The Director's Cut

ELI on Facebook

2011-01-12T15:00:00.001-05:00

ELI Student Life now has a Facebook page! If you're a Facebooker, check it out--and "like" it!

Top 100 Education Blogs

2010-12-20T13:59:00.001-05:00

Looking for a little light reading over the holidays, or some new ideas for your thinking about spring classes? Check out this list of the Top 100 education blogs, covering elearning, education policy, library services, teaching, learning, internet culture, and more.

Are we Netflix?

2010-10-27T11:30:00.002-04:00

There's an interesting blog post up on Inside Higher Ed today, "5 Things Netflix Streaming Can Teach Higher Ed." It prompts us to look toward the future in considering what higher ed can and should look like, and to do that serious rethinking before, as the post puts it, someone else does it for us.

This call for broad rethinking seems to be the tenor of the discussion about higher ed these days, whether it's from philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundation, which is encouraging designing education for the "Next Generation Learner," to Peter Smith's much-discussed book, Harnessing America's Wasted Talent: A New Ecology of Learning.

What do you think? Are we as an institution, or even as an industry, forward-looking enough? Do you, as a faculty member, feel engaged in these discussions and able to do work that participates in moving us forward? Do you think these visions are even the correct direction for higher education to be moving?

Quick Tips to Make Your Teaching Life Easier

2010-10-19T11:25:00.003-04:00

Are you reading the ProfHacker blog at the Chronicle? Some interesting ideas and resources there...

The recent post about Google's Rapportive tool kind of blew my mind (what do you think of it?), and as someone with WAY too much email to handle, I liked the idea in another recent post of using "best by" dating in email requests.

Texting for student engagement?

2010-09-24T11:01:00.001-04:00

Here's a blog post about some colleges that have tried pilot programs where faculty text students reminders, notes, updates, etc. According to the post, students find the text messages "more personal" than an email. What do you think? Can you see yourself texting your students?

Modular approach to online coursework

2010-09-16T09:38:00.002-04:00

The Kentucky Community and Technical College System has started offering self-paced, on-demand online courses in a modular format. Each normal course is broken up into several modules focused on a discrete topic or skill set and students can opt to take just the modules they are interested in or take the full series to get the course credit. They can also spread out completion of a course over the long term if they want to--check out the example KCTCS gives at the very bottom of the page.

What do you think of this approach?

NOVA Q&A

2010-09-13T09:57:00.002-04:00

I spend a lot of my time in meetings of various college groups, so I tend to know a lot about what's going on with different college initiatives that you as a faculty member may not have a chance to hear about.

So, let me share the wealth! What NOVA questions do you have? (I'm thinking of things like, "Hey, whatever happened to initiative xyz I remember from a few years ago?" or, "Why did we change to doing x this new way?" or, "When is xyz going to happen?")

And, if you want to learn a lot about where NOVA and the VCCS may be going in the next couple of years, don't forget to come to the Chancellor's town hall meeting in the CE Forum this Friday (the 17th) from 9:30-11:00.

Upcoming CETL workshops

2010-09-09T09:51:00.002-04:00

Don't forget that CETL (NOVA's Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) sponsors a workshop series every semester. Now's a good time to review the offerings and pick one or more to sign up for before your calendar gets too full!

You can find the list of workshops here. (Note the link at the top of the page to register.) You'll find sessions on technology, on academic advising, on student mental health issues and emergency preparedness, and on pedagogical matters like how to help your students to better class presentations.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at tomorrow's ELI professional development day!

Fall Faculty Meeting

2010-08-27T17:22:00.001-04:00

Any additional questions/comments?

Getting geared up for the 2010-2011 academic year

2010-08-10T12:21:00.003-04:00

I can hardly believe that I've been away from this blog since December. With two months of bed rest, maternity leave, and the craziness of coming back to work (and, as some of you know, also buying our first home!), it's been hard to get to blogging. But I'm looking forward to getting back to sharing resources and ideas with you this way. I always learn a lot from your comments!

Since I last blogged, some things have changed around ELI--including the fact that there's no longer a Director of ELI (making the blog's name a bit out of date!). Somehow, "Associate Vice President for e-Learning's Cut" just doesn't have the same ring to it, so I think I'll keep the name as it is. Lots more changes are coming--be sure to tune into the fall faculty meeting (August 27 at 3:00 via eNOVA) to learn more. I'll send a link to the meeting by email earlier that week; you can also use the link to listen to the recording after the fact if you are not able to be there live.

Now, here's something that I know you have comments about--what do you think so far of Blackboard 9? :)

How do our students perceive our technology use?

2009-12-15T12:51:00.002-05:00

This Inside Higher Ed article has some interesting data on how professors view their use of technology in teaching and how it contrasts with how students view our technology use. Perhaps not surprisingly, the students don't really think we've figured this stuff out yet! Relatedly and even more importantly, students don't think that we are preparing them well to use technology in their careers.

What do you think is the answer to this "technology gap"? Do we need to just hire a bunch of youngsters who are digital natives and already know how to use this stuff? Is there a way to really get current faculty up to speed on technology? Do we need college policies on how to use technology and how much to do so? Do we need a "technology across the curriculum" initiative to be sure students do have an opportunity to learn a range of technologies they'll need to use in the workplace? As a faculty member, do you think you really know what kinds of technologies are being used every day in workplaces outside academia? Does it matter?

Thoughts on session date changes?

2009-12-02T12:48:00.002-05:00

I sent a message to you all yesterday about potential changes to our session dates. Feel free to share any thoughts, concerns, comments, suggestions, etc. here!

More on K-12 students and online classes

2009-11-30T08:14:00.001-05:00

Here's another tidbit from the presentation I've been sharing from in my past couple of posts. Project Tomorrow asked K-12 students how taking an online class would make school more interesting for them. Here's what they said:

47% said it would put them more in control of their own learning
38% said it would make it easier to review class materials
32% said it would be easier for them to succeed
29% said they would be more comfortable asking questions
27% said they would be more motivated to learn

What are your thoughts about the data I've been sharing? Do you think K-12 students are a different type of student due to the technologies they use every day? Do you think they are coming to us with a correct understanding of online learning? Do we have a correct understanding of them?

What do K-12 students think of online learning?

2009-11-23T13:05:00.002-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned a presentation by Julie Evans in which she shared the voices of today's K-12 students about technology and learning. Here's an interesting tidbit from her presentation: Among students who have NOT taken an online class, 40% of high school students, 35% of middle school students, and 15% of students in grades 3-5 say they are interested in taking an online course. Can anyone else hear the enrollment tsunami coming?

And why do all these students want to take online classes? The reasons differ a bit by age group. High school students are most interested in order to earn college credit, to work at their own pace, and to take classes not offered at their high schools. For middle schoolers, the top reason is to get extra help in a subject (interesting!), followed by earning college credit and working at their own pace. For the youngsters, again, getting extra help in a subject is the top reason for being interested in an online class, followed by working at their own pace and taking a class not offered at their school.

I can tell you that we are already seeing more interest from dual enrollment students seeking ELI courses. It will be interesting to see how these survey data play out in real enrollment trends in the coming years!

Keeping up with our students

2009-11-19T08:49:00.001-05:00

At the recent Educause conference, Julie Evans from Project Tomorrow gave a presentation on what today's K-12 students think about learning with technology, and where they want education to head in the future. According to her presentation, past studies of the adoption of technology in learning (e.g., the adoption of email) show that students generally adopt a technology in their personal lives, and then start applying it to their schoolwork (e.g., using email to collaborate on a project). Next, adults begin to pick it up, then they begin to use it in teaching, by which point student use of that technology is on the decline.

