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