Strategies for Expanding your e-learning Skills

Harnessing the Tools and Technologies for Online Teaching.

 

E-Learning is growing at such a rapid pace because it is…..

• Market Driven
• Student Driven
• Technology Driven
• Budget Driven

Education at all levels is changing very rapidly (understatement)

Question we must all ask ourselves…

Do we want to be behind the technological curve or ahead of it?

If we want to stay ahead of this technological wave then we must harness and effectively implement the technology we have at our disposal for delivering and assessing our course content.

1. Master the LMS (Learning Management System)

Moodle / Blackboard / Angel etc.

2. Look at your CMS as your teaching / learning hub.

From your CMS platform you can add a variety of “open source” tools that can enhance / enrich the online learning experience.

3. What other online tools/applications do you want to incorporate into your CMS

Skype, YouTube, ITunes U, Join.me, Twitter, Blogging, Jing, Photobucket, Flickr, Voicethread, to name a few.

4. Develop an online teaching methodology that is a reflection of your personal teaching style and draws from some e-learning best practices. An approach that enables your personality to come through. An approach that lets students know there is a compassionate, engaged, enthusiastic teacher on the other end that sincerely cares about their learning and success. This is the biggest challenge or online educators in my opinion and will take the most time so don’t get frustrated as you are climbing this learning curve.

Lets take a look at a cross section of these online tools and see what each one does best as to instructional delivery.

Each tool/application in the CMS plays a specific role in delivering (and/or assessing) your course content (instruction) and then you add additional tools to broaden and enhance the functionality of your course.

Within the CMS

• Discussion Forums
• Assignment Manager BB / Advanced Uploading of Files Moodle
• Lessons / Create Web Pages/Glossaries
• Test Manager (BB) – Quiz Function Moodle
• Blog / Wiki / external links
• Announcements

Open Source (Outside CMS)

YouTube and Vimeo

Great for embedding tutorials that either you create or find on Youtube into your course. YouTube for lectures under 10-15 minutes and Vimeo for over 15 minutes. Anything you ever wanted to know about Photoshop for example is in a tutorial on YouTube. You just have to sift through and find and embed the best most viable tutorials for your lesson.

Slideshare.net

Great for embedding powerpoint slide shows / lessons directly into CMS instead of linking to them for download.

Jing / Screenflow / Camtasia

I use these tools for screencast tutorials. You can record your screen and your voice as you demonstrate a technique in Photoshop or In-Design for example. Jing for quick and dirty and Screenflow for longer presentations. These can be linked or embedded directly into Moodle or Blackboard.

Audacity for Audio Editing Podcasts

Excellent (FREE) audio editing software. Very shallow learning curve to let you create audio podcasts (MP3′s)

Enhanced Podcasts (Illustrated with images / video)

Great for demonstrating “hands’on”  activities like a dissection in Biology or Chemistry Experiments.

IMovie, Movie Maker or Camtasia will allow you to create visually sophisticated enhanced podcasts for your lectures and demonstrations.

Once I create these I will upload to ITunes U, YouTube and/or Vimeo and embed them into my courses. These do not have to be fancy or highly sophisticated productions. I usually have a student keep an eye on my video camera as I demonstrate a basic lighting technique on the sweep for example. After class I put a title on it – edit out any bad spots and then embed it into the Blackboard or Moodle class.

Join.me – Yuuguu (Screensharing)

Low budget way to share your screen with students for “real-time” synchronous critiques. Just send the students a link and they are viewing your screen. You would use this in conjunction with Skype so you can all have a conversation while discussing a Photoshop technique or critiquing an image.

Skype  (online office hours, conference calls and screensharing)

Google Hangouts! Great for lectures, demonstrations, critique sessions and student meetings or real time lectures.

I find skype and google hangouts bot invaluable for office hours and online meetings. Students seem to be very open to meeting me on skype to discuss a project, look at work or just discuss a school or personal issue.

Twitter for Reminders and Course Updates

We have faculty using Twitter for sending out updates (reminders) to students about various course related projects, due dates, course changes and share short bits of information. All students are asked to create a course twitter account and subscribe to the instructor. I see a lot of possibilities with this tool.

