Session selections were made on the basis of personal preference and interest as well as my role as Faculty Chair of MCCCD's Ocotillo Instructional Technology team. Online and Hybrid teaching and learning is the entire focus of this conference. The breakout sessions I selected include faculty recruitment & training, pedagogy, administrative concerns, and emerging technologies.

Please feel free to email me any questions or for additional information on any of these sessions.

This first session provided a general overview of Instructional Technology Council. This annual e-Learning Conference is the organization's major event of each year. This year's conference is the most successful to date drawing 100 more registrants than last year.

The ITC also runs audio conferences on a more frequent basis. Audio conference topics include:

• ideas for speakers
  
• online science classes
  
• integrating PDAs into instruction
  

This keynote address was from Dr. Susan Hines, founder of Course Agent. Course Agent is a novel idea of representing on-line course authors willing to make their courses available to other institutions. Dr. Hines' business is literally to be the representative "agent" for quality on-line courses. The screening process is fairly exhaustive including academic credentials, account controls, and uploading & characterizing the course content.

Dr. Hines contends that e-Learning has not improved as it should as a result of on-line courses still mimicking traditional brick and mortar classes. As an interesting example, she showed what she called the "list penchant", a simple list of URLs absent any direction or specific usage. She contends that examples like this will continue to survive and even proliferate till the day that faculty are evaluated on what students learn rather than on what students say (in the traditional student faculty/course assessments).

Dr. Hines pointed out an interesting phenomenon. e-Learning is frequently set up as a bad deal to the best faculty and a good deal to the worst. Often, younger faculty get called upon to develop e-Learning courses because older/tenured faculty refuse. The open market may present the solution. Outsourcing e-Learning development may be a coming trend. Publishers already have "cartridges" and soon we may see publisher "owned" courses and even institutions/programs. Additionally, "open source" CMSs offer instructor driven innovation not limited by proprietary CMSs like Blackboard and WebCT.

This session was presented by Scott Dinho, Instructional Designer for e-Learning at Savannah College of Art and Design. Mr. Dinho began with documentation showing that the southeastern accrediting agency, SACS, mandates "appropriate interaction (synchronous or asynchronous) between instructor and students and among students is reflected in the design of the program and its courses, and in the technical facilities and services provided. This is reinforced by SACS with further language in the "Best Practices for Electronically Offered Degree and Certificate Programs.

Seven "factors" were presented and discussed relative to running meaningful asynchronous discussions:

• Purpose - Clearly defined objectives and outcomes.
  
• Relevance - Discussion should be critical to student learning.
  
• Prerequisite knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to meaningfully participate in the discussion.
  
• Controversy - If a "right" answer is available then there is very little to discuss. There needs to be room for dissenting viewpoints.
  
• Organization - The instructions, guidelines, formatting, etc. needed to conduct the discussion.
  
• Facilitation - The faculty's role in running the discussion; teacher centered or student centered.
  
• Time - Expectations need to be clearly stated and realistic.
  

Think of your three favorite colors. By noon Wednesday, US EST/EDT, post a a list of these colors and compare them to lists provided by your classmates.

After comparing the lists, consider how personal color preferences may impact your ability to choose a color scheme that your clients will enjoy. Share your thoughts on this issue and respond to at least one of your classmates' ideas throughout the remainder of this lesson.

• Discussion are an important part of an asynchronous course.
  
• The same factors affect all discussions.
  
• Asynchronous discussions have different needs than synchronous.
  
• Any discussion prompt may be vastly improved by addressing how the discussion is affected by these factors.

This forum was a rather light-hearted debate between Jim Farmer, Sakai Community Liaison and Afroze Mohammed, Director of Marketing for Blackboard, Inc. I'll divide this report into key points made by each side.

Open Source

• Proprietary Costs are high and escalating
  
• Open Source promotes innovation and invention; by its very nature, institutions customize open source resources; creation and proliferation of the Internet was an example of given of the open source concept; Proprietary CMSs limit innovation by creating restrictive environments forcing "1 size to fit all."
  
• Expertise - open source arises from the user so expertise is local.
  

