a branch of

ocotillo central

OLG Meeting Notes Oct 1, 2004 ...

Ocotillo Online Learning Group
Meeting Oct 1, 2004

Phoenix College
1:30 - 3:30 PM
Coronado Room lower level of the Library
See campus map

Pluck Gradebooks Hybrids ... Feeling Plucky? Tired of the same old grade book? What's your perception of hybrid courses? Chandler-Gilbert hosted demos

Welcome and Introductions (1:30 - 1:35 pm)

Polly Miller (Estrella Mountain)
Tom Foster Host for Chandler-Gilbert
Polly Miller (Estrella Mountain Community College) welcomed the following people to the meeting:

Polly also gave special thanks and recognition to Sandra Wells for coordinating the meeting. On March 2, 2005, the Online Learning Group meeting will be held at Rio Salado College. The theme of this meeting is the student voice and each campus was asked to identify and invite two students who have experience in online learning at Maricopa to participate on a panel.

What's New in Online Learning at Our Campus (1:35 - 1:50 pm)

all participants
A round up of who's doing what (briefly!) per site represented.

• Paradise Valley Community College
  Smoothly transitioned to Blackboard Enterprise. They have encountered problems with the identity management piece.
• Mesa Community College
  - Faculty are excited to be working with Macromedia Breeze (as showcased at the last OLG meeting). They are also beginning work with Breeze Live for synchronous communication between faculty and students.
• Phoenix College
  
  • An adjunct faculty member is using a VOX recorder in his French class to record speech in class and then upload the file into WebCT for the students to review.
  • Campus purchased 10 hours of use per student for Smartthinking. Sandra Wells reported that it is a very good company to work with. Faculty can link directly to it from Blackboard. Currently they are investigating ways to purchase more time and leverage district resources.
• GateWay Community College
  The campus is now using Blackboard 6 with good results. They are also using StudyMate from Respondus. StudyMate is a program that creates Flash quizzes and interactive tools that can be added to online courses. Alan reporred that the colleges currebtly licensing Resondus will be able to add StudyMate to the existing license through July 2005 for less than $200 per college.
• Scottsdale Community College
  The campus recently paid $6,000 for a license for Impatica. They want to create an online certificate program but have encountered obstacles regarding accreditation. They are waiting for a response from the North Central Association and will update us on what they discover.
• Chandler-Gilbert Community College
  Campus is redesigning their Ocotillo and Faculty Staff Developers groups. They are paying close attention to online courses in their redesign.
• South Mountain Community College
  the campus currently has 500 courses in Blackboard. They are exploring electronic portfolios and are hosting events in October to showcase current use on their campus. The Ocotillo E-Portfolio action group will be on campus October 22, 2004 for an eportfolio show and tell in the Student Union building, Room A100 from 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM.
• Glendale Community College
  Currently they are in research mode searching for alternatives to Midas. There is considerable interest in Macromedia Breeze and Desire2Learn.
• District Support Services Center
  The Blackboard 6.1 rollout went smoothly this fall. Problems with the identity management portion were identified. This is the piece that links the SIS system with Blackboard. The district is currently working on solving the problem.

Web Grade Demonstration (1:50 - 2:10 pm)

Pam Petty (Chandler-Gilbert)
Dr. Pam Petty will demonstrate Web Grade from Chariot Software maker of MicroGrade. This is a web-based service and software used to manage grades.

Dr. Petty shared with the group her frustration with the grade book in Blackboard. For many years she used Micrograde because of its ease of use. She recently discovered WebGrade and purchased a license to use it for her courses. She is now able to upload grades into her Blackboard course using the Micrograde server. She created a link under External Link to the Micrograde website and has hidden BlackboardÍs existing grade book. It is visually appealing and gives much more information to the student. It also encourages students to enter Blackboard more frequently to check grades so they are now exposed to messages and information more often.

Users must have Micrgrade on their machine. Grades are calculated using Micrograde and then that file is uploaded to the Webgrade server. Although the software is simple to use, there is some initial setup required. The software works well with WebCT. The company says it should work now with Blackboard 6.1.

Dave Fraedrich responded that the District is exploring better analysis pieces for the grade book in Blackboard. They should be on the development server in the next few weeks.

The Student Voice (2:10 - 2:30 pm)

Sid Ford (Chandler-Gilbert)
Sid Ford shared his research on hybrid learning verses face-to-face classes from his Accounting 201 courses taught over two semesters. The classes are taught the same and are assessed with the same test, in person.

Sid received extensive training in online teaching during his sabbatical. He stressed the importance of knowing how to learn online in order to be effective at teaching online. Sid attended online courses through California State University - Hayward.

Statistics show that increased participation, both in class and online, correlates to higher test scores. Students from the hybrid courses and the face-to-face courses, predicted that the face-to-face students have advantages because the get to "see the instructorÍ. However, the hybrid course students interacted more and the discussions were more in-depth as the time was not spent lecturing. Lectures are typed, double-spaced, and placed online. The lecture notes are even available online for the face-to-face students. The lectures are updated periodically to include current events.

The online course is smaller and had a lower attrition rate than the in person class. The class is divided into groups of 4-5 students who work on problems on discussion boards asynchronously. Students are encouraged to view each otherÍs boards to get help and understanding. Time for taking an online class is greater than an in person course, but the advantage is that the student is able to choose when it is convenient for them. In addition, students do not have to wait several days to come to class to get an answer from the instructor. They can email or post to the discussion board and get feedback more quickly.

Sid chose to test the students on campus for statistical purposes so that both groups of students take the same test under the same conditions. In the future, the test may be online.

Sid's presentation is now available in the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX):

Online vs Face to Face Presentation
Sid Ford (Chandler-Gilbert Community College)
This includes the PowerPoint presentation showed at this meeting.

Break (2:30 - 2:40 pm)

all
Enjoy some snacks while networking. Move to AS192 for hands on demos

Hands on with Pluck (2:40 - 3:25 pm)

Billie Hughes (Phoenix College)
Billie Hughes Ph.D Learning Technologies and Development Department will facilitate a hands-on session with Pluck a free program that helps you organize and share the best of the web. Four integrated mini-applications provide:

• Power Search which continuously searches and sorts results from Google eBay Amazon and over 5 5000 news sources.
• Web Folders that capture organize and share bookmarks and research from ANY computer.
• My Pluck which provided centralized access to your favorite sites feeds and folders.
• RSS Reader lets you choose news delivered from top web sites and blogs via RSS.

Billie led a hands on demo of Pluck and provided a web site Phoenix College has created that has more information and step by step instructions.
http://www.pc.maricopa.edu/departments/ltd/training/workshops/Pluck/

Door Prizes (3:25 - 3:30 pm)

all
Stick around to see if you win one of the prizes (you must register on the sign in sheet and be present to win).

The prizes for this meeting include:

• John Hodges, Phoenix College won a Macromedia T-shirt thanks to Macromedia
• Asha Dey, South Mountain Community College won a Sony Software Sampler CD 13 titles of multimedia software that expires January 1 2005
• Karen Russo, Glendale Community College won the book Taking a Big Picture Look @ Technology by Mark Milliron & Cheryl Miles.
• Delbert Jeffers, South Mountain Community College won a copy of Macromedia Contribute3 donated by Macromedia.
• Belinda Ramos, Chandler-Gilbert Community College won a Kingston DataTraveler 128MB flash drive

We will again make use of the prize patrol tool!

OLG Prize Patrol
by Alan Levine
Get the .swf file to use for yourself or the original Flash MX file to see how it is done.

Next Meeting...

November 5 2004 at South Mountain Community College.