From the Blended and Online Learning discussion list:
We’re working on a grant program at my unit to improve these lec-capture courses. One of the ways is to train faculty:
We’ve seen that these courses have very little student engagement, especially for online students for whom this is the main medium of instruction. It’s challenging for the instructors to keep the online student in mind as they teach their lec-capture class. This is not surprising, since they’re essentially being asked to teach 2 different audiences simultaneously – in class and online. However, given that this is not going to change in the near future for us, we’ve begun exploring ways to train faculty to do a better job given the constraints. Below are some ideas:
We are in the process of creating a sort of “checklist” to address things that can be done before, during, and after the class and ways of streamlining the process.
BEFORE
Make faculty familiar with the technology – do tours of rooms, tutorials, short workshops, etc.
Syllabus, Schedule and instructional materials are prepared before the semester begins.
Learning objectives, outcomes, and assessments are aligned and made transparent to the students.
Design pedagogy that is inclusive – for e.g., move discussions online, create groups that include in-class and online students, use language that directly addresses online students, etc.
DURING & at the END
Review a sampling of videos at the beginning, middle, and end by ourselves and then with the faculty and provide them feedback on the good, the bad, and the ugly – very discreetly. 🙂 It’s going to be a sort of a joint reflection on the class. We believe if we do this a few times with the faculty, they’ll get the message and will make greater effort to include the online student in their instruction. And doing it 3 times will also make visible the changes and progress they make (or not)
We also plan to survey the students at the beginning, middle, and at the end of the semester and share the results with the faculty.
Chunking of videos includes preplanning and post production tasks. Faculty can be trained to script their lectures more, create lecture based on “topics” to make chunking and tagging easier. Need to focus on end user experience (online student).
These are some of the ideas. We plan to start implementing them this summer. I’ll share with you our progress. 🙂
Rema
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Rema Nilakanta, Ph.D.
Director of Design & Delivery|
Engineering-LAS Online Learning
1328 Howe Hall
515-294-9259 (office)
515-294-6184 (fax) http://www.elo.iastate.edu
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On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Nilakanta, Rema [ELO] <rema@iastate.edu> wrote:
Good Morning!
Thank you all for filling out the survey on the use of lecture capture in higher education. I appreciate your time and interest in this subject.
Attached are the results. I’ve also provided an overview below. The main purpose of this survey was to get an overall idea of how lecture capture is used in HE. I was just curious to see if the way we use it is pretty much similar at other institutions. The finding was inconclusive. My next step is to dig a little deeper – perhaps repurpose this survey for faculty and students. The final goal is to improve these courses – make them as pedagogically sound as possible, given that this technology is here to stay at our campus, at least for the near future. It will certainly require designing faculty training, but I would also like to explore innovative and efficient ways of chunking lecture videos pre and post production.
Let me know if you have any questions or need further information.
Rema
OVERVIEW OF “USE OF LECTURE CAPTURE IN HE” SURVEY RESULTS & FINDINGS
I’ve listed some of the findings that impressed me. They do not follow the order of the questions in the survey. For details, please view the attached report.
Just a quick note – There were 39 respondents, but not all responded to every question. The respondents included instructional and IT support staff and administrators at all levels generally from 4-year public and private universities.
FINDINGS & THEMES
Echo 365 and Panopto are the most frequently used lecture capture systems, but Adobe Connect also has several users.
The computer screen and the instructor feed are most commonly captured (89% and 79%, respectively). However, some also capture the document camera, the whiteboard, and the graphics pen tablet (53%, 39%, and 32%, respectively).
Almost every one (97%) report that they support their recordings with additional course materials in an LMS, while many also use web conferencing to deliver lectures and hold office hours. A sizeable portion of respondents also use online textbooks and publisher sites in their course delivery. Only 18% use lecture capture as the primary means of course delivery.
The majority of respondents use full class recordings of an hour or more, while around half also use short segments of 20 minutes or less.
The majority of the respondents seem to indicate a campus wide use of lecture capture for different purposes:
o review of in-class lectures
o training and advising
o student presentations (students use the technology to create their presentations/demos/assignments)
o live streaming of seminars and on-site hosting of conferences for remote students and audiences.