One lesson we might take from this is that to really reach our students where they are, we need to be a little quicker to take up new technologies ourselves. What do you think prevents you from trying new technologies as they come out? Is it fear? Feeling uncomfortable trying to figure it out on your own? Not seeing the usefulness of the new technology? The expense of getting access to it to try it out? Not enough time? Something else?

Funding available for adjunct faculty

2009-11-16T12:44:00.002-05:00

If you're an adjunct faculty member at NOVA, you may be interested in applying for an Adjunct Faculty Professional Development Grant from NOVA's Professional Development Committee. Grants of up to $1500 are available to support development of teaching aids, research, or other projects that will benefit the college. Applications are due by January 13 and must be approved by your dean or provost before submission to HR. If you'd like full information and the application process, please email me and I'll forward it to you!

Online Student Newspaper

2009-10-07T08:27:00.001-04:00

Did you know that NOVA's student newspaper is now available online? Check it out and point it out to your students.

Faculty meeting follow-up

2009-08-26T12:14:00.002-04:00

Please post your comments, questions, etc. from the faculty meeting here--especially whatever ideas and thoughts you want to share on the issue of session timing. Thanks!

Welcome to the New Academic Year

2009-08-18T10:41:00.003-04:00

So here we are, back again... although most of you who teach for ELI didn't take the summer off! As always, the new academic year will bring with it new initiatives, fresh challenges (and some perennial ones), and hopefully a renewed appreciation for why we have chosen to work at one of the nation's top community colleges.

Our fall faculty meeting is coming up next week. I'll send a reminder email late this week or early next week with the links, date/time reminders, etc. Meanwhile, please let me know (post a comment or drop me an email) if there are particular questions you have or issues you have heard about and want to better understand, and I'll see if I can fit them into the faculty meeting (or inform you about them another way).

Copyright Laws and Online Courses

2009-08-14T13:11:00.003-04:00

If you're ever uncertain about how copyright laws apply to materials you might want to use in your online courses, here's a great resource--the American Distance Education Consortium's Learning Resources page. Scroll down to the "Intellectual Property, Copyright, and Fair Use" section and you'll find more than 20 conference presentations, websites and other sources dedicated to explaining these laws to educators.

More Details on Obama's Plan for Online Education

2009-08-05T10:48:00.003-04:00

The Chronicle has an article this week describing Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative and how it may be the basis for what the Obama administration has in mind for online learning. Take a look at the article--and if you're looking for some really good teaching materials, you might also want to look at the Carnegie Mellon materials themselves! I saw them demonstrated at a conference a few years ago, and there are some really useful modules in statistics, math, economics, and more.

Another repository of teaching materials

2009-07-30T14:26:00.002-04:00

If you have ever used MERLOT, you know how useful a repository of learning materials can be to your teaching. Here's another one you may want to check out (thanks, Diane!): Teacher's Domain. The site links you to digital resources from public broadcasting and other media producers, organized by subject area. It's overtly pitched at a K-12 teacher, but the resources are things like clips from "All Things Considered" and other PBS radio programs, so they're really appropriate for our students as well. The resources also often provide background information, discussion questions, and other activities to help you plan your use of the materials.

Do You Recognize Yourself in This Piece?

2009-07-20T10:13:00.004-04:00

I think a lot of us have fallen into the trap of spending more time policing our students than teaching them. What do you think of this article about that tension? How do you keep yourself from being too much police officer and too little teacher? Or do you disagree with the premise and think the police officer role is more important than the author suggests?

More from Obama

2009-07-13T13:44:00.002-04:00

President Obama had an op-ed in the Washington Post this morning which included the following statement:

"We believe it's time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future. Our community colleges can serve as 21st-century job training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future. We can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses and ultimately meet the goal of graduating 5 million more Americans from community colleges by 2020."

Emphasis mine, of course--but take note! This quality improvement thing is clearly not going anywhere any time soon, and this year, ELI will be continuing to ask you to try new things--as we try new things here on the staff side--to help our students be successful.

Creating free online courses for the Obama administration

2009-07-10T09:01:00.001-04:00

In his continued attention to ensuring all Americans have more than a high school education, with particular focus on community colleges, Obama and his administration have been working on an interesting initiative to get community colleges and high schools to create high quality, modular online courses that could be offered free.

I'll be interested to see how the initiative develops, but I must say I share the concern of the first poster--will these courses have active instructors, or will they be free-standing modules students can work through on their own? There is certainly a place for courses/learning modules available online for anyone to work through, but I think most of you will likely agree with me that the role of an instructor in leading the class and facilitating student learning (whether it's helping students stay motivated, answering questions, providing individualized feedback, or whatever) is essential to student success. It seems to me that there's an increasing demand from various quarters for "online education" that means, to the speaker, instructorless education--and in the vast majority of cases, I don't think that's the right direction for us to be headed.

What strikes you about the plan?

New Study on Effectiveness of Online Learning

2009-07-08T11:47:00.004-04:00

The Department of Education has just released a new report on the effectiveness of online learning. (You can find the whole report here, or read an article about the report and some reader commentary at Inside Higher Ed here.)

The report's basic finding is that online education is more effective in producing student learning than face-to-face education, and that blended learning (what we call hybrids) is the most effective of all. There are some interesting nuances in the report about why this is so, and about what types of online materials matter. For instance, activities like watching videos and taking quizzes online don't produce any greater learning than their comparison classes, but using technologies that allow students to interact, collaborate, and control their learning environment greatly improve student learning. (See? When we keep trying to push all of you to design your courses around student interaction, we really do have a reason! We are not making this stuff up!) Another interesting point in the research is that one reason students seem to be more successful in online and blended courses is that they spend more time on task--and I think all of us who teach online know that our courses do require much more active student engagement with the course materials than our face-to-face classes.

What else do you see of interest in the report?

Personal Learning Environments

2009-06-28T09:28:00.000-04:00

Educause has just put out a new "7 Things You Should Know About..." document, this time about "personal learning environments," which are a way of designing instruction so that students control the collection of course materials and how they learn from them. You can find the short document here. It's an interesting concept... do you see this kind of structure working in your courses? Can you imagine teaching this way? Are you teaching this way already?

2009 Innovators Awards from Campus Technology Magazine

2009-06-24T09:19:00.002-04:00

Campus Technology has just announced the 2009 winners of its Innovator Awards. You can see and read some details about the winners--in categories like social networking, ePortfolios, immersive learning, and more--here. (You can also see past winners on the right side of this page.) Take a look and see if you get any bright ideas about things we could do--and note that the VCCS is one of the winners!

Some summer reading on DL

2009-06-17T10:00:00.002-04:00

The June issue of the online Journal of Online Teaching and Learning is now available here (click "Current Issue" on the left). There are lots of interesting articles, including several on preventing plagiarism and other cheating in online courses and lots of case studies and research projects about using particular technologies (podcasting, gaming, student collaboration tools, etc.) in teaching online. Take a look and see if you get any new ideas for your ELI courses! (And notice the call for papers for the winter issue at the bottom of the page--perhaps you'd like to write something about what you're doing in your course. We've got a lot of great work going on at ELI!)

