Final Months of Title III Funding

We are entering the final months of receiving our Title III grant. Looking back over the past 5 years I feel very good about what we as a college have accomplished in Distance Learning with the various instructional initiatives Title III enabled us to pursue. All in all I believe T3 has benefited the college and all our distance learning endeavors. Looking back I would have to say that pre-planning and fluid “open / transparent” communication between the T3 Project Director and myself the Director of Distance Learning was one of key’s to the success of our campus wide distance learning professional development initiatives.

There is no doubt in my mind that the faculty and staff at Carteret Community College are more proficient both technically and in their online teaching methodology because of the funding and support that came from Title III. Since the inception of the grant the Distance Learning department has conducted over 150 DL workshops to approximately 1500 “repeat” college staff and faculty in these professional development activities, in addition to proving funds for off campus conferences, workshops and seminars.

Once CCC received the grant the first thing our T3 Project Director Don Staub did was have me create a T3 Blog to post anything and everything that related to Title III at our college. This was an effort to make the entire process transparent. Anyone can go to the T3 Blog and our CCC Distance Learning Blog and learn about all the professional development and college enhancement activities Title III supported through grants and the purchase of instructional and distance learning technologies.

The following are some of the primary distance learning highlights “successes” supported by Title III.

• Distance Learning Pioneer Program
• Online Tutoring Service Pilot Program
• Blackboard Boot Camp
• NC3ADL Regional and State Wide Conferences
• Online Retention
• Peer Review “QAP” Online Course Evaluation Project
• Assessing Distance Learning
• Moodle “Train the Trainer” Project
• Moodle Migration Initiative

As of now over 50 staff and faculty have participated in the DL Pioneer Program which has positively impacted the online courses we offer here at CCC. Faculty have more tools and technology for doing an effective (and innovative) job teaching their courses in the online environment and have been given training both on campus and off in a variety of e-learning and instructional design “best practices”.

As we head into the final months of the grant it is imperative that we expand on the strong foundation Title III has helped us build here at Carteret Community College. There’s no doubt that the culture here at CCC has changed for the better as far as embracing technology and the latest instruction design best practices for e-learning. Our online courses incorporate a variety of “rich media” in order to address the different learning styles of our students. This would not have happened so extensively across campus if it wasn’t for the aggressive and ongoing training provided through T3 funding and support.

Our challenge is to put procedures in place so we can continue expanding upon the many successes T3 has helped us attain in Distance Learning over the past 5 years. The Distance Learning Advisory committee is in the process of developing a policy and procedure manual for distance learning. Many of these policies and procedures have been inspired by what we learned through all our T3 sponsored projects and initiatives.

Our goal is to continue to build on the momentum we’ve gained over the past 5 years thanks to the Title III grant. We have seen the culture at CCC change (evolve) over the past 5 yeare to embrace technology and online tools and applications in order to be on the “cutting edge” of online education – Title III has been a catalyst for this change in attitude and has added to the confidence of our staff and faculty to make the seamless transition from the traditional classroom environment to online instruction.

Video and Written Testimonials by Staff and Faculty.

Joseph Croom from CCC Student Services commented about a Title III sponsored conference, “This was an amazing conference, it was my first NC3ADL conference…something that made me really open my eyes. I learned so much about student services, and how to make sure that they are accessible by all. I was able to meet so many different people, from different jobs, at different colleges that brought a variety of perspectives on DL, and its place in the world today. I was able to get many new ideas that I plan to work with my department Student Services and the college overall to make Carteret Community College a great place to work, teach, serve and learn.

I thoroughly enjoyed going to the sessions on the NCCCS Help Desk, the Online Student Services, Google Apps for Education, and the great Skype presentation on Moodle.

Though it scares me, it excites me…stepping out on the ledge…driving the engine of Student Services, getting them up the hill and down the other side. I came back with great suggestions, so much energy, and great comments…the Registrar’s Office decided today to add live chat to their website.

I am so excited about the ideas swirling in my mind…causing waves of DL energy!! I hope that I will be able to go next year and the regional meeting in March….!!!!

CCC Anatomy and Physiology Instructor Phillip Morris stated, I was greatly impressed with the NC3DLA conference. From the level of organization to just how incredibly informative the conference was. Kudos to those involved in putting the whole thing together. I came away with knowledge and ideas that I hadn’t even imagined. The first thing I took with me is how many improvements I can make to my online courses. It doesn’t matter how good you think they already are there is always room for improvement. I personally am now aware at how deficient my courses are in the area of accessibility for special needs students. I will certainly work to correct that. Also, seeing what is now out there in the area of online science labs impressed me. From the late-night-lab presentation and demonstrations to the virtual microscope software available, all I kept saying was “wow”. Always something new, always changing. As a new faculty member, it also gave me a chance to really get to know some of my colleagues here at CCC. It was a group of great people and great educators. People who love what they do. It was a great experience.

Entering Final Year of Title III Grant – Strides Made in DL

As we enter the fifth and final year of Carteret Community College’s Title III grant I’d like highlight some of the strides we’ve made in distance learning thanks to the Title III Grant coordinated by Project Director Don Staub. The Title III grant has been a primary catalyst for a variety of successful and productive distance learning initiatives over the past 4 years at CCC, helping both faculty and student support services improve and expand upon college wide online services and e-learning teaching skills.

