COU e-Learning Meeting Notes - Wednesday 15 August 2007

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Contents

[edit] Rhoda Weiss-Lambrou

Professor at the School of Rehabilitation, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montreal, since 2000, Director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning

[edit] Willi Powell from Apple Canada

(Jaron Easterbrook unable to attend)

  • iTunesU
  • Review of iTunes U: 50% are not using iTunes U right now.
  • Can use iTunes U as a repository for content that cannot be played on the iPod
  • You can be launched from the iTunes Store.
  • Berkeley will have over 200 classrooms podcast recording ready: so they are very serious about it. It’s Creative Commons copyrighted for them. That is institution specific. Berkeley is wide open. MIT is open-sourcing the courses as well: so other professors are feeding back on the course content.
  • Queen’s is the only Canadian university on the iTunes store that had enough content that were willing to go. Not all are willing to be on the store yet.
  • Leverage existing authentication environments
  • How do professors have time to produce the content: “no one has time to produce the content”
  • Podcast Production: Podcast Capture: Part of Podcast Producer: part of Mac OS X Leopard and Leopard Server.
  • Remote audio and video recording
  • Automatic Publishing
  • Open Directory Integratiojn
  • Distributed Encoding with Xgrid
  • Automated Workflows: bumpers at the beginning and end of the work.
  • Capture: Mac Mini for capture, a server sits in the background, FTP from Mini to server, and then RSS feed to iTunes U.
  • Podcast Capture also captures the screen, video, audio. Very sophisticated. Apple is looking for institutions to start engaging with this tool. Berkeley is already engaged.
  • You can distribute the encode jobs across servers using Xgrid. They have used up to 15 servers for this job.
  • You may want to archive this…
  • Apple TV is the best way to watch a podcast on a TV… interesting…
  • Podcast Producer Workflow: In the classroom, submit the workflow: You press stop/record (like in Profcast). Automatically the software sends it to the server, it performs workflows, like adding transitions, watermarks, intro/extro videos, then publish to extra servers such as local Xserves: Wikis, Blogs, RSS, Webservers including iTunes U.
  • As a student: you can download the podcast. You can trigger emails to be send based on a class list to tell students the podcast is available for download.
  • Leopard Server will come preinstalled on the Leopard Server, or for additional purchase.
  • You can decide what the output target is… even PDF!
  • If you do the capture on a PC, you have to do the legwork that Podcast Capture does.
  • In the last few weeks, iTunes U can index a local RSS feed instead of hosting on the US server.