Using Kindles in Online Classes

2009-06-15T11:48:00.003-04:00

Have you tried the Amazon Kindle yet? Do you know if any of your students are using them in your classes? (There's even a new, larger version specially designed to display textbooks.) Some schools have been experimenting with having students try them out; this article describes one faculty member's plans on this front (and also includes a link to descriptions of some other experiements). What's interesting is that one would assume these types of experiments would happen at institutions with wealthier student bodies (I've never heard of a community college providing all its incoming students iPods to listen to lectures, for example, but plenty of four-years have), but in this case, the student body sounds like it has much in common with our own. What do you think? Could you see this working for our students? Do you see benefits of using the Kindle in your teaching?

Amazing New Way to Cheat

2009-06-08T08:15:00.000-04:00

Wow... I am completely blown away by this new approach to cheating.

Summer Enrollments: Who's in Our Classes?

2009-06-05T12:46:00.002-04:00

As you know, we saw phenomenal growth at ELI this summer (about 14% higher than last summer's enrollments--and still counting!). Are you noticing anything in particular about the nature of the students we have enrolled? I'm curious whether we're seeing simply greater numbers of the same types of students we always get, or whether we're seeing new categories of students altogether.

One noteworthy thing I can see from the administrative side is that enrollment patterns are unusual--really slow enrollments in some of our core courses that normally fill rapidly (and that we staffed up for) and really high enrollments in some courses that are usually quite small. It will be interesting to see whether these patterns are just artifacts of the summer population (more transient students, who have different needs than our fall/spring population) or if they continue into the fall.

Blackboard and Web 2.0 training opportunities

2009-06-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

Did you see Cathy Simpson's recent email listing TAC's training opportunities for the summer? Check out the listing and registration info here if you missed it. There is lots of great stuff available, from podcasting, Wimba, or online photo training to advanced Blackboard tools like Safe Assign (the plagiarism detector) and StudyMate. I hope many of you will take advantage of the offerings!

Myths and truths about community colleges

2009-06-01T08:17:00.002-04:00

Beth Harper and I are teaching a graduate course on the community college beginning today. (I asked you for reading recommendations for this course a while back, so this may sound familiar.) We'll be teaching mostly K-12 teachers, and some education policy folks. What are the things you'd most like people like this to know about community colleges, our students, our faculty, etc. when they leave the course?

2008 ITC Distance Education Survey

2009-05-29T17:05:00.003-04:00

The Instructional Technology Council has released its 2008 report on distance learning at community colleges. You can see a summary of some key findings in the blue box here. Or, click the link on that page for the full report. As I read it, it seems that our colleagues across the country are experiencing they very same challenges we are.

I wonder how many of the 31% who are considering changing their learning management system will actually take the plunge and leave Blackboard behind--and whether the merger with Angel will change any of those plans. (As an aside on that--did you see in the Chronicle that the Department of Justice is investigating Blackboard's acquisition of Angel as a possible antitrust violation? Interesting times in the instructional technology world...)

Learn to be a MERLOT Peer Reviewer

2009-05-25T08:52:00.000-04:00

Interested in being a peer reviewer for MERLOT? You might want to participate in one of MERLOT's upcoming GRAPE Camps, in which you can learn to do just that. You can find the signup form, which includes two choices of three dates each (each "camp" is three sessions long), here. All sessions are webinars, so you can participate from anywhere (including asynchronous participation if you have time zone problems in meeting at the set times). You can get more information by contacting Laura Franklin, NOVA's main MERLOT contact.

Higher Education and Economic Bubbles

2009-05-22T12:59:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting column in the Chronicle wondering whether higher education is another economic bubble that's about to burst. Especially in this economic climate, are families really going to continue to be willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for college tuition and fees? If the authors are right, we'll see yet another surge of community college enrollments, since state institutions lack the capacity to grow that much that quickly.

A Sitcom about Community Colleges?

2009-05-20T11:58:00.000-04:00

Dean Dad, among other things in this post, alerts us to an upcoming NBC sitcom about community colleges (starring Chevy Chase... an odd choice). What do you think? Likely to help or hurt our cause?

Summer 2009 and ELI's Booming

2009-05-18T11:50:00.003-04:00

The summer 2009 term starts today--and it's exciting to see that we are currently 15% larger than this time last summer. Students are coming to us for the convenience of online learning, for the excellent support we offer through our student services staff, and of course, for the engaging instruction they get from ELI faculty in outstanding courses designed through your partnerships with our instructional designers.

Keep up all your good work, and please don't hesitate to let me know when you have a great idea for making ELI even better.

NOVA's Social Networking Sites

2009-05-12T12:54:00.002-04:00

I've just finished writing some posts for ELIfe, our student blog, about NOVA's various social networking/web 2.0 presences--our Facebook and MySpace pages, NOVA on Twitter, and NOVA on iTunes U. We're also on LinkedIn, and we have a YouTube channel. Check them all out here (bottom of the page).

Do you know about these things? Have you heard any of your students mention them? Take a look at them--what uses can you see for your own teaching? (For example, in iTunes U, there's an 8-minute video Lori made interviewing a successful ELI student about her strategies for success; would it be helpful for your students to watch that video?) What ideas do you have for other things ELI, or the college, should develop for sharing on these sites?

Blackboard acquiring Angel

2009-05-06T16:59:00.003-04:00

Just received notice of this press release announcing that Blackboard is acquiring Angel, another course management system. I'm not familiar with Angel's interface--for those of you who are, how would you expect this to possibly change Blackboard?

I think the most interesting point in the press release is the discussion of the fact that one of Angel's strengths was that it was client-focused and customer-service-oriented. According to the press release, Blackboard intends to build this strength of Angel's into the new Blackboard organization. It will be very interesting to see whether they follow through with this, and how--and whether we see a difference in how well new versions of Blackboard meet our needs as instructors and course designers as a result.

Taking Stock

2009-04-29T10:08:00.002-04:00

I've been writing The Director's Cut for a little over a year now, and I thought it might be a good time, as the spring semester winds down, to take stock. Is it worthwhile to you for me to keep this blog? Are there things I could change that would make it more useful to you? Should I direct my energies elsewhere instead?

Feedback appreciated!

Technology tips to save time and improve student learning

2009-04-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

Mark Morton from Educause has put together a document with his top 5 tips for using technology to make your life as on online teacher easier while also helping students be more successful. What's nice is that each tip includes a full description of how to make it work, evidence to show that it actually does work, and links to examples. Take a look and see if you find anything you might want to use!

Finding New Faculty to Teach at ELI

2009-04-23T12:40:00.003-04:00

For the first time (at least that I'm aware of), we put ELI in the adjunct block ad HR publishes each term--and wow, have we gotten a huge response. I've heard from people around the region, the state, the country, and even internationally who want to know more about teaching for us. It's amazing to see how much distance learning is growing and how many people want to try it out.

I've put together a brief FAQ to tell interested parties a few basic things about ELI. Take a look and tell me what you think. Are there things I'm missing that I should include in this first, overview-type FAQ? (We of course provide more information later, like sharing the MOU.)

(As a related aside, some of you may remember that long ago, I asked you for feedback on the faculty portion of the ELI site and how we could redesign it to make it more useful to you. That's still coming--and so, no need to comment on the layout of this document in terms of web design--just content.)

Attention, Grammar Police!

2009-04-17T08:58:00.002-04:00

One of my pet peeves is people who use quotation marks inappropriately (I know--we should all have such problems), so I got a laugh out of this blog, which posts photos of signs and notes people have found with these kinds of errors. Some of them are pretty funny--and, English and Communication Studies faculty, this might be fun to use with your students!

