eLCC 2015 Conference Notes and thoughts from Carl

I really appreciated the opportunity to attend this conference.  As with any conference there are hits and misses, but overall I think this was a very good conference. 

Things that jumped out:

·         The opportunity to attend this conference made me realize what a talented team we have in our department

·         Nicole's and Terry's presentation "Expand Your Learning by Taking a Journey of Reflection was very good.

·         If "Social Media" is being used in a course, at the very least it needs to be in the syllabus.  We don't want students to be caught unaware of the requirement.

·         Two things to investigate more:

                                Clickers on the cloud
                                Intelligent Agent on D2L 

If you tweet, #eLearningCO has links to presentations and resources from the conference. 

The following are my notes for the sessions that I attended.  The session titles are in bold and all-caps. At the end of each of the session notes I tried to capture my thought(s) on the session. The notes may not stand alone, so please contact me with any questions or additional discussion you would like to have.

 

DIGITAL BADGES - UCD -Brent Wilson, Crystal Gasell, Aysenur Ozyer

 Careful not to give a badge just for attendance. 

Make sure you have APPROPRIATE assessment.

Some resistance, why are they needed?

Course Level, Program Level, Institutional Level Simplest way is to embed within a course.

Looking at working in badges with college credit.

Great to incorporate with Professional Development.

They have a profile page on the web that shows all badges earned.

Working on 70 different modules.  Example, basics of Turn-It-In.

Needed badges to work within Canvas (LMS) Badge Save works within Canvas Need to make sure you are not using a service that could go away.

Need to determine who is going to manage system? This is big.  Who will design badges?  Who will manage pedagogy involved.

 My thought - so many possibilities. Keeping badges internal might be a good starting point

  

MOBILE READY COURSE WITH UNIVERSAL DESIGN Kate Miller CU Online

11% of college students have a disability and 68% do not report.

When you design in Canvas it is accessible.

JAWS software to test courses.

My thought - this was very basic (listed as intermediate).  Very Canvas specific.  I didn't take many notes. 

ENHANCED LEARNING INTEGRATION AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN TECHNOLOGY FOCUSED PRACTICUM COURSES  United States Air Force Academy   Steve Green

AACSB Accreditation

 Integrating, Culminating, Transitioning

"Education is not in crisis, it’s in motion"  Janet Napolitano President of Berkeley

 Integrating - Keystone Course

Culminating - Capstone Course

Transitioning - Practice or Clinical Course   Typically in the field

 Capsim Simulation - capsim.com

Something like this could be great for COBE.

Cost of Assurance Learning $53.99 sim, 14.99 individual exam A good simulation tells you how doing in whole program.

Culminating - New Ventures that apply innovative technology. more of a flipped classroom,  class time devoted to team interaction.  They do a project. 

Transitioning -  real Air Force Projects

 My thought - Capstone and/or practicum courses need real application and need to be engaging.  It should pull everything together. 

 

UNDERSTANDING PERSONALITIES OF ONLINE STUDENTS: Importance for Successful Teaching Classes begins with acquaintances.  Sometimes students poke to see what type of reaction happens.

 My thought - This one was a miss for me.

 

IMPROVING ONLINE COURSE QUALITY THROUGH STUDENT ENGAGEMENT:  Jackie Crouch, Sharon Stevens University of Colorado Springs.

Most require read or listen to learn materials, write to communicate.

Sharing information is changing.  Audio and video communication can enhance social presence and engagement.

1 in 5 students have difficulty with reading and writing. 

Changes:

Instructor feedback using audio

Discussion Forums using voice instead of text Peer Assessments enhanced with video

 

They use Blackboard and use the features within the LMS.

 

A wired internet connection can be a barrier for students.

Effort may not be worth it for one assignment.

Noise in background can be an issue.

Make sure there is support.  

My thought - We are doing a pretty good job with multi-media, but we need to continue to push multi-media and Universal Design.   

 

INSTRUCTIONAL ASSESSEMENT DELIVERY AND DATA COLLECTION SOLUTIONS TO ENGAGE, MONITOR, AND MEASURE MILLENNIAL STUDENTS Tammy Sherrard Northern Arizona Adjunct

Millennial students want it fast and have a different view of life. They see the world evolve around them.  They need instant gratification.  

Clickers creates engagement 

Can use software to make them ADA compliant. 

TurningPoint Cloud - integrates with LMS, works with cell phone, laptop, or clicker. 

SAMR Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition this is a constant journey.

I had fun in this one. One question, can you sneeze with your eyes open?  100% said no, and she said the correct answer is yes, you can train yourself to do it. I shared the question was can you, not is it possible?   She liked that.   

My thought - I know we are using clickers in some classes, and maybe we should consider Turning Point Cloud.  

