Posts Tagged ‘administration’

digital learning faculty support

Report: Faculty Support Lacking for Wide Adoption of Digital Learning

By Dian Schaffhauser 06/19/17

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/06/19/faculty-support-lacking-for-wide-adoption-of-digital-learning.aspx

new report produced by Tyton Partners in collaboration with the Babson Survey Research Group. two fall 2016 surveys of a national sample of 3,500 postsecondary respondents.

extent of digital learning implementation in support of strategic priorities

These gaps and others “suggest a disconnect, the report stated, “between the impacts that many administrators perceive and the reality of how digital learning is changing the market.” Open-ended responses suggested that expectations for the impact of digital learning were “set too high” or weren’t being “measured or communicated well.” Another common refrain: There’s inadequate institutional support.

While most administrators told researchers that “faculty are crucial to the success of digital learning initiatives — serving as both a bolster and a barrier to implementation success,” the resources for supporting faculty to implement digital learning are insufficient. Just a quarter of respondents said faculty professional development was implemented “effectively and at scale.” Thirty-five percent said implementation was in progress. And a third (33 percent) reported that faculty professional development was “incomplete, inconsistent, informal and/or optional.”

The report offered recommendations for improving and expanding digital learning adoption. Among the guidance:

  • Get realistic. While the data suggested that digital learning could improve scheduling flexibility and access, among other benefits, schools need to identify which goals are most important and “clearly articulate how and to what extent its digital learning programs are expected to help.”
  • Measure impact and broadcast it. Forget about small pilots; go for a scale that will demonstrate impact and then share the findings internally and with other institutions.
  • Use buying power to influence the market. Connect faculty with vendors for “education, product discovery and feedback.” Insist on accessibility within products, strong integration features and user friendliness.
  • Prepare faculty for success. Make sure there are sufficient resources and incentives to help faculty “buy into the strategy” and follow through on implementation.

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more on digital learning in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=digital+learning

Effective Social Media Policy

Status update: How to have a strong and effective social media policy

Employment Update (Australia) y:Brett FelthamLauren Crossman

https://www.dlapiper.com/en/dubai/insights/publications/2016/02/a-strong-and-effective-social-media-policy/

The top ten priorities for strong and effective social media policies should be:

explaining the risks that can arise through the use of social media and the reasons why having a policy is necessary;

clarifying the permitted uses of social media during work hours and/or using the employer’s resources. This will include when employees are allowed to access social media at work (if at all), when such access is permitted – for example, during an employee’s lunch hour or while the employee is on a break, or at any time – and what will be considered to be excessive use;

confirming that the policy applies in respect of social media use by an employee outside of work hours where that use impacts on the employer or the workplace, including by an employee publishing comments which are referable (whether directly or indirectly) to the employer, its products, other employees, customers, partners, suppliers or competitors;

clarifying prohibited uses of social media, such as an employee engaging in online conduct which may constitute unlawful discrimination, defamation, bullying or harassment. There needs to be careful consideration of how this part of the policy links to an employer’s other existing policies covering those issues. Consideration can also be given to requiring employees to inform their employer when they become aware of any potential breach of the policy by another employee – unlike in other jurisdictions, this concept of “dobbing in” a colleague can be difficult to promote in Australian workplaces;

confirming that social media use must be consistent with an employee’s obligations to comply with all applicable laws, including to not make any comment that may be misleading or deceptive in trade or commerce (in breach of Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)), and to not disclose any market sensitive information prior to disclosure by the employer (in breach of insider trading laws);

reminding employees of their obligations in respect of the employer’s confidential information and intellectual property, and privacy, copyright and plagiarism issues more generally;

where an employee is subject to a workplace investigation, in addition to requiring an employee to generally assist with that investigation, specifically directing an employee to preserve and not delete relevant social media content, and to provide their employer with reasonable access to that content for the purposes of the investigation;

specifically providing the employer the ability to direct an employee to remove or delete prohibited content;

expressly stating that breach of the policy may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment; and

directing an employee on how they can notify their online connections of their departure from their employer and their acceptance of a new role, and confirming that the inappropriate use of those social media connections can constitute a breach of any post-termination restrictions on soliciting clients.