Students on Blackboard

2009-04-15T10:55:00.002-04:00

I posted a poll on the student blog asking students about their feelings about Blackboard, and got some interesting results. 48% said they "love" Blackboard. I wonder what percentage of faculty would say that!

This whole Twitter thing...

2009-04-10T10:19:00.002-04:00

As you can see from the poll results on the left, not many of you are on Facebook, at least not in a significant way. I'm guessing that it's also the case that most of you aren't on Twitter, since it's newer and since FB is a bit easier to handle than Twitter. But, our students are on it. Have you explored it at all? What do you think?

Here's an interesting article on using Twitter to get feedback from students about their learning. It's really focused on institutional planning, but I think it is also interesting to see the types of things students said.

Can you think of ways you could use Twitter in your teaching? Is anyone using it now?

What Did You Learn?

2009-04-08T08:21:00.001-04:00

Last night, we had a great student success event and shared a lot of ideas for better helping our students learn our material and succeed in our courses. Many of us also attended New Horizons last week.

Let's share the wealth. What did you learn (great ideas, new technology tools to try, time-saving tips, etc.) that you think your colleagues might also benefit from?

Make Quick, Free Videos

2009-04-05T13:59:00.005-04:00

At New Horizons, I saw a demo of Animoto, a site that allows you to make free 30-second videos. (You can also buy an account, which allows you to make longer videos.) It's really neat--you just upload pictures (or use pictures they store on the site), select music (again, upload your own or use theirs), and then give it a name, and the site adds all the effects.

The ELI Student Services Staff just had a retreat a couple of weeks ago. Here's a video I made using Animoto and some of the pictures from the retreat.

Still haven't figured out how to add text on top of pictures--maybe one has to do that using photoshop or some other photoediting service before uploading the pictures. Anyway, it's fun to play with for personal use (the presenter showed a little video of him visiting his grandkids), or for teaching (I was thinking about making a little welcome video for the new ELI course I'm developing). You can see some cool things educators have done with the expanded version if you visit this part of the site (check out the "We the People" video or the case studies at the bottom. I think the "function notation" one is great).

Try it out and post your video links in the comments!

How time flies...

2009-03-31T13:23:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow, I'm headed to New Horizons (looking forward to seeing some of you there!). It was at last year's New Horizons that I came up with the idea (thanks to Cathy Simpson and Nan Peck's session) of starting an ELI faculty blog. Can't believe a year has passed already...

(Edited to add: After I posted this, I noticed that this was actually my 100th post! How's that for timing?)

Using Blogs to Improve Writing Skills and Reflection on Learning

2009-03-24T12:49:00.002-04:00

We talked briefly a while back about how we might use blogs in our teaching at ELI. This article, although it is about K-12 education, makes some good points about why having students write blogs as they learn can improve their writing skills, their confidence, and their understanding and retention of the material. What do you think--are you convinced? What is the downside to creating this type of assignment?

Revising Your ELI Courses

2009-03-21T11:01:00.003-04:00

As you all know, we are currently finalizing our preparations for the Student Success Initiative event coming up on April 7. You'll be leaving that event with a plan for a new strategy you'll try in one of your courses either this summer or fall.

As we've been planning this event, I've been thinking a lot about course revisions at ELI. I know that some of you keep your courses the same semester to semester, only doing a revision when your course is peer reviewed or when a new textbook comes out. Others of you tweak your courses regularly. In some cases, you do that working with ELI, and in others, you make changes without telling us about them.

I would like to better understand how you feel about course revisions in your online courses, and I'd appreciate your comments on any/all of the following questions:

How does what you do with revising your ELI courses (in terms of frequency, nature/breadth of changes, etc.) compare with what you do in revising your campus courses? What do you think explains the difference, if there is one?
What things prevent you from making revisions to your ELI courses? (Technology skills? ELI policies or processes that deter you? Time? Lack of interest?)
If you tend to make changes without working with ELI, why? If you tend to make changes and generally do work with ELI on them, why?
What could ELI do to help you keep your courses current, high quality, and exciting for your students?

Learning 2.0

2009-03-17T15:37:00.001-04:00

The Learning Journal blog has a recent post, "Learning 2.o," that lays out some interesting ideas about the skills needed to learn (whether in school or in your job) in today's technology-rich world. What do you think of the list? Do your classes teach students these skills (or expect them to know them already), or do you think your class is based on a more traditional model of learning? Do you have all these learning skills yourself?

Launching the ELI Student Blog

2009-03-13T15:14:00.003-04:00

Next week, we'll be launching the ELI Student Blog, ELIfe. I'll announce it formally when it's officially available, but for now, I'm soliciting your ideas and participation.

What topics do you think we should post about on the blog? It should be things that students will find both interesting and useful.

And, would you be interested in writing for the student blog now and again?

Social Presence and Having a Little Fun with your Students

2009-03-09T11:21:00.004-04:00

I love this idea from Melly's DL Admin Blog! What a great way to give your students a quick, fun activity to engage in. And I know they are interested in what you look like--you'd be surprised how many responses I got from ELI students when I sent them an email with my picture attached.

VA Higher Ed Blog

2009-03-06T09:39:00.000-05:00

I've added a new blog to the links on the left--the Virginia Higher Education blog. If you're interested in following the bigger picture of higher ed in Virginia (beyond the VCCS stuff we normally hear about), such as budget concerns and pending legislation, you'll find the blog useful.

Developmental Math Materials Available from VCCS

2009-03-04T10:00:00.002-05:00

Continuing on my theme from my last post--for those of you who teach developmental math, you get an added bonus from the work of the Developmental Education Task Force: partly as a result of this group's work, the VCCS has purchased a complete Blackboard course in developmental math topics. The materials in the course, which include learning activities and games, quizzes and tests, and lessons, are freely available to be used in any VCCS course. You can use anything from just one activity to the whole course, and you can use the materials in online courses, hybrid courses, or face-to-face courses. The only restriction is that the materials can only be used by VCCS students, so they must be housed in Blackboard, not posted on a public website.

If you want to have access to the materials, contact Michelle Gee and she can add you to the Blackboard site. If you do take a look, I'd be interested to hear what you think of them, and how they are working once you've put them in place! Post a comment here, or post comments in the ELI Faculty Lounge (hey, remember that?) Blackboard site in the forum specifically dedicated to math instruction.

New VCCS Developmental Education Blog

2009-03-02T16:00:00.001-05:00

You may be aware that the VCCS currently has a Developmental Education Task Force hard at work on how we could improve our work in this important aspect of community college education. Those of you who teach developmental courses--or those first credit courses students come to after their developmental courses!--might be interested in following the new VCCS Developmental Education Blog. Here, you can follow the work of the Task Force, see its membership, read articles about developmental education and how it can be improved, and share your thoughts or suggest post topics. I hope you'll get involved--we need to have as much of a voice as possible in this important discussion!

Moving into the 3D Internet

2009-02-28T09:00:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting piece from the E-Learning Queen about the next stage of web browsing--a 3D interface. Has anyone used the Cooliris product she's discussing?

Are you using SafeAssign to detect plagiarism?

2009-02-26T11:02:00.002-05:00

I was just reading an entry on Professing Mama about plagiarism, and I'm wondering: are you using SafeAssign (the Blackboard utility for plagiarism detection) in your ELI courses? How is it going? Do students find it easy to use? Have you gotten any of the kinds of protests from students that we heard with the use of TurnItIn? Do you use it as part of your grading process, or is it learning tool for students before they submit a paper?