 

EXPAND YOUR LEARNING BY TAKING A JOURNEY OF REFLECTION WITH BLOGS: Nicole Ellison, Terry Buxton

Will have an article published on this in May. 

Students may share what they think they think  you want to hear.  By using a blogging tool (blogger.com) it causes them to open up more.

They can select who they share with.

This can be used for a whole program, not just a course. 

Terry set up her own blog so students could use as an example. 

Make sure you have support for students with technology and that you make sure you make them aware of the rubric. 

My thought - Great presentation. I was surprised how many are using reflection and grade it. They shared a really good rubric.  

INTELLIGENT AGENTS IN D2L

FRONT RANGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE - Brandon Pouliot 

Provides quick and automated notification when defined activity occurs in a course.  Examples: Reminders when there is a lack of activity or welcome message, or encouragement, gamification of course Messages don't have to be just text and can be customized.

Release conditions are important.

Used as a motivational tool.

10.4.10 can do in mass.  

My thought - not sure how much we are using this, but is something we should consider using more.  We need to be clear how we would want to use, and be clear on the goal of using. Maybe use with badges.  We didn't want to spend the money on StarFish, but this is free. 

 

Robbie Melton - Key Note Speaker - Great Presentation What color is a yield sign? Majority  said yellow, it hasn't been yellow in 45 years!

Kobo - free books

App for sign language

Didn't take a lot of notes too involved in presentation and it was at lunch.

 

USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO HELP LEARNERS SCALE NEW HEIGHTS AND REACH NEW PEAKS   University of Denver Kathy Keairns 

7 Principles Good Practice: Social Media as a Lever

                Encourage contact between students and faculty

                Develop Reciprocity and Cooperation among students

                Encourage Active Learning

                Provides Prompt Feedback

                Emphasizes Time on Task 

                Communication High Expectations

                Respect diverse talents and ways of learning

 iPedagogy Wheel - match Blooms with social media

Twitter, can create #tag for the course 

My thought - should we have a policy around how we want to use social media, and address is it okay to say student has to create an account if they don't have one?  Consider FERPA issues.  Needs to be in Syllabus if used.

 

AVOIDING MULTIMEDIA TRAPS IN THE CLASSROOM: HOW TO INCREASE LEARNING OUTCOMES BASED ON CURRENT BEST PRACTICES. Amy Buckingham, Jon Johnson, Red Rocks Community College

 Mayer's Cognitive Theory of Mutimedia Learning

                Words and Pictures we process differently. Visual or Auditory  learners. 

                Finite capacity for both.  Short term memory 7 chunks of information. 

                Learning is active -how do we fit it in.

 

You don't need a picture of a dog since when we say "dog" we create our own picture of a dog.

Students learn better from words and pictures than from words alone (Mayer, 2001) Avoid using decorative images - keep it simple.

Illustrations and text should be located in close proximity.

Do not use mixed modal formats to display information Present corresponding words and pictures simultaneously rather than successively.

Keep it simple - avoid using multiple representations of the same concept. 

Students learn better with irrelevant information removed. 

My thought - I think this presentation was more for the classroom, ignores ADA, and I question how it aligns with Universal Design?  

 

GETTING THE BEST OF TEAM PROJECTS ... ONLINE Lou Cartier Aims Online

2014

Team formation and development

Project activity benchmarks

Communication

Accountability

 
2015
Intentional

Reflective

Engaged

Collaborative

Integrated 

Lack of participation and other team members have to pick it up.  They need to reflect more what teams are like and how teams operate in the real world.  

One student said nontraditional students do it at work they don't need to do it in their learning. 

Consider giving the team the chance to fire a team member.  Suggestion/Thinking - Member can do all of the project, and best he/she gets is a "C"

Phases of group project

                Set-up

                Starting Out   

                Closing the deal

                Grading and assessment

Student feedback

                Mandatory orientation

                Confidence building tasks - develop small tasks

                Removal of non-performers

                Shared responsibility for grading/assessment

Linkedin.com/group/How-do-you-handle-students

        
My thought - With team projects we need to make sure that the purpose of the project is clear, expectations of the team, team roles, and team member capabilities, also how it is graded.  Let each team member know that each member should let the facilitator or team lead know immediately if there is an issue with a team member.  I think we should have an team evaluation of the team.  Let the team give a percentage of the overall grade.

 

DO DISCUSSIONS MATTER IN ONLINE COURSES?  Matthew Rysavy Colorado Community College

 

Probably they do!

HIs research showed the earlier a student post a response the better the grade they get in the class.

Class GPA is higher the higher the instructor comments.

My thought - We need to make sure there is a purpose for the discussion.  Discussions need to align to outcomes.  Good to provide facilitators guidance on how to facilitate discussions.