I’m specifically proud of our Title III Distance Learning Pioneer Program which is entering its fifth phase this fall. So far 40 staff and faculty members have participated in this program with 10 more coming on board in August. Our DL Pioneers set goals and objectives for retooling, upgrading and expanding upon their proficiency working and teaching in the online environment.

Black Board Boot Camp Certification Training

We give them the tools, training and technology they need to accomplish their specified goals in addition to fund their course specific professional development needs. This program has led to a variety of exciting online innovations and initiatives over the past 4 years.

Faculty members have been producing online course orientations and video lectures, in addition to creating podcasts and incorporating dynamic rich media into their classes. Staff members like Brenda Long, Mark Johnson and our CAPS Advising Center have set-up blogs for reaching out to students in both financial aid and counceling and both produced videos that explain to students the services they offer in their respective departments. The Distance Learning Department has created it’s own You Tube Channel that acts as a repository for all it’s training and faculty videos. We also have our own CCC Itunes U web presence for distributing all podcasts (dl training and instructional) to students and faculty. This can be accessed on the main page of the college Blackboard site.

Title III funded our Instructional Technologist position and enabled us to hire Pre-Ah Hill who has been instrumental in coordinating and developing so many of our professional development initiatives. She has also worked “one on one” with over 50 faculty and staff over the past 4 years.

In addition to the Dl Pioneer Program Title III enabled our department to pilot an Online Tutoring service for students and after 2 years of supporting this important service to students it has been handed over to our Academic Support department. Kimberly Johnson now oversees online tutoring and learned some new skills for working with students online as a DL Pioneer this past year.

Soon after being awarded the Title III grant the distance learning department initiated its Blackboard Boot Camp which has become a model for training faculty on Blackboard statewide.

Every faculty member at CCC including all adjuncts have been through this 7 hour certification training program. Title III enabled us to pay adjuncts to attend this training and purchase digital recorders and headsets for faculty to use to record their lectures for instructional podcasts.

We’ve also been able to fund a cross section of our faculty and staff to attend regional and national distance learning conferences and workshops. The training our faculty have received in the DL Pioneer program has given some of them the confidence and expertise to be presenters at the conferences. Mary Walton, Laurie Freshwater, James Minor, Johnny Underwood and Carla Williams are some of our DL Pioneers who have presented at either national or regional Distance Learning conferences. The Title III team (Don Staub, Pre-Ah Hill and myself) have also presented at a variety of professional development conferences.

Title III played an integral part in our online course QAP Peer Review process. Over the past 2 years over 100 online courses have been peer reviewed and upgraded to meet the standard established by the QAP. I’m proud to say that Distance Learning at CCC received 0 recommendations from our recent SACS visit and even were given some positive feedback from the visiting SACS team.

The DL Department with the approval of the CCC Board of Directors wanted to establish a back-up plan for online courses and blackboard specifically so we initiated a Moodle training program (train the trainer) and over the past year we set-up a Moodle instance with Remote Learner funded by the system office of the Community College system however Title III funded our Moodle training program and the migration of 10 courses from Blackboard to Moodle. Carteret Community College now has 10 faculty members that have experience with moodle and could train the rest of our faculty if the need to move to another CMS ever arises.

Once we got the faculty trained we realized it was just as important to provide training to our students to become better online learners so we developed our Successful Online Learning workshop that we offer to students at the beginning of each semester. Over 200 students have attended this the past 2 semesters and we also put all the resources and tips online so students can access it if they can’t attend the actual workshop.

This past year we established a policy that all CCC courses have a course blackboard (web presence) and utilize the electronic grade book in Blackboard. This took training all our traditional classroom instructors including adjuncts and Title III played a role in seeing that this initiative was successful. We were able to pay our adjuncts to attend this training with Title III funds. At the end of the Spring semester all CCC courses submitted their Blackboard grade books electronically and we now have an electronic repository of all Spring 2010 grades. This will be SOP from now on at CCC.

Yes…the Distance Learning Department with the help of Title III has certainly contributed to taking CCC to a higher level of proficiency with online learning. My goal for the coming year is to challenge every faculty member at CCC to expand upon what they have learned and begin developing their individual teaching methodologies that seamlessly and fluidly help them weave between classroom environment to the online environment.

After all….its all about teaching and learning. We as educators have such incredibly powerful and sophisticated tools to impart our course material to our students and assess that they are comprehending the course content.

This brings me to the core of my thoughts on teaching and learning in 2010. Essentially I believe the attributes required to be an effective teacher are still the same as we enter the next decade of this new millennium.  Great teachers are creative, innovative, passionate, enthusiastic and show sincere interest and comprehension of their respective subject area.  Students on the other hand have changed over the past 10-15 years and this evolution has come about in part because of rapid advances in technology and cyber culture.

Now here’s the rub.  I believe teachers (at all grade levels) have to do a better job mastering the new and powerful tools (technology) at their disposal for CONNECTING with (and engaging) their students.  The attributes for great teachers is the same BUT the tools we use for teaching have changed and become much more technologically sophisticated. This is our challenge heading into the next decade. We can’t let the technology get in the way of our teaching!

