Sloan-C Blended Learning Conference 2012 Virtual Attendee Experience

This was my first time attending a Sloan-C Conference as a virtual attendee, so I was interested in how I would be able to interact with the online interface and participate synchronously online. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to view live streamed sessions and participate seamlessly via Poll Everywhere polls from presenters as well as an in-room chat, Twitter and Facebook feeds. Overall, I enjoyed my online conference experience and appreciated the flexibility to participate right at my desktop.  I'm looking forward to my next online conference.

Session Take Aways:

1. Blend Your Own Faculty Development Program Using Open Components from the Blended Learning Toolkit
   Speakers: Kevin Thompson & Linda Futch, Univ. of Central Florida
   • Great resource with downloadable templates with blended best practices, http://bit.ly/blendkit
2. Comparing Traditional and Blended Learning: Evidence From the ClassroomSpeakers: Geri Mason & Baine Craft, Seattle Pacific University
   
   • They captured both qualitative & quantitative data based upon Garrison & Vaughan's categories within their surveys.
   • Their Conclusion: Blended learning doesn't help (in regards to retention, but maybe facilitate more group cohesion), but it doesn't hurt (Univ. needs more classroom space, professor needs to take a sabbatical)
   • Confirmed that no new materials were developed for the blended course, which I personally viewed as a major item they should have addressed when transitioning to a blended environment and may have impacted their findings.
   • Noted that their course catalog didn't indicate "blended" as a designation and some students took that by surprise.
3. K12 to Higher Education, Two Perspectives on Planning for the Digital Future
   Speakers: Kurt Kiefer, Stephen Sanders, Johannes Britz, Wisconsin Dept. of Ed & Univ. of Wisconsin
   
   • Planning process included focus groups and questionnaires. They mentioned investing in infrastructure and bandwidth as an important foundation.
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   • Faculty development is key.
   • Digital content repository has also been a focus.
   • End goal is to save teachers time and money while providing a global education for students.
4. Online and Blended Learning: Maximizing the Investment
   Speakers: Mary Niemiec & Laura Pederick, Univ. of Nebraska & Univ. of Wisconsin Milwaukee
   
   • Online programs are normally driven by a cost recovery model and income is used to fund resources (e.g. student support, instructional design, etc.)
   • Blended programs have less new $$. Therefore, there is a need to look at allocation of resources to support a blended model.
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5. Defining K-12 Blended Learning: The Roles of Leaders, Teachers, Students & Parents
   Speaker: Allison Powell, International Association of K-12 Online Learning
   
   
   
   • Main theme throughout the presentation focused on addressing diverse learners through differentiated instruction with a combination of face-to-face instruction coupled with independent online digital instruction.
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   • Model blended schools shared: Rocketship Education, New York School of One, Carpe Diem School,  New Line Learning Academy.
6. Start Strong: Residential Support for New Students of Blended and Online Education
   Speaker: Joanne Dolan, Rasmussen College
   
   • Found many students apprehensive with online courses. Optional learning center/tutor program to support students with a goal of getting students off to a strong start (reduce anxiety).  
   • 30 minute session with experienced blended and online students; will start by asking students to log into their courses and assess their level and support needs.  Ensure students leave with something concrete and useful.
   • Improvements: brought advanced students (probed needs, e.g. APA formatting, reference pages) in and adapted program to focus on nursing students.  
7. How to Successfully Evaluate Blended Learning
   Presenters: Chuk Dziuban & Patsy Moskal, University of Central Florida
   • Common term that arises is "quality" and is difficult to measure (clarity, authenticity, unity, suspense, economy, depth, proportion, vividness, emphasis, authority, flow & precision).
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   • UCF Blended Learning Toolkit survey instruments, http://blended.online.ucf.edu/evaluation-resources/survey-instruments/.
8. Designing an Inquiry-Based Approach to Blended Learning
   Presenter: Norm Vaughan, Mount Royal University, Canada
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • Dennis Littky, The 3R's of Engagement: 1) Relevance, 2) Rigour, 3) Relationships, http://bigpicture.org.
   • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Optimal Flow: the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.
   • Daniel Pink, 1) Autonomy, 2) Mastery, 3) Purpose.
   • Dimensions of engagement: social engagement, academic engagement, intellectual engagement
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Ideas for Teaching with QR Codes

After attending the E-Learn conference, my interest continues to peak on topics related to augemented reality and mobile learning. I saw this interesting QR code article today, http://www.edutopia.org/blog/QR-codes-teaching-andrew-miller.