Reading about Community Colleges

2009-02-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

This summer, Beth Harper and I are co-teaching a graduate course on community colleges for UVa. We're on the hunt for additional materials we might use in the course. Does anyone have a favorite book or article, or film, about community colleges that you'd recommend?

Instant Messaging and Teaching Online, & ELI Chat

2009-02-18T10:09:00.003-05:00

Do you use instant messaging of any kind with your students, whether during live online lecture sessions or for office hours or tutoring help? What platform do you use? (I know at least some of you have been experimenting with Google chat, now available through the new student email accounts.) If you're interested in thinking about this, or refining how you use instant messaging with your students, here's a short article with a few strategies.

And as an aside, I want to make sure (since I just talked to an ELI faculty member who didn't know this) that you are all aware that ELI offers students a chat service during regular business hours (including our Saturday hours). Chat duty rotates among the Course Specialists, counselors, registration staff, Jana, and Barbara. Using chat, we can help students quickly with simple questions (where to find certain information on the website, when classes start, how to pay for classes, etc.) or set up a time to talk to them in more depth when they have more complicated questions. Students can access chat from the ELI website by clicking the chat button on the bottom left. If you are curious about what it's like, log on yourself and chat for a moment with a staff member!

Did you notice the EMPL IDs in Blackboard?

2009-02-13T15:32:00.003-05:00

Here's some Friday good news: In case you haven't noticed yet, student EMPL IDs now appear in the Blackboard Grade Center. (When you click on a student's user details, you'll see it.) This should make your lives easier when you are reporting W's or grade changes to the Course Specialists--you'll no longer have to look at another roster or log into PeopleSoft to get the EMPL ID. You can thank your fellow ELI faculty member Diane Thompson for asking me to raise this request at the state level. I did so, we discussed it at a VCCS committee meeting, approved it, and it was implemented the next day! It's nice when things work out so smoothly. Now, if we can only get that BB/SIS integration thing taken care of...

More community colleges in the news

2009-02-09T09:05:00.001-05:00

Beth Harper shared with me this LA Times article about the challenges facing community colleges in California as a result of the economic downturn. Although there are some differences between Virginia and California in higher ed system structure, I see a lot more commonalities here than I do differences.

Enrollments are very strong this semester, and I suspect we can only expect even more of a surge this summer and fall as students who planned to go elsewhere suddenly need to save money by staying home and coming to NOVA. We are in for some challenging times ahead as we try to help all these students achieve their academic goals.

CUNY makes plans to launch an innovative new community college

2009-02-05T11:06:00.001-05:00

Take a look at this short Chronicle piece on CUNY's plans for a new kind of community college they believe will better support student success. What do you think? What could NOVA learn from these ideas?

Thank you, WaPo!

2009-02-03T09:24:00.002-05:00

Larry Linville sent me a link to this Washington Post article from Sunday's paper. It's nice to see media coverage of online learning that addresses realistically the challenges of online learning. (In fact, I'd have liked to see the author describe the ways that online learning is HARDER than classroom learning--but of course, we also don't want to scare people off!) It was also great to see that the author pointed out that students may get more interaction with their professor and fellow students than in a face-to-face classes, since many people assume the opposite.

Buckle Up: Here Comes Blackboard 9!

2009-01-29T11:00:00.002-05:00

So now that you are completely comfortable with Blackboard 8 (ahem), we just got the announcement of the official release of Blackboard 9. We do not yet know when it will be rolled out for the VCCS, but we do know that it is significantly different from past versions of Blackboard. There are already some basic pieces of information you can look at now if you're interested in looking ahead at what Blackboard 9 will be like. Visit this VCCS site to get some basic information and links to introductory videos and the like. I'd be interested in hearing what you think!

Distance Learning for Soldiers and Veterans

2009-01-23T16:30:00.003-05:00

You may have heard in the news about the recent passage of a new GI Bill. You probably didn't hear about one specific detail that has been causing some controversy in higher education circles: while those covered under the GI Bill for educational expenses are generally eligible for a housing allowance, those taking distance courses will not receive that allowance. (As many have quipped: apparently, distance learning students are supposed to live in virtual houses.)

InsideHigherEd has an interesting piece today that discusses this decision in some depth and raises the argument that the low success rates in distance courses/programs justify this policy (which is likely to push students away from distance learning). This is just one more example of what I talked about in our faculty meeting last week regarding the importance of improving student success wherever we can. We are under scrutiny from many sides, and we need to showcase our good work and make our case to those who might not understand distance learning, as well as constantly working to do better in all the ways we support student learning and student success.

Teaching & the Inauguration

2009-01-21T09:32:00.003-05:00

We had a historic day yesterday.

My students last semester (in a class on race...) were so hopeful about the future after Obama won. I'm glad they are hopeful, but also fearful that having an African American president will make it even easier for my students to ignore the continued significant racial inequality in our country. Getting students to see past their assumptions (that all those racial problems are fixed now) is my biggest challenge in teaching this class.

How are you using the Inauguration, the change in administration, etc. in your classes this semester? What are your students saying about it all?

Using Peer Review in your ELI Courses

2009-01-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

Debbie Naquin shared with me a blog post about how to structure a peer review assignment using a course management system like Blackboard (including discussion of WHY you might want to use such an assignment in your instruction). Take a look--it might give you some interesting new ideas.

Looking for some new pedagogical tricks?

2009-01-13T10:37:00.003-05:00

The latest issue of the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning just came out; it's a free, online journal and you can access the current issue here.

There are a number of research articles of interest to online teachers, including pieces on using gaming to promote learning, using educational technology to help students do peer reviews, training students to take a professional tone in their emails to faculty, and differences in student interaction and success in online, hybrid, and face-to-face classes.

Please post a comment if you have a chance to read any of the articles and find anything interesting you'd like to share!

Power Up Your Pedagogy Debrief

2009-01-09T08:50:00.003-05:00

I saw many of you at Power Up Your Pedagogy over the last two days. Please comment here to share some of the cool information, tips, and resources you learned, so that we can all benefit!

Creating ePortfolios using Google Apps

2009-01-07T17:08:00.002-05:00

Portfolios are an excellent, authentic way to assess student learning, but they can be hard to have students produce electronically. Kristin Robertson at CVCC has put together some instructions on creating ePortfolios using Google Apps. If you're interested in using ePortfolios, take a look at her resources!

Quick New Way to Access Online Library Databases

2009-01-06T15:36:00.002-05:00

The VCCS has just announced that they've added a "Library Services" link to our myVCCS pages. (That is, when you click "My NOVA" to log into Blackboard and PeopleSoft, you will see at the bottom of this page a new option, "Library Services.") Here, you can access online journals/databases subscribed to by NOVA. I didn't find the interface all that user-friendly, but perhaps it would more so when I'm more used to it.

Since most of you have to log into Blackboard daily anyway, and many of you are not working at a campus computer, this library login through your myNOVA page may save you some time--if you use it, you could avoid logging in at the library webpage when you want to access a database.

(And--welcome to the Spring 2009 semester!)

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

I'm signing off for the holiday break. Wishing you all happy holidays, safe travels, and good luck for the new year!