Drop Box

Great for storing images or have students place their work in a central location for you to evaluate and/or critique.

Voice Thread

Another excellent quick and dirty voice with images application that you can embed into a discussion board or anywhere into a CMS.

WordPress Blog for easy web e-portfolios, journeling, travel logs, marketing.

I am a big proponent of blogging for educational purposes and e-portfolio’s.  All my student set-up a portfolio blog the 2nd year of our Photo Program. They set-up pages for each discipline like Portraiture, Sports/ Action, Fine Art, Documentary, Commercial Illustration in addition to posting their artist statements, resume’s etc. Click Here for an example from one of my graduating students. Ira Morris BloG

Rachel Eddins Photo Blog

ITunes U

Excellent and expansive resource for instructional podcasts and video content. You just have to search for topics that relate to your course and download the podcasts and embed them into your course. All ITunes U colleges must sign an agreement that everything they upload to ITunes U is free to anyone who wants to use it in their online courses for edicational purposes. There is a vast array of Photo History Lectures in ITunes U for example. Why reinvent the wheel when someone has already created and made available excellent photo/art media content.

ITunes U Carteret Site

This is the student link to my College ITunes U site. I have over 200 audio and enhanced podcasts in my various photo course tabs. Students can download my podcasts (lectures and demonstrations) to their mobile devices or watch them while sitting at their computer. I do all my exam reviews as podcasts and students download them and listen before taking the exam.

Photobucket and Flickr

Online repositories for storing, sharing and commenting on images. You can have students post a link to their photobucket album or flickr stream to the discussion board and then you can review – post comments and help with editing and sequencing their pictures. Flickr seems to have more functionality for editing and sequencing than photobucket.

IMovie / MovieMaker

IMove for Mac users for making quick enhanced podcasts and instructional videos – Movie Maker is the alternative for PC users as far as being easy to use and enables you to create videos that can be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo or Itunes U.

Keynote

Take a PowerPoint and add narrative then save as a mov. or MP4 file

Dragon Naturally Speaking

I would imagine this software is going to be invaluable to effective online instruction and a big time saver for those of us who are burned out with typing.

Yammer – Educational Social Network

Check this cool “free” educational social networking tool out. Essentially like a facebook interface for communicating and engaging students and colleagues on a variety of topics. You can embed video and audio into it as well. I use that as a communications tool for all my Distance Learning Faculty at my college for sharing ideas, accomplishments and anything related to distance learning.

YouTube – Thousands of Instructional Videos and Tutorials on just about every subject.
Adobe.com
Lynda.com

Each one of these online tools and applications can help you deliver and assess your course content and some will enable you to engage your students effectively in the online environment.

The trick is to know WHEN and WHERE and HOW to use them most effectively to accomplish whatever learning objective you are addressing.

You must be aware that these online tools and applications are constantly evolving and changing and you have to retool your courses accordingly.

Online faculty must accept the reality that there is no standing still in the world of e-learning. We are life long learners and essentially students as well – the online environment has forced us to be facilitators / moderators and guides to the learning journey instead of the sage on the stage.

Those educators who are aware of this reality and ready and willing to navigate the digital / technological terrain will be the most successful, in-demand and marketable.

Handing over the Reins of DL at CCC

It hit me hard this morning that I am actually retiring from my teaching and Distance Learning administrator positions in less than 3 days. I can still remember when I was hired for my first position with a Community College back in 1979. I had recently been discharged from active duty as a military photojournalist and somehow stumbled upon a job opening at Central Carolina Community College in Sanford NC looking for someone with photography skills. I was working in a low pay darkroom job making next to nothing so I submitted an application and remember being surprised when they offered me the position as Audio/Visual Technician 33 years ago. I got my first taste of working in academia back at that small college in Sanford and it was soon after that when I decided to use my G.I. Bill and go back to college and earn my Masters of Fine Arts degree from East Carolina. I realized pretty quickly that I was not going anywhere in the educational system without a masters degree so I only stayed in that first state job 2 years before heading to Greenville and enrolling in graduate school at the School of Art.

I’ve been working for Community Colleges and other state agencies ever since, even while going to Graduate school back in the early 80′s I kept a part-time job working in a media center at Beaufort Community College.