• "Coopertition" - Proprietary organizations cooperate and integrate with competing products often from open source.
  
• Mission Critical approach to e-Learning
  
  • Provides support
    
  • Quality control
    
  • Dedicated team
    
• Unified Approach - Support and development teams are geographically close. This proximity allows for easy exchange and cooperation. Open Source fragments support. Expertise is limited to a few individuals which puts the system at risk.
  
• Proprietary platforms are extend-able and they evolve with market demand and influence.
  
• Costs - Licensing costs are relatively small when reduced to the individual student (as small as $4/student/course). Open Source has its costs, too. It all boils down to where you want to spend your dollars.
  
• The Internet may have an Open Source origin, but, it has been optimized by corporate proprietary platforms.
  
• Accountability - Proprietary CMSs hold themselves accountable for the effectiveness of their product.
  
• Innovation Incentives - Open Source will generate many innovations BUT proprietary management provides the incentive for this production.
  
• Institutional Limitations - Local expertise and development may be a limiting factor for many institutions considering Open Source. Staffing and development costs may ultimately be prohibitive.
  
• Interoperability - Standard CMS platforms integrate many Open Source solutions.
  

This was a joint presentation between Lucinda Flemming, Business Dept. Chair at Orange Country Community College, NY, and Stephen Winter, Business Faculty AND the most senior faculty member at the institution.

Dr. Winter led much of the discussion since HE is a senior faculty member that decided to move on line. He described himself as someone that loves teaching (clearly obvious from his presentation) and someone that has always enjoyed a challenge. He quickly discovered that "unteaching" some misconceptions was necessary. Myths surrounding on line instruction permeate senior faculty and become walls blocking the path to success.

The keys to recruiting senior (and non-senior) faculty include:

• Administrative Commitment
  
• Compensate Instructors
  
• Clearly state the specifics of the training program and the expected outcomes
  
• Relate training program to instructor & student needs
  
  • 30 Hours Minimum Training
    
  • Patience - allow errors; even encourage them.
    
  • Encouragement - remain positive
    
  • Apply fundamentals of CMSs tools/concepts
    
  • Troubleshooting - supply support and apply personal critical reasoning
    
  • Advice - ongoing from the mentor support system
    
  • Technical Help - Techies available to answer questions and solve problems
    
  • Computer Tips - Support mentors can frequently guide faculty around the pitfalls and shorten the learning curve.
    
• Provide networking & mentor support
  
  • OCCC built a formal support "tree", or hierarchy, for new on-line faculty.
    
• Empower on-line faculty to be entrepreneurs
  
  • risk taking, independence, innovation
    
• Offer periodic meetings and updates for on-line instructors
  
• Give on-line administrators high profile, sufficient authority, and necessary resources
  
• Recruiting effort is an ongoing campaign
  
• Provide critical reference materials
  
• Provide special recognition - Orange County CC is leaning toward a "prestigious" e-Learning pin.
  
• Focus on Innovation - "Boldly go where no professor has gone before."
  
• Promote FUN within the process
  

• Chapter overviews, summaries, outlines are all improved with the technology
  
• Practice exams now readily accessible and previously non-existent
  
• Clean template for term project
  
• Definition (flash) cards - Technology made for easy use and access.
  
• Email opportunities - Increases student/faculty interaction
  

This session was facilitated by the following faculty and staff of Lamar State College, Orange, TX:

• Dr. Sheila Gunter, Vice President for Academic Affairs
  
• Dr. Gwen Whitehead, Associate Professor of English
  
• Tara Lanphar, Web Administrator, WebCT Administrator
  

• 1 faculty member from each instructional division
  
• 1 staff member from the library
  
• 1 staff member from Student Services
  
• 1 student
  
• The Curriculum Committee Chair
  
• 1 staff member from Continuing Education
  
• 1 staff member from the Office of Institutional Effectiveness
  
• 1 staff member from Information Technology
  

• Academic Programming
  
  • Appropriate academic courses
    
  • Budgetary matters relating to course development and delivery
    
  • Standards that permit comparability of course offerings
    
  • Issues related to "Intellectual Property Rights" for course development
    
• Technical Services
  
  • Necessary systems of support for the operational infrastructure
    
  • Efficient and cost effective support for the special needs of services
    
  • Development of better distant learning technologies
    
  • Planning for maintenance and upgrade of equipment and training of support personnel
    
