by Jonathan Wade | Mar 13, 2020 | Blog, Educational Technology
A Case Study in Marketing: The Danger of “Free” (Especially for Public Employees)
My dear faculty friends. Many of you are on marketing email lists of a number of educational technology companies. They’ve given you good value for trading your email address for many different incentives at conferences or for webinars or for whitepapers. They are now descending upon you with “free” offers that might not be as good as they seem in the first place.
Now you are getting exciting announcements that they are offering you free access to their predictive learning or course management platform or free publisher content. Think twice. This falls in the free like a puppy category, and it could put you in a great amount of risk.
We are making every effort to provide you with the basic tools you need to meet the needs of your students, and although these other tools may seem to be THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM IN THE UNIVERSE, they still need to go through all of the contract and data handling review that any software or service requires.
North Carolina has some particular laws with relation to the retention of student course data and any software we use is required to be properly vetted. And even “free” click-throughs are contracts that you aren’t authorized to enter into on behalf of the university. (See the software policy). Unfortunately for most of these free products, by the time we are able to get them through the process and have their lawyers and our lawyers align the agreements and check all of their data retention policies, we’ll probably be outside of the window of this particular set of circumstances.
If you absolutely have to move the ball forward we can start the process of getting the software reviewed, but, if I were you, I’d dig into the tools we have before I even considered putting content into a platform that at most will be “free” for 6 months and then will be asking for money. (For example one of the huge offenders is offering a wonderful platform that when it goes to paid costs on average $10 a student a year, and we don’t have a mechanism for paying for that particular service.)
by Jonathan Wade | Mar 11, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, Educational Technology, Pedagogy, Teaching with Technology
Yes, most of us like shiny, flashy, and interactive technologies.
But consider:
How many truly awful webinars have you experienced?
How many times have you had to log back on, or fight with your microphone settings?
And, indeed, we have three well-provisioned video conferencing platforms that should handle the traffic, Zoom and MS Teams meetings. We also have Panopto which will allow you to record video and audio to share with your students. And video and live conferencing may be more engaging when done well, but it isn’t necessarily easier, and it is most certainly far more difficult to make compliant with accessibility laws and to get to work consistently over low-bandwidth connections.
Even if you are adept with technology, we urge you to tend toward simplicity with students who didn’t seek to be online students. They may not like to read, but text may be your and their best friend.
If you create text within the LMS using any of the built-in functions, it is automatically usable by screen readers and available for students who need that tool. Discussion boards may be clunky, but once you’ve mastered the flow, they work, and at low bandwidth.
If you choose to do live classes or to record videos, you may want to consider pre-scripting them so that you can easily send a copy of the transcript to any student who requests the transcript.
So consider whether your high-stakes information and content might better be delivered as text, as text and photos, or as a recorded video that has an identical transcript.
Remember that you can insert images and links to YouTube videos easily within the LMS from the editor and that links to external sites work as well. You can even create a reflection assignment or discussion board afterwards.
For images, remember copyright issues (a great guide from our library is available here) and remember that there are several cultural heritage institutions that provide their images free for educational use (like the Smithsonian).
And, if you’ve been forced to move online because of outside factors, be kind to yourself. Stick with simplicity or use simplicity as a fallback when complexity causes confusion.
Remember that the best practices of online course-creation call for a 1-2 year preparation for a well-designed online course and that many outside companies suggest a budget in the tens of thousands for well designed video and interactive content. You don’t have the time for that. You have the core of content and can use tools like Zoom or Collaborate as extensions of the relationships that will get us all through this time of change together.
Focus on getting a working wall of sandbags built to channel the water for a short period of time. This isn’t time to try to build one of the wonders of the world.
We’re here to help you with your technology, but don’t forget that words and reading are still one of the most powerful technologies, and that they still have their place in the world of online teaching and learning.
by Eli Collins-Brown | Mar 9, 2020 | Blog, CFC Insider, Educational Technology, O365
A series of free, live, online training classes designed to get you up and running quickly
Microsoft is excited to host a series of free, live, online training classes designed to get you up and running with Teams. If you’re a faculty, admin, IT Pro, or student, you’ll find a class that’s right for you. Join us to see Teams in action, get your questions answered, and interact with our live instructors. For more training opportunities, including on-demand versions of live training, check out our on-demand end-user training.
Click a session below to sign up:
• Say hello to Microsoft Teams: What is Microsoft Teams? Join us for this 30-minute orientation to discover what Teams is and how it can work for you.
