October is Connected Educator Month! This exciting initiative is driven by the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education and is focused on K-12, but has great applicability to Higher Education too. Interestingly, due to the government shutdown they’ve already had to postpone some of their scheduled events. The goal of the initiative is to connect educators across the United States via online communities and social networks. The hope is that educators will compare best practices, engage in conversation, become mentors, find mentors, and more. Here are my suggestions for getting started participating in the Connected Educator community. I encourage you to watch the video below to get inspired!
And finally, here are my suggestions for getting engaged in the Connected Educator community.
Last Friday ITS held a Creative Friday event where there was a viewing of author Susan Cain’s TED talk, The Power of Introverts (see the video at my earlier post here). The viewing was followed by a guided discussion with faculty Suzanne Stangl-Erkins and Wendy Bjorklund. I’ve been fortunate enough to sit in on a few talks from Suzanne and Wendy in the past and they always have insightful thoughts. This time they talked issues that can arise when extroverts are managed by an extrovert and conversely the benefit of an introverted manager allowing extroverted employees to run with their ideas. They also talked about the disadvantages to modern work spaces that they explained can have both negative psychological and physical impacts. Another area they addressed was the adverse impact that impromptu group work has. They explained that often a few individuals dominate the discussion and good ideas don’t end up being brought forward by the majority of the group. They gave a great method for collaboration that involved the distribution of index cards and idea ranking. I hope that we can test this process as a part of a future collaborative event.
We ran out of time to get into a deep discussion on the topics, but there were some holes that I was hoping we could have discussed. Here are some of the questions I still have.
I’ve noticed benefits to a collaborative work environment. Do the experts see value? What about the creative environments popping up at Google, Citrix, and other big companies?
What are approaches to build environments that support both introverts and extroverts?
If there are issues with extroverted managers managing extroverted employees, are there also benefits? In my experience there certainly are. What are mechanisms to minimize the negatives? What can be done to capitalize on any positive elements?
If impromptu group work and brainstorming has a negative impact on ideas, do group discussions in an online setting (i.e. D2L) share these issues? Would there be benefits to having group discussions online asynchronously vs. synchronously? Might backchannel tools help break down some of the issues presented by group conversations?
What are the merits of working in a team vs. working alone? Is there a way to structure work to receive the benefits of both?
What can be done in a workplace to foster what works best for both extroverts’ and introverts’ success?
What does it mean to show leadership? How do the strengths of introverts and extroverts align with those characteristics? How does the situation intersect with those characteristics?
How do you feel about open floor plan office spaces? How do you like to work?
What could you achieve by assembling groups of introverts and extroverts? How would those achievements be different from those of more homogenous groups?
What can we learn from one another as introverts and extroverts?
Do you think your job suits your temperament? If not, what could you do to change things?
How might ITS take into consideration students’ tendencies for introversion and extroversion and the ways in which that impacts the types of technologies we deliver? For example, how can we address both introversion and extroversion when we are designing learning spaces? What might that look like?
Do you have more questions? Do you have feedback on the questions or topics that were posed? Add your 2 cents in the comments section below!
Lastly, if you are interested in taking a quiz to see where you land on the introvert/extrovert spectrum checkout the quiz on Susan Cain’s site here.
The Outlook Social Connector lets you see profiles and updates for people that send you email. The connector is available as a download for earlier versions of Outlook, but with Outlook 2013 it is included out of the box. I have found the using the Outlook Social Connector for LinkedIn to be very valuable, and it think it will be for you too. Even if you are not an avid user of LinkedIn and you don’t have many connections, this connector will pull information from anyone out there with a public profile (which is most folks). Let’s say that you get an email from a vendor or someone you met at a conference. You kind of remember talking to them, but you’re not totally sure. With the Outlook Social Connector connected to LinkedIn, now you can see their picture. And if you are like me you often forget names, but having a picture can help connect the dots. Ok, let’s take a look.
First things first. Getting the Outlook Social Connector connected.
Open Outlook 2013 and click on the File menu in the top left corner.
The Info tab will open by default and at the top you’ll see an Account Settings box. Click that.
In the pop-up you’ll see an option for Social Network Accounts. Click that.
Select LinkedIn and provide you username and password. And you’re all set!
Now that you have it connected let’s look at some of the features.