The bottom line here (in my opinion) is that teaching tools (technology) have changed dramatically, but the skills and attributes needed for being excellent teachers and effective learners remain relatively the same.  Both students and teachers must harness (embrace) technology for both teaching and learning to the point where it becomes intuitive. The days of the chalk board and overhead projector are over and have been replaced with sophisticated course management systems.

I’m excited about the coming year and the challenges facing me as an online teacher and Distant Learning Director. In reality this is not all that complicated.  The Industrial Revolution is over and that instructional model is just about dead and buried.  As I state at the beginning of all my distance learning workshops;  The easy part is becoming proficient and confident with technology – the real challenge for both teachers and students is using it to its fullest potential for both teaching and learning. 

In the coming year I plan on initiating a series of webinars that are given by our veteran DL Pioneers on a whole range of online teaching Best Practices and offer these to the college at large. We have accomplished a great deal in 4 years thanks to Title III however we still have more to do on the distance learning front at CCC.

A CCC Faculty Member’s Observations of the NC3DLA Conference

NC3ADL CONFERENCE 2010
CLICKS AND MORTAR
MARCH 16-16

The Distance Learning conference in Durham this past week offered many excellent opportunities for learning new techniques to improve online education; from nuts and bolts construction, design guidelines, best practices, and assessment tools. Carteret Community College was well represented with Don Staub, Patrick Keough and Laurie Freshwater all giving impressive talks. It was evident we are way ahead of the curve in Distance learning in training, content innovation and assessment. Click Here to download Don Staub’s Presentation on DL Assessment

One of my favorite talks was called “The Good, Bad and Ugly of e-Learning”, by Kelly Kirk , Director of Distance Learning at RTCC. In a hands on simulation he had cast us in the role of a student trying to navigate our way around in a poorly designed online class. It was very frustrating and brought home the point how students feel when our course are not well planned.

There was a variety of interesting software available both free and for sell. I was excited about learning more about SoftChalk, which we already have copies of  and it works seamlessly with Blackboard to expand its functionality. There is some free online training and PreAh Hill has agreed to give a hands on demonstration.

We are very fortunate to have a Title 3 grant that enables us to attend these conferences and continue to learn and improve our online course offerings.  It is also a nice validation of what we do when we network and compare our online offerings. It was interesting to see that nationally online students are now doing as well as seated sections. At our college students in Hybrid courses do better than students in the seated or online classes. Distance learning is growing by leaps and bounds in all 2 and 4 year schools and it is mandatory to stay abreast of all trends to keep our students engaged.

CLICK LINK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD DL BEST PRACTICES PRESENTATION

FreshwaterBestPracticesDLFaculty

CLICK HERE TO GET PATRICK KEOUGH’S RICH MEDIA PRESENTATION – SCROLL DOWN PP ICON

Cathy Crowell
Curriculum Area Coordinator
Photographic Technology
Carteret Community College
3505 Arendell Street
Morehead City, N.C. 28557

Mid-Semester DL Report Spring 2010

The Distance Learning team has had a busy and productive Spring semester so far. As of Spring 2010 the college has officially gone 100% electronic for all faculty grade books and syllabi so we conducted a a series of professional development workshops last semester in order to get our traditional classroom instructors up to speed with the basics of Blackboard. All CCC faculty will be expected to submit their entire grade books electronically to their supervisors via e-mail attachment at the end of each semester from now on.

We were also tasked with creating a Technology Boot Camp assessment and training Blackboard to be used to assess where everyone at CCC is as far as the level of their technical skills with computer literacy, word processing, powerpoint, excel and navigating the internet. Campus wide assessments and training will begin in the coming weeks with a goal to have all CCC employees assessed by April 15th. After that the assessments will be evaluated and targeted training will be given to the staff and faculty that need their technology skills upgraded.

Pre-Ah Hill has worked with seven faculty members so far this Spring to get their Blackboard grade books set up for their seated courses.  She has also worked with at least 10 different faculty members on instructional video production, Blackboard upgrades and other troubleshooting problems.  She also assisted one faulty member on making screencasts for her online courses.

Professional Development during January and February

Jan 29 Grade Center Workshop: 12 people attended

Feb 5: Blackboard Boot Camp: 5 people attended; One was a repeat, one only stayed for the first Module and 3 graduated.

Feb 19: Using Movie Maker: 13 people attended

We have 7 faculty attending the NC3DL Conference this month in Durham. Title III Project Director Don Staub is presenting on assessing dl courses. Laurie Freshwater is presenting on DL Best Practices and I am sitting on a panel for DL and SACS in addition to giving 2 presentation on incorporating rich media into online courses.

Title III Distance Learning Pioneers Reports

Or Title III Pioneers are doing some exciting things with their online courses. Title III purchased laptops, digital recorders and web cams for the DL Pioneers and they have moved forward creating instructional videos, screencasts and podcasts for their courses in addition to upgrading the design of their blackboards based on the best practices workshops they have attended as part of the DL Pioneer initiative.

The following are some of the things our Phase IV Pioneers are working on as part of the Title III grant.

• Joseph Croom has been working on a welcome video into the Office of Admissions at CCC; as well as a tutorial, or how to guide, on filling out an online application.