Size of the support units ranged from 1 person to 150+ people spread across campus.
Similarly, there was a wide range for the number of courses that used lecture capture – as few as 1-2 to a 1000 and more, if one takes into account non-traditional uses.
Although the numbers show that a majority (77%) provide full IT support for their lecture capture systems, a closer look at the comments indicates there is a general tendency toward making faculty more self reliant by providing them support when requested, or providing them with fully equipped and automated rooms, personal capture solutions and/or training.
Majority seemed satisfied with the lecture capture setup, so did the students. However, it seemed that the knowledge about student satisfaction was more anecdotal than formal. Other observations include:
o For people satisfied with the setup, there were quite a few users of Echo 360 and Panopto.
o Panopto seemed to rise above the rest for its promptness and quality of service. Mediasite got mixed response.
o There seems to be an awareness of the need to get the lectures captioned.
o Along with automated lecture capture technology, there seems to be a rise in old ways of doing things – manual (human) recording of events continues and seems preferable, especially in the face of rising costs of lecture capture technology.
The top 5 challenges concerning faculty support can be summarized as follows:
o Training faculty to use the technology – turn on the mic, no recording of white board, do not change settings, take time to learn the technology.
o Funding and support
o Ensuring best practices
o Captioning
o IP concerns
Efforts to address these challenges were related to:
OPERATIONS
– Keep mic on all the time
– Use of media asset management systems, like Kaltura (MediaSite)
– Admins trained to check settings for rooms
– Disable download of recordings as default setting (addressed IP concerns)
TRAINING
– Create user groups around technologies
– Promote communication among instructors using a particular room
– Training of faculty by instructional design teams on the use of technology and best practices
We, the faculty from InforMedia Services (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/10/06/technology-instruction-available-free/), are willing and able to help faculty, staff and students with their academic endeavors in technology.
We offer one-to-one sessions, production and instructional design assistance, workshops, instructional sessions and in-class technology instructions.
In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase how to enhance students’ engagement by modernizing D2L experience through connection with social media. Bring your own examples and participate in a discussion, which aims finding the right tools for your class and field of study.
Audience: beginners to advanced
Prerequisite:
come with your own social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have an idea about peculiarity of each of the social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the integration of each of the social media tool into D2L
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent each particular tool fits their field of study
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to compare the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of the social media tools compared to D2L
D2L and Twitter
microblogging of 140 characters is often viewed as limiting. However, it can be the ultimate test how well students understand the learning material: making someone sum up in 140 characters what they learned this particular week in their class can take a lot of rewriting.
D2L allows a widget on its main page, where students can view and tweet. Students also can view and tweet from their mobile devices.
Tweeting during class is becoming mainstream in K12, also called “backchanneling.” Harnessing peers help to understand a concept discussed in class can save both time and efforts on the instructors’ side
Twitter is “making your twitter.com timeline more immersive by uncropping photos, so you can experience and present them as they were meant to be viewed.” https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/12/13/improvements-in-social-media-tools/
D2L and Vine
Vine is a social media services, which provides the ability to share 7 sec videos. Vine is becoming more popular then Instagram (15 sec videos), with the simplicity to create short videos. Students can take sequence of short videos, which amount to 7 sec to reflect the main points of a project. E.g.: chemical reaction, biology dissection, progress of engineering planning, solving a math formula.
URL to the vine can be posted in the D2L discussion area for further collaborative effort or for peers’ and instructions evaluation
Vines are a click away from a FB group page or, with the right handle and hashtag, to a Twitter discussion
The bottom-line to evaluate if fitting your field of study is: can the content be narrated or is it much better if visualized. If the latter, Vine can be your salvation. How to Create Social Videos With Your Smartphonehttps://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/01/10/social-videos-with-your-smartphone/
Per SCSU IT disclaimer: MediaSpace (Kaltura) is a free, cloud-based video repository solution for campus that allows faculty and staff to upload and distribute video and audio content for academic or administrative purposes. Facilitators will discuss potential uses of MediaSpace for campus, demonst rate how to create Webcam and screen recordings, upload audio/video, and embed or link to MediaSpace content from D2L or a web site. YouTube is owned by Google and the integration, including statistics and analytics by Google are way beyond MediaSpace. The only selling point of MediaSpace is the FERPA requirement by MnSCU to host privacy data on a MnSCU owned server
I can cover this in 5-15 minutes, just let me know what you prefer
Integrating Facebook Groups
I will show a couple of groups that I have used
I can also come up with an “exercise” that participants can do, just let me know: (1) if you want me to and (2) if participants are suppose to have a Facebook account that they can log into during the session
Title
Engage your students: gaming and gamification in the learning process.
