delivery competency-based education.
appears seamless -yet meets outcomes.
implements one-on-one personal advising for both mentors and evaluators.
requires measurable competencies.

Challenges which Central Washington University encountered, implementing a competency based program in retail management and technology

Content -Central got their content from Cingage.
Faculty understanding
Program marketing
- they recommend to start marketing early
Small starts = time to make operational systems changes

Questions:

Accreditation agency
Impacts on financial aid
How and when grades are submitted?
No competency based transcripts- grades are created on transcripts, just as they always have been done
Measure success- how?
How to manage faculty load? No seat hours/seat time ‘other services’
How many students per advisor /mentor/evaluator 1 to 30
Copyright issues?

Developing an Effective Program for Training & Supporting the Needs of Online Adjunct Faculty:
Victoria Walker Purdue UniversityAssistant professor in the learning design & technology program

In this session Victoria spoke of the challenges we all face when creating training & support for our online faculty-in particular our adjunct faculty.

Issues:

Few instructors in the pool
- Locating instructors to teach additional sections
- Instructor interest/excitement in teaching assigned courses
Instructor performance
- Disappearance during course
- Responsiveness – discussions & grades
- Low interaction
- Grading and feedback timing
Instructor loss
- Family crisis
Instructor confusion
- General program policies
- Program & lead instructor expectations for teaching course
- Student issues
- Technology
Instructor Exhaustion – workload issues
Program Administrators
- High level of support for instructors
- Student complaints
Lead Instructors
- High level of support for instructors
- Student complaints
Instructors operating individually rather than as a team

Anticipated that the vast majority of the new growth will be for part-time-adjunct instructors.

Declines in funding and greater financial demands-adjuncts are inexpensive

Adjunct Instructors

Hold advanced degrees – teaching & practicing in their fields
Often develop some portion of their courses-or augment
Many adjunct faculty teaching for online programs have never
- Visited the institutions
- No health care or benefits
Locating Hiring adjunct instructors
- Important for online programs

Benefits in hiring adjuncts

Remains with the institution
Bring expertise
Low cost method to increase course sections

GAP

Lack of studies dealing with the support of adjuncts
Responsibility of the admin to provide ample professional support

History of Learning Design & Training [LDT] Program Adjunct Instructor Training & Support

30 minutes of PPT orientation
LMS & Tech support
Course content support – lead instructors
Pedagogical support- administrators and lead instructors
Program policy support – administrators and lead instructors
Student issues related support -administrators and lead instructors

Design – Based Research
Systematic but flexible methodology aimed to improve educational practiced through iterative analysis design development & implementation, base don collaboration among researchers and practitioners in real-world settings and learning to contextually sensitive design principles and theories. [Wang and Hannafin, 2005, pp. 6-7]

Researchers & practitioners working together over extended period
Provide solutions to a practical problem in a specific educational context
Intervention – process or activity designed as a possible solution

Design Research Model

Generic model for design research used to outline the training & support project phases
2 phases of analysis/exploration, design/construction and evaluation/reflection

Program & Instructor Needs Defined
Support and training were needed PRIOR to teaching [they had no formal training program]

Administrative support
Preparing to teach for LDT

Support and training would continue throughout the instructors teaching experience

Administrative support
Preparing to teach courses
Pedagogical and course content and course design support
Technical questions & student concerns
Monitoring

Intervention 360 training & support PRIOR to teaching

Program coordinator hires adjunct instructors
Curriculum coordinator to provide administration support for adjunct faculty
- Creating university account
- Contracts
- General questions
- Training sessions – scheduling, attending, and documenting attendance, recommendations.

They have an Instructional Designer who assists them in creating their online course.