The most obvious change will be the appearance of pictures for contacts that send you emails. If you open an email that the connector is able to find a LinkedIn profile for you’ll also see additional information in the bottom pane of the email message (known as the People Pane), including their recent activity on LinkedIn. If there are multiple recipients as a part of the email, you will be able to look at the other contacts also.
While exploring the People Pane you’ll be able to expand it by clicking the arrow on the right hand side. This will expose addition tabs including What’s New, Mail, Attachments, and Meetings. These can all come in handy when you are trying to look back at your previous communication with the contact.
There are several other places within the Outlook interface that you’ll notice the LinkedIn content (i.e. under Contacts), but the last one I will point out in the post is the users Contact Card. If you right-click the name of the contact you’ll get a set of basic information. On the lower right you’ll see a small arrow allowing you to open the Contact Card for the user. Once open you’ll notice the What’s New section that reflects the same information we saw in the What’s New section in step 2.
I hope you find this connector as valuable as I do!
media:scape furniture by Steelcase provides collaborative work spaces allowing users to connect their laptops and easily flip between presenters. The demo units are on campus and we hope to gather as much feedback on these units as possible. Many have voiced the need to enhance collaboration and provide more casual computing environments. We hope that the media:scape furniture will do exactly that. There is a larger unit setup in Atwood near the Student Government office, and a smaller mobile unit setup in the Library in room 110. The smaller unit will likely be relocated to a more public location soon. I strongly encourage you to stop by and check the furniture out and provide feedback so we can learn what features are important to our community. Maybe you’ll come up with a great use case or modification that we haven’t thought of!
Here is the overview video from the company’s website.
Last week I was fortunate enough to join a few other members of the ITS team on a tour of the new ISELF building. Dean DeGroote was kind enough to be our tour guide showing us around and explaining the function of the various areas of the building. The key takeaways for me were that the building is very open, flexible, and ready to support the emerging science fields.
When we first entered the building we could see that there was a lot of windows and open spaces. Dean DeGroote pointed out many areas that he described as “informal gathering spaces” – particularly on the West end of the building. As we toured the Dean’s Reception Area, and the Senior Design Lab he explained that the layout was intentionally open, with casing on the exterior and the floor space was flexible and reconfigurable to support any number of activities and configurations. In the lab areas that meant that power, data, gas, fluids, etc. would be available overhead allowing for furniture and equipment to be movable. As a side note, the Dean’s Reception Area reminded me of a video on the “Workplace of the Future.”
While the current configuration of the rooms is flexible, so are the walls themselves. Most areas have walls that could be removed or reconfigured without great expense. Some rooms are deemed “unassigned” and can be renovated to accommodate future needs (i.e. a 2 year grant from the National Science Foundation). The ISELF building itself may be expanded on with another phase added to the West of the building. The loading dock was built large enough to serve the new addition removing the need for another loading dock to be added.
Dean DeGroote explained that the entire building is intended to be a space for research and lab work, not for offices and residency. The thought here is that professors will have their departmental space and office services hosted in other buildings. When it comes time for the faculty and students to work in the lab, they will be able to leverage the spaces in ISELF. After they are done with their lab work, they may collaborate informally in ISELF, but otherwise they will most likely return to their departmental areas back in other buildings on campus.
Earlier I had blogged about ISELF getting an X-ray diffractometer. Turns out, we got it! There are a lot of really cool spaces and equipment that we be available to our students and community once ISELF is complete. I am proud of the work Dean DeGroote and his team have done. And I am excited to see our students, faculty, and community make the most of this cutting edge resource. Added to the recent announcement of the $4.8 million enhancement to the UTVS TV studio, and the Presidents engagement in attracting the brightest students from all over the world, this sets SCSU and our community on an exhilarating trajectory.
I’ve built a quasi-virtual tour of ISELF on Prezi if you are interested in seeing more.
First things first. Please help us by filling out the following survey concerning this Creative Friday. Even if you were not able to attend, we want to hear from you!
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And now onto the recap!
Arduino Demo
Josh Hjelmstad presented on the work he’s been doing with an Arduino and a gumball machine. Here is how Josh describes it.