Outline
As part of the broader discussion, a short discussion segment to form and agree on definitions and terms regarding games and gamification. Another short segment to seek consensus if this SCSU campus is ready to departure on the path of gamifying education. After several examples, of how games are used in education and gamification techniques, a discussion on how gaming and gamification can be streamlined amidst shrinking budget and increasing workload. More details and information about gaming and gamification at: http://scsu.mn/1F008Re
Audience: beginners to advanced
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have a working definitions on play, games, serious games, game-based learning, digital game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges. (more at http://scsu.mn/1F008Re)
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the possibilities for integration of games in the educational process and for gamification of the educational process.
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study
Plan:
Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion
Your Brain on Video Game http://www.zaption.com/present/566b26d4cbda6b1c1c482aa6
(use presenter, ask for mobile devices)
Work on the definitions: play, games, serious games, game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges
Title
Present and be presented: engage your students with modern ways to share information
Outline
Two trends plague education: the swamp of PowerPoint presentations and the lack of visual literacy. In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase of various cloud-based tools, which brings visual presentations way beyond PowerPoint and align with the Millennials demand for current social interaction. A discussion on how relevant these tools are to various disciplines and details on improving the interaction among instructors and students during the presentation. Ongoing discussion about design as part of visual literacy and the difference between blended learning and technology integration.
Audience: beginners to advanced
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have understand the movement “Death by PowerPoint” and will understand the advantage of cloud-based presentation tools to MS PowerPoint
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with several tools, which successfully replace PowerPoint and well beyond.
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to discriminate between technology integration and blended learning.
Plan:
Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion
EdPuzzle https://edpuzzle.com/ https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/02/19/edpuzzle-flipped-lessons/
crops the video so one can watch only a segment. Does not make much sense, since YouTube gives an URL to the reference point, but it allows instructor’s audio feedback. It is still too much “instructor’s proprietary” and not so much students-engaging as Zaption Presenter and Kahoot.
Join us next Tuesday, November 10th from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM, for a special SIG Series webinar: Tales from the National Forum on Active Learning Classrooms
The WSU Learning Spaces Team attended the National Forum on Active Learning Classrooms at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities this summer and learned a lot. With topics ranging from picking whiteboards to better integrating classroom design into your campus strategic planning efforts, the conference was a treasure trove of good practices, pictures of cool new classrooms, links to useful information, and pro tips. Join us as we share what we learned at this amazing gathering. If you didn’t get a chance to go, this session will be a great opportunity to zoom in on the highlights. If you went, we would love to compare notes!
Ken Graetz, Tom Hill, Stephanie Stango, Dave Burman, and Eric Wright are all part of the Winona State University Learning Spaces Team and members of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Services unit of Information Technology Services. They attended the National Forum as a team this summer and were able to cover almost all of the sessions. Each brings a unique perspective to the discussion, from under-the-hood classroom systems design and configuration to instructional design and pedagogical strategies.
McGill Principles for Designing of Teaching and Learning Spaces has rubric
most useful technology in an ALC appears to be the whiteboard.
