Archive | Live Session

The market for higher education is continuing to change, with an increasing number of students falling into the non-traditional category of 25 years old or older. The unique needs of these students are demanding that universities change their delivery methods. This change often takes the form of blended learning delivery. This paper will provide an overview of how blended learning best serves nontraditional students and how organizations can be successful in building blended learning experiences.

In the past few years many universities and colleges have begun offering Massive Open Online Courses, also known as MOOC’s. These enormous online courses with unlimited student enrollment have been touted as a way of bring education economically to the masses. The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is looking at MOOC’s as one of the ways to expand access to higher education opportunities in the United States.

Some regard these online courses as ways of improving student learning outcomes and a natural extension of distance education; others view them as entirely disastrous for both students and instructors. Whether MOOC’s will transform e-learning or become a passing novelty remains to be seen.

To experience MOOC’s first hand the presenter, a long-time online student and online instructor, enrolled and completed several online courses offered by Coursera.org “with distinction.” Reasons for taking the courses included: brushing up on existing subject matter, observing teaching styles utilized in a MOOC, studying new fields, gaining inside student knowledge from taking massive open online courses and explore the potential for teaching MOOC’s.

This general session presentation will explore some of the potentials and pitfalls of MOOC’s from the instructor-as-student perspective.

In the discussion section participants will be invited to share and discuss their own experiences with MOOC’s either as students or as instructors.

Participants will also brainstorm on how these massive open online courses may be redefining the online education experience for both students and instructors.

Although many university instructors in Indonesia are not digital natives, but some of them are highly motivated to apply technologies in their teaching. In order to provide quality learning by utilizing technology, these motivated instructors have to know about need analysis and instructional design. The majority of these instructors learn the need analysis and instructional design by doing their jobs and do not specifically from training in the college. In this presentation, I want to share my experience working from a distance with an instructor from the University of Malang in Indonesia to redesign a face-to-face social sciences class into a blended learning course. I am going to talk about my intervention in the conception stage and share the instructor report about the design and implementation.

I get to know the instructor of this course when she came to the East West Center as a participant of the civic education short course in the winter 2012. The instructor is a full time professor in the Faculty of Civic Education, University of Malang. Her specialization is in law education and civic engagement. For the fall 2013 (“Semester Gazal” which is the term used in Indonesia), the instructor was appointed to teach a coursed named The Insight of Social Sciences (Wawasan Ilmu Sosial). The main purpose of this course is to enhance students’ civic engagement and voluntary services in their local community. The course is a mandatory of the university and teach in all faculties (in the US we refer as department) at the same term by several instructors in different sections using the same syllabus which we redesigned prior to the implementation. However, the blended course section is applied only in the Faculty of Civic Education as a pilot project. The instructors taught 4 classes with approximately 40 students in a class. In the implementation, the instructor was supported by a senior student as a teaching assistant and the university information technology staff as a technology support. The pilot project is also achieved the university general funding for research and development and supported by the leadership in the university.

My primary role in this course is as an instructional designer and also content experts who worked with the instructor to redesign the course syllabus, contents, and suggest the organization of the website. I read through the initial syllabus of the course and provided suggestions to replace outdated contents and regrouping the theme. The instructor and I had synchronous meetings twice a week through either Skype calls or WizIQ virtual room. Moreover, we exchanged message using Facebook massagers regularly. In the discussion, I guide the instructor to analyze the need of learners and synchronizing the needs with the vision and mission of the university. The syllabus and course organization were then presented in a general meeting to the Dean and faculty members who teach the course in other sections. Suggestions from the Dean and other faculties were then incorporated in the final syllabus and the course organization.

At the first meeting of the class, the instructor conducted a survey to collect learners’ opinion about the benefit of the website and the blended course. The course was then delivered by combining the face-to-face meeting with the use of course website designed using WordPress, and Facebook group. The website is primarily used for content management, lesson planning and mapping, and occasional postings by learners and the instructor. Facebook group was used for the course discussion and delivered the course announcement. In the ongoing process, students and content experts were voluntary requested to evaluate the site, Facebook group, and the classroom instructions. At the end of the course, students were requested to fill out the post survey. Both students and instructors admitted that they mostly experiences positive learning experiences from the blended course. The instructor mentioned in her report that she is not merely learning from teaching and designing the course, but also learning from the students postings and portfolio.

Personally, I feel fortunate to be able to apply my learning as a doctoral student in the field of educational technology to the design of course in my home country. This application, further, confirmed that distance is not a constraint anymore for a collaborative project. In addition, with the proper use, simple technology can benefit the connection of educator and learner from different country. Advancement in educational technology enables their citizens to continue serving their country while they are staying abroad. Audiences who attend this presentation will take home a message about the potential of technology as a bridge to exchange knowledge and experience across nation and across the continent.

This workshop will present how to collect statistical data via the smart phone or computer. The presentation will accommodate either use of the PC or Mac. Presented will be the steps needed to set up teams using the application “Group Me.” A team leader is identified to compile the data. Members then collect data reporting to the leader who records the results on a frequency distribution table. Once data is compiled a meeting via Skype, IM, Wikis, Twitter or f2f to describe and discuss the statistical analysis most appropriate for the research project is then conducted. Data analysis via this venue allows for endless possibilities in relationship to statistical analysis. This technique is across grade levels and multidisciplinary.

I will discuss how to create materials with Apple’s iBook Author and how I can incorporate these materials into foreign language education. iBook Author is a free e-book authoring application for Mac that enables you to create multi-touch materials for iPad. E-Books created with iBook Author can be applied in various fields, however, they are particularly effective in foreign language education. You can publish standard text-based materials in any languages using iBook Author, however, it does much more. You can create materials with interactive images, movies, and 3D images, and iPad makes it possible for you to view these quality materials and interact with them.

I will share some examples of materials we created for our language courses, and demonstrate how to add media elements such as sound and video files. Our demonstration includes the quiz mode, which is a very useful function especially for learning materials

Online faculty and staff who are geographically separated typically feel isolated. (Dolan, 2011; Fouche, 2006; Ng, 2006) A study by Dolan indicated that these faculty members would like increased interaction with administration, more appreciation of their contributions to the university, and professional development opportunities. (Dolan, 2011) Accordingly, presenters explore how the academic department can support online adjunct faculty to improve morale, faculty and student retention, and teaching skills. Mentoring adjunct faculty, recognizing their work, creating professional development resources for their use, and best practices in using technology will be discussed. Both asynchronous and synchronous methodology will be broached. Professional development resources include guidelines on academic issues such as creating syllabi and rubrics and also how to improve teaching skills such as critical thinking. Participants will benefit from the presentation by learning about a variety of ways that universities can offer help to and appreciate geographically separated faculty. Participants may apply knowledge learned by making suggestions to academic departments dealing with these issues.
Dolan, V. (2011). The isolation of online adjunct faculty and its impact on their performance. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(2) retrieved from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/793/1691
Fouche, I. (2006). A multi-island situation without the ocean: tutors’ perceptions about working in isolation from colleagues. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 7(2) retrieved from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/295/640
Ng, C. (2006). Academics telecommuting in open and distance universities: Issues, challenges, and opportunities. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 7(2) retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/300/632

Interactivity
The presentation will be accompanied by PowerPoint slides. Audience participation will be highly encouraged through polling and discussions in the text messaging area. Audience members will be offered the opportunity to connect with each other for mentoring and offered the opportunity to share personal knowledge and information about practices at their own universities. Questions for thought and interaction will be asked of the audience at various points in the presentation.