• David Roach has completely redone Respiratory Clinical Practice I, RCP 132 for this semester and added an introductory video and a series of instructional videos as well.

• History instructor David Quinn is in the process of digitally recording all his lectures, adding instructional videos to his lessons and has created a video orientation for his HIS 236 course.

• Pamela A. Taylor, Radiography Clinical Coordinator has created an introduction video for RAD Procedures II in addition to adding enhanced instructional podcasts to her online lessons.

• Chemistry instructor Kelly Jo Gordon – Aguilar has create a video orientation for her Chemistry hybrid course and has modified (retooled) all documents (ppts, tests, quizzes, and homework) within BB. She has developed hybrid and web enhanced courses for CHM 151, 152, 131, and 132.

• Faculty Assistant Bessie Wells has accomplished the following as staff person on the Title III DL team.

1. Talked to supervisor and department about what to do; Patrick suggested a blog but the department thought a web page for the Curriculum Support Services Department would be better. Each person in the department will have a short video/enhanced podcast about their area and what they do (divisions they work with, budgets, etc.) on a page.  There would also be a few training videos as well as enhanced podcasts about the different aspects of the work CSS does. 
2. Talked with Terrence Smith about how to go about getting our web page for the department on the college’s web page.  We talked at length about the different coding to use.  Terrence said that using HTML language would be fine and he would figure out a way to get our page connected to the college’s page.  Seem to think that this would not be a problem. 
3. Have chosen colors for the background and text on the page. Have started work on the page and have some things tentatively completed. 
4. Have chosen the mascot picture for CSS department to use on the page. Creating hot spots to access the other pages for the department. 
5.  Will be taking updated pictures of the faculty assistants as well as making appointments for their video/podcast. (They wanted to wait until after Christmas to do this). 
6. Have done searches for images to use along with creating banners for each assistant’s page.

• Psychology Instructor Heather Hebert has been in the process of retooling her PSY 150 General Psychology and PSY 281 Abnormal Psychology. She has been meeting with Pre-Ah to produce audio and video components for her to online classes.

• Academic Support coordinator Kimberly Johnson has taken over responsibility for our Title III initiated online tutoring service and submitted the following report.

1 – We are maintaining the same level of service and are paying for 2 of the 3 online tutors.  Title 3 might continue to fund the third position through May 2010. 
2 – Lara Sassano has been identified as the on-campus/online tutor and will train this semester.  She has attended the Effective Online Learning Seminar with Patrick Keough and Pre-Ah Hill and online tutor training with Patrick Keough.  As of January 22nd, she is listed as an online tutor and is working with Lisa Taylor in streamlining her profile and learning how to communicate with students.  Lara is tutoring A&P, biology and chemistry online. 
3- Academic Support has a Skype account that can and will be used for any in-house online tutoring. 
4 – We are still developing the process and timing of this process. 
5 – I will be attending “Best Learning Center Practices…” webinar on January 26th and will also attend a demonstration on an online tutorial and homework system on February 5th. 
6 – Lisa Taylor continues to coordinate and advertise for online tutoring.  With the addition of Lara as a tutor, we are now offer assistance in chemistry. 

Timeline for Online Tutoring

January 2010 – Pay the majority of online tutor salary from AS budget 
January – May 2010  Train in-house online tutor 
March 2010 – Have a designated computer set-up for online tutoring with camera and microphone 

Title III has been invaluable for CCC to continue being a leader in the state for distance learning. It enables us to do ongoing and varied professional development both in a classroom/lab settings and one on one with individual faculty.

Hit the Ground Running!

We are now 3 weeks into the Fall semester and the Distance Learning Team in working on a variety of professional development initiatives, in addition to making sure all online courses at CCC are meeting the Quality Assurance Standards we established last year. We have cross referenced a sampling of our online courses and I must report it is good to see how all the Blackboard training has paid off and so many of our faculty are implementing more creative and innovative instructional design strategies. Our Title III funding and support has played such an integral part in the progress we’ve made over the past 3 years.

Our fourth DL Pioneer team has been selected and we had our kick-off meeting last Friday. We have an excellent team made up of both faculty and staff and they’ve all made commitments to retool and upgrade their online courses, attend professional development activities in their disciplines and essentially take their knowledge of online learning and distance education to a higher level in the next year all made possible by Title III funds. Our staff members on this team will be exploring and implementing new and creative ways (blogging, Youtube, facebook, twitter) to work with our student in the online environment

As Vice President of the NC3ADL Eastern Region I’m also in the process of coordinating a Regional DL mini-conference/workshop for Friday, November 6th here at CCC. Due to travel restraints across the state it looks like there will be no NC3ADL conference this year so we are doing a series of regional conferences. NC3ADL will pay for lunch and I’m going to look to our DL Pioneers from Phase 1-3 to assist with it and have phase 4 attend. The following is a rough outline for that regional conference/workshop.