Whiteboards are also very glitchy. Projecting my tablet or laptop is just as effective–with less glitches
evidence that students are reluctant to engage in active learning.
the U has done work, but the “Canadians have the process”
the support faculty gets from technicians: two week in the beginning of the semester in a new classroom.
what is the most important goal of your college education and therefore of this course: a. inquiring information b. learning how to sue information and knowledge in anew situation c. developing skills to continue learning after college
creativity
computer skills
GPA cutoff above 3.0
problem solving skills
teamwork skills
verbal communication
written communication skills
GigaPan.com instructor will have students use in classes to identify problems engaging in a virtual field trip. student engagement
design thinking
wikispaces as GOogle docs, MS Word 16, work collaboratively
not group, but team. team work very important
take what we learned in ALCs to traditional large lecture halls
blending the formal with the informal (including outdoors)
This session will present results from an evaluation of the integration of RealizeIT adaptive learning technology into three fully online courses: General Psychology, Pathophysiology for Nursing Practice, and College Algebra. Presenters will discuss the impact on students, faculty, and the university.
Adaptive learning systems provide each student with a personalized learning experience, adapting the presentation of the content, and possibly the assessment to the individual ability of the student
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Co-developed by Learning Technologies and the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Indiana University, a digital badge pilot (badges.iu.edu) was launched to support faculty professional development and growth. This session will cover the competency levels, topics of study, and the badging platform to document levels of achievement. Outcomes: Understand the basics of a three-tiered framework for digital badges * Review the online badging platform * Explore topics for faculty development
Mozilla Open Badges 101: Digging into Badges (a webinar)
personalized learning or competency-based does not resolve it. GPA does not respond to employers search
regimenting credentials. digital representation of of skill or achievement. represent achievements on the web. social status (foursquare). granular, evidence-based and transferable. badge ecosystem (across multiple areas), this is why open badges; open system. Open Badge Standard: issuer information; earner information; criteria URL; evidence URL; Standards Alignment; Taxonomy Tags
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Data Visualization: The What, the Who, and the How
Data visualization tools are becoming much stronger and are now targeted at a much wider audience. This panel will explore what we should be trying to do with data visualization, who will be doing it, and how we might support and steer it. OUTCOMES: Identify multiple opportunities for use of data visualization * Learn about multiple user communities, including those not centrally managed * Explore ways to support users and steer them toward good practiceshttp://www.educause.edu/sites/default/files/library/presentations/E15/SESS029/Data%2BViz%2BEducause%2B151028%2BFINAL1.pptxslides 7: What works well for technically savvy developers may not work for faculty or staff without those same credentials.
Data Wrapper
Raw
Infogram
Tableau
Oracle suite of OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition) has been very successful for CSU
Cognos (IBM) is another tool that is very popular for developers and has been used by USG central office
D3 (For Data Driven Documents)
Fusion Charts
Chart js
Google Charts
slide 11: Two primary design goals supported through Data Visualization:
Discovery and Exploration
–What story is the data telling you
–Identify patterns and exceptions
Decision-making
–Compare, contrast, choose
–Explain, make a point, decide
slide 15:
qTo communicate
qPresent more clearly or more forcefully than would be accomplished with text or tables
qReports, dashboards, infographics, etc.
qTo discover
qAllow us to see what would be difficult or impossible to see if not presented in a useful visualization
qRealm of research but moving into the mainstream
qCan same visualization serve both purposes?