• Run effective meetings with Teams: Learn how you can leverage Teams for your pre, during, and post meetings experience.
by Jonathan Wade | Mar 5, 2020 | CFC Insider, Educational Technology
Did you know that you have one of the most advanced collaboration suites available to use with your students?
The WCU license of Microsoft Teams allows you to create a collaborative classroom light space that your students can access through their Smartphones or their computers.
Every part of Teams other than synchronous video chat does not rely upon a persistent and strong connection and so can be a part of a low-bandwidth continuity of instruction plan.
If you want an overview of how Teams works there is a great on-demand video available from Microsoft here.
Microsoft also offers faculty training on the Microsoft Educator Center including Transform Learning with Microsoft Teams
by Eli Collins-Brown | Oct 16, 2019 | Blog, Educational Technology
Welcome
James Garner Ptaszynski, Ph.D., Vice President, Digital Learning, UNC System Office
Jim will provide recent Digital Learning Initiative (DLI) updates and an overview of today’s topics.
11:10 AM – 11:30 AM
Guest Speaker
Karen Vignare, Ph.D., M.B.A., Executive Director, Personalized Learning Consortium, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities
Personalizing Education in a Digital World
Session Summary
Adaptive learning technologies have the potential to transform the learning experiences of students. Increasing adoption of these technologies by faculty across the country have helped to enhance the collective understanding of how to support successful transformation through their effective implementation. Drawing from her experience with a network of institutions with expertise in implementing and supporting adaptive courseware for personalized learning, Karen will share what the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has learned and how it might be applied at UNC institutions.
Karen’s Bio
Karen Vignare, Ph.D., M.B.A, is a strategic innovator leveraging emerging technologies to improve access, success and flexibility within higher education. As Executive Director for the Personalized Learning Consortium at the APLU, Karen manages a network of universities committed to student success through personalization. She also oversees several adaptive courseware grants providing leadership and support to multiple public four-year universities. She has been leading a scaling initiative with eight pioneering universities since 2016, many of which are seeing improved student success rates and higher retention.
Karen previously served as a Vice Provost, at University of Maryland University College, the largest online public open access institution where she led innovations in adaptive learning, student success and analytics. Previous to that work, she served as Director of Project Planning and Implementation for MSUGlobal at Michigan State University where she helped multiple units leverage emerging technologies in extension, non-credit programs, corporate settings, and research projects. She has published extensively on online learning, analytics, and open educational resources. She has a Ph.D. from Nova Southeastern University and an M.B.A from University of Rochester, William Simon Business School.
Session Summary
Online course and curriculum design is a very complex process that requires the alignment of learning objectives at the institutional, academic program and course level while also addressing workforce needs. Maria’s presentation will demonstrate how Coursetune supports a holistic and team approach to quality instructional design through the use of learning blueprints and features such as curriculum visualization and mapping. She will also discuss how Coursetune can be used to facilitate continuous course and curriculum improvement leveraging built-in instructional design metrics and reports that enable curriculum analysis from the learner’s perspective.
Maria’s Bio
Maria Andersen, Ph.D., has been teaching mathematics and chemistry at the college level since 1998, as well as writing curriculum for mathematics, and developing digital products for learning. She built iPad games to teach algebra, launched the Canvas Network MOOC platform, and created adaptive learning platforms used by McGraw Hill. Maria also worked as the Director of Learning Design for Western Governors University. While a professor at Muskegon Community College (MCC), she directed the week-long MCC Math & Technology workshop for five years, helping faculty to prepare to teach online (or enhance their skills). Maria teaches at Westminster College, is an author, a speaker, a learning futurist, and the CEO of Coursetune. She holds degrees in Math, Chemistry, Biology, Business Administration, and Higher Education Leadership.
11:40 AM – 11:50 AM
DLI Initiatives Segment
Quality Matters Across the UNC System
John J. Falchi, M.S., Director of Special Projects, UNC System Office
Session Summary
Nearly 35% of UNC System undergraduate students completed online courses in Spring 2019. As the UNC System online presence continues to grow, along with student expectations for online education, how can UNC universities ensure the quality of online course design and implementation? One resource that is being utilized across the System is the Quality Matters (QM) program. This presentation will provide a basic understanding of QM, how it can be leveraged at your university and the value it brings to improving online learning across the System.
by Eli Collins-Brown | Oct 7, 2019 | Blog, Educational Technology
The staff of the CFC had the largest number of sessions ever accepted for the annual UNCCAUSE conference.
From October 1-3, the staff attended sessions, joined networking and special-interest groups, and presented at 5 sessions.
In order of delivery, the sessions were:
The CFC would be happy to do encore presentations as requested.
Holistic Course Design and Development
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