Its been an amazing career journey and consider myself extremely lucky to have had so many exciting opportunities and learning experiences since leaving Long Island for the US Army in the early 70′s. Over the years I’ve meet some wonderful people and made many great friends who have contributed to my growth as an artist, photographer, teacher and eventually administrator for distance learning. Being the Distance Learning Director here at CCC has been a great challenge and incredible learning experience. Education has changed so rapidly over the years. The evolution and growth of distance learning has played a big role in the direction of education and will continue to be a major factor at all levels of teaching and learning.

I actually have no real intentions of retiring from work in general. Pursuing my art, photography, writing and painting are going to be a big part of my next career journey. Also applying everything I’ve learned about distance learning and teaching art and photography in the online environment into the private sector.

Life is as exciting as you want to make it and I don’t look at retirement as an end – I see it as a new beginning and look forward to having more time to pursue those things that truly interest me like my own personal photography, making art and taking what I have learned in the past and applying these varied skill sets to my future.

I am handing over the Distance Learning position at Carteret Community College to Mary Walton who I am sure is going to do a great job moving the college forward in all aspects of distance education. David Hisle will be taking over this blog and I wish them both the best of luck and success.

I want to leave you all with a web site and video that I think offers some valuable insight into the future of education. It can be looked at as scary or a little intimidating for those of us working in the traditional college environment – however I believe we must move forward with our eyes wide open as to the changes coming due to the incredible power of the internet and digital technology. Check out Epic2020  (The Video below is also on the web site)

EPIC 2020

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CCC DL Team Present at ECU Think-IN

CCC Instructional Technologist Pre-Ah Hill and I participated in the annual Think-In at East Carolina University yesterday. “Think-In 2008 showcased faculty from around the state utilizing technology to educate students in the classroom – both face-to-face and distance education classes. Participants made presentations via laptop poster sessions and included course and instructional technology demonstrations.”

This event was an excellent opportunity to see what other institutions are doing in the realm of instructional technology, in addition to sharing what we are doing at our college and the Community College System. The great thing about the Think-In is being able to get new ideas from other innovative faculty and instructional design staff from around the state. Each booth showcased a specific innovative application of technology such as the virtual hospital, using video to give feedback to online students, second life for educational purposes and a variety of other creative uses of technologies in the classroom both online and in the traditional class setting.

Pre-Ah Hill explains how we incorporate Blogging, YouTube and Itunes U at Carteret Community College and demonstrates how these technologies can be applied to the online class environment. You can scroll down to the bottom of the ECU Think-In page and watch the web cast of yesterday’s event. Click Here for ECU Think-In and Web Cast – Scroll Down Page.

Project Coordinator, Ginny Sconiers from Academic Outreach at ECU does a great job every year coordinating this unique event. I always come back with new ideas and contacts and that’s what the Think-In is all about!

DL Report April 17, 2008

Since posting my last Distance Learning Report (see link below) on February 28, 2008 the distance learning team has continued moving forward with a variety of initiatives.

Our Online Tutoring Service went LIVE this past March 17.  We are starting off slow due to the fact that we started offering the service mid-Spring semester however this has given us an opportunity to work the bugs out of the service and develop viable methodologies for assisting students with their classes.

Our Online Peer Review QAP initiative continues to make headway.  We are now into  phase III and should have these 12 courses evaluated by May 5, 2008. As we evaluate these courses we are contacting the instructors of the online classes we are evaluating and either letting them know they passed or asking them to make appointments with us to upgrade their courses in order to make the minimum grade on the QAP.

10 of of our distance learning faculty (DL Pioneers) attended the recent DL Alliance Conference in New Bern earlier this month.  Mary Walton and Laurie Freshwater co-presented with me at the conference on our Blackboard Boot Camp Certification initiative.  They both did an outstanding job presenting at the conference.

As I stated in my last report CCC received an Tech Center Grant to develop and produce a variety of resources for online instructors throughout the state.  Our first project is writing and producing a set of “Best Practices” for instructional podcasting.  I am in the process of ordering digital audio and video equipment with the grant money and paying online faculty volunteers to assist us (after work hours) with the production of a video on all aspects of podcasting. Check out the progress we have made so far at our Tech Center Blog Link – the podcast and video are linked at the bottom of the page.