• Faculty Development
  
  • Selection and training of faculty
    
  • Faculty incentives for participation
    
  • Instructional design and materials assistance
    
  • Faculty support with regard to equipment
    
• Student Services
  
  • Define acceptable level of support services for distant students
    
  • Timeliness of access, special fees, concurrent enrollment, "residence credit" requirements
    
  • Identify methods for reporting headcount, credit hours, contact hours
    
• Noncredit and Lifelong Learning
  
  • Opportunities for noncredit activities
    
  • Coordination of noncredit offerings with regard to content, level and geographic area
    
  • Integration with System activities
    

• Use of e-mail
  
• Use of discussion board
  
• Content and delivery
  
• Quizzing and Testing
  

• Timeline
  
• Encourage planning and preparation
  
• Year long process
  
• Professional development
  
• Review process
  

• Paid instructors up front for creating courses
  
• Did not require instructors to attend any kind of training
  
• Did not assess which instructors had technological abilities compatible to teaching WebCT courses
  
• Some faculty still need "training wheels"
  

• Course Management
  
  • Course size
    
  • Email response - must be within 24 hours
    
  • Testing issues
    
  • Online courses must be comparable to face-to-face classes
    
• Copyright and Ownership of the courses - 50/50
  

This presentation was made by Joan Van Duzer, Instructional Technologist, Humboldt State University. HSU adopted Blackboard (Bb) as their CMS back in 2001. With increasing licensing costs, however, they wondered if Moodle, as a free Open Source program, would work for them. They took a brand new class that had been taught face-to-face for years and developed it on both platforms. They then took 35 enrolled students and announced to them the first day of class that it would be delivered online. Their investigated question was, "Can free software satisfactorily meet the needs of students, faculty, and instructional technologists for online teaching and learning?"

Similar features were used and compared in both CMSs:

• Electronic assignment submissions
  
• Virtual areas for group work
  
• Self-assessment quizzes and online testing
  
• Sequential learning objects (Moodle only)
  
• Embedded ShockWave Flash (.swf) files
  
• Tracked specific student activity (Moodle only)
  
• Poll (Moodle only)
  
• Glossary (Moodle only)
  
• Survey
  
• Discussion forums
  
• Links to external Web pages
  

• Providing individualized feedback easily to all assignments
  
• Easier to track each student's activity in class
  
  • When and how often parts of class accessed
    
  • From where students access the course
    

• More polished appearance
  
• Better gradebook
  
• Threaded discussions easily differentiate between read and unread posts
  
• Announcements are more prominently displayed upon entering the course
  

• Did Bb/Moodle enhance instruction? - A little over half of the Bb students were negative on this and Moodle students were only slightly better. One needs to remember, however, that these students didn't initially sign up for an online class.
  
• Received adequate technical assistance? - About 2/3rds of both groups agreed at some level.
  
• Technology-based activities developed problem-solving skills? - The Bb group seemed more positive on this one.
  
• Well organized instructional materials? - Both groups were equally positive.
  
• Communication tools: Interaction with classmates? - Both groups were reasonably positive on this but the Moodle group a bit more so. Interestingly, however, the faculty member said this course has little student-student interaction in its traditional F2F format.
  
• Communication tools: Interaction with instructor? The Moodle group was more positive on this one. Over a third of the Bb group felt this interaction was impeded.
  
• Web-based resources were effective learning tools? - Both groups were very positive on this one.
  
• Discussion Boards were easy to use? - Both groups were quite positive.
  

• Easier to maneuver (fewer "clicks"!)
  
• Less area monopolized for navigation
  
• Easier to incorporate multimedia elements
  
• More tools available (glossary, poll, lesson, journal)
  
• Track student activity to see which parts of the course are preferred
  
• Quiz tool scores correctly and provides details on the student's use
  
• Can be customized to add desired features
  
• Features are robust
  
• Survey allows as few as two choices
  

Marc Prensky was the keynote speaker for this session. Interestingly, Marc was snowed in to NY and unable to get to Savannah as planned. Undaunted, his presentation when on via Breeze e-Conferencing.