Big Picture – TWO Tracks (I am reserving 2 computer labs) November 6, 2009 9:00 – 4:00

2 tracks in the morning 9:30 – 10:30 and 10:45 – 11:45
Lunch 12:00 – 12:45
2 tracks after lunch
1-2 and 2-3 (Optional Track 3-4 on Dl Assessment)

1. Moodle Basics
2. Podcasting for the Technically Challenged
3. Best Practices for Online Teaching
4. Learning Object Repository
5. Social Networking as a Teaching/Learning/ Marketing Tool
6. Blogging for Beginners
7. Incorporating Itunes U and You Tube in your online courses.
8. DL Assessment with Don Staub

My constant goal is to make our online classes every bit as viable, interesting and dynamic as our traditional classroom lectures and labs. Thankfully there are a host of new and powerful communications tools that are making it easier and less time consuming for our faculty to do this. Carteret Community College has a Title III grant resources to help us implement our various professional development initiatives and put these tools in the hands of our faculty so they can take their online teaching to a whole new level of technical and pedagogical excellence.

Fall Semester is Upon Us

It has been a busy summer semester for our DL team at CCC. We conducted a variety of workshops (Moodle training for example) in order to get our faculty prepared for to teach online in the fall, in addition to all the one-on-one training Pre-Ah has done the past few months.

Title III sponsored another well attended Blackboard Boot Camp training workshop on Friday, July 31st in the Wayne West Computer Lab. We had 18 faculty and staff from across the college attend and 2 graduate students from East Carolina University who requested the training without compensation.

The T3 sponsored Blackboard Boot Camp has been a very successful and benificial training program for Carteret Community College. It has prepared and certified all (100+) its online faculty including adjuncts to teach effectively in the online environment.

This is comprehensive “hands-on” professional development that has been supported (funded) by Title III for over 2 years.

East Carolina University Graduate student and photography adjunct instructor Adam Jacono stated that he wished East Carolina University had a certification program for online teachers like our Blackboard Boot Camp.

The Boot Camp is also a catalyst (springboard) for our “one- on-one” training that Instructional Technologist Pre-Ah Hil schedules after new instructors receive their initial training. She assists them with all aspects of course design, retooling and rich media production. Pre-Ah continues to go above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to supporting distance learning at CCC.

Title III support has been extremely valuable to Carteret Community College and its distance learning initiatives. Pre-Ah Hill and I are looking forward to working with faculty throughout the coming school year and offering distance learning training on a regular basis. We also plan on conducting a series of Effective Online Learning workshops for our students in the next month.

Here’s to a great and productive semester at CCC!

Spring / Summer 2009 DL Report

The Distance Learning team have been busy this past year. Blackboard Boot Camp is now totally online. New online adjunct teachers can now take the training on Blackboard if they cannot attend our Blackboard Certification workshops here on campus.

We are also transitioning the Online Tutoring service funded (piloted) by Title III over to Kimberly Johnson and Academic Support. I have conducting training for Kimberly and her tutors so they can tutor students not only in Academic Support but online as well.

The statewide budget crunch is impacting everyone and the Community College System is no exception. Carteret Community College may have to pay the Blackboard licensing fees after June, 2011. We are budgeting for this reality and should not have to discontinue using Blackboard as our primary Course Management System any time soon, however Carteret Community College is now a part of the Moodle “open source” CMS consortium developed by the System Office and we are training a cross section of our online faculty this summer on Moodle (thanks to a Title III Professional Development Grant) just to be on the safe side and be proactive regarding this important issue.

Pre-Ah Hill continues to work “one on one” with many of our newer online faculty in assisting them in all aspects of course building and online instructional design. She has also assisted me in developing a comprehensive effective online learning workshop for students. So far over 90 students have attended this training and since then it has been put online with enhanced podasts and screen videos. This initiative was a result of Title III and the next logical step after getting all our faculty trained on Blackboard and online teaching methods. Click Here for Effective Online Learning Workshop

Our DL Intern Shannon Ayers has assisted many of our online faculty produce course orientation videos and video lectures to be embedded into their courses. This past semester the Distance Learning Department also created our own CCC DL YouTube Channel to store all our instructional videos.

Click here to view some of those videos in YouTube.

We have wrapped up the second phase of the Technology Center Grant on Blogging, YouTube and ITunes U for instructional use. These instructional resources can be found by clicking here. Three workshops were conducted on campus as part of this grant and were opened up to faculty from other Community Colleges in our region. Approximately 50 faculty attending these 3 workshops.

The Technology Committee has tasked the Distance Learning Department with developing better policies, procedures and training for our department to work more efficiently and seamlessly with departments that work closely with us such as IT, Academic Support, Enrollment Resources and the Library. We are in the process of fine tuning these policies and coordinating the training.

This summer are conducting Moodle training (train the trainer model) to approximately 9 of our CCC faculty. I have developed a comprehensive Moodle training program on a Moodle platform and will make it available to anyone interested in learning more about Moodle.

We’ve scheduled a Blackboard Boot Camp for Friday, July 31st. There are still a few slots left for this comprehensive Blackboard training. Please contact Pre-Ah Hill to sign-up.

Our Phase III Distance Learning Pioneers have submitted their final reports and they can be seen on the T3 Blog under DL Pioneers Link. I’m so impressed with the quality of instructional design work our online faculty have been doing the past year as far as adding creative “rich media content” to their courses. There is no doubt in my mind that CCC is a leader and innovator in Distance Learning across the state.

