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OLG Meeting Notes Nov 1, 2002 ...

Ocotillo Online Learning Group
Meeting Nov 1, 2002

Chandler-Gilbert Community College
2:00 - 4:00 PM room L117 (in the Library)
map for finding CGC
map of campus

Welcome and Introductions
Anna Rosa Lampis (GateWay Community College) and Sandra Wells (Phoenix College)

Who's Doing What on the Campuses?
all

• Chandler-Gilbert- All 3 campuses are set up for wireless (see demo later), beginning to use more digital. Examples include video of personal narrative for reflections on course competencies and for students creating statements to set the tone of online discussion boards.
• Phoenix College- Upgrading WebCT to version 3.8 (in the testing phase). Hoping to go online for Spring. Creating more online forms (with PHP) for faculty requests such as to create a new course area in WebCT. Testing RoboDemo and Viewlets to create animated tutorials for using software. They are developing an online instructional review group for faculty moving into online instruction. Developing skills assessment forms for faculty, adding Respondus, workshops and upgrading their computer lab. Trying to aid in the communication between faculty and techies.
• Mesa- Evaluating WebCT 3.8 to use in lieu of Blackboard. Offering web development training and considering the Macromedia MX products for web development.
• Scottsdale- Pat Serrano has created a course for online faculty to hold discussions, and to improve the online learning experience. They have more and more faculty using Blackboard.
• GateWay- More quizzes being used online. In the process of setting up training for Respondus (beginner/intermediate levels). Moving towards Adobe Acrobat for posting documents online, because not all students have access to MS Word on their home computers. Acrobat is a good container for flash, graphics, etc.
• South Mountain- Moving to more online education. Piloting a position at the Teaching and Learning Center for Adjunct Faculty Scholars- Kent Bullock is doing this now and is a great support for adjuncts. One half of all full and part-time faculty are using Blackboard; more faculty are wanting to use tests online (creating banks of tests).
• Rio Salado- Working on adopting a new course management platform - received a healthy amount of grant money to move forward with this process.

Wireless Mobile Lab
(Tom Foster, Victor Navarro, Chandler-Gilbert Community College)
Chandler-Gilbert has Wireless Mobile Carts that can be checked out, as a pilot project that cost $29,000. All three campus locations (Pecos, Williams, Sun Lakes) have wireless across the campus, 43 access points total).

The laptops sit in the cart and when they are not in use where they can be re-charged. Each laptop can be used for up to 3 hours without re-charging. These laptops can be for Instructional and Institutional uses.

• Instructional - Books are tied to websites, students can review online. Discussion boards are used - Tom reports that when they are used face to face the responses are quicker and you get more answers than if the students were asked to post out of class. Online quizzes are effective too when completed in the classroom. Group collaboration can be continued offline; a class can email a student that isn't in class to brief them on what they missed.
  
  The laptops can be used for quick research - directed web quests by the end of class or non directed web quests for independent practice. Lastly, text books are much more web rich and web collaborative.
• Institutional - The laptops are used in meetings and workshops. They can be used to look at web resources and for discussion boards at meetings. An administrative Dean uses a Blackboard course as a communication hub for employees.

Technology Side (Victor) - How did we get here? The college decided that this was their priority for their universal access fund. They have 43 Cisco access points on all of their campus sites. They are located above ceiling panels, and the units do not require electricity (power is drawn via the net connection). In some cases, you can even use the laptops outside, perhaps about as far as the parking lots- the range is affected by building structures and sources of electrical interference. Transmission rates max at about 6-7 Mb/sec. Their newest buildings do not have access yet. Access is for in class use and for those students who bring their own laptops. These students have to sign up to get access. The college has to give each student a valid network account. All new students are now getting an account. The student must register their equipment (MAC address of wireless card) to receive access. Network access is tied to SIS enrollment. Security is an issue and the next step is to bring in a security consultant to determine where they are having the most trouble in reception.

For more, see the CGCC Wireless Network page:
http://www.cgc.maricopa.edu/wireless/

Collaborative Drawing, a Digital Camera, iPhoto, and Literature: Storytelling to Introduce a Novel
(Chris Schnick, Chandler-Gilbert Community College)
To introduce a novel my literature class was about to start reading, I split the first chapter into brief passages and then had groups draw scenes. As the illustrators completed their drawings, I photographed them. I used iPhoto to import them, order the photos, and present a slide show with appropriate music. Once the pictures were in front of us, students could see tone, symbols, and glimpses of theme.