The key to Marc's presentation is "change." IT power is doubling each year. By 2040 IT will be a billion times more powerful than today. This level of change creates discontinuity that created expressions such as the "digital divide." Childred today will be raised within this exponential groth. They are accustomed to this level of change whereas those of us "maturing" through our careers have been accustomed to a far more stable environment.

Just think about familiar examples of radical change over recent years:

• Yayoo to Google
  
• CD to mp3
  
• Walkman to iPod
  
• email to Instant Messaging
  

• Speed Enhances
  
  • RSVP Text - capability to read 4x as fast
    
  • Speed Adjusted Vido - Can speed up embedded video w/o changing voice pitch. embedded in media player.
    
  • Tools will come VERY fast.
    
    • example: replacing clickers w/ cell phone technology
      
  • Don't waste time learning to use all this new stuff
    
    • As teachers, we should learn ABOUT these things so we can discuss them and assess their usefulness to to our students.
      
    • example: Assign a Wikipedia entry (currently missing anything on Corretta Scott King); so assign it.
      

• Students must WANT to learn.
  
• We must MOTIVATE; We must collaborate with our students
  
  • editorial note: This is a novel/foreign concept to many faculty who believe it is their job to simply provide the educational opportunity and it is up to the individual students to motivate themselves.
    
• Learning comes from PASSION, not from discipline.
  
• Half the global population is below age 25. This begs the question of whether or not those of us OVER 25 are equipped to teach within this technologic exponential growth period that is so baffling to us but comfortable for our younger students.
  
• Digital Natives -today's youth
  
  • These people have lived their entire lives with exponential technologic growth and are not only accustomed to it, they expect and anticipate it.
    
  • Twitch Speed - The reaction speed of the average thumb working a video or computer game.
    
  • Before: Step by Step Process ------ Now: Random Access
    
  • Before: Linear Process ------------ Now: Branching Options
    
  • Digital Natives have developed differently and function differently.
    
• Digital Immigrants
  
  • Maintaining a foot in the past while trying to survive within this exponential growth. Relate to new and emerging technologies with an "accent."
    
    • Print emails
      
    • Learning is work -- Today's student learns by having fun. They ARE engaged!!
      
  • So much of our education is boring. Digital Natives have to "power down" when it comes to the education we provide.
    

• Content will change. Engagement is a lifelong skill.
  
• Engagement will empower.
  
• Teach students to creat online. The technology is programmable!
  
• Digital Natives love the complexity. The "digital divide" is a function of digital immigrants.
  
  • Fun is the act of mastering a problem mentally.
    
• Its not attention deficit. I'm just not listening!!
  
• Our #1 job is to get to know our students
  
• Our #2 job is to help our students get to the point where they acn solve problems that don't exist yet.
  
  • The challenge is that we need to use current tools to help students learn and solve FUTURE problems.
    
• Gaming is engaging and digital natives KNOW they are getting better
  
  • Complexity and interconnectedness between players is key.
    
  • Games take as much time as a typical carnagie unit course
    
• Games and Instruction
  
  • Use commercial games. Many are available in a wide variety of subject matters.
    
  • Use custom games. These can be Googled.
    
    • Immune Attack - NSF
      
    • Environment
      
    • Check out www.socialimpactgames.com
      
    
    
  • Talk about games in class. Discuss them within the class. Who plays a game that relates to our topic? Could we design a game that relates to our topic.
    
  • 6 Keys to Complex Gaming
    
    1. Focus on user engagement
       
    2. Have frequent and important decisions
       
    3. "Level up" toward clear & important goals. (level 1, 2, 3, etc.)
       