Click to Download DL NewsletterSum09

DL End of Year Report

Distance Learning End of Year Report
December 17, 2008

It’s been a productive year for the CCC Dl Team. We’ve conducted 11 distance learning professional development workshops and trained 114 staff and faculty members.

Pre-Ah Hill has also worked one on one with approximately 30 faculty members.

As of  December 17, 2008 my team of online course reviewers have evaluated 85 online (hybrid and total) courses.  This initiative could not have been possible without the financial support of Title III, and dedicated efforts of Pre-Ah Hill and the faculty (content specialists) who assisted in this process. The QAP’s (spread sheets) are currently located on my computer and backed-up by Pre-Ah as well.

Faculty members (courses) who didn’t pass the minimum standard have been meeting with Pre-Ah and I to upgrade their courses in order to meet the QAP standard.  This is an ongoing process, although as of December 16, 2008 we only have 3 more faculty (adjuncts) to meet with in order to get their courses up to speed for Spring. These appointments have been made this week and the week before classes begin in Spring.  There are also approximately 15 online courses (Business and EDU) that are being worked on (developed) over Christmas and Pre-Ah and I will be reviewing them between now and when classes begin Spring 09. We are also in the process of creating a revised QAP for web-enhanced courses that we will begin implementing Spring 2009. This is our next big initiative for 2009 – standardizing the content that must be included in a web enhanced course and move forward evaluating web-enhanced courses as well hybrids and total internet. I truly believe this initiative brought the level of our online course offerings to a higher more standardized level across curriculum’s.

We also were awarded a second NCCCS Technology Center Grant to produce instructional web resources for Blogging, YouTube and ITunes University. Our DL team has produces a script and are in production of an enhanced instructional podcast on the benefits of these web based tools for students and faculty, the equipment (hardware and software) needed for them, and information on where to obtain software needed use them effectively.

The goal is to provide all of the information that a college will need to get started on Blogging, YouTube and ITunes U. Pre-Ah Hill and I also conducted training workshops and materials as part of this Tech Center Grant. The following are the workshops (and the ECU Think-In Technology Showcase) we have conducted and/or participated in as part of this grant project and our T3 sponsored Distance Learning training.

October 9th, Wayne Community College
17 Participants

On Oct 23, 2008:
15 people attended:

On Oct 24, 2008:
8 people attended:

Think-In East Carolina University November 13th
Distance Learning Showcase

The Distance Learning Department at Carteret Community College  hosted a Regional Workshop sponsored by NC3ADL on Blogging, YouTube and iTunes for Instructional Use Workshop on Saturday, December 13 from 10:00-3:00 pm. This was open to all of the community colleges in the region. 15 Participants

Our Online Tutoring Initiative (service) has exceeded all expectations and our tutors have submitted their final reports for the year and recommendations for making the service even more successful here at CCC.

A total of 260 hours and 85 students served by this service between March  – December 1st, 2008.

We invited 5 staff members to participate on this year’s DL Pioneer team. They have been exploring new and innovative ways to offer their student services in the online environment. (See Brenda Long Blog)

We are also in the planning stages of a student centered distance learning / blackboard training initiative for Spring 09.

Eight faculty members will be attending the NCDLA Distance Learning Conference in Raleigh February 15 – 19th. I will also be presenting a workshop on Instructional Podcasting.

Lastly, I co-presented (via Skype) at the Noel-Levitz Conference in Denver in November. Based on the evaluations our presentation was well received and we have been invited to present again in San Antonio in July 2009.

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DL Accomplishments At CCC Fall 2006 – Fall 2008

The Distance Learning Department has made great strides in a variety of key areas over the past two years because of funding and resources made available through Title III Grant. The following is what I consider our major accomplishments. I hope to build on what we have done and start taking Distance Learning to a whole new level in the coming year.

Blackboard Boot Camp

• A comprehensive Professional Development initiative was initiated for all online faculty in both the technical aspects of teaching online and in instructional design strategies and methodology. Every full time and part time adjunct (120 +) have been certified by attending our 6 hour Blackboard Boot Camps over the past 2 years.

Training college faculty in the latest distance learning methodology and instructional technologies has been a huge but imperative undertaking. The demand for online courses is growing annually and students are arriving in these courses with more advanced and sophisticated technological skills (awareness) than ever before due to the cyber / media culture they have grown up in. That is why we initiated a series of Blackboard Boot Camps in order to get all our online faculty trained in online course management systems and instructional design theory.

QAP “Peer Review” Process

• A QAP Online Course “Peer Review” process has been implemented campus wide. Before the QAP was initiated there was a lack of visual and instructional continuity in our online course offerings. Over the past year a team of veteran online faculty and instructional design staff have been in the process of reviewing every online course at Carteret Community College using a comprehensive check-sheet that addresses a variety of technical and instructional design best practices.

The purpose of the QAP peer review process is to establish and maintain ensured quality for all CCC Distances Learning courses. Our goal is to be able to provide a minimum standard of quality for all CCC Distance Education Courses and move our courses into higher standards through a process of continuous improvement. Objective, peer review allows for us to offer online the highest quality, and more “learner friendly” courses in an ever- increasing competitive online teaching environment.

