Nicole’s summary of the eLcc Conference
Overall, it was a great conference. It is always nice to visit and network with folks from other Colorado Colleges and schools. The theme of this year’s conference was “Survivor or Lost; Exploring the Realities of eLearning.”
The opening Keynote speaker was James Jamison, President of Transformational Learning. http://www.imagilearning.com/
He focused on the digital learner and that we shouldn’t stereotype the vision of who that might be. It is not necessarily young people. He used the example of his 85 year old mother who tweets or blogs. Jim’s take home point was on the concept of “tranceformational learning.” (no, that is not a typo). By closely examining what is happening in the brain when we “experience” something. He used examples of gaming and the learning that takes place during that experience. Elements in that experience might be: reading, adrenaline rush, motivation, problem-solving, trial and error, and sometimes even feeling lost. Upon closer examination of this ‘experience’ we know that there are similar patterns of activity going on in our brain during gaming as there is when we are “learning”. How might we create a learning activity that doesn’t have the label of “this is a learning activity.” Not to be sneaky in the process but identifying this “learning trance” that occurs during gaming and bringing that to the curriculum.
To read more about James, tranceformational learning and imagiLearning, go to http://www.imagilearning.com/
The ATLAS project/ Eric Salahub, Front Range Community College
This session was primarily about classroom assessment techniques but in the online classroom. How might we collect formative evaluations and feedback from our online students?
ATLAS: Asynchronous, Learning, Teaching Assessment Strategies
This was a great discussion on comparing classroom vs. online techniques for immediate feedback or formative evaluations.
Clickers are used in the classroom for immediate feedback during lectures, could this be done in the online classroom. I actually suggested a free tool called polleverywhere.com (In which I was presenting on the next day for this very purpose).
Other suggestions that came of the discussion where: formative “minute” papers, minute emails, anonymous discussions, a “one word” journal (for example: describe an article in one word and then write a paragraph about why you choose that word to describe it)
Resources: Google “50 CATS” by Angelo and Cross or copy and paste the following link pages.uoregon.edu/tep/resources/newteach/fifty_cats.pdf
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Faculty Support Blog/ Nate Wadman, Pikes Peak Community College
Nate explained that this faculty support blog was originally put in place when they were transitioning to D2L and they wanted to make it easy for faculty to have a location to get “how-to” articles. He sent out a weekly “what’s new“ email blast to all faculty pointing out a bullet list of new articles that were posted. At one point they actually had over 30K hits. Because they hosted their WordPress blog directly at Wordpress at first they found out that when you have over 20K hits the advertisements will begin to get plastered on the site. Unfortunately, the ads were for University of Phoenix! They pulled the blog and hosted it on a college server. They had trouble getting the same amount of traffic to the site after that, but it could have been because the “newness” of D2L was dying down and people where getting comfortable with it.
Some lessons learned that Nate shared:
- If you choose WordPress, host on own server
- Market and promote with simple weekly emails, use frequently asked questions and issues for articles
- Perhaps don’t call it “a blog” but simply a faculty resource site. Some people have expectations and assumptions about “blogs” that might deter them from visiting the site.
- Use Jing for quick short demos
- Tag posts with version of D2L, as this will change over time and some articles may become obsolete.
- Tag well
- Remove those outdated posts as needed.
- provide clear instructions (maybe even a demo) on how to navigate and search for content inside the blog.
Time to share-for Free! CCCOnline
This session was great because I learned about 5 new and interesting Web 2.0 tools that have some potential.
Join.me: This is a free tool where you can utilize screen sharing on the fly. In addition there are voice conferencing features as well. With the free account you can do internet calling, screen sharing, you can have up to 250 viewers, share controls, chat and view on iPad/iPhone or Android.
Projeqt.com: Dynamic Presentations for a real-time world. Create dynamic slideshows for storytelling but also incorporate layers or “stacks” as they call it in Projeqt. You can pull in photos, text, twitter, RSS feeds, YouTube, Flickr, and several more tools!