[edit] Rhoda’s Presentation

  • 25 people at their Centre. Report to Provost and Vice-Rector of Academics. Started with 2 people in 2000.
  • Podagogical ramifications and implications of the new technologies
  • Presentation of learning materials
  • Interaction between learner and content
  • And to facilitate communication and collaboration between learner and students
  • Students listen and watch podcasts on their computers at home, rather than in mobile environments
  • 6 to 10 minutes is the ideal length
  • Level of attendance does not decrease with
  • Student motivation is the key focus
  • Must turn a leisure instrument into a tool for learning
  • The copyright and intellectual property rights have been ignored and probably violated.
  • Why? When? And What is the added value?
  • Recording Lectures
  • Delivery of Supplemental Materials and Content
  • Speech and Audiology
  • Lanuguage lessons
  • Interviews
  • Student Podcast Assignments
  • Demonstration of procedures, creative work
  • When should they be used?
  • Lectures: Do not do it unless there is a strong rationale for doing so.
  • Star faculty: if they are fantastic in the classroom, they can be terrible on the podcast: it’s less interesting?
  • Delivery of Supplementary Materials
  • Added Value
  • Lectures: Review
  • Additional Content: Develop auditory discriminatory through repetition, and to free up time
  • Student Podcasts: develop communication skills, create a sense of community, reinforce understanding
  • Effects on Student Learning
  • No studies show retention levels. No evidence of positive and negative effects.
  • Denise: Are the students more motivated?
  • Mobile Learning
  • Flexible Learning: do not have to be anchored to computer, anytime anywhere material
  • Does not replace the in-class experience
  • Simulateous Process: Multitasking is bad for learning. You are only learning at the surface level. If we were processing at one task then it sinks in more.
  • Podcasting: requires guidelines, scripted content, vocal and technical training, clear educational goals, narrow the focus, avoid complex material
  • UofM is the largest Francophone university in North America. 55,000 students
  • Union Negotiation: laptop for all faculty (or desktop).
  • Information age mindset of today’s students
  • Bottom-up vs. top-down approach
  • Small grants given to 20 faculty to have courses in WebCT to incent them.
  • Administration has to be supportive from the top for these technology initiatives
  • Process
  • CEFES conference on Podcasting at UofM April 2006.
  • Recorded Conferences monthly
  • Research project in collaboration with the Department of Communication, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Sept 2006: EXAMINing Podcasting in Higher Education
  • Signed on to iTunes U Winter 2007
  • Full launch in 2008
  • In the process of building their site, authentication
  • Is engaging all of the staff in podcasting so that they are aware of the technology, those who are most resistant, are now becoming more involved.
  • Who should be able to access content… Faculty, Students, Administration, Public and Alumni. The Administration want to be able to access the content and create content
  • Need support from the Administration
  • Workload: effect on current and future infrastructure: support the faculty with the publishing and explain the added value for doing podcasting.
  • Research Project: André Caron. CFI grant purchased 50 iPod and Zen players. (100 students). Recruited students interested in the study: keep a journal and attend focus groups.
  • English Studies, Italian Studies, Industrial Design, Pharmacy
  • Students had the iPod 2 months before the professor
  • Students were told to listen to podcasts publicly available at the time.
  • Student vs Faculty perceptions
  • How long will students listen to a podcast. Will students skip class because they know the podcasts will be posted on-line?
  • Change on campus: adapting to change
  • Have to follow the faculty who are most interested in change. Have to
  • There are a “no way group” but there are an early minority (early adopters) and a late majority.
  • Students are engaging in life-long learning
  • Gone from e-learning to mobile learning to ubiquitous learning
  • Amazon.com André Caron: book: Moving Cultures: Mobile Communication in Everyday Life.
  • Technology must serve purposes of higher education. Stanley Katz.

[edit] Helen Coltrinari

  • Assessment and Evaluation: a year has passed since the original report.
  • Sample level of readiness to use tools, and tools to evaluate online learning or e-Learning.
  • To explore the readiness and willingness to share and store in a repository a number of tools on evaluation and e-Learning.
  • Who would have access, how would the information be distributed and accessed.
  • New objectives cropped up with the phone and online survey.
  • Create benchmarks for evaluation tools
  • Michael Canelli – OISE. Started writing assessment tools for ESL.
  • Lorna Earl: OISE. Development of Assessment as Learning and For Learning.

[edit] Thoughts about where to go from here:

  • Can we post the survey instruments?
  • Can we collaborate institutions with the same instruments?
  • Denise: if we can be sharing some of the projects online prior to next year
  • Aldo: We should get results across institutions, and get results
  • Helen: Sharing was important. Must establish a pilot project for evaluation. No one stepped up with a specific solution. The only issue was the copyright issue and who would own it.
  • Cathy: $100k towards teaching and learning projects: faculty research projects on teaching and learning. Have been receiving abstracts of the methodology of the projects, and they are posted online.
  • Linda: developing a good survey is difficult. If there is funds to do so, that would be ideal. What does success look like? Student satisfaction? Marks? Transfer training? We should pluck questions from open source surveys or NSSE (sp?)
  • Linda: to head that up.
  • Bill: We’re mandate to take part in NSSE. Perhaps we should be adding questions to the NSSE survey on e-Learning.
  • If we had 10 key questions to get a provincial context, with should include them in NSSE, and then have them reported separately.
  • Money is required, and no one will take it on.
  • Campus Computing Based Survey at Queen’s. Campuscomputing.net
  • Peter: are there not some education faculties that can look at this.
  • Gwen: much of the research is K-12 focused, not Higher-Ed.
  • Denise: we should look at the existing surveys that we are already doing to see what we need to do.
  • Linda/Bill/Elizabeth: What is the research question that we are trying to answer: how effective are the tools? What is satisfaction?
  • Denise: NSSE is a program review tool so it does not have to pass ethics. We are not focusing publishable research.
  • Guilia: 8 years of research on teaching and learning at Brock
  • Promote a culture of appropriate evaluation. NSSE is problematic.
  • Denise: there is power in the collation of information about what we are or are not doing on campus with e-Learning. It’s useful for the have nots: why are we not making those decisions.
  • Richard: one of the breakout sessions should be on the Assessment piece.
  • Breakout group: Bill: GTA / Spaces for students and the role that we can play
  • Breakout group: Assessment piece