    4. Adapt to end player individually
       
    5. Work by interaction and playing; not theory.
       
    6. Emphasize game play, not eye candy.
       

1. New attitudes & behaviors
   
   • acknowledge our "accents"
     
   • ask about what interests our students
     
2. Find and implement for the biggest bang for the buck. Shop around.
   
3. Share what we learn - publish online (HEY, what do you think I'm doing right now!! :-))
   
4. Use emerging tools IN your course. This means we have to research what's coming new.
   
5. Get students to create new tools.
   
6. Ask the "hard questions"
   
   • Do my lessons empower my students?
     
   • Would my students be here if they didn't have to be?
     

Jody Hawkins from the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls was the presenter for this breakout session. The need for online delivery of a lab science online was a HUGE need for the college considering a immense geographical region they serve.

The campus offers a range of courses in varying modalities:

• Dual Enrollment
  
• Telecommunications
  
• Independent Study (generally w/ disasterous results)
  

• Assumption: The average student does best in face to face environment.
  
• Mr. Hawkins was actually told by a staff member (non in Bio Dept.) that compromise with this class was "ok" sinces its "just" Gen. Ed.
  
  • Mr. Hawkins took offense and clearly made his efforts more deliberate. On a personal/editorial note, I'd agree that statements such as this are not only dangerous, they are damaging.
    
• Cover page of syllabus cautions students that they need to do a LOT of independent work and carefully follow directions in order to meet all expectations.
  

• Fear of drawing enrollment away from traditional courses.
  

• Decided Against Lab Kits
  
  • Worried that "dry labbing" would be common. This is when students do not complete actual lab work and simply write up data gotten from others, or worse, make it up themselves.
    An editorial note - As an online biology teacher, I don't personally agree with this perspective. I believe the picture requirement you'll read about shortly solves a great many potential concerns. Additionally, data sets are not that easy to contrive particularly if students are doing work that is TOTALLY novel to them, such as simple water analysis. They have no idea what they are going to get so "faking it" is impossible. Additionally, there are a great many economical commercial products out that provide lab interaction in a virtual environment. Again, data sets cannot be faked and students tend to enjoy this work, anyway.
    
• "Hybridizing" the course to require students to come on campus does not serve rural students and defeats the purpose of the online format.
  

Jeffrey Bartkovich, VP of Ed. Tech Services, Monroe CC SUNY, and Marie Fetzner, Asst to the VP Ed. Tech. Services co-presented this session. LOTS of statistics were PowerPointed to the screen but they were quite enlightening. About 2/3rds of the online students successfully completed their online courses with a "C" or better in the study year 2004. Comparing final grades of online and F2F students during 2004, about a third completed with "A"s in each modality. The conclusion from this, those that finish online do VERY well. F2F finished with about 10% more "B" and "C" students combined. Withdrawals from online classes ran about 5% higher than F2F.

A truly telling statistic was that only 54.5% of students under age 25 successfully complete online courses as compared to 67.8% of this younger group in F2F. About 75% of students 25 or older successfully completed either online or F2F course. Statistically, younger students have a harder time successfully completing an online course.

There was some differentiation by discipline, too. English, Math, and Sociology all surfaced as critical areas of attrition. The issue may be the faculty as opposed to the discipline itself. (editorial note: I'm not drawing conclusions. This was stated by the presenters.)

The most likely group to succeed in an online class was 25 or older and a part-time student.
The least like group to succeed is an online student less than 25 years old and full-time.

The Retention Survey is 45 questions long and was asked of all F or W students. (I would think "D" students should be included in the group, too. 1224 students were surveyed with a 67.6% response rate.

Top Reasons for F/W

1. Got behind and couldn't catch up.
   
2. Couldn't handle work load combined with other responsibilities.
   

• Make early and frequent contact w/ students. Establish a frequent presence that encourages inclusion.
  
• Be redundant with critical information - syllabus & schedule.
  

• In general, students liked the CMS and course layout.
  
• Students, in general, DON'T care as much for the online discussion portion of the class.
  
  • Editorial note: After YEARS of teaching online classes I am skeptical of trying to run effective and productive asynchronous online discussions. This is a hot topic in the field, HOWEVER, there's a reason that this cohort enrolled for an online class. Often, that reason will be autonomy. They simply don't want to be forced into this type of collaboration.