Save the Date: Universal Design for Learning Workshop

2008-12-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

I'd like to call your attention to an event to be held this spring, organized by our own Laura Franklin and funded through a VCCS grant. It's a presentation by Jim Kain, an expert on universal design for instruction, titled, “Teaching Diverse Learners: Principles of Universal Design for Instruction.” In case you're not familiar with the concept, universal design is an approach to designing instruction so that it is flexible enough to meet the needs of students with many different learning styles. The more we can design our courses this way, the more easily our students will be able to succeed!

The event will be held on Friday, February 13. Save the date now and look for further information when we return to work for the spring semester.

Open Textbook Resources in MERLOT

2008-12-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

Our resident MERLOT expert, Laura Franklin, recently alerted me to a new collection of open textbook materials available on MERLOT. All the 134 sites listed are currently under consideration to become part of the Community College Open Textbook Project of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources. Some of the things posted here are from Wikipedia, and I'm not quite sure why those types of resources are included, but there are also very detailed websites created by individual scholars that you might find useful for your courses. The sites address a wide range of topics, from US History to Oceanography, Calculus to Art History, Engineering to First Aid to Chinese History. If you're looking for new materials, you might want to check it out.

Digital Storytelling and QEPs

2008-12-13T08:57:00.000-05:00

If you don’t know what a QEP is, you will very soon, as NOVA is about to launch into our SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools—our accrediting body) reaffirmation process, which includes identifying an area we wish to focus on improving over the coming 10 years at our college. This area of focus, and our plan on how to address it, is our QEP (Quality Enhancement Plan), and we’ll all be asked in the coming spring term to be a part of the process of deciding what NOVA’s QEP should focus on.

I’ve just returned from the SACS annual conference, where many of the sessions were presentations of the results from other colleges’ QEP efforts. The most interesting one I saw was from a North Carolina community college that had chosen to focus on student writing skills for their QEP. They worked to improve student writing skills by creating a Writing Center, using paired courses (like the learning communities we have in place at NOVA for our Achieving the Dream project), and, most interestingly, implementing a digital storytelling component in their English composition courses.

In the selected courses, students were required to complete a final project where they told a personal, cultural, historical, or social narrative in a 3-4 minute digital story (a video with photos, music, and script read by the student). The presenters provided strong preliminary evidence of how much the project increases student engagement, teaches strong writing skills (such as brevity, audience, and the drafting and revision process), improves students’ understanding of citing sources, increases technology skills and critical thinking abilities, and helps students gain self-confidence. It was a pretty impressive project! You might want to read more about their work and how they guide students through the process (maybe you’d even like to get your students working on projects like this!). It’s inspiring, and surely the type of engaging and challenging project we want our students to do.

American Education in 2025

2008-12-11T16:14:00.004-05:00

Apologies for my absence from the blog... I was at the SACS conference learning about the upcoming process of reaffirming our accreditation, and I neglected to set up some entries to post while I was away!

I just saw an interesting piece in Inside Higher Ed about a recent report by the College Board about how we could improve education by 2025 to keep the U.S. competitive. One of the key points was a goal for 55% of Americans aged 25-34 to hold at least an Associate's Degree by 2025. Reaching that goal would require a 1% increase every year--which means we at the community college have got our work cut out for us! It's one thing to bring students in, but it requires different sorts of work, attention, and student services to get that many more students each year to graduate with a credential.

And although the piece does not mention distance learning or other technology-based solutions, they will surely have to play a major role if we're going to meet this goal. Many of these students will be working and will need flexibility while they complete their courses. And, we simply don't have the classroom space to hold enough face-to-face classes for that many more students to complete degrees over the coming 17 years.

As always, it is an exciting and challenging time to be in higher education!

Getting a VERY early start on distance learning

2008-12-02T12:11:00.002-05:00

I've posted here before about virtual high schools. Well, how about virtual kindergarten? Do any of you have little ones whose schools have a program like this?

Another Chance to be Certified as a VCCS Online Instructor

2008-12-01T15:05:00.003-05:00

Some of you may remember that last summer, we ran a pilot course, along with several other VCCS colleges, to train faculty to be online instructors. The course has now been formalized as an 8-week credit course (EDU 295) which will be offered at NOVA in the second eight-weeks of the spring semester. If you are a relatively new ELI faculty member, this is the perfect way to hone your skills. If you are considering teaching for ELI or teaching online at another college, the course is also a great way to assess whether teaching online is right for you. It's an especially useful experience for any online teacher because as an online course itself, it gives you a taste of what your students experience.

If you're interested, you need to begin the registration process soon so that you can take advantage of free NOVA tuition. Contact Bob Loser (rloser@nvcc.edu), who will be one of the instructors for the course, for more information.

Favorite Assignments

2008-11-24T12:28:00.002-05:00

This week my students are doing my favorite assignment of the semester--the "Hot Topics" project. After we've spent much of the semester establishing a shared foundation of concepts, facts, and theories, I give them a list of controversial issues that the shared course material doesn't explore in depth (for my class, on race/ethnicity, this includes things like illegal immigration, using Native American names and images as sports team mascots, etc.). They do some (fairly informal) research and write a couple of pages on what they found, posting it to a discussion forum. Then the fun part starts, as students read the reports and post their comments, reactions, and questions. We get some interesting conversations going between people who researched different topics, and between people who researched the same topic but learned different things or drew different conclusions. It's a fun exchange and students seem to get a lot out of it. (Last semester, a student told me in a reflective paper that he did not find the discussion forums useful. On his final exam, he used information from the Hot Topics discussion extensively in one of the essays, and he wrote a little note at the end of the exam that said he wanted to take back his claim that he didn't learn from the discussion forums. That was a nice comment to receive!)

I'm getting started now on developing a new ELI course. Share with me--what's your favorite assignment from your ELI class(es)?

Best Features of the BB8 Grade Center

2008-11-17T16:06:00.002-05:00

I just attended a training on the Blackboard 8 Grade Center. I know many of you will be attending the trainings offered tomorrow and Wednesday (and I think there are still some slots available--contact ELI ID Help if you want to check!). Please post in the comments here what you like best about the Grade Center--or things you don't like, if they've made a change for the worse! This'll help us all see more quickly how we can use the Grade Center to our advantage.

I'll start us off with two favorites of mine. One is the obvious one--being able to use freeze pane to keep student names (and other columns, if you want) showing on the left even as you scroll right to see all their grades. It was so difficult to use when scrolling right meant the names disappeared and you had to mouse over the grade to see whose grade it was. What a great improvement!

My other favorite is the option to easily hide a grade column from yourself. I plan to use this when everyone has finished a certain assignment. I can then hide the column and keep the gradebook simpler (as the semester progresses, there will be fewer and fewer columns to scroll through). The grades in the hidden column will still be included in the grade total, and will still appear as normal in "My Grades" for the student, and if I need to see those grades again myself, it's easy to make the column pop back into being visible.

What are your favorite features?

Distance Learning by Cell Phone and PDA

2008-11-13T11:31:00.002-05:00

There's a blog post in the Chronicle this week about programs offering distance learning via cell phone. It's not entirely clear from the piece what exactly these programs or courses look like--clearly, students would not be completing most types of assignments on a cell phone, although there are certain types of assignments they probably could. I wonder how many students will actually use their cell phones to access the course materials (versus just using their desktop or laptop). I can also imagine students starting out eager to access these things via cell phone or PDA, but soon finding they'd rather just use a standard computer. (For one thing, although it's nice to be mobile when studying, there's also, at least for many students, a need for a quiet and comfortable study space in order to learn effectively.)