Orientation training revised & significantly improved

4 weeks prior to teaching
- [retake once every 2 years or if the adjunct has not taught in 2 semesters]
Course housed in LMS [Blackboard]
Available after training concludes

Support personnel

Lead instructors
Curriculum coordinator
LDT administrators [program concerns]
Student services coordinator
ID – technical and pedagogical questions

Check in session

1 hour length
Technical, pedagogical questions, policy questions concerns
30 minutes questions/30 minutes learn new

each course as assigned lead instructor

lead instructor provides:

intro to course
course specific instructor – JOB Aid for that instructor
access to previous course
peer interaction during course
peer feedback during or after the course
crisis interventionist

Mentoring piece- new, new instructors

Paid position assistantship
Work with core faculty in two courses
Evaluated by core faculty and students
- Scheduled to assist again
- Scheduled to teach their own sections or
- Dismissed

Evaluation of LDT Training & Support

Informal feedback
Adjunct instructor training & support survey
- Distributed every 6 months

Data Collection

Evaluates training
Evaluates support received
Collaboration, scaffolding & mentoring

Future areas for improvement

Community of practice

Engaging adjunct instructors teaching online courses and provide w/community
Engaging discussion
Creating community
Recognize adjunct faculty
Benefits beyond pay

NERCOMP Workshop

November 5, 2014 by mwiseman@baypath.edu

On November 13, 2014 Gail McKenna and I will be presenting a workshop at the North East Regional Computing Program [NERCOMP] entitled Proactive & Reactive Faculty Support. Our session will explore the challenges we all face supporting faculty developing, building, and delivering online courses. The presentation will include finding balance in the multi-faceted approach to proactive and reactive support methods. We will identify and discuss strategies used at Bay Path University. Participants will work in small groups to brainstorm more solutions. Our goal is for everyone to leave the session with ideas for bringing balance to these support situations rather than being controlled by them.

MHE622- Week Two Blog Entry-Reflections on Learnings

November 2, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Tar Heel

First Shared Blog Entry Review: Academic Fraud

My daughter Xernay, attends Elon University in Elon, North Carolina [a 35 minute drive west from Chapel Hill] and for some time now she has been telling me ‘stories’ of student athletes – from Chapel Hill – being recruited with all sorts of promises such as- first pick on ‘easy’ classes, monetary stipends and private tutors, along with a realm of other ‘amenities’-just for playing ball. I had sort of brushed off my daughter’s comments thinking this was ‘urban myth’, until I read the Stripling article describing academic fraud, which Professor Testori posted on our Shared Resources Page.

When I read Stripling’s list for the football team’s eligibility

They didn’t go to class
They didn’t take notes, have to stay awake
They didn’t have to meet with professors
They didn’t have to pay attention or necessarily engage with the material.

I was infuriated! But, probably not as angry as Carol L. Folt, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and others who had been having the wool pulled over their eyes for so many years.

The article also cemented, in my mind, my daughter’s opinion that most of Chapel Hill’s football team were, as my daughter stated, “idiot guys who were only there to play football and never even went to class.” This article went on to describe how ‘anguished’ Ms. Folt was in the prolonged nature of the crisis.

I think those die-hard Tar Heel fans will be more closely watched-especially those who are ‘still’ employed by Chapel Hill. I gather there will be much stricter ‘management’ of academic registration and oversight of the Chapel Hill athletes. I wonder what Professor Debby [Ms. Crowder] is doing these days?

Second Shared Blog Entry Review: The Future of Distance Education
Having just spent 3 days attending, listening and presenting at the Online Learning Consortium 20^th Annual International Conference I was anxious to further dissect the article written by Steven Cohen and posted by Carol Dykas entitled Distance Learning and the Future of Education. The article’s use of ‘distance’ vs. ‘online’ does date the content. That said, this article has solid information.

Carol stated in her review how Cohen makes the point, “Advances in educational technology provide new ways to teach, new ways to learn, and new ways to measure the effectiveness of educational offerings.” I agree that face-to-face educational experiences allows, learning to happen in lounges, cafes and bars around the physical campus. Personally, I felt Cohen was ‘suggesting’ this could not be replicated in an online environment.

To this I would disagree. I do believe we can virtually replicate a face-to-face experience and build connections and friendships just like those a ‘real address’ gives. Cohen’s article was written in 2012 which means that Moore’s Law [which states that computer processing power doubles about every 18 months] has had enough time to further and virtually replicate the face-to-face experience Cohen mentions. And, we have had time to further our human interaction with technology and ability to interact with technology; think iPhone’s FaceTime, Skype, Google Hangout and the array of webinar conferencing technologies we have to use to augment our online experience. In my humble opinion, mobile technology is at the forefront of this trend, which lead me to review the article Jill Motyka shared.