[edit] Tom Carey, ELIXR and the future of CLOE

  • Institutionalization of CLOE?
  • Wants to have CLOE managed as a part of Ontario Digital Library?
  • Managed currently as a D2L library
  • How do we build new objects that could be put in CLOE?
  • If someone in Waterloo is building an object that a number of other campuses would participate in development
  • 80 Learning objects in the repository with no specific focus at the present time, other than the ones that got funded by specific institutions.
  • Project in the US which is more targeted and strategic around innovation and graduate students
  • MERLOT ELIXR project:
  • There are not enough exemplary faculty one our campuses in order to see demonstrations of great teaching on a particular subject area
  • MERLOT: if folks used reusable objects when running workshops (embedded in your learning as a faculty member) then they would be more likely to get involved in Learning Objects.
  • 2007 - Create engaging digital stories of exemplary teaching and demonstrate value in faculty development
  • 2008 - Disseminate expertise to partners
  • Faculty development guides
  • Design and development expertise
  • Case Story Toolkit
  • 2009
  • Faculty development themes: universal design for learning
  • New basics: visual literacy, integrative learning
  • Active learning in large classes
  • Personal Response Systems (Clickers) – so they are actually taking research and telling stories about this.
  • 16 Case stories complete or in progress
  • First set of theme stories in pilot use during Aug 07
  • Active Learning Groups in Organic Chemistry: Video
  • Case Story that starts in a movie trailer.
  • 3 parts: product story, process story, (personal story),
  • want to have a story about how the process works, and how their class might be better: product story
  • Story from a student perspective, faculty perspective
  • Can see 20 minutes of class time in context.
  • Can see faculty member’s syllabus, course materials
  • They know that so many students would choose being a janitor over a chemist after the Chemistry course. The goal was to reduce the number of students who would want to be janitors.
  • Making the first class, first class
  • Goals for the first day of class
  • Establishing expectations of course, assessing students for their level
  • Classroom Climate: what is it like to be here.
  • Motivation: talking to faculty and their techniques as to why the Beef Broth Campbell’s Soup always wins. Ha ha.
  • Analysis of good teaching techniques in the classroom to show other faculty best-of-breed examples of teaching
  • First day of class planning template
  • Get a guide for running a faculty development workshop. Tasks to do within group work, optional activities
  • Faculty Learning Communities –
  • Wiki: http://elixr.merlot.org
  • Guides for faculty authors, faculty developers
  • Partners: Merlot, CSU, Ohio State, Coastline Community College, Oklahoma, Indiana State, Teach the Earth, Dept. of Education
  • Year 2: moving to 32 case studies
  • EDUCAUSE: universal design for learning case studies presentation
  • Tom: Ministry may support a project that would build some specific faculty development pieces that are Ontario specific.

[edit] Review of Affiliate and Future Goals

  • 15 Minute Brainstorming Session for Breakout Groups
  • Start at 2:10pm.