All that said, there are great ways to help students learn by making course materials available on cell phones and PDAs. The most obvious one (besides putting brief lectures into podcasts or vodcasts for downloading onto these devices) to me is to create, for terminology-intensive courses, electronic flashcards students can flip through to do some casual studying as they ride the Metro or wait for an appointment. What other ideas do you have for using these devices in your teaching? Now that Sue's here, we have the resources to start researching how to make your ideas for teaching via PDAs and phones work.

Connecting ELI Students

2008-11-10T09:33:00.004-05:00

I've mentioned before that one of the things we're working on at ELI is developing various tools to help ELI students connect to each other, and to us, in ways that might help them become more likely to persist and succeed in their online courses. We know that students on campus do better when they feel connected to their institution, and this is usually accomplished by holding student activities (from clubs to free coffee and snacks during final exam week) that bring students together and show them that their college cares about them.

All this is harder to accomplish at a distance, but it's the wave of the future in supporting distance learning students nonetheless. I'll soon be sending our students a survey asking them for feedback on what kinds of additional support services they would most want (and use). As I've mentioned before, we're planning on starting a blog for students, at the outstanding suggestion of the ELI counselors, I'm going to let students name it. We'll ask for student input on what should be discussed in the blog, and we hope to have some students as guest bloggers in addition to inviting ELI staff and faculty to post.

But we also want to explore what other sorts of student activities and supports students might like. Some online programs provide an "online commons" or "virtual student union" where students can go (virtually), hang out, chat with staff or other students, etc. And there are many other possibilities as well, such as clubs for online students, which might meet only on BB or might mix in-person and virtual meetings. I'm looking forward to seeing what students have to say and to trying some of these things out. Stay tuned!

(And meanwhile, please take the new poll on the left.)

Free Teleseminar on Toxic Academic Environments

2008-11-06T12:53:00.003-05:00

I've been enjoying the thoughtful comments folks have been posting in response to my question about an early alert program at ELI--please keep them coming!

Meanwhile, you might be interested in an upcoming free teleseminar I saw advertised on one of the academia newsletters I subscribe to. It's called "Antioxidants for Toxic Academic Work Environments" and it focuses on how to deal with a work environment where you must work with people who are overly critical, where misbehavior is tolerated by upper management, where colleagues do not respect each other, etc. Although I VERY much hope none of you are experiencing this kind of thing at NOVA, at an organization this size, I know that that can't be the case. If this describes your department, division, or whatever, you might want to tune in and get some tips.

Early Alert/Academic Probation Program for ELI

2008-10-29T16:56:00.004-04:00

I'm sure that many of you have encountered students who struggle in your courses right from the start. In some cases, they are new to distance learning, or to college, and they are having trouble getting on the right track. In other cases, they have taken course after course at ELI and gotten a D, F, or W in all of them. In both of these types of situations, the problems can be all kinds of different things--personal life issues, too heavy a school and/or work schedule, technology problems, procrastination or bad study skills, lack of academic preparation, etc.

One of my priorities, now that we have a third counselor on board to help manage the counselors' enormous workload, is to establish some ways of reaching these students to try to help them succeed. I know that everyone will agree it is a great idea to reach them--but the question is, how? Please help me start thinking about how such a program would work.

Faculty would need to let counselors know of students who are starting out poorly and might need interventions. Would you like to receive an email reminder at an appropriate time of semester and then send a reply email with info about your students who need assistance? Would you fill out a web form if we created one?
Based on your experience with struggling students, what kind of help do you think would be best? A personal call from a counselor or other staff member to try to identify problems and barriers, and point to solutions? Invitation (requirement?) to participate in a webinar or in-person group session on study skills, time management, etc., led by a counselor? Invitation (requirement?) to use Smarthinking services and/or in-person tutoring? Something else?
We likely cannot restrict student enrollment in future courses, especially in these tough financial times. How else could we get students to participate in whatever we set up?

Change Strategies to Get More Work Done

2008-10-27T12:56:00.002-04:00

I often think about teaching online as similar to writing a dissertation. It's very different in that the dissertation is one big project, while online teaching is generally a lot of small but endless tasks (grading, responding to email, reading and responding to BB posts, more responding to email, etc.). But it's the same in that it can be isolating, and in that when we are working in isolation, it can be easy to get overwhelmed, to procrastinate, to develop a bad attitude, etc. I still subscribe to a newsletter I started getting when I was ABD (All-But-Dissertation), and it recently published a short piece on some changes you can make if you are feeling some of this isolation and its related problems (like using every excuse possible to put off your grading). Check it out here (note: not for those who don't like self-help-y reading). And if you are writing a dissertation yourself, I definitely recommend subscribing to the newsletter!

Questions about ELI

2008-10-20T10:00:00.001-04:00

From time to time, it's good to take a step back and reexamine what we're doing. Help me out here: what are some things you just don't understand about ELI? These could be things where you need a re-explanation of a policy, procedure, who to contact about certain things, etc. Or, it could be something where you know how it works, but you don't understand WHY it works that way or you think it should change. This will be a fun set of comments for me to come back to after my vacation... :)

And don't forget about the ELI Faculty Lounge in Blackboard--there, you can set up your OWN topics to discuss, including sharing teaching ideas by discipline type (social sciences, hard sciences, etc.).

Blackboard/Open Source Partnership

2008-10-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

I recently posted something about alternatives to Blackboard. Inside Higher Ed just had an interesting news item about a partnership Blackboard just announced with Sakai, one of the open source course management systems. Looks like a clever strategy to keep institutions whose faculty are starting to use open source systems still working with Blackboard.

Facebook and Social Networking

2008-10-13T14:04:00.000-04:00

Shortly before I left for my vacation (which I am still enjoying as this message posts itself), I caught up with the rest of the people in my age group and finally joined Facebook. I've been having a great time finding old classmates and friends from other contexts and seeing what they're up to. It's also been interesting to see how different people use the site.

For those of you who haven't used Facebook, you create a simple profile (your picture, some stuff on your interests/hobbies/favorite movies/etc., and your work/educational background). You can provide as much or as little information in the profile as you choose. The real magic happens in the interaction--you link to other people you know, you post updates about what you are doing, and people comment publicly (on your "wall", or your profile page) or privately (by chat or in-Facebook email). Some people post several updates a day about what they are doing (kind of like using Twitter); at the other extreme, some people put a brief profile and may search for friends, but rarely or never actually post public updates about what they are doing. The people who are most engaged add all kinds of additional technology tools to their profiles so they can do things like send friends virtual flowers or gifts, or play virtual chess or Scrabble games with others in their network. Some people have virtual pets or gardens that they have to visit regularly and care for in their profiles. (Your friends can also help you by visiting your profile and helping tend your garden or pet when you are too busy or have forgotten.)

As you surely know, social networking sites of all kinds (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.) are a major way young people keep in touch with each other. They are used to checking these pages daily, if not throughout the day, to find out what's going on, communicate with friends, make plans, share interests, and the like. What could we do as online teachers to try to harness this type of engagement? Could we make our students in a particular course/section a vibrant community like those students engage in on social networking sites? Would we want to?

Automating Your Class Announcements

2008-10-09T13:56:00.000-04:00

As you are reading this post, I am on leave (yay!). I wrote the post before I left and set it up to publish automatically at a particular date and time.