“Arduino is an open-source, programmable, cost-effective hardware device that gives SCSU the ability to control our physical environment with code. The Arduino device is quickly expandable with over a thousand “shields” (plug-in modules) that allow you to interact with sensors (accelerometers, GPS, photo-receptors, voltage, temperature) and communicate with the world (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, high voltage circuits, servos).”
Potential Uses
Quadrocopter
Twitter/Foursquare controlled gumball machine
Washing machine availability notifications via email or web site
Greg Jorgensen presented on the widget he created for D2L. He explained that the idea came from a faculty member who had asked about allowing students to see their office hours. The widget connects to Adobe Connect and allows students to know if their professor is available to help. More information here: http://desire4community.com/course-home-page-widget-contest-most-useful/
Windows 8 Demo
Special thanks to Eric Dietz for stepping in to present while Kristen was out sick. Eric showed off the new UI features of Windows 8. A good reference site for the features Eric showed can be found here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/basics
User Feedback & Data Collection Discussion
I spoke for a short time on ideas to capture user feedback and get users involved as a part of early adopters in upcoming projects. We cut this conversation a bit short to spend more time on the Collaborative Space discussion. Here is a link to a concept blog site
Collaborative Space Discussion
Mark Kotcho showed off examples of collaborative classrooms at different institutions. He discussed the concept of Active Learning Classrooms (defined here), SCALE-UP design (defined here), and Flipped Classrooms (defined here).
Below are a list of sites that were referenced as examples of collaborative spaces.
Every other Friday the ITS team tries to get together and work on something creative. This Friday I’m working on coordinating the agenda. The plan is to spend the first part of the meeting on short presentations and the second part will be an open discussion. Here is the agenda:
Before I start I want to thank Casey Wagner for her help organizing the trip, Craig Overboe for organizing the van, and Jim Pesta for driving us all down to GusDay. We headed out at 7:00 AM and had some light conversation on the way down. It was good to hear a little about what else was happening outside of the Miller Center from Chris Fandel, Jim Pesta, and Aaron Gordon. We talked a little about rooms on campus that might be good candidates for collaboration spaces. Mentioned were a lab in the 2nd floor of the Education building, B31 in the Miller Center, and spaces in the Miller Center library.
Once we arrived at the Anderson Student Center at the University of St. Thomas we could see a fun recreation area through the windows. While the outside of the building was an old-school brick, inside was a much more open and modern layout. The building was awesome, with lots of windows, a huge atrium, windows conference rooms, and oodles of digital signage.
Pictures of main atrium:
Pictures of recreation area:
Another thing I noticed right away was a ton of glass walled conference and collaboration rooms. I noticed a few students collaborating on a floor to ceiling whiteboard and took a quick picture.
Another thing we noticed was that they did a great job of featuring outstanding students on their digital signage:
The keynote speaker was John Tauer, who is the head men’s basketball coach and also a professor in the department of psychology. John did a really good job with the keynote address. Two items from his talk stuck out to me. The first was the “Parable of Ausubel” – the message was that sometimes reframing a situation can cause a paradigm shift and turn a negative into a positive. I was left wondering what projects I could possibly apply the idea to. The second was his statement that one trait that the most successful people have is resilience. It was a good reminder of the importance of not giving up.
There was some discussion about fiber channel vs. iSCSI vs. FCoE. A little talk about backup tools and strategy. But the biggest note I took during this session was that there was a consensus among the schools that they are not needing to add more storage for students. One school will actually stop provisioning any personal storage for students this year.
Next up was a session on iPads in the classroom. Ben Phillip from Hamline was the first speaker. Ben works in Hamline’s Center for Teaching and Learning department. As we seek to develop a strategy for our own Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, I think it makes sense to reach out to Hamline and others to get feedback on what is working in their organizations. Ben talked about how they’ve setup an iPad user group and how that group works as well as their iPad cart.
Matthew Hammen from Luther College in Iowa was up next. Mathew presented from his iPad connecting wirelessly to the computer. He talked about their success using AirServer in their classrooms. He also talked about his realization of the iPad as a game changing device that enables mobility in learning. Matthew also talked about their iPad checkout program.
Both Matthew and Ben talked about evaluating apps for learning by leveraging the SAMR model developed by Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura. The SAMR model categorizes apps into four buckets: substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition. They gave the example of writing a paper.