Third Shared Blog Entry Review: Intensification of Online Retention
The Chris Tilghman, As CE Becomes More Central, Focus on Online Retention Will Intensify. Chris interviewed the vice-president of program development at InsideTrack. The very first ‘trend’ discussed is mobile technology and the hope that it will be the folks in higher education who will bring online learning to the tiny computers that everybody is carrying around in their pockets these days.

We have to start thinking of the ‘learning we desire to exchange’ in terms of the fluid movement that mobile technology allows. As Chen and Denoyelles state, “In order to improve mobile learning effectiveness, students and instructors need help adopting more effective learning and teaching practices across content areas.” Chen and Denovelles remind of that the use of mobile learning on the rise in higher education. They conclude that, “Instructors must gain knowledge of these innovative technologies and integrate them into the curriculum with sound facilitation and assessment strategies, as well as be able to support the mobile practices of students.”

To prove the importance of why the shift to implement technological innovation is import, watch this 4 minute video entitled A Vision of Students Today by Michael Wesch. If you have not yet seen this, I highly recommend the couple of minutes it takes to watch. It summarizes the characteristics and vision of students today and while it was uploaded 7 years ago, it is still relevant today.

“Today’s child is bewildered when he enters the 19^th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules.” -Marshall McLuhan 1967

Additionally this 3 minute video [below] created by Erin Brethauer, describes how teacher colleges are working to improve technology literacy of future educators. The accompanying article by Robin L. Flanigan describes how Clemson University is challenging traditional teaching techniques and placing an emphasis on focusing on how educators can, “… improve their curriculum, in technology and other areas, to help educators and benefit students…”

Change takes time and it is especially challenging for colleges and universities who tend to hold onto traditional methods of teaching. Slowly change can occur and I enjoy and am excited to be a part of that change.

References:
Chen, B., & Denoyelles, A. (2013). Exploring Students’ Mobile Learning Practices in Higher Education. Why IT Matters to Higher Education EDUCAUSE Review Online. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/exploring-students-mobile-learning-practices-higher-education

Cohen, S. (2012, October 1). Distance Learning and the Future of Education. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-cohen/distance-learning-and-the_b_1928535.html

Flanigan, R.L. (2014. January 27). Teacher Colleges Seek to Shift to Digital Age. Education Week. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/29/19el-teachers.h33.html

Stripling, J. (2014, October 23). Widespread Nature of Chapel Hill’s Academic Fraud Is Laid Bare. Retrieved October 23, 2014, from http://chronicle.com/article/Widespread-Nature-of-Chapel/149603/

Tighlman, C. (2014, March 12). As CE Becomes More Central, Focus on Online Retention Will Intensify. Retrieved October 27, 2014 from http://www.insidetrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/as-ce-becomes-more-central-focus-on-online-retention-will-intensify-c….pdf

X. Aniwar, (personal communication, November 1, 2014)

Day One @OLC 2014

October 31, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

The Online Learning Consortium 20^th Annual International Conference #ALN14 is being held at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando at the heart of Walt Disney World. Founded back in 1992 from funding by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation [formerly known as the Sloan Consortium], this year Sloan has undergone some rebranding as @OLC moves into new markets worldwide. This name change signifies where Sloan has been and where it is headed-online.

Leadership & Administration and Faculty & Student Engagement are the primary tracks this year with the all-encompassing Undefined track serving to contain the balance of the hundreds of sessions offered this year. One event coordinator told me there were 2200 attendees with more offerings than any previous year.

I arrived interested in hearing more about:

Mobile learning
Competency-based learning
How others have been tackling the issues of orientating faculty into online learning?
What others are doing to incorporate online community for their faculty?

Day 1 Wednesday, October 29, 2014 did not disappoint.

I started #ALN14 by listening to Jason Rhode of Northern Illinois University speak about Designing Competency-Based Self-Paced Online Workshops for Introducing Faculty to Online Teaching Technologies.

Granted Northern Illinois University [NIU] has a much larger ‘scale’ than Bay Path in their approach to orientating their faculty to online learning-however, they do many things we already do:

survey faculty for prior knowledge,
allow faculty to work in a sand-box [or Master] course,
create an individualized plan. We do this, albeit a little less formally than NIU,
and offer a self-paced learning environment.

