Ocotillo Chairs Meeting

April 13, 2001
2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
District Office Room 311

Welcome and Introductions

Charlene Almendarez - GWCC
Alan Levine - MCLI
Mary Long - SMCC
Nancy Matte - PC

Pam Petty - CGCC
Tracy Price - MCLI
Doug Sawyer - SCC
Jon Storslee - PVCC

Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX) Demo

Alan Levine, MCLI
A demo of the new learning innovation database
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/

MLX is a database of who's doing what at the colleges; a list of best practices and innovative strategies in teaching and learning. It is a place for an exchange of ideas of learning using a warehouse metaphoe. Maricopa faculty and staff go to the "loading dock" to add a new or modify an existing "package(s)". You can also view how many people have looked at your package. Your package has a "packing slip" that includes the name of the package creator, the college(s) that were involved in developing it, contact information, a description, links to web sites associated with the package, and a college of media attachments that can include images, documents, etc. which are free of charge for educational use as long as the package owner is given credit. You can search the warehouse by college or subject and everyone who works for Maricopa is encouraged to share their own packages by visiting this site.

The technology uses open source technology: mySQL database and PHP for the web integration.

MCLI is planning campus visits to introduce this new web site. The chairs feel it should be shown at the retreat.

Ocotillo Retreat Planning

everyone
The group reviewed the agenda. Alan reminded the chairs that if they had anyone on their campus wanting to present, they need to get their information into him as soon as possible so faculty professional growth could be arranged (and because it is pretty darn late in the game;-).

The chairs were assigned Day 2 topic sessions to faciliate. They will need to participate in the facilitation of the "Hot Topics in Technology and Learning" on May 23rd at SMCC. If a chair cannot be present, they need to assign a college representative and send that name to Alan and Tracy as soon as possible. Participants will be divided into 4 or 5 groups at each session.

Topic Assignments are:

Assessing Students Online - PC Representative and GCC Representative
Online Faculty Loading - Steve Mutz and Pat Case
What is a Hybrid Course - Mary Long and Brad Kincaid
Successful Online Communication - Charlene Almendarez and CGCC Representative
College Portals - Roger Yohe and Jon Storslee

Each sub-group will spend about 10-15 minutes addressing the following questions and report back to the larger group (all those present for the topic) the most important results. We will arrange laptops or computers to be available so one notetaker per topic can report the results directly to the retreat web site.

For each topic, the subgroups will answer

What is __________? define the issue. (e.g. "What is a Portal?" "How do we define a Hybrid Course?", "What about students do we assess online?")
What are the top 3 issues / challenges about this topic?
What is working now to address therse issues?
What models/strategies for the future should we be considering at Maricopa?

For the afternoon panel discussion, we will have 45 minutes of future projections for technology use at maricopa from our leadership: Chancellor Gaskin, Vice Chancellors Bleed and Solley, a Governing Board member, an indutry representative, a college President, and a faculty member. Their question is to "paint a picture" of how students, faculty, and staff will be using technology in 2005.

We will then move to breakout discussion groups facilitated by the panel where the participants will take the vision and probe, "How do we get there?". Finally, we will assemble to draw some conclusions.

Finally, we are hoping the chairs will join us in a post-retreat debriefing at an off-site location; for May 22 at Paradise Valley, the location will be Wingers, south east corner of 32nd Street and Frank Loyd Wright. On May 23 at South Mountain, the gathering location is Aunt Chilados, south side of Baseline west of I-10.

Ocotillo Spotlight

Doug Sawyer
Good response so far on the March issue featuring Charles Pflanz of SCC. The April issue from GateWay is also done, with a story on Suzy Law, adjunct English faculty.

Next issue out in May will shine on someone from South Mountain.

Online Learning Group Report

Alan Levine
The last meeting was held on April 6, 2001 at MCC with a good attendance of about 30-35 people seeing demos of Blackboard, WebCT, and IntraKal. The group has moved from platform specific presentations to ones that focus on online learning. Next meeting is May 4 at District Office.

District Technology Groups Reports

Doug Sawyer
Doug sits as Ocotillo representive on the District Strategic Planning Committee and the new Technology Leadership Council (TLC). The strategic planning committee is moving along, all 10 colleges have been visited and research has been collected, but it is a slow process. They are still in the "plan to plan" stage. There is a sub-group headed by Earl Monsour that is focusing on technology in general and hiring and keeping technology staff.

The TLC is looking at broad issues of technology use with topics on the table such as Portals, securtiy, and volume purchasing. This group is commisioned by CEC and with a strong connection from Ocotillo could tackle the large issues that extend by the reach of our "branches".

Ocotillo 2001-2002

Doug Sawyer
Plans and goals for next year include: Please mark your calendars

Fall Technology Dialogue Day (November 2, 2001) perhaps collaborate with GCC on Web Developers Day?
Spring Technology Dialogue Day (March 1, 2002) Collaborate with SyRIS projects as a track in a Tech Dialogue Day
Ocotillo Retreat (May 14-15, 2002)

Alan and Doug led a discussion regarding the responsibilities of the Ocotillo Chair.

What is the job description of an Ocotillo Chair? We plan to develop this into a statement that can be used to assist new chairs into their roles.

Local level:Particpate/lead local issues related to technology, teaching and learning; Facilitate their college TLTR, meet regularly with the Dean of Instruction, and participate in Strategic Planning (Technology, Teaching and Learning).

District: Attend the chairs meeting once a month (if the chair cannot attend, then send a college representative from the college group) - Meetings will be held on the 2nd Friday. The chairs participate in the planning of the Ocotillo Retreat and Dialogue Days.

Please send your 2001-2002 chair names to Alan as soon as possible.

Returning next year are:

Doug Sawyer (general chair)
Charlene Almendarez (GWCC)
Pam Petty (CGCC)
Nancy Matte (PC)

The chairs would like to see the goals come from this years Ocotillo Retreat.

Adjourn, next meeting September 14, 2001