Substitution: Typewriter
Substitute pen for typewriter.
Augmentation: Word Document
Augment paper with a portable document with metadata, etc.
Modification: Google Doc
Create a paper by allowing multiple users to contribute at the same time.
Redefinition: Video
Create an entirely new product that is conveyed in a different medium.
They also shared a poster that Greg Swanson had put online at the Apps in Education site that gave examples of how some apps could be classified using the SAMR model. See image to the right.
I had four key takeaways from this session. The first was that we should explore implementing AirServer in our eClassrooms. The second was that the SAMR model could be very valuable in evaluating technology and apps that we deploy. Third was that the tablet form factor can really redefine the learning experience. And lastly, we need to reach out to other institutions to collaborate on best practices for excellence in teaching and learning.
Lunch was great. We had some light conversation. The “big idea” discussed was redesigning Miller Center B31 into a collaborative learning space. Removing the traditional desktops and replacing them with a mobile device cart with devices like the Apple MacBook Pro, Microsoft Surface Pro, and/or Lenovo Helix. Much like the iPad Cart described in Session 2. Then leveraging AirServer for the tablets to display on the instructor screen at the front of the room. We could possibly leverage a device checkout system like used at Drexel – for use in B31 or elsewhere on campus.
Session 3: Optimizing Enterprise Desktop Deployment with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit
There was not too much to report back from this session, other than to say the University of St. Thomas and others are moving toward Microsoft deployment tools like the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and System Center Configuration Manager and away from 3rd party tools like Symantec/Altiris much like the path SCSU is on. This is another opportunity for future collaboration.
Session 4: Identity and Access Management in Higher Ed
This was the session that hit home for me the hardest. There were several schools that had been using the Sun Identity Management product recently purchased by Oracle. There was consensus that Oracle had done a poor job with the transition offering little support for the Sun product and forcing an expensive commitment to move forward with the Oracle offering. Everyone had decided to look for an alternative. This is exactly the situation we are in at MNSCU. For most folks it came down to Quest/Dell, NetIQ, and Microsoft. While folks really liked the Quest offering, price made it a non-starter leaving Microsoft and NetIQ as the reasonable options. It seemed that folks with a more Microsoft centric backend selected Microsoft and folks with a more Linux-based backend NetIQ was the selection.
There was a good conversation about identity structure within Active Directory and how to manage the provisioned accounts. Additionally, the handling of a complex and large backend system (UST has almost a million rows in their ERP system), guest accounts, supplemental/sponsored accounts, passwords management, and more were discussed.
Trip Back to SCSU
The trip back was filled with conversation about file storage and user profiles. As the backend administrator for these services I was all-in on this conversation (I probably would have been better served practicing my listening skills…). We talked about SharePoint as an alternative to traditional file services. We talked about the potential move to drop roaming profiles and personal file storage for students offering only a cloud based file storage solution. I spoke about my interest in deploying Box and leveraging Evernote as cloud-based collaboration tools. It was great to hear creative ideas from Craig Overboe and hear about upcoming strategies from Casey Gordon.
Tomorrow a group of my coworkers and myself are headed to the GusDay 2013 conference at the University of St. Thomas. Each time I’ve attended this conference I have a ton of fun and we have great creative conversations. Overall the sessions this year aren’t as compelling to me as in past years, but the largest value is in the networking opportunities and conversations with other universities. And even though the 8 of us headed down work on the same campus we don’t always have an opportunity to talk about new ideas together. So the hour long van ride is a great opportunity to toss around ideas and get some internal brainstorming done. I plan to take notes throughout the day in a shared Evernote notebook. Check it out if you’re interested!
I mentioned in my last post that I like to follow what some other innovative institutions are doing. That post I focused in on Cornell’s IT Strategic Plan. Another university that I see as a leader in innovation is Indiana University. Recently Bradley Wheeler, the CIO for Indiana University, gave a fantastic keynote address at their Statewide IT Conference. I want to highlight a few things that came up in that keynote presentation, but first I want to talk about the conference itself.
Every year the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MNSCU) system has its own statewide MSNSCU IT Conference. I’ve been fortunate enough to attend many of those conferences over the past few years. I believe that they bring tremendous value back to the institutions and ultimately to our students. That said, I think we should always be looking for ways to improve. Here are a few things that I like about the Indiana University Statewide IT Conference that I think we should consider at our next MSNSCU IT Conference.