A few takeaways I would like to see us implement in our online faculty orientation are:

Offer a slightly more formalized ‘learning contract’ for our online faculty. This might be a little more time consuming [however, I’m sure we could find some technology to track] and I believe it would legitimate the process. We could augment our orientation with a couple of ‘free’ perks as well, such as offering:
- a little more ‘pre-start’ guidance and objectives for the incoming faculty
- badges for completion
- an approach to the potential of an online certification. This might dove-tail into feeding faculty into the MHE program.
- a gateway leading faculty to our ‘newly developed’ online community.

I attended a session entitled, Building Online Academic Communities with the Commons in a Box, by Matthew K. Gold from City Tech and Grad Center of CUNY. I have been working with WordPress since 2009 and believe it is a great solution for containing an online community [as well as ePortfolios].

Commons in a box is great solution that would give us everything we need to create our own BPU academic online community- and it’s free. We like free.

This would give faculty, student groups, departments etc. virtual space to create:

profile pages
groups
committees
blogs
academic journals and other research
links to social media feeds
a showcase of examples

With the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing Program at the top of my mind, I can easily envision an MFA Cohort page for faculty and students alike, to congregate and share all sorts of information.

Of course, there would be challenges:

maintenance- who is responsible? How often?
interaction fatigue –would this be used by the community? Or, is it overload?
tracking and surveillance-for the community

Yet, the possibilities are:

Communities ARE our Resources- they create our stories
They become our human microphone

This session ended with an interesting quote, by Jim Groom,

‘It ain’t a community without love, feedback, and being there.’

The afternoon keynote speaker Dr. John Medina was one of my favorites of the day. Speaking to an audience of at least 800 people, once he started talking, John barely stopped to breathe. John’s premise revolves around the 12 brain rules. In his talk he spoke about a couple.

Survival: The brain is a survival organ. It is designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in nearly constant motion (to keep you alive long enough to pass your genes on). We were not the strongest on the planet but we developed the strongest brains, the key to our survival.

Isn’t it interesting how learning often revolves around sitting still, in a classroom? How might we incorporate some of these brain survival rules into online learning? John went on to explain the impact of exercise.

Exercise: Exercise boosts brain power. The human brain evolved under conditions of almost constant motion. From this, one might predict that the optimal environment for processing information would include motion. Indeed, the best business meeting would have everyone walking at about 1.8 miles per hour. At work, we are in our own way, by incorporating our standing desks!

To get a little sense of John’s energy have a look at this quick video. I think John’s book[s] are a must for my library.

This was just Day One!
How did Leanna and Mary’s presentation on Collaborative Creation go?
Stay tuned for more details.

Online Learning at the Swan & Dolphin

October 29, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

After a long day of travel from the north, I was delighted to be able to step out onto my balcony at the Swan and Dolphin Hotel, in 80 degree weather, to view this sight. I immediately turned off my AC and kept the sliding door open to fresh air and sunshine.

The impeccable groomed grounds Swan and Dolphin Hotel in Disney

Getting a ‘lay of the land’ [which feel to be spread out over acres of flawless green grass and ground, shining pools and palm trees] is a bit of exercise. I’m glad I packed my pair of Converse. After an evening of outdoor relaxation the stroll back to my room I encountered this ‘avenue of the pink palms.

Avenue of the pink palms

Back at my room, I studied the session guide which kept me up well past my usual bedtime. It looks to be a very lively time here at the Online Learning Consortium International Conference 2014.

Evening image of Swan and Dolphin Hotel

OLA in FLA @ Disney World

October 28, 2014 by Mary Wiseman

Online Learning Consortium 20th Annual Conference 2014

Online Learning Consortium International Conference 2014

I am preparing to head out to #ALN14 to present @OLCToday . If you wonder how creative you need to be to launch a fully online program? Catch us http://bit.ly/1yGnnig

Got my traveling shoes on…

Leanna James Blackwell and I will be presenting our ‘story’ of how we have creatively collaborated in the launch of the fully online Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing at Bay Path University.

I will be rehearsing on the flight down.

What people are saying…