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iPad, You Pad, We All Pad: Transforming Teaching and Learning
California State University Northridge, Lynn University, and Jackson State University have all deployed one-to-one iPad tablet initiatives, with the objectives to increase student engagement and learning, improve the quality of teaching materials, and decrease student costs. This session will discuss the transformational educational opportunities afforded by the iPad and highlight technology and pedagogical lessons learned. Outcomes: Learn about the transformational impact of one-to-one iPad initiatives in the classroom * Understand the need for extensive faculty development and faculty adoption strategies * Appreciate deployment and support challenges====================
The Avalon Video and Audio Repository for Libraries and Beyond
The Avalon Media System provides an open-source streaming media solution, based on Hydra/Fedora repository technologies, focused on delivery of library media collections, but it is finding other uses, including support for publication, teaching and learning content, and digital scholarship. As a result, new features enhance support for additional research and instructional use cases. Outcomes: Understand the problems Avalon solves * Understand the extended use cases addressed with Avalon, both present and intended future * Learn how best to engage with the Avalon project.========================
The Karuta Open Source Portfolio, currently under incubation by the Apereo Foundation, offers dramatic flexibility for designing portfolio workflows with rubrics to assess learning outcomes. Karuta is LTI enabled for integration with the LMS for easy access and transfer of evidence of learning. Subsequent releases will add functionality for showcasing as well as reporting. Outcome: Learn how Karuta can flexibly support your programs and institution through leveraging its functionality
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Supporting the Discovery and Adoption of Open E-Textbooks
The California Open Education Resources Council comprises faculty from the three CA higher education systems working together to identify open textbooks for high impact courses. The selected open textbooks are in the process of being peer reviewed and curated in the CA Open Online Library. Outcomes: Identify quality open textbooks for general education, high-impact courses * Learn how to interpret textbook peer reviews with a faculty-created rubric * Understand how to reference these resources for the discovery of quality no- or low-cost materialshttp://www.educause.edu/sites/default/files/library/presentations/E15/PS58/COOL%2BEducause%2BPoster%2B2015.pdf
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Seminar 12P – Six Secrets for Evaluating Online Teaching (separate registration is required)
What makes online teaching different from face-to-face teaching? How can we tell when it’s done well? Faculty members, administrators, and IT leaders will learn six evaluation “secrets” from the authors of the new book Evaluating Online Teaching. You will leave this seminar with use-them-now strategies, tools, and templates to take back to your campus. OUTCOMES: Distinguish online content and practices that “count” as teaching behaviors * Design self-, peer-, and administrative-evaluation analytic tools * Develop a 6-stage, campus-wide program for evaluating online teachinghttp://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2015/seminar-12p-six-secrets-evaluating-online-teaching-separate-registration-required
Learn how the University of Pittsburgh is creating a scalable classroom model for active learning on a traditional campus. Administrators, faculty, and instructional technologists and designers recently collaborated to reimagine legacy large-enrollment lecture halls. The focus of this session is on the learning space design process across the disciplines. Outcomes: Identify and apply the principles of active learning associated with learning space deign * Understand the design process * Assemble an effective learning space design teamhttp://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2015/reimagining-learning-space-design-across-disciplines
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Thinking Digitally: Advancing Digital Literacy with Personalized Learning Tools
The session will outline a scalable framework for integrating digital literacy in higher education curriculum, supported by tools that allow for active and personalized learning. Research and examples from Georgia State University’s experience implementing a pilot program will be used as a catalyst for interactive discussion and idea generation. Outcomes: Understand the value of incorporating digital literacy into curriculum * Select from emerging personalized learning technologies to support digital literacy across diverse academic scenarios * Adapt a methodology for developing partnerships to advance digital literacy across the organizationhttp://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2015/thinking-digitally-advancing-digital-literacy-personalized-learning-tools===============
A discussion of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and drone activities that either take place on campus or impact a campus from the outside. The state of federal aviation regulations and guidelines for drones will be covered. Attendees can share their experiences with official and rogue drone activities at their institutions. Outcomes: Learn about the drone devices in use, from miniature to massive * Understand the impact of drones on academic institutions, for better or worse * Learn what drone activities are legally allowable, banned, or discouragedhttp://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2015/whats-droning-overhead
Resources – Higher Ed Drone Policies
The Ohio State University
Iowa State University
Indiana University
University of Kansas
Penn State University
University of New Mexico
The Association of College and University Policy
Administrators (ACUPA, acupa.org)
Join this lively discussion and discovery of innovative and functional uses and support for mobile computing. We will explore creative ideas for projects using mobile devices in teaching, learning, and administration. Topics may include hardware, applications, tools, special uses, wireless and mobile connectivity, web services, support issues, and security.
there are two type of universities: the ones that are in control of change and the ones, which are pressed to change.
what kind of education is needed at this moment of history.
Assumptions: 5-10 years will be for a first time outcompeted in terms of delivering information and degrees. What is that the university can do distinctively well that WWW cannot do: mentored learning and the arc of learning (beyond collection of granular separate learning)
book: The New Division of Labor. http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Division-Labor-Computers/dp/0691124027
External forces of potential disruption: 1. MOOCs, nearly free education, 2. skilled-based learning (Codeacademy, Udacity), 3. data analytic 4. public pressure on access, metrics of impact.