Openness. The Indiana Daily Student reported that “about 700 students and professionals from across Indiana” attended the conference. We’ve always focused our conference on IT professionals. But why not expand a section of our conference to the broader community – students, staff, faculty? Maybe take it one step further and bring in CIO’s from the commercial sector? How about K-12 technology professionals?
Thought leaders. During my last post I linked to Shel Waggener’s keynote video. He made another appearance at Indiana’s conference as a part of “Great Cloud Debate” event. Brining in thought leaders from the industry like Shel Waggener or Diana Oblinger is a great way to challenge our community to rethink how we approach technology in education.
Communication. I love that both Cornell and Indiana have made the topics and content from their conferences available to everyone. The community was invited to attend or participate via Twitter, watch their keynote speakers on demand, they have great websites full of active information.
Post conference events. There are many engaging conversations that happen at these conferences. But continuing those conversations and keeping the connections alive isn’t as well thought through. Let’s organize touch points throughout the year so that the excitement doesn’t fizzle out!
Okay. Now let me highlight a few things that I found to be key takeaways for myself from the keynote at Indiana University’s Statewide IT Conference. First, watch the keynote for yourself here: Indiana University Statewide IT Conference Keynote.
I like that they are taking a nimble approach to technology. They are experimenting. They know there will be mistakes and bumps along the way. That is not a trivial statement for CIO to make. But making the statement to a large public audience says a lot, and sets a tone for their culture.
I like that they are truly embracing the cloud. More than that they are actively working with partners (Internet2, textbook companies, etc.) to shape the future of cloud technologies. They aren’t sitting on the sidelines waiting for others to pave the path, they are charting their own course and deciding their own destiny. I’m also a fan of their strong push to leverage Citrix and Box.com for their IU Anywhere service.
I like that they are open an honest. They admit that they’ve made mistakes. Just says yeah we’ve made mistakes is a step, but they go one step further and cite those mistakes, in their case citing their online learning strategy. That approach is definitely an exception to the rule, and one that I believe will bolster trust in their community and have a profound positive impact on their culture.
I like that the CIO spent time to advocate for a healthy workforce. Encouraging the staff to take a break from emails, run a 5k, and participate in healthy activites shows that they care about their people, and it’s not all about producing IT widgets.
I like that they value training, professional development, and career advancement. A workforce where your employees are valued and feel like they have an advocate as opposed to an environment where you’re always worried about who’s going to step on you or what your numbers are for the quarter is one that should attract the best of the best.
Lastly, and probably the biggest takeaway for me, I like their strategy to work as a system and offer a single centralized online offering for general “intro” classes. Why have each regional institution try to develop their own brand for commodity classes? Why not work together leveraging the best minds from across the system to build the best offering possible. Let your regional institution shine in specialized areas with more advanced coursework. This is a strategy MNSCU needs to consider.
October is Connected Educator Month! This exciting initiative is driven by the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education and is focused on K-12, but has great applicability to Higher Education too. Interestingly, due to the government shutdown they’ve already had to postpone some of their scheduled events. The goal of the initiative is to connect educators across the United States via online communities and social networks. The hope is that educators will compare best practices, engage in conversation, become mentors, find mentors, and more. Here are my suggestions for getting started participating in the Connected Educator community. I encourage you to watch the video below to get inspired!
Last Friday ITS held a Creative Friday event where there was a viewing of author Susan Cain’s TED talk, The Power of Introverts (
media:scape furniture by Steelcase provides collaborative work spaces allowing users to connect their laptops and easily flip between presenters. The demo units are on campus and we hope to gather as much feedback on these units as possible. Many have voiced the need to enhance collaboration and provide more casual computing environments. We hope that the media:scape furniture will do exactly that. There is a larger unit setup in Atwood near the Student Government office, and a smaller mobile unit setup in the Library in room 110. The smaller unit will likely be relocated to a more public location soon. I strongly encourage you to stop by and check the furniture out and provide feedback so we can learn what features are important to our community. Maybe you’ll come up with a great use case or modification that we haven’t thought of!
I mentioned in my last post that I like to follow what some other innovative institutions are doing. That post I focused in on