Two things to share that are important in my approach:

• Getting Information Just in Time to use it (immediacy)
• Publishing Your Work (evaluating and analyzing right after publishing it).

Chris's course is a Learning Community that combines film, literature, and English 101. As a concept, Chris teaches his students how in books and film characters reveal a great deal about themselves very early in the work (foreshadowing), He uses the first chapter of a book, giving each student a printed selection of the book and asks them to visually represent what they have read, giving them 15 minutes (he usually leaves the room while they complete the task). He then collects the drawings, takes a digital photo, and uses iPhoto to import them, places them in sequence and then has a slide show (with appropriate music) for the entire class. It typically only takes 25 minutes for this process, so the information is fresh in their minds.

The end product, as Chris showed, is a visual outline of a written work. Students are able to see the tone of the book, some of its symbols, and glimpses of the theme. The began asking each other the meaning of the literary elements. Chris has also found that students are more open to evaluating each others drawings after publishing, and they were more willing to share an emotion or a feeling and wanted to get up to explain what they drew.

This process took virtually no instruction time. iPhoto is very easy to learn and the background music was a pleasant surprise. The only issue may be hardware; sometimes the projector doesn't work with the laptop.

The second project Chris shared was a collaboration with his students and a local Boys and Girls club to teach what it means to work with children. The adult college students and kids worked together to create a digital and written story using PowerPoint on a theme related to the environment. Drawings the kids and adults made along with images selected from an iPhoto library were set next to the writing. The kids got to re-arrange th order in PowerPoint, and took great pride in sharing their work to the audience. This process is helping to turn students into storytellers.

MasterFile demo
(Zelda Jackson, Concord-USA Corp)
MasterFile is a digital content server technology that works with in conjunction with a course management system. With MasterFile, multiple courses, or multiple groups of faculty (say within a department) can easily share and manage digital assets without duplicating them over and over. Zelda will provide a remote demo for us.

Concord started in Brisbane Australia, now is a large company that deals with content management and meta-tagging in both commercial and academic environments. They are a Blackboard partner on several fronts. MasterFile works in conjunction with Blackboard, offering features to use media directly from the instructor course editing tools.

A Digital Content Server (DCS) offers electronic storage and retrieval of media from a database. It includes powerful item search tools, meta-data, as well as a means to browse content by categories. MasterFile includes features to set security by individual, group, and department. Media is stored in native format (e.g. Word, etc) and can be converted to HTML on demand. The system can also provide contribution alerts, so users can be notified of new content that meet their own defined criteria. It offers version control, usage reporting, and publication to CD-ROM. Components also include an Electronic Portfolio manager.

Other key features include:

• Single copy simplicity
• Items can be shared within courses, instructors, and applications
• Auto build course asset library
• Easy process flow
• Course cloning and updating
• No HTML skills required
• Any type of electronic file can be stored
• Course meta data available
• Usage reporting
• eReserve feature (3rd party content usage)
• AdHoc sharing
• Version control
• Quick editing

We can schedule a more detailed demo if you are interested.

Hands On- Quizzing with Respondus
(Julie Magadan, Chandler-Gilbert Community College and Amy MacPherson, South Mountain Community College)
Participants will be able to:

• Format a word document to prepare it to be imported into Respondus
• Add items to an imported Respondus quiz
• Use the Equation Editor to create items
• Create a new Respondus quiz

Amy and Julie prepared a magnificent, illustrated guide to importing test items into Repsondus and provide an example of collaboration by adding these materials as an item in the Maricopa Learning eXchange (MLX).

Hands on Respondus - Creating and Importing Quizzes
step by step instructions
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file: hands-on-respondus021101.pdf [500k]

Hands on Respondus - Sample Test Items
example file used for practice
MS Word file: test-items-respondus021101.doc [24k]

Hands on Respondus - Test Items To be Re-Formatted
example file used to show how to re-format Word files for importing into Respondus
MS Word file: 2bformatted-respondus.doc [32k]

Next Meeting
December 6, 2002 at Location TBA. On the plate so far...

• Blacboard 6 demo