Gartner group (http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp) hype cycle : overvalued in a short term and undervalued in a long term. MOOC is excellent example.
NMC: competing models of education.
learning analytics. adaptive learning, intelligent tutoring etc. Open Learning Initative. http://oli.cmu.edu/
In the 19th century, railroads companies which were in the business of railroad companies went under; the ones which were in the business of transportation survived. Parallel, universities, which are in the business of delivering information will die out; the ones, which will survive must look to a very different picture.
partners across campus for IT/AV: CETL
What is the most important key for creating active learning spaces (ALS).
Mathew shared his work with CETL and his understanding of the importance of faculty being brought to the table. Faculty as equal stakeholder in the process.
In a conversation with him after the presentation, he agreed that faculty must be the leading force in in generating ideas what new technology and how to implement technology in the classroom. He agreed that at the present IT/AV staff is the leading force and this is a corrupt statuquo
key partnerships:
faculty and academic affairs, students, facilities, architects, engineers, contractors, furniture vendors, IT (networking, support instructional design)
challanges: ITS mindset (conservative), Administration must be on board (money), Funding.
MnSCU is not Google friendly. 60% of the staff is not doing the same tasks as 3 years ago.
Open about challenges, sharing more with faculty. Nice to hear this, but the communication must be much larger, to the point when faculty are equal partners in a relationship, which is not far from equal decision making.
If faculty is not considered a REAL stakeholder (versus intimated body in a meeting which is controlled by IT people), the entire technology use goes down the drain. Faculty is much stronger relationship with students then IT is with students. The presentation put weight on IT staff and its connection with students’ needs. It is questionable how IT staff can make stronger connection then faculty, who are in a daily contact with students.
The issue is how to assist faculty to catch up with the technology, not how IT staff to rival faculty in their connection with students. What faculty lacks in understanding of technology cannot be replaced by IT staff increasing interaction with students, but rather assisting faculty with coming to terms with technology.
maintaining innovation: fail fast and fail forward; keep up to date with technology (blank statement); always look for new furniture; focus on space design instead of just A/V; Challenge yourself with new ideas; always learn from your mistakes; always get feedback from students and faculty (again, the PERIPHERAL role of faculty. Is feedback all expected from faculty? It faculty and IT staff must be equal partners at the decision table. not faculty being consulted at decision made by IT staff)
Google Glass mentioned, Pebble watches. supposedly to understand students habits. Big data used to profiling students is very fashionable, but is it the egg in the basket?
they have 3d printer, Inoculus. Makerspace mentioned
examples how to use 3d printing for education (LRS archive collections, MN digital library).
the presenter kept asking if there are questions. it makes me wonder how far back (pedagogically or androgogically) IT staff must be to NOT consider backchanneling. Social media is not a novelty and harvesting opinions and questions using social media should not be neglected
digital classroom breakdown session
Break down session: Digital Classroom
technical, very IT. I am not versed enough to draw impression on how it projects over real faculty work. HDMI cables.
relating to the previous presentation: I really appreciate the IT / AV staff handling all this information, which is complex and important; but during my 15 years tenure at SCSU I learned to be suspicious of when the complexity and the importance of the techy matter starts asserting itself as leading when the pedagogy in the classroom is determined.
HD flow and other hardware and software solutions
VLAN 3. lecture capture.
BYOD support in the classroom: about half of the room raised their hands.
opportunity to build a sense of community between the library and its users
the variability of skills across library staff for using social media effectively, striking the right tone between professional and personal, coordinating activities across the institution to avoid duplication
maintaining visibility for the library brand and copyright issues relating to hosting library resources on social media sites
Policies and management:
Librarians are divided on the benefits of introducing formalized social media policies and plans. About a third of libraries responding to the Taylor & Francis survey had a policy in place, but over 40% had no plans to introduce one
Some believe that representing the library as a professional function with a
consistent tone is the priority, while others believe that a more human approach is important, with individual staff free to bring their own ideas and personalities to social media activities.
