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OLG Meeting Notes May 5, 2001 ...

Ocotillo Online Learning Group
Meeting May 5, 2001

District Office
2:00 - 4:00 PM in the Training Services Classroom (3rd Floor)
how to get there (mapquest)

Welcome and Intros

(Tom Foster, CGCC & Roger Yohe, EMCC)

Creating Community with your Online Course

(Jim Walters, PC)
A lot of people talk about "creating community"... do ask why do this?

• Belonging
• Shared values/purpose
• Learn from others => critical component
• Support group (members not in isolation)
• Synergy
• Models human nature => models effective learning

Are these reasons enough to convince faculty to work on this in the classroom? (No!) need to work on better reasons!

• Traditional vs. MUDs and/or web-based courses
• Differences: boundaries
• To build community, you have to extend the boundaries around the content (based on traditional courses) to encompass the lives of the community members.
• Relationships (instructions and "10:00 class; 11:30 class" vs. 1:1 relationships with individual members of any class)
• Able to focus on relationships more in online format than in traditional courses
• Students have more opportunity to meet all members of the class (vs. seating chart mentality)
• Role of Faculty
• Faculty => students (one way flow)
• Student <=> Faculty <=> Student <=> Other resources (i.e., text book)
• Bulletin Board (encourage use of bulletin board; encourage students to answer each other's questions)
• Email => private exchange for non-class related issues
• Chat (bring people together synchronously; online office hours, etc.)
• Whiteboard
• If we can put faculty photos online plus a small audio intro, students feel more connected; they know who they are learning from

Maricopa Instructional Delivery and Assessment System (MIDAS)

(Pamela Williams, DIST)
New online course management tool similar to Blackboard and WebCT.

• Online grade book (replacing INFORM system)
• Migrating current INFORM users to MIDAS
• Implementation team: faculty from each college, Miguel Corzo (DIST), Alan >Levine (MCLI), Training Services
• Project in beta test stage version 4.0
• Grade book integrates with SIS
• Small pilot group Summer 2001
• Larger pilot group Fall 2001
• Roll out full Spring 2002
• Training services working on developing training strategy
• Every college can choose own course management system; MIDAS will integrate
• SIS and be "no cost" to colleges to adopt

Maricopa Strategy with Online Systems Training

(Paula Yslas, DIST)

• Emma Walters and Crystle Hall began with Blackboard
• Summer Institute for one week (4 days)
• Faculty at MCC created training for Web CT (MCC-CTL/Training Services worked in partnership; MCC created the pedagogy and methodology and Training Services offered technology expertise--how to use the software)
• CG/GW/PV/SCC/SM have internal Blackboard training
• Train the Trainer will be offered for MIDAS
• Grade book => training for every college (it touches everybody because MIDAS replaces INFORM)
• Concerns
• Are INFORM users driving customization of MIDAS for Maricopa; want non-INFORM users to have input [Is this an Ocotillo issue?]
• What are we doing for students attending classes at different colleges

Discussion

(Tom Foster, CGCC & Roger Yohe, EMCC)
Future Group Directions

• Ocotillo chairs requested help re: Blackboard => evolved to include all types of online learning issues
• Roger Yohe co-facilitator with Alan two years ago; co-facilitator with Tom Foster this last year
• Roger will be replaced by Sandra Wells (PC) who will co-facilitate the group with Tom for the next year
• The group will formally crank up in the fall; want to work some in the summer if interest there
• Publishers "Shoot Out" in Fall; half day event (idea from Greg Pratt, MCC)
• First meeting will be held at PC in September

Topics for meetings will include:

• Highlight college works (meeting site)
• Pedagogy focus
• Sharing/breakout sessions
• Pool resources (on web site)/studies- add to resources section of OLG site? (check out http://www.onlinelearningmag.com/
• Keep Maricopa focus? Broaden? 2+2+2 + elementary and middle schools?

Meeting Dates: all meetings will be held from 2:00-4:00

• September 7, 2001 -- PC (Service Learning Dialogue Day at CGCC on same day)
• October 4, 2001 -- DIST (Critical Thinking Dialogue Day at Rio on same day)
• November 2, 2001 -- GCC (fold into Technology Dialogue Day/WebDev Day)
• December 5, 2001 -- CGCC (Wednesday; Friday 12/7 is Ocotillo meeting)
• January 2002 TBA -- SCC (part of Bernie Comb's group??)
• February 1, 2002 -- PVCC (Thursday)
• March 1, 2002 -- Location TBA (Thursday; fold into Science & Technology Dialogue Day)
• April 5, 2002 -- GWCC
• May 3, 2002 -- SMCC
• Summer Meetings => will follow up

Platform Discussions

(Roger Yohe, EMCC)
Roger demonstrated a CD-ROM provided by Blackboard that is a self-paced tutorial on the basic features of the Blackboard content creation tools. A copy of the the CD-ROM was provided to a representative of the 6 colleges using Blackboard (see the college contacts for your representative). He also has provided a document on the new features of Blackboard 5.5- due in May but likely not to be implemented widely here until Fall 2001. Expect more features in the Gradebook (item weighting, options for sorting) and a new flow concept for content.

About Blackboard Basics
One page description of the CD-ROM
Acrobat (PDF) file: bb_basics.pdf [41k]

Introduction to New Features of Version 5.5
overview of new features
Acrobat (PDF) file: BB55.pdf [39k]

Next Meeting

TBA