It got me thinking on how I could share this with our team via a hands-on activity, so let's try it out. :)

1. Read article link above.
2. Visit http://goqr.me/ to create a QR code answering the following question, "What Christmas Means to Me."
3. Print out your QR code to post in the conference room to share with others.
4. Think about whether or not QR codes would be a useful tool to integrate into development of culture-based resources.

Here's my QR code for this activity. I look forward to your sharing!

E-Learn Conference 2011

This international conference only comes around every 3 years, so I was looking forward to lots of learning in person and via Twitter #elearnconf.
Day 1:

• Keynote: Barbara Means on Blended Learning: Prospects for Transforming K-12 Schools...covered the meta-analysis data on online learning. Blended learning on average showed better results. Limitations of the study included a limited number of studies. Appeal for blended learning include: 1) potential cost savings, 2) personalization and 3) prep for higher ed. Interrelating blended learning doesn't quite fit into the traditional model easily (structure, scheduling, etc.) and has the potential to cause transformation with careful planning.
• Effects of Virtual Human Body Simulation on course performance: Florida State Univ. conducted a research with two courses (one w/ out simluation & one with). Results indicated students were more engaged and performed better with simulation.

Day 2:

• Keynote: Techno Troubadours and Teacherpreneurs by Amy Burvall & Herb Mahelona. The presentation included many video mash ups with the message of using music to engage and excite students for learning. Presentation link, http://tinyurl.com/musickeynote.
• Opportunities for Moble App to Empower Informal Learning in Univ. Environments by Dr. Knezek (Univ. of North Texas). He pointed us to this Sim School Web site, funded by Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation, he was involved with showcasing a flight simulator for teachers, http://www.simschool.org/
• Online Learning Communities for Teachers by Katrina Liu (Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater). Connect teachers using LMS, blog, Ning, Facebook & emails because they found it was difficult to stay contained only within 1 technology. Designing PBL for teachers to complete projects based upon their own student interests helped increase relevancy for teachers to stay connected to their course.
• Twitter in the University Classroom with Todd Kisicki from Arizona State University, #kisAACE. Examples include: 1) Tweet article for students w/ hashtag to respond to, 2) Ask students a question to respond to, 3) integrating Twitter feed w/ Facebook (98% of college students on).
• The APPS class for educators w/ Charles Miller from Univ. of Minnesota. Everyone gets an iPad funded by donations. :) The course was structured within 16 weeks w/ 3 projects: Thoughtful App Design Presentation, Concept App Design, Build Your App. Teachers design App in Keynote before programming during week 5. Students who finish early teach others. Student Apps that were shared included: Adventure Learning, Hotseat, Go Southeast MN. Interesting how students don't need a background in programming to successfully develop apps.

Day 4:

• Keynote with Craig Kapp from New York University. Augmented reality is in the center of real world and virtual reality. E.g. Hallmark card with sound and pops out 3-D. How does it work? camera, load software and render in real time. How can you use it in education? Augmented reality textbooks w/ animations that pop out of the book.
1. AR Sights - student need facility with Google Sketch Up...students build their models.
2. Zoo Burst, http://www.zooburst.com/ - 3-D pop up book builder. Works with flat graphics (.jpg, .png, .gif) - applications for education include creating digital story books, travel photo books, collaborate w/ other teachers to create books to share globally.
3. QR codes - great way to take a physical space and create hyperlinks to virtual environment.
4. Junaio application, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/junaio-augmented-reality-browser/id337415615?mt=8 - mobile tool that allows you to build augmented reality experience. Glue app...can take a photo (e.g. postcard) to put 3-D object on it. Location-based channel...can add on wayfinding.
5. http://flash.tarotaro.org/, ARToolkit marker generator site to create markers for augmented reality.
6. http://lite.textmarks.com/, free SMS alerts for groups in education, religious and non-profits.
7. Livescribe Pen, http://www.livescribe.com/, can take notes and incorporate audio files into different areas of the "paper."


• A 12 Step Program to Online Teaching Success with Lawrence Ragan from the Pennsylvania State University. It's important to set world class student experience - performance metrics, performance expectations, competencies for online teaching successes
1. Driver's license - training and prepared for LMS, etc.
2. Owner's manual - know the structure, flow and rhythm of the course and how it is diffferent from other teaching formats.
3. Schedule - make sure to plan ahead.
4. Manage it! - create a personal "teaching plan" that defines daily, weekly and monthly course teaching activity.
5. Know your learners and their characteristics - keep connected
6. Know what strategies you will use throughout the course to engage your learners (early and often)
7. Develop a routine to establish and mantain your "teaching presence."
8. Establish and communicate your teaching performance expectations.
9. Establish and communicate your expectations of students' performance.
10. Know how you will manage assessment strategies.
11. Identify and USE your support resources (go to people and systems) when problems arise.
12. Relax and enjoy this new teaching environment as a chance to grow!