Need Sample Social Media Policies? Here Are 7 to Inspire Yours

students and technology

2015 Student and Faculty Technology Research Studies

https://library.educause.edu/resources/2015/8/2015-student-and-faculty-technology-research-studies

Report: https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2015/8/ers1510ss.pdf?la=en

Infographic: ECAR_2015

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Study of Students and Information Technology, 2014

https://library.educause.edu/resources/2014/10/2014-student-and-faculty-technology-research-studies

report: https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2014/10/ers1406.pdf

Infographic: ECAR_2014

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Higher Ed: EDUCAUSE Releases ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology 2013

http://www.infodocket.com/2013/09/16/higher-ed-educause-releases-ecar-study-of-undergraduate-students-and-information-technology-2013/

Direct to Full Text Report (49 pages; PDF)

students and technology 2013

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ECAR 2011

students and technology 2011

agility and leadership

Meyers, P. (2015). The Agility Shift: Creating Agile and Effective Leaders, Teams, and Organizations. Retrieved from http://pamela-meyer.com/the-agility-shift/
book review: http://www.boardlearning.org/2015/10/book-review-agility-shift-creating.html
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Joiner, W., & Josephs, S. (2007). Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
book review: https://orghacking.com/2015/02/23/book-review-leadership-agility/comment-page-1/

open educational resources

A Librarian’s Guide to OER in the Maker Space

http://www.slj.com/2015/10/technology/a-librarians-guide-to-oer-in-the-maker-space

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits sharing, accessing, repurposing—including for commercial purposes—and collaborating with others. They include educational materials, such as lesson plans, games, textbooks, tests, audio, and video. In addition to being free, these no-cost teaching and learning materials are available online for anyone to use, modify or share with others.This use, reuse, and remixing of instructional materials is a powerful way to gain and share knowledge. Because OER are customizable and flexible, they can be used very effectively to support students to achieve their learning goals.

OER Commons is a digital library where educators can find resources to develop, support and amplify their maker space practices. The site is searchable by subject, grade level or standard. Users can also filter results to include topics, such as activities and labs, games, videos, lesson plans, and interactive tools.

Related blog entry:
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/02/22/libraries-and-learning/

libraries and learning

How Libraries Fit in the Future of Learning

http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2016/01/how-libraries-fit-future-learning

Amy Brown, M.Ed. is a K-12 education strategist for CDW·G. January 20, 2016

According to the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition, schools all over the nation have begun promoting content creation over content consumption.

When evaluating equipment, administrators need to consider how it will work with the space.

More about school media places and the future for information media in academia:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=library&submit=Search

related IMS blog entry: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/02/24/open-educational-resources/

social media and freedom of speech

the use of social media, personal versus institutional, or personal in the context of an institutional repercussions, is a complex and thorny issue. How much can one criticize the institution in their personal social media? And if the institution responds, when does it become silencing the social media as expression of free speech?

Is the article below touching only a specific [political] issue, or academia, as an institution, goes beyond this issue in imposing on freedom of speech?

Why I Was Fired

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-I-Was-Fired/233640

My tweets might appear uncivil, but such a judgment can’t be made in an ideological or rhetorical vacuum. Insofar as “civil” is profoundly racialized and has a long history of demanding conformity, I frequently choose incivility as a form of communication. This choice is both moral and rhetorical.

Academics are usually eager to contest censorship and deconstruct vague charges of vulgarity. When it comes to defending Israel, though, anything goes.

Students are capable of serious discussion, of formulating responses, of thinking through discomfort. They like my teaching because I refuse to infantilize them; I treat them as thinking adults. My philosophy is simple: Teach them the modes and practices of critical thought and let them figure out things on their own.

Professors are often punished for disrupting convention in informal ways, however. My case is interesting because administrators ignored the de facto standards that regulate our behavior and exercised their power directly. This should be worrisome to any scholar who isn’t a sycophant.

The coming of “academic capitalism” has been anticipated and praised for years; today it is here.
Benjamin Ginsberg points out that in the past 30 years, the administrator-to-student ratio has increased while the instructor-to-student ratio has stagnated. The rise of untenured, or non-tenure-track, faculty exacerbates the problem; a significant demographic in academe lacks job security or the working conditions that allow them to maximize their pedagogical talent. Over a recent 10-year period, spending on administration outpaced spending on instruction. At American universities, there are now more administrators and their staffers than full-time faculty. In the past 10 years, administrative salaries have steadily risen while custodians and groundskeepers suffer the inevitable budget cuts — as do the students whose tuition and fees supplement this largess.

When so much money is at stake, those who raid the budget have a deep interest in maintaining the reputation of the institution. Their privilege and the condition of the brand are causally related. The brand thus predominates. Its predominance often arrives at the expense of student well-being.

critical thinking is a terribly undesirable quality in the corporate world, much more damning than selfishness or sycophancy. Let us then be honest about critical thinking: On the tongues of cunning bureaucrats, it is little more than an additive to brand equity, the vainglorious pomp of smug, uptight automatons who like to use buzzwords in their PowerPoint presentations.

Critical thinking by faculty is even more undesirable. In research institutions, we are paid to generate prestige and to amass grant money; in teaching-centered colleges, we enjoy excess enrollments according to fine-tuned equations that maximize the student-teacher ratio. (In elite liberal-arts colleges, we pamper the kids with simulations of parental affection.) Critical thinking is especially harmful to adjuncts, reliant as they are for income on the munificence of well-paid bosses who cultivate a distended assemblage of expendable employees.

more on social media in this IMS blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=social+media&submit=Search