[edit] NEXT STEPS for us as an Affiliate

  • Agenda Tomorrow
  • Continue to meet over lunch
  • e-Learning Affiliate
  • Richard: Chair, Andrew: Vice-Chair, Gwen: Member-at-Large
  • Muirhead Commission Report Prepared for the COU and VPA’s (?)
  • Jack Jones, Bill, Linda, Giulia, Andrew
  • 2 page letter that goes to the COU in advance of the September meeting
  • Executive Report
  • Find out the date for the September meeting (ACTION ITEM: Richard)
  • 40,000 student issue could be a component of the letter
  • As you consider affiliate membership, consider the ramifications of the problem and solutions that can be provided through e-Learning
  • This group has a role to play in addressing this new problem
  • Should it be a joint proposal from OCUL and our group
  • Not joint course development. We are working together to find solutions
  • Travel Expense Report and Justification for VPA’s at our Institutions
  • 8:45am tomorrow
  • The 40,000 student problem
  • Currently the projections show that we are short 40,000 spaces in Ontario
  • Over the next 10 years, the GTA will need those spaces.
  • Many are unwilling to move to universities that have falling or static enrollment
  • There are studies that show there are some opportunities in Eastern Canada for students
  • Government decided to contact the 4 GTA universities to see how they might accommodate these institutions
  • Ryerson, UOIT, York, UofT (less interested in taking on more students?)
  • $2B solution: create a new university?
  • The problem of real-estate for HE
  • How many can be put online? Distribute the rest.
  • Take funding that you would use for capital funding and use for an online environment
  • VPA’s and Presidents are not interested in this as a solution
  • Advise government not to do another Superbuild 2 (more faculty rather than buildings?)
  • Demonstrate that you could convert some F2F to online: Blended courses.
  • Make the problem a Non-Toronto Problem as it will push students out of the GTA?
  • Sloan Semester: US offered their online courses so students could finish their courses online for non-residents. $1.5M
  • Patrick: Viewed not as a regional problem, but an Ontario problem.
  • ACTION ITEM: Denise: will contact the people at the Sloan Semester with regard to their program
  • Guilia: Canadian Virtual University? Why not more Ontario Universities…? Gwen: they are already there
  • The Southern Ontario Distance Education Network
  • Started in the Spring 2007
  • Create a southern Ontario DE network for rural areas similar to Contact North
  • Some of the institutions are in groups
  • Announcement in Kincardine (sp?): Separate geographic groups
  • Separate sites: Ottawa and Madoc, and up to 5 sites
  • 1.5 Million allocated to the initiative
  • Full time staff member for advice
  • Similar to Contact North
  • Will be contacted by Luc, will be in place by September (?)
  • Continuing Education focus, Professional Focus, Online
  • Linkage between institutions for providing instruction?
  • Karen: Hastings Region: Trent, Fleming, Loyalist, Queen’s, RMC: Distance Education network, but they also want F2F classes
  • Want Synchronous interaction: video-conferencing
  • E-Classes
  • Richard: is it amalgamation of courses?
  • Province wide content from each of institutions at the centres
  • F2F wanted a lot of activity at the centres: as a site for learning
  • Many of the students did not have the connectivity at their homes in rural areas, but could access the educational programs at these centres instead of having to travel for two hours
  • So there is one site to travel to in order to get classes from a number of institutions
  • Karen: there is a preference for synchronous learning.
  • They were going to setup a computer lab, exam centre with high-speed network access
  • Next steps: once the sites were done, discussion about course offerings
  • How many sites: 5
  • Where does it come from? Lobbying: if they are going to spend a lot of money on the project: could they be more strategic about their implementation
  • Gwen: appreciation for the Contact North model that we want to replicate in other areas, and want to replicate this
  • e-Learning Assessment and Evaluation
  • Working group
    1. Aldo, Catherine, (Vivian?), Linda, Patrick
  • Deliverables: Case studies, Survey Tools, research of e-Learning tools
  • Listserv questions like “What LMS are you using?”
  • What are the key issues and questions? What are senior administrators and what do we want to know.
  • Starting point: look at the existing material, content review of the evaluation tools currently in use
    1. Aldo: collect a case study approach of a certain tool, how they implemented it, positive and negative, rather than a formal study, how can I use this tool in effective ways
  • Must review survey questions across the board from various institutions

Presentation on what already exists in terms of research for next summer institute


  • Prioritize Deliverables and Projects
    1. (Defining overall goals and agreed upon projects for the year)