Effectiveness and assessment:
difficult to prove return on effort and that the time required to do this was a major barrier to more comprehensive analysis of impact
framework for evaluation, so it is likely that assessment against commonly agreed metrics will become an increasingly important part of social media activity within the library in the near future
Current Social Media Practices:
In a study from the mid 2000s (Cantrell and Havens1 ), most library directors in the US when questioned about social media said they did not think that libraries had a role in social networking
A more recent study from 2012 (Kai-Wah Chu and Du4) shows how use of social media by the library has now become mainstream. In this survey of libraries in Asia, North America and Europe, 71% were found to be using social media tools with a further 13% saying they planned to use them
Advantages of using social media
n Financially the costs of using social media are perceived to be low;
n It requires little training;
n It promotes library services and disseminates news quickly, delivering this information more directly to library users;
n It increases engagement and interactions with library users;
n It helps gather feedback to enhance user services;
n The promotion of library holdings via social media can help increase usage of content;
n It enhances communication both within the library and with other departments;
n It can be used for outreach activities through onward sharing, well beyond the institution itself, helping build connections and reputation more broadly
Social Media Objectives: graph on page 8 of the PDF document:
A To promote events
B To promote library services
C To promote resources/collections at the library
D To update on library refurbishments
E To promote new acquisitions
F To promote library guides, exhibition guides
G To connect with new students joining the university
H To engage with the academic community
I To connect with the wider community beyond the university e.g. the town in which the institution is based
J To connect with distance learners
K As a customer services tool- complaints, suggestions, enquiries, feedback
L To highlight subject specific information
M To connect with potential students
N As a teaching tool to promote information literacy, technology and writing tips (not library based)
O To promote courses
P As a research tool to locate official documents and studies
From UK-based focus group: “The library is a programme, not just a building.”
Channel preferences: Graph on page 10 of the PDF document
SOCIAL MEDIA USES Table on p 13 of the PDF document
Twitter n Distribute library news and information
n Provide customer service
n Build connections with researchers
n Build connections with other librarians and institutions
Facebook n Distribute library news and information
n More social and less formal than Twitter – share photographs and run competitions
n Arrange events including tracking RSVPs and sending event updates
n Engagement with students
Pinterest n Promote general library collections, digital and archive special collections and information literacy
n Set up of online repositories for students to pin researched references as part of
collaborative group work
n Display book titles to save time browsing and promote new titles
n Provide an arena for students and course leaders to pin reviewed and recommended reading
for a particular topic
n Develop communities with other online libraries
YouTube n Streaming film collections
n Instructional ‘how to’ videos teaching information literacy skills and how to use library
services and resources
There are also a number of other social media products that are being used by librarians that reflect regional
preferences and the need for the specific functions offered by niche applications.
Collection usage and discovery: Graph on p. 15
Teaching and learning
From US-based librarian interview: “The trend in education now is to create environments that foster collaborative learning. Faculty have ditched textbooks and course management systems in exchange for a Facebook page for their class, or a wiki, or a blog. These online environments are fun; students already know how to use them and are more motivated to comment, discuss and share in these environments than a dry CMS.”
Social media policies and management, p. 18
73% of respondents stating that they believed more roles dedicated to social media would appear in the library in the future.
Effectiveness of social media
From UK focus group: “We keep track of something particularly successful, then we redo the campaign 6 months later.”
From US focus group: “We have very few interactions with anyone on our Twitter feed.”
“Twitter is definitely the best platform, because we hashtag all of our posts with the keyword
of the publication, and so for the academic audience, once they click it’s going to pull up all
of the similar publications under that topic.
Promoting library social media channels
From UK focus group:
“We retweet each other to encourage new followers.” My note: Suggested by me regarding SCSU_Library for Twitter and Pinterest and SCSUTechinstruct but “considered” (in local lingo, slow death of the idea)
Of course, not all aspects of online course design require a team of specialists, a longer development time, and more funding. Some things can be done quickly, cheaply and by individuals with focused skill sets.
But technology can, when built with a deep understanding of how students learn, meet both of these needs. We can build online courses that provide students with hundreds of opportunities to test their knowledge. Using scientifically-based learning analytics, we can provide each learner with immediate, context-specific feedback. We can build software that constantly responds to each student’s cognitive and educational differences and serves up activities that address these differences.
