Conference Wrap-up

"Alright, which one of you keeps tapping me on the shoulder?"

I tend to feel shoulder-tapped after a good bit of conferencing. There are the new technologies tapping my left, and the beneficial processes tapping my right, and anecdotal stories tapping either side or both sides. And then there are the multitude of questions that remain and need for more research that can't happen quickly enough. It's all a tad overwhelming.

To help summarize, here is a bulleted list of questions and thoughts:

• Does improved design improve retention/learning?
• Is text dead or dying?
• Can video fill the reading gap?
• Are we diluting education by reducing reading, and speaking to other modalities?
• Do faculty want to learn or be trained?
• Do students want to learn or be trained?
• How social should learning be?
• Why can't I sync this iPod to more than one computer?
• Why is it so cold in Iowa?
  

Closing Brunch: Changing Learning

Brunch was very filling. I really eat too much when faced with a buffet. I just need to know what everything tastes like.

Elliot Masie came to us from his office in NY (a mighty fine office, I might add) via Adobe Connect (see previous post on virtual orientations). First, I found it interesting and annoying in that the people at my table wouldn't shut up. They weren't even bothering to whisper. I probably should have asked them to be quiet, but I was so curious why they felt it was appropriate to carry on their conversation when a virtual speaker (he couldn't hear them) was addressing us. I imagine this kind of thing happens all the time in our KTS classrooms. I hope students are able to ask other students to be quiet.

The speech itself wasn't exactly full of revelations. He did help me come to terms with a strange phenomenon I have noticed with our digitally native students -- they are not always very tech savvy. Instead they have "screen knowledge" - they know how it should work, not how it does work.

He has a website with a newsletter, and I couldn't help but notice he is sponsoring an entire conference dedicated to Learning Systems. Sure is timely.

Throw Away the Old Business Model

This session was kind of big commercial for Coastline Learning. But they are doing some really interesting things. The biggest item, aside from a full-blown LMS coming in 2009 maybe, is their design of a relational database driven repository of learning objects and information. This might be difficult to picture, but imagine that Keith develops an online simulation for microscopes and Jed discusses the invention of a microscope in his history course and how that affected life as we know it. Wouldn't it be swell if these pieces could be linked together? That's kind of the idea.

Most of the time was spent discussing their new pricing structure and how great it is that now the cost can be passed on to students. They are a business and need to make money.

Public Speaking Online

SCAD always impresses. They like to do things right. In this case though, I am torn. Don't get me wrong, they still went all out. It's just that I never had to take a speech class in college. I don't really feel like I suffered for it. Maybe those who have seen me speak would beg to differ. I do get nervous. As a foreign language student though, I was standing up in front of my class and speaking just about every day, so maybe that counts for something. And now that I think about it, I am more comfortable speaking Chinese in front of people than speaking English. Hmm, need to call my shrink, I think I just had a breakthrough.

Speech at Kirkwood, like many other institutions, is a stumbling block toward full online degrees. I spoke with a dean from a community college in CA who explained the transfer institutions in his area would not accept online speech courses unless the instructor was able to be in the same room as the student while the speeches were given. Kind of kills the idea of distance learning, doesn't it? I'm not sure where our transfer institutions stand on this issue.

SCAD did not have this problem. But they did meet with a lot of resistance from instructors. And here is how the course was set up to meet the outcomes and quell some of the faculty's fears: 2 video submitted speeches (requiring a live audience of at least 10 people), learner's journal, 2 exams, 20 research assignments, 11 discussions, and an extra credit speech was optional. Incredibly rigorous. Perhaps too much so. The students were required to submit 3 audience member evaluations, post their speech videos online for other student to critique, and so on.

Their big lesson learned was the need for more modeling. Students at a distance did not have the benefit of seeing the instructor model hand gestures, eye contact, etc. They are exploring video modeling for their revision.

It was an interesting session. K. Michelle Scott, an experienced public speaking professor, is committed to providing a high caliber course. I hope she presents again next year. She's good at public speaking.

Second Life for Administrators

This session was a bit too basic and not really geared toward administrators so much. It was really just an intro to SL. But they did have some advice for those who were considering buying an island (as we are).

1. Hire an Island manager
2. Hire an Island developer
   
3. Check out potential virtual locations that make sense (close to UI or ISU if they are in-world?)
4. Promote events (see #1)

We may be in for a wild ride with our entry into SL.

Video on a Budget

Video Camp. Too cool. But a lot of work.

I plan to follow up on this presentation. I like video. I want to encourage more faculty to work with video. I want to encourage students to work with video. The presentation was directed more toward the absolute beginner, but I still picked up an interesting scripting worksheet. The worksheet is designed to help faculty plan for a better video project. This will certainly make it into my KCELT seminar next fall.

