ELI on Facebook

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

Top 100 Education Blogs

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Any additional questions/comments?

Getting geared up for the 2010-2011 academic year

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?

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.