Additional Thoughts:

• Many presenters involved their colleagues in the presentation via Skype.
• It's a research heavy conference, meaning some presentation may be hit or miss, but overall, if you select the sessions well, there will be some gems.

How Will I Apply What I Learned to My Work?

• I already shared my experiences with our DL project charter, Initiative B project core team (10/20)
• I will be sharing this blog with the rest of my team and during our next team meeting (10/26)
• For this conference, I chose to be fairly active on Twitter to share my learnings and found it to be engaging by tweeting with the hash tag. It got me thinking on how Twitter could be incorporated into a "flipped classroom" model as well as teacher PD experiences.
• I always feel refreshed when attending conferences with new ideas to incorporate into the work I do daily.

Twitter hash tag: #ELearnConf
My Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/dorothyhirata

Idaho Ed Board Votes to Require Online Classes

What a pleasant surprise it was for me when I read through my emails to find this article about the Idaho Ed Board voting to require two credits online to help students prepare for college while saving money. Idaho will be the first state to require two credits online, joining three other states that currently require one online course for graduation: Alabama, Florida & Michigan. I wonder when the State of HI Board of Ed will revisit the bill from 2010.

ASCD link to Idaho Statesman/Associate Press, http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/09/09/1792606/idaho-ed-board-votes-to-require.html.

Missouri Outlaws Teacher-Student Facebook Friendship

This is the first time I've heard of legislature implementing particular restrictionns related to social media for teachers and students.

According to this Atlantic Wire article,a Senate bill 54 was passed by Governor Jay Nixon and states "Teachers cannot establish, maintain, or use a work-related website unless it is available to school administrators and the child's legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian. Teachers also cannot have a nonwork-related website that allows exclusive access with a current or former student."

Additional details & link to the article, http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/07/missouri-outlaws-teachers-and-students-being-facebook-friends/40626/.

Exploring Google+

I received a Google+ invitation from Brent and decided to spend some time exploring it. Google+ (Facebook's competitor) is currently open on an invitation basis, so if you'd like an invite, please let me know. Here are my thoughts after exploring for the first 2 days.

1. Pretty simple interface to use.


2. I like how it connects directly to my Picasa album and pulls in contacts directly from my Google mail account.


3. The "circles" concept of providing relevant content (multiple privacy layers) depending on your personalized categories.


4. The "sparks" and "hangout" features looked interesting, but I didn't have a chance to explore yet.
   Potential to become useful if it appeals to the masses like Facebook and LinkedIn, but it will probably take awhile since most people are currently using more popular social media sites.

I also read through some articles related to Google+ that I found useful.

1. Google Plus and Education, http://learningedtech.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/google-plus-and-education/.


2. Google Plus: The Good, The Bad, The Potential, >http://alisterpaine.info/2011/07/25/google-plus-the-good-the-bad-the-potential/

New to Mobile Learning Course Development Webinar

In my attempt to keep up with online learning trends, I attended a mobile learning Webinar to hear more about mobile learning development for instruction. I found this Webinar useful for my needs. Here are some of my take-aways.

1. Mobile learning is "here" and growing nationally at 18%. Garin Hess advised that if we're thinking of diving in, don't wait too much longer. After yesterday's Bb World share out, it seems that mobile learning is definitely something we need to take a closer look at. I can't wait for Bb Mobile Learn to be installed onto our enterprise server.


2. There are 3 big problems when diving into mobile learning development




1. How do I create content? Ensure you have cross-platform support.


2. How will learners access mobile content? Provide it through a native stand-alone app offline, native mobile learning management offline OR directly from a learning management system (LMS) which seems to be the main solution.


3. How do I track learning results in the LMS? Track through sign-in or other hooks like assessments on the back-end.


3. Flash is no longer a cross-platform for development. It's mainly a desk-top based solution. HTML 5 is the standard referenced for mobile development.

Moving forward, I hope to integrate what I have learned into my work as we begin our Enterprise Bb project.

Archived webinar link: http://www.rapidintake.com/new-to-mlearning/