Top reasons video is bad? Lighting and audio, according to the speaker. So, she bought a nice camera, sweet lights and some good mics. But I would add that a poor plan would also lead to a poor video. The scripting process they have devised helps that.

Columbia Gorge Community College delivers their videos through iTunes U. Is Kirkwood looking into iTunes U? The powerpoint and the scripting document and sample videos are available on Paula Ascher's blog. She's pretty cool.

Student Centered Learning Strategies

Have you ever heard of heutagogy? Me neither. It refers to self-determined learning, or maybe self-teaching. I did a bunch of research on autonomous learning for my M.A., but I don't remember coming across papers on heutagogy. Not a big deal, I can learn about it later.

Heutagogy would have made for an interesting presentation on its own, but instead we were treated to the results of the presenter's dissertation study. The only problem was that the study was so small it was often meaningless. Her study was teaching the same English (composition I think) course in two different ways. One was the control (canned) version supplied by the English department and the other was infused with all kinds of "student-centered" learning activities (e.g. positive messages, multi-media, peer interaction, discussion, group work, etc). Each course only had about 15-17 students, so trend analysis just seemed silly.

Still, it's an interesting attempt at trying to gain an understanding of what she called "Electronic Pedagogy" (I'm not sure if she made that up, but I like it). Near the end, someone asked what she felt was the most important piece of student-centered learning that she added to the experimental group. Her response was the inclusion of learning and personality style assessments. Maybe I should add these to the student orientation.

Course Design Bootcamp

The idea is to offer training to improve online teaching and course design. Their model was an 8 week course (2 hour sessions, once a week for 8 weeks) to cover such goals as Instructional Design Model, LMS Training, Web 2.0, Communication, Learning Modules that work, Assessing Learning, Assessing Courses, Best/Worst practice, etc... They are exploring moving the whole training online.

Faculty at the college developed the checklist used and the instructional design criteria. This has proved rather helpful. The document is available on their website. Might be something we could use as we evaluate different course evaluation tools.

The other passing thought that was mentioned was using Project Management Software in the course development process. I've never really used project management software, but maybe there would be some benefits?

Seeking Gold Standard

Dr. Patricia McGee opened the second day of the conference with a whirlwind of a presentation. Gold standards are apparently not sought lightly. Nor should they be. Her presentation ended with an image of the Conference Bike:


I think DL should get one of these. Or maybe KCELT? Or maybe for the next Institutional Effectiveness retreat?

The point of the bike illustrates the need to collaborate across many departments for what we hope to accomplish in teaching and learning at a distance. We need to be working with IT, training, advising, all the programs, etc... And the bike would, in theory, bring those people together, at least for as long as their legs hold out.

There was so much covered in this talk, I'm not sure where to begin. Her presentation is online via SlideShare (I couldn't find it just yet, but search for 'gold standard').

A couple of book recommendation: "Future Shock", "The Kids Are Alright", "Course Management Systems for Learning".

Several Web 2.0 type site recommendations: Gabbly, Bubbl.us, Notemesh, Buddyspace, Wikihow, and a repository of many more on Go2Web20.net.

And finally, Dr. McGee is big time into researching more about what is happening in the teaching and learning process. Her website will have more.

Unstoppable

Another book recommendation: Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth. Not to be confused with the movie Unstoppable starring Wesley Snipes. This book was recommended by the President of St. Petersburg College, Dr. Carl Kuttler. It's not about distance learning, but more about improving your organization by tapping those hidden gems and highlighting what you do best.



I see Kirkwood is starting late today. Ouch. It might rain here. It's a bit windier than this picture shows.

Angel

We are in the process of collecting data on potential LMS. With that in mind, I attended the session in homage of Angel. Their LMS does provide some interesting potential learning and communication opportunities that others do not. Here is a quick list:

• WhoDunIt - report for instructor down to the click on who did what when and where
• Agents - Automated tasks (e.g. send email to students who scored too low on a test)
• Team - group work (I know other's have this, but does it work?)
• Tokens - replace variables with context specific information (e.g. student names)
• Dashboard reporting - at a glance review of course stats
• Variables can be communicated to Flash and back again
  
• IMS export/import - allows for quick and easy sharing of content across LMS

There are probably more, but these were the focus of the talk. Later I met the presenter and our Iowa Rep. It will be interesting to see if faculty at Kirkwood are equally impressed with Angel's take on the LMS product.

You can tour Angel and request a sandbox at their site. Angel is also making some interesting roads into (and in) Second Life.

Virtual Orientations

Presenters from Tri-C explained their set up to deliver live training events for online learners. They focused on using the LMS (Blackboard) and not so much on study habits, learning strategies, etc. They used Adobe Connect, but are in the process of reviewing potential, more cost-effective systems. It sounded like the only feature Adobe didn't provide that they wanted was break-out rooms.