Evernote: Evernote is a popular free notetaking tool that students utilize. It is cloud based and there are mobile apps for it as well. Notes may include audio, photos and video. Searchable.
Daytum: ok this tool could be a stretch for practical use but it was really interesting and I think perhaps could have some potential for tracking research data over time. Daytum is dubbed a web-based method for collecting, categorizing, and communicating everyday data. It allows for a graphical interface that represents all the data that you choose to track.
Popplet.com: This is a free web-based mindmapping tool and seems a little easier to use than other mindmapping tools and it is more robust. You can collaborate in real-time. You can print and export. You can pull in photos and videos as well.
Keynote: Kevin King, Founder & CEO Transformation Point, Inc.
www.TransformationPoint.com
“Mapping Learning to Application: Improve the effectiveness of virtual teams in the real world.”
www.TransformationPoint.com
“Mapping Learning to Application: Improve the effectiveness of virtual teams in the real world.”
I really liked this keynote as he talked about teams, communication and human nature. Kevin offered some detailed strategies for setting up success among virtual teams. (but really any team for that matter) Understanding personality characteristics both in yourself and in your teammates is a good place to start. Kevin explained the dimensions of trust (ability; benevolence; integrity) and how that is the key to a successful team.
Kevin also discussed a 5 factor model of personality (Costa and McCrae)
Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. (each trait has a scale from one extreme to the other)
Using some of these models can help guide a team in aligning their strengths and develop strategies for success.
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D2L version 10
The representative from D2L went over the new features and changes that are coming with the 10.0 upgrade. This is considered a major upgrade. There will be a new look and feel to the LMS. They are focusing in on a very “personal” experience for the student. The official release of version 10 will be in May. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Regis is upgrading in May. More information on that will be communicated when we know.
Part of the new look and feel includes much more flexibility in branding the LMS. Users may even add a photo on the background. The menus will be changing to make it easier to navigate and a personalized experience. For example, on the home page there is what they call a “minibar” with dropdown menus to personal grade announcements, notifications, a course list, messages, announcements etc.
· The calendar will be able to sync with Google calendar and/or Microsoft Outlook.
· There will be a plugin for Office that will allow a direct submission to the dropbox from Word.
- The dropbox will be integrated with Google Apps to allow direct submissions.
- Improved competencies tool that can go all the way up to the institution level.
- Instructors will have ability to record video when providing feedback.
- D2L “lecture capture” tool will be viewable with Apple products as it is archived as HTML5
- A mobile app has been designed for instructors for easy grading on the iPad. It is called the “D2L assignment grader” the lite version is free; $10 for full version.
- A 1st post restriction for discussions will be in the upgrade
- Improved communication with external tools and scorm objects
- The Journal tool is being phased out.
Shock and Awe; How to engage online students?
Karen Kaemmerling CCConline
This was more of a brainstorming discussion but here are my notes:
Create drama through storytelling, characters, “tell the untold story”
Emotional content; tying emotion with the learning and content
Competition; guided debates, conflict and resolution, guidance with critical thinking;
Explore “uncomfortableness”
Play devil’s advocate
Have students write the discussion questions
Use social media and blogs for positive professional activities
Rubrics Rock/ Jennifer Frahm, AIMS
Rubrics provide a means to
· Organize (students can organize their time and effort)
· Communicate (expectations)
· Conflict resolution (understanding the difference between an A and C, doing average work and going beyond just doing the assignment)
· Stress management (no surprises reduces stress)
· Streamlines grading (consistent and fair grading)
An Objective is the intended result(s)
An Outcome is a product or deliverable
Competencies are skills or behaviors
Consider allowing students to generate their own rubric and submit for approval to the instructor. What do the students think they should be graded on? Would they perform better when they decide on the rubric?
Provide good and bad examples
Define the gold standard- what is the difference between simply meeting expectations and going above and beyond?
Jennifer mentioned that there are some big limitations in the D2L rubrics tool as it does not allow for a range of levels. It shows “# or more” instead of range.
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