As I thought about doing this, I recalled a comment made in the chat during the faculty meeting a few weeks back. I don't have the chat on hand at the moment, so I can't remember who offered this suggestion, but someone suggested using a similar technique for announcements in Blackboard. If you use BB announcements to give your students weekly encouragement, reminders of deadlines, etc., you can save yourself some time by creating all the announcements at one time. Then, in the options for the announcement, just select the date you want it to be available, and it won't appear to students until that day. You can still always edit them later as needed, or add other announcements along the way, but preparing several key announcements at the beginning of the semester helps ensure that you get those announcements to students right when they need them, without having to remember to do it during the crush of the regular semester.

What other tips do you have about using announcements effectively--or about things you can prepare in advance to save time later?

Work/Life Balance and Online Teaching

2008-10-07T14:39:00.003-04:00

Debbie Naquin passed along a blog post and short discussion from the Chronicle about teaching online and how to manage your time so that you are not working 24/7. What strategies do you use to stay responsive to your students while also keeping reasonable work hours to avoid burnout? Or, where have you made mistakes on this front, so others can avoid them?

One thing I do that helps a lot is sending my weekly message to the class. Sending one big set of announcements each week means fewer individual questions to answer as I go.

One thing I'm planing to start is keeping a file where I include text I've sent to students on common questions. (For example, every semester I have to explain the difference between income and wealth and why the racial wealth gap is increasing even while the income gap is down.) This way, I can not only reuse (or slightly edit, depending on the student's error) these answers during one semester, but also use them across semesters. I'm sure many of you are way ahead of me on that one...I just somehow never got around to starting the file until now.

Please share your tips and mistakes! I know we could all use some timesavers.

New NOVA site for Blackboard help

2008-10-02T09:00:00.002-04:00

TAC has just finished putting together a fabulous site about Blackboard. Be sure to click "For Students" and "For Faculty/Staff" on the right to see all the features, reference guides, etc. You'll find a lot of screen shots, which are really helpful as you try to follow the instructions yourself. Links to this site will be provided soon in your Blackboard sites (assuming that you use ELI's syllabus template, with the parts that we can automatically update). You might also want to point the site out to students yourself. Enjoy!

For-Profit Colleges and Career and Technical Credentials

2008-09-30T17:27:00.004-04:00

There's an interesting blurb in a recent edition of the Chronicle indicating that there's been a shift toward more career and technical credentials being awarded by for-profit institutions rather than community colleges. (We still award most of these credentials, but the proportion has shifted--or, is shifting.)

I will ignore the various bizarre comments people posted in response to the blurb (though you might want to read them, for your entertainment and aggrivation)... my question to you is this: why do students choose for-profit institutions rather than community college, when we offer the same credentials at much lower cost? We need to serve this group of students better. How could we better let them know that we are here for them?

Alternatives to Blackboard?

2008-09-26T15:46:00.002-04:00

There has been increasing talk in the instructional technology world about moving away from market giant Blackboard to alternative course management platforms. Here's a recent article from the Chronicle of Higher Education about the issue.

Do any of you have experience using alternatives like Moodle, Angel, or Desire2Learn? What do you think of them in comparison to Blackboard?

Copying Faculty on Emails to Students

2008-09-24T10:49:00.001-04:00

During the first fall faculty meeting, some folks requested that faculty not be copied on the emails ELI sends to students. I know that you are all overwhelmed with email and it can be frustrating to be copied on something you don't find useful. Someone suggested in the chat during the meeting that emails sent to students could be posted somewhere so faculty who are interested in seeing them could read them, and those who are not would not be bothered with the messages.

I thought the best thing to do would be to see how the faculty feels overall. Although this of course did not get a response from everyone, I did poll you in two ways: I asked a yes/no question during the second faculty meeting, and about 3/4 of the faculty in the meeting said they like to be copied on these messages to students. I also put a poll here on the blog, and 71% of you responding to the poll said the same.

It seems to me that this is strong support for continuing the practice of copying you on what we send to students. I don't think that posting the emails somewhere for folks to look at is a good alternative, because that would not notify you when something had gone out, and unless you remembered to check regularly, you might not be aware of what's going out.

But, maybe I'm missing something. Do you have any suggestions on how we can meet everyone's needs in this regard?

Update from DDLC: Blackboard 8 and 9

2008-09-23T10:39:00.003-04:00

As you know from some earlier posts, I went last week to the year's first meeting of the VCCS Distance and Distributed Learning Committee. I want to pass along a few tidbits about Blackboard:

We will be going to BB 8 in late December. Lucky for us, it will be a simpler switch than the move to BB7 was. BB7 required a migration, but BB8 is just a software update, and downtime will be one day or less. Also, while during the move to BB7, courses had to be physically transferred from one system to the other, none of that will have to take place this time. So, you can do any needed course copying, setup, etc. for your spring courses while BB7 is still in place--you don't have to wait until BB8 is online. Meanwhile, though, you should seek training in the BB8 Gradebook so you are ready to use it when spring hits. Note that Shaoyu and Rong are holding training sessions on Nov. 18 and 19--see this semester's ELI calendar for specific times and how to sign up. There may also be trainings taking place on the campuses.
BB9 (also called BB NG, for "next generation") will be released next year, probably before the BB user conference in the summer. The VCCS might go to it as early as Fall 2009, but we really don't know as of yet. This BB will apparently be a major revision, including a totally new user-friendly interface (e.g., the ability to drag and drop, which will be great!) and more web 2.0 functionality. Some of you went to a session at New Horizons about BB 9--can you share what you learned? How did it look?

Update on SIS/Blackboard Integration

2008-09-19T11:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I went to Charlottesville to attend this year's first meeting of the DDLC (the VCCS's Distance and Distributed Learning Committee). This committee plays an advisory role to ASAC (the VCCS committee made up of vice presidents and provosts) on distance learning and related issues. I have a few interesting tidbits to share with you from that meeting.

First, several of you have asked me since I've come on board at ELI about when we will have fuller integration between Blackboard and SIS. The key goal here is that students who dropped in PeopleSoft would be dropped from your Blackboard site. This makes your site management easier and avoids you having to make students who have been dropped inactive. It would mean that without any extra work from you, students (at least in courses that use Blackboard for their work) would know right away that they are no longer enrolled.

I asked about this at the DDLC meeting. There were many nods around the table--those of you asking for this at NOVA are not alone! The VCCS's head of all things Blackboard explained to me that they have been working on this at various times since we went to Blackboard 5. Apparently, each time there have been various exceptions that have caused enough problems to stop the process. (For example, at some colleges, some faculty combine multiple classes into one Blackboard site that cannot be combined in PeopleSoft because of workload implications.) He rightly noted that this is the kind of thing that can easily get pushed aside when a barrier comes up.

However, the group felt that now is a good time to revisit this issue and figure out how we can move past these problems so that most Blackboard users, who do want this function, can finally have it. The DDLC chair will convene a sub-committee to move us forward on this integration this year (exploring what the problems/issues are and identifying solutions). Stay tuned!

Adjunct Academy at UVa

2008-09-17T18:13:00.002-04:00

Did you know that UVa's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, Northern Virginia Center, offers a series of one-week, non-credit courses on teaching and learning specifically for adjunct faculty? There are eight courses offered, and if you complete 7 of 8, you earn a certificate of completion from UVa. The courses are on interesting and useful topics like how to teach adult learners, how to teach dynamic online classes, how to design effective syllabi, and how to manage classroom dynamics. The courses are inexpensive ($149 per course) and you take them online via Blackboard (so they are also a chance to experience distance learning from a student's perspective, which is always eye-opening). You can find more information here.

If anyone has already taken any of these courses, please comment--how did you like them?