We have our last BB Boot Camp scheduled for the Spring semester on May 7 and 8. As of today all three modules are close to being full.

Pre-Ah Hill is designing and gathering material (articles and pictures) for our first DL Newsletter that will be out in May.  We hope to make this a monthly newsletter on all aspects of Distance Learning at CCC.

Our DL Forum is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, April 22nd in the upstairs of the Civic Center.  This forum is sponsored by Title III and we hope it will give us additional information to assist us with planning for new dl initiatives in the coming years.

DL Forum Title: Demystifying Distance Learning @ CCC

Date: April 22nd

Time: 1:30 – 4:00

Location: Crystal Coast Civic Center – Moderated by Dr. Abby Brown and Dr. Bill Sugar, from East Carolina University Instructional Design Program.

Overview

Faculty & students are invited to discuss all aspects of DL, voice their apprehensions and concerns, and to walk away with specific action plans to improve DL offerings, procedures and approaches at CCC.

Organization

* Divide the audience into round tables (we will pre-organize each table’s participants, based on rsvp)
* Each table will have a facilitator (a DL Pioneer)
* The facilitator will lead a discussion on SWOT of DL
* Tables will report out on the results of the discussion [each facilitator records results on form, then emails them to Don, who will project them for discussion]
* Bill & Abbie will lead debriefing session of roundtables – including panel discussion comprised of each table moderator
* Action plans will be generated from discussions
* Closing remarks and wrap-up

John Green is in the process of setting up Blackboard Templates for ALL summer online courses.  We are upgrading to Blackboard 8.  It has been a very busy and productive semester in DL and we plan to keep the momentum going into summer with the QAP process and building on what we have accomplished over the past year.

Technology Skills here at CCC

Dr. Emory has tasked our DL Advisory Team to develop a value statement, performance standard, and assessment for the basic level of technology and instructional design skills that ALL teaching faculty should have at CCC. Once developed this will be incorporated into faculty performance appraisals. This is something SACS will be looking at very closely across the board at CCC for not only online faculty, but all teaching faculty at CCC. I suggest there be a staff component of this value statement, performance standard and assessment as well without the instructional design component. This will certainly include internet navigation, a basic understanding of Blackboard and computer skills.

I am asking Pre-Ah Hill to chair this subcommittee made up of Susan Hopkins, Brad Nicholajsen and Kim McGinnis. I will need a rough draft of this by May 11th. I will leave it to Pre-Ah to coordinate meeting times to get this accomplished.

Please post the rough draft of this 3 part technological requirement to this blog on or before May 11th.

Please feel free to make comments below this post for clarification or if you have any questions concerning this important task Dr. Emory has given this committee.

Patrick Keough
Director of Distance Learning

DL Advisory Team Minutes Podcast

We had a very productive first meeting for our DL Advisory Committee last Friday. I appreciate Dr. Emory kicking off our meeting with her thoughts, concerns and perspectives concerning the challenges that face CCC in respect to the various DL initiatives in progress across campus.

You can access the entire audio podcast of the meeting by clicking on the CCC ITunes U link and scrolling down to Distance Learning Icon then clicking DL Advisory Meeting. Remember…you must have ITunes to access the CCC ITunes web site. Click here to download the free ITunes

I am looking to Mark Johnson to follow up with Ken Martin concerning innovative ways we can be offering online counceling and other support services to our DL students and Doree Evans to brainstorm with the Academic Support staff on how we can get ALL our students prepared and proficient for online classes and the use (and access) to the technology and understanding the teaching methodology better?

I see one of our biggest challenges as we approach the summer semester is to get all our online faculty trained on the new (upgraded) version of Blackboard 7.2. Pre-Ah and I are offering 2 training sessions per week until the end of this semester.

Please use this blog to keep me (us) informed of your ideas, and progress concerning the various challenges and issues facing CCC. I will let you know shortly when our next meeting is scheduled for.

thanks for being a part of this very important team!

Patrick Keough
Director of Distance Learning