Educator, technologist, researcher, and innovator in edtech, distance education, and faculty development
“Placing the burden on lone educators with minuscule (or non-existent) funding and who are not hired for their strengths in instructional media development is neither logical, nor fair. But more to the point, it’s a lost opportunity to leverage high-quality course design to drive improvements in learning outcomes.”
I could not agree more with this statement and the remainder of the article. I’ve long supported an instructional design partnership model where faculty occupy a leading role along with other professionals capable of making the interactions, activities, and rich-media meet the quality needs of an increasingly complex learning environment (and world).
We need to start imagining new models for building, acquiring and sharing instructional media.
This has always been an issue. My students love activities that provide them with immediate feedback. I spend extra hours building a wide variety of different activities into each Learning module. It takes time and effort and if I am going to address different learning styles that is an entirely different issue. To create effective interactive learning tools that will not waste my students time and will challenge their skill level consumes more time than planning for a face to face class with different activities. I would love to talk to someone-be able to explain what I want my students to learn, suggest a few interactive choices, and come back later to find age related learning activities that fit different learning styles.
There is going to be a fight because this model is more like a business product that educators contribute to, rather than own. Perhaps this is the true industrialization of education, replacing the craft model of individual teaching with standardized, high quality product?
I have forwarded this article on to members of the course development team within Pearson for their feedback. I am curious to see their impression of the article versus mine, considering I predominantly am a part of recruitment services for Pearson specifically. Within our academic partnerships platform, we do contend with faculty, should they employ our course development team, to this vein because the ownership usually rests with the instructor solely. Editing course content or abridging related material so that it could be received potentially as more either user-friendly or technologically savvy can be a source of major contention with faculty members. I do agree that this is an industrialization of education to an extent, but it also pushes the ownership of traditional education past the instructor, a predominantly sole proprietorship environment, to an completely different team effort. The natural technological growing pains coupled with role expansion and differentiation are also issues needing to be addressed as well.
Suppose one was to take this seriously. What might such a course look like – for a subject like Biology? Could it be built on existing LMS platforms, or is a new platform required?
I think that both individual ownership and team collaboration are important to the development of successful online learning. We (hopefully) use the concepts of group and team learning in our classroom environments. We should not be afraid to open ourselves up to some of the positive opportunities that could develop from participating in these practices. It does not mean giving up our ownership of content and presentation. I see it as a marketplace of choice where instructors can decide what kinds of activities, helps, prompts, extra materials, and resources they want to add to their class content. The choices could be categorized by learning styles or how they fit into learning paradigms. I think we must face the reality that some parts of education will have to be more industrialized than others just because of the delivery method. This does not have to be a negative issue if there are enough choices to help instructors develop the rigorous content they want to deliver without sacrificing their entire life to the project.
The 2015 Teaching Professor Conference is the place to hear about the latest pedagogical strategies.
The cut-off date for submitting a proposal to the
2015 Teaching Professor Conference is approaching fast! All proposals must be submitted by October 31, 2014.
The Teaching Professor Conference is known for attracting a roster of high-quality, engaging presenters; that’s why we’re asking you to be a part of next year’s event. If you have previously submitted a proposal for past conferences, we sincerely ask you to submit again. And if you have never submitted a proposal for a session or poster session, we ask that you seriously consider this opportunity to share your expertise at the conference.
The 12th annual Teaching Professor Conference will be held May 29-31, 2015 at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, Atlanta, GA.
Featured topical areas are:
Topical Area 1: Instructional Design
Topical Area 2: Activities that Engage Students
Topical Area 3: Teaching Specific Types of Students
Topical Area 4: Instructional Vitality: Ways to Keep Teaching Fresh and Invigorated
Topical Area 5: Teaching and Learning with Technology
Topical Area 6: Creating Climates for Learning
Topical Area 7: Faculty Development
The Teaching Professor Conference is three intensive days of plenary sessions, preconference workshops, sessions, poster sessions, and more. Here is your chance to be a part of it in 2015.
Deadline for proposal submissions is Friday, October 31st, 2014.
