Category Archives: Sloan-C

Reflection for 06/30/14 to 07/04/14

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This will be a short week since the 4th of July is Friday. I again have the reflection for the week started on Monday. Hopefully, I’m getting into a better pattern.

On Monday, I started and ended with vacation time. My wife is doing some sign language work which requires me to hang out with the boys for their morning activities. The two older boys have been doing swim team for the first time from 9-10. It has been a great activity for both of them to improve their swimming skills and overall fitness. My parents came