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
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