Distance Learning Pioneer’s

We are into the third phase (year) of our Distance Learning Pioneer program. Dl Pioneers represent a cross section of Carteret Community College faculty and staff that have committed to either completely upgrading and retooling their online classes (adding content specific visuals, producing audio instructional podcasts and enhancing course content) they are already teaching or developing new online courses (or innovative online work environments for staff) for the college. These distance learning pioneers are also participating in a variety of professional development activities (paid for by Title III) such as, workshops, conferences and seminars in order to not only upgrade their courses technically, but are upgrading their online teaching methods as well. Twenty faculty have successfully gone through this intense training and we now have 5 staff and 5 faculty participating in this Pioneer project at this time. Those DL Pioneers that have already been through the program mentoring other online faculty who have not.

Online Tutoring Service

We’re blazing into a new realm of student support here at CCC. The power of distance learning at our College is dramatic, and undeniable. As our DL program turns 10 this semester, we have reached some dramatic milestones:
* 169 online (web-based, hybrid, and full) courses are being taught this semester;
* 72% of students enrolled this semester are taking at least one online course;
* 47% of courses offered are being taught online

With this backdrop, it is critical to understand that we MUST provide all of our support services online. We currently have advising online and we have recently implemented an online tutoring service. After reviewing the field of proprietary online tutoring services, we determined that, at this time, it may be more cost-effective (and more effective overall) to develop our own in-house tutoring service. Online tutoring is available for English, Math, Biology and Anatomy & Physiology and as more and more faculty and students learn of the benefits of this service it is beginning to grow and become part of the fabric of the learning process at CCC. The service is in its infancy as we continue to learn what does and does not work, but in the meantime, we continue to move forward with this exciting initiative.

“One on One” Distance Learning Training

Any faculty member at CCC can contact the Distance Learning Lab and make an appointment with our Instructional Technologist Pre-Ah Hill or a distance learning intern for one on one intensive and focused course specific training. This begins with an initial consultation that identifies the types of technical and/or instructional design upgrades that the faculty member wants to make to his or her online course. This also includes training our faculty in all aspects of Blackboard (CMS) and new software such as audacity and movie maker in order to produce innovative instructional podcasts, enhanced podcasts and videos to be uploaded into the faculty members blackboard.

Distance Learning Campus Wide DL Forum

Carteret Community College held its first Distance Learning forum moderated by Dr. Abbie Brown and Dr. Bill Sugar both Professors in the Instructional Technology Graduate Program at East Carolina University. It was an extremely productive event, and I believe will be a catalyst for some of the initiatives we implement in the coming year. One thing continues to be very evident and was brought out by many participants in the forum. Education is evolving and changing rapidly. The tools, techniques, methods and environments are changing. However, good teaching is still good teaching, whether it’s done in the online environment or the traditional classroom environment. It goes back to the “Human Element”. The personal touch – the connection between the teacher and student. If that connection isn’t made (and nurtured) the teaching / learning, journey will be an uphill climb. The issues brought out and identified at this forum using the SWOT approach (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) will continue to be addressed as we develop and structure new professional development activities for our faculty and staff at CCC.

Applying and Receiving other Grants

Due to the great strides our Distance Learning Department have made in the areas of professional development and instructional media production over the past 2 years thanks to the funding and resources made available through Title III. We’ve been recognized at the state level for our work and in turn have applied for and received additional state grants to produce online instructional design resources for the state Community College System. Last year we received $7,400 to produce a comprehensive training package on all aspects of Podcasting and this year we were granted $10,700 to produce instructor resources for Blogging, YouTube and ITunes University. (See Below)

Technical Grant I

General information will be provided giving a description of podcasting, some of the benefits for students, the equipment (hardware and software) needed for podcasting, and information on where to obtain software.

The project participants will tell the benefits of using Podcasting, including some statistical information that relates to student retention in classes where podcasting is available. The list of resources will include names to contact for assistance as well as web sites where software can be downloaded, along with directions on how to proceed. The goal is to provide all of the information that a college will need to get started on podcasting.

Tech Grant #2

General information will be provided giving a description of instructional uses for Blogging, YouTube and ITunes University. Our team will describe some of the benefits of these web based tools for students, the equipment (hardware and software) needed for them, and information on where to obtain software needed use them effectively.

The project participants will tell the benefits of using Blogging, YouTube and ITunes U including some statistical information that relates to student retention in classes where these tools are available. They will also produce new instructional content in a variety of discipline areas as examples of these tools can be applied to any online course. The list of resources will include names to contact for assistance as well as web sites where software can be downloaded, along with directions on how to proceed. The goal is to provide all of the information that a college will need to get started on Blogging, YouTube and ITunes U.

Assessment

All of these initiatives are at different phases of progress and implementation at CCC. We plan to continue building on our success (and efforts) in these various areas and hopefully will be able to start gathering viable data as to how these campus wide initiatives are effecting and impacting student success and retention at Carteret Community College. Title III has been a primary catalyst for faculty and staff upgrading, online course evaluations, generating additional grant funding, self study through our forums and adding new services like online tutoring for our students.

Distance Learning Status Report – January 29, 2008

The DL Team are moving forward with a variety of exciting and important initiatives. These projects are at different stages of completion.