There are plenty of other live, web-meeting type software out there. Adobe is cool since it is entirely flash-based, needing no extra downloads. Few probably know this, but Kirkwood has a software called iLinc that does the same thing. I have been looking at that for virtual instructor training. Never really thought about it for student training -- we have a limited seat number.

A website is available with a recorded example of what they are doing.

"Students like it."

I don't doubt that. But I have to wonder how much they need all this. Seems like a big investment and maybe it doesn't much matter. They are doing some comparative testing now. Perhaps next conference they will report on their findings.

They also mentioned a software called Zoho that begs some checking out.

Online Instructor Competencies

This session was out there, but I kind of liked it. He started by asking if there were other presenters in the room and had them announce what it was they were presenting on. A mini-commercial for up-coming sessions if you will. And then he asked if there were any stand out learning moments that had happened thus far at the conference. It was only the second session though so this one seemed a bit odd.

The actual presentation was loosely centered on his journey in working toward competencies for online instructors. He has a blog that should be interesting to watch: Desiderata. The presentation powerpoint is there.

"We tend to confuse activity with progress."

He mentioned he studied Philosophy as an undergrad, and that certainly showed (made me jealous really -- I wish I could speak more philosophically without getting in over my head so quickly).

If I followed him correctly, here are some steps to his journey:

1. First answer: How does learning occur? -- This might take some time, don't rush into it.
   
2. Come up with categories of competencies -- He started with the competencies as listed from the Illinois Online Course Evaluation project (Personal, Instructional Design, Social, Assessment, Technical, Pedagogical, Administrative)
3. Choose which competencies you will focus on.
   

From here the idea is to train instructors with these competencies in mind. We tend to focus on technical and perhaps are missing other opportunities. I'm left wondering if faculty feel they could use some more assistance in other areas.

Quality Matters

Prince George Community College has employed the QM rubric for several years now to review their courses. They follow the QM process to the letter so that their courses can have the "QM Seal of Approval". Some interesting facts from their presentation:

• FY 2008, reviewed 25 courses
• 25 courses =@ $11,000 (no chump change)
• $250/review chair, $150/reviewer (3 reviewers/course)
  
• 3 part time ("Duties as assigned") staff/faculty coordinating process
• 15-30% of their time at work dedicated to this process
  
• Dept Chair decides which courses to review
• Payment to reviewers for incentives
• (reviewing possibility of bonus to instructor/designers)

Biggest question is still out there: Does quality matters really matter? It's a tough question to answer. Data hasn't really been collected yet. Of course I would claim that the quality of a course could be improved by making it look more professional, but does that do anything to affect the learning outcomes? And if it does, is it worth @$440/course?

Naturally, there are other models. The DL Teach and Learning Group is currently looking into some of these. I'm looking forward to what they (we) find.

worst practices

Opening Keynote, Dr. Myk Garn, gave a nice little talk, with powerful images (he was a photography instructor), about learning from our worst practices. Learning best from my mistakes has certainly been true in my life and in teaching. He enhanced his presentation with mistake testimonials from the attendants. Good fun, and certainly good lessons learned.

When I started at Kirkwood, I often suggested that faculty incorporate discussion into their classes -- at least for those who did not use it already. Most told me about how terrible their experience had been in the past and so were not interested in discussing discussion. This always left me feeling strange, because while they learned a lesson from their failure, their solution was simply to avoid that behavior altogether. It seemed they had learned the wrong lesson.

Dr. Garn has a website: worstpractices.org. I haven't looked much, but it could grow into something interesting. He certainly has some insights... "Learning to fail in an organized manner" -- I like that.

He recommended The Innovator's Dilemma and talked some about sustaining vs disruptive innovations. He did not mention, to my recollection the next volume, The Innovator's Solution, and I probably shouldn't read into that too much, so draw your own conclusion. In any case, it's interesting to think about how we handle innovation. Careful planning? Or more of a "Fire - Ready - Aim" approach? Part of it, I think, is personality. But if we temper our personality to suit the type of innovation perhaps more successful failures will occur.

He didn't mention one of my favorite books, "The Logic of Failure", but I think it relates, so I did. Hey, it's my blog.

e-Learning Conference 2008

Made it a little on the wrinkled side. Flights were fine, some traffic in Orlando, but that's the price you pay for large cities.

The sun is rising now. The day beckons discussion about learning at a distance (and surfing). I can see a few surfers heading out to catch some waves already. I'm still drinking coffee and looking over the conference agenda. I have a pretty good idea which sessions I will attend today, but I will carefully choose my seat in case I need to change my mind and make a quick exit.

If there are particular questions about teaching and learning at a distance anyone wants me to watch for, let me know.