  • Denise: Should we ask them if we should change our name?
  • Richard: We are being supported, but we are not an affiliate.
  • ACTION ITEM: Double-check with COU around the use of the word affiliate and *COU association (Richard)
  • Giulia: How do we relate to OCUL?
  • Karen: Roots of OCUL is in continuing education.
  • OCUL is full-affiliate member…
  1. Name Change?:
    1. Special Interest Group for e-Learning in Ontario (SIGELO)
    2. Working Group for e-Learning in Ontario (WGELO)
    3. TELTO (Teaching, e-Learning and Technology in Ontario)
    4. TELO (Teaching and e-Learning in Ontario)?
    5. TELO (Technology and e-Learning in Ontario)?
    6. ELNMO (e-Learning & New Media in Ontario)?
    7. Working Group for Teaching with Technology (WGTT)
    8. The COU Working Group on …

[edit] Focus

  1. Advocacy
  2. Best-Practices


[edit] New Trends and Techologies

  • We should be focusing on what is happening in technology and e-Learning and bringing that back to the institution
  • Idea of “best-practices” rather than telling them how to teach
  • We are a representative of our institutions, not of our departments
  • Develop lists of new resources for our community

[edit] Tools

  • Evaluation and Assessment
  • The Wired Presence

[edit] Tasks: Updates/Communiqués

  • What you are doing at your institutions, collaborate document creation environment

[edit] Modes of communication

  • Listserve (Preferred)
  • Asynchronous
  • A REAL WEBSITE
    • “Here are some already-made resources on clickers”
    • Page on Podcasting and the current state
    • Here are the problems we have
    • Here are the big successes
    • Case Studies
    • Anything Wiki, Blog or Some other Web 2.0 app
    • Facebook group? Closed? Private?
    • Where do we put our presentations online?
  • The Portal is pretty dead
  • We like email
  • Synchronous
  • Monthly Meetings (or bi-monthly)
  • Summer Institute

[edit] Identify Key Points in the Letter to the VPA’s

  • Meta data: We do not need the COU to move forward. Could become a special interest group of the STLHE or other group. It’s not the be all end all being a part of the COU
  • Richard: we do not need the affiliation necessarily.
  • We should not express disappointment… (Richard)
  • We would hope that they can see the value we can bring as a co-affiliate or a sub-affiliate
  • Karen: this is who was there, this was what was achievement
  • We think there is a benefit to the summer institute: to have key people in those positions, in who attends: right people in the room together
  • Benefitted from several guest speakers from a number of non-Ontario and Ontario institutions and now able to bring back the expertise learned from the panels the gestalt of the discussion with colleagues at the top of their respective institutions in e-Learning
  • Continuity and momentum with the existing group
  • Allow us to deliver on the projects and goals discussed at the meeting
  • Identifying existing assessment, evaluation and e-Learning tool across institutions based on current work
  • Collaboration between institutions / Synergy between institutions / Sharing of best practices / Sharing of Challenges and Opportunities of things
  • In the best tradition of the COU: collaboration, sharing of ideas, presenting the best-practices, stronger voice and advocacy
  • Sharing of tools, strategies
  • Identify Best Practices based on current activities at the participating Institutions
  • Playing an advisory role between the other e-Learning Centres at Ontario Universities
  • Best-Practices and Innovative Ideas
  • We learned about lessons learned in Podcasting
  • Shared the experience of bringing faculty onto iTunes
  • Discussed the problematic podagogical issues around Podcasting
  • Previously unannounced technology from Apple
  • The excellent literature resources
  • With appropriate support and resources here are some additional projects we could take on:
  • Idea of collaborating on events related to e-Learning, regionally: building partnerships so that the groups can provide professional development opportunities: “Building Capacity” (buzzword).
  • thank you for having send this specific group of people and covering our expenses: pave the way for next year. We will be the same group returning next year.
  • Denise: Thank you for sending, here is what we did, here is what we are going to do, here is what WE WANT YOU TO DO. ACTION ITEM: Denise will be sharing the details.

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