1. Phase II of our QAP “Peer Review” Process is in full swing. Content Specialists and Instructional Designers have been identified and contacted to evaluate 25 online classes in the next 6 weeks. A special thanks to Laurie Freshwater and Mary Walton who are assisting us with both content and instructional design in a few of the courses being evaluated. They both have expertise in both areas and their assistance is crucial to moving this process forward in a timely manner. Title III is supporting the online course review process by giving $50 stipends to our content specialists.

2. I am very excited about the Online Tutoring service we’re developing. Lisa Taylor Galezia (CCC English/Photography Adjunct and online veteran) is working with me in creating (designing) an interactive blackboard to act as a communications hub for online tutoring. This service will be available to both traditional students and our online / hybrid students. Last week (January 24th) we had our first kick-off meeting for potential tutors. We had eleven highly qualified applicants attend this first information session representing the disciplines of Math, Biology, Anatomy & Physiology and English. They came with lots of good ideas to incorporate into our plans for tutoring students in the online environment. Pre-Ah and Lisa have researched and incorporated some very viable communication tools into the Blackboard such as Instant Messenger, Skype, Virtual Chat and a Whiteboard for doing Math equations. We are still in the early stages of developing this service and are now evaluating the resumes left by those who attended the information session. We plan to begin incrementally offering this service to our students on a limited basis by end of February. Once we get Online Tutoring up and running at CCC I hope to hand it over to the tutoring wing of Academic Support. This would not be made possible without the support and funding of Title III. I believe we will see a positive impact on retention once this service is in full swing.

3. In the last 2 weeks we’ve had 2 Distance Learning Pioneer meetings with our DL Phase I and II online faculty. We discussed the QAP and also identified some professional development needs of the group that the Pre-Ah and I plan on addressing in the next two months. I was excited to hear all the innovative and creative things our DL Pioneers are doing with their online classes, both technically and in their instructional design strategies. They are incorporating the things they learned in BB Boot Camp (graphics, podcasts, video, camtasia) into their classes and even going beyond and researching dynamic new ways to communicate and assess their course content. I believe our “train the trainer” model for the DL component of the T3 Grant is working effectively and is creating a cadre of DL mentors across our campus. Pre-Ah is also working “one on one” with our pioneers to assist them with their course retooling, especially in adding rich media content such as audio and video lectures and teaching them new software that will help them do this.

4. We received word (today) from the NCCCS staff that our proposal to collaborate with FTCC the NCCCS Technology Center was recommended to the State Board for approval and funding. I was suppose to attend a kick-off meeting in Fayetteville today however word never filtered down to me and I sent my thoughts concerning our role in the Technology Center to Bob Irvin (Project Director for the Grant) at FTCC.

5. I was tasked by Dr. Emory to implement a viable process that insures we are collecting “institutional data” from all (dl and classroom) our student evaluations. The following are thoughts (paraphrased) by my conversations with Don and Jennifer concerning this issue.

” In order to conduct a comparative analysis, we should try to decrease all possible variables. For this reason, we should work toward incorporating the same wording on all relevant questions/statements.

In order to ensure that we are gathering institutional data (from these course-level evaluations), we should develop a system for aggregating responses on the specific questions we have identified as relevant. Once the responses are entered, via the Remark survey software, we can conduct aggregate analyses on any items we choose.

We may need to clarify what we mean by “institutional data.” Is it simply taking all the course-level surveys and aggregating the data so that we have an institution-wide picture, or is it something requiring a variety of data sources?”

A final step in the process would be follow-up to make sure that issues/concerns are addressed then documented, and necessary changes take place.

The following are my recommendations for these evaluations once they are sent to the Division Directors and Curriculum Coordinators. I see this as the accountability piece.

1. If the evaluation is fine with no problematic issues the Curriculum Coordinator signs it and gives to the instructor and files a copy for his/herself.

2. If there are issues (concerns) that need to be addressed the Curriculum Coordinator schedules an appointment with the instructor and reviews the evaluation pointing out problem areas and requests clarification about what may have been the problem from the instructors point of view. Once the issue is clarified then Curriculum Coordinator and Instructor create (write) an action plan that specifically addresses the issue of concern and plans for a solution. Both sign the action plan.

3. Both instructor and CC keep a copy of the evaluation and action plan.

4. After the next student evaluation of the instructor (following semester) the latest evaluation is checked against the previous one to see if improvements were made in that area of concern. If they were CC signs off on it and gives to the instructor and keeps a copy for him/herself.

5. If significant improvements were not made in the second evaluation the situation is handed over to Division Director of that area for review.

Title III Project Director Don Staub and I have followed up with Dr.’s Abbie Brown and William Sugar, Program Directors of the Instructional Technology Program at East Carolina University from our initial distance learning brainstorming session held for our DL Pioneers last month. We have discussed doing a Distance Learning Forum in Joslyn Hall sometime possibly in April with Dr. Brown and/or Sugar moderating that forum that will address the key issues and concerns our faculty, staff and students have concerning the pro’s and con’s of distance education.

For the next 6 weeks I will be assisting Pre-Ah and our QAP content specialists in getting these 25 online courses evaluated and all the data entered electronically into a data base. Yes…it’s going to be a busy Spring Semester. I am also teaching 3 Photography classes in-between all these initiatives. Wheew!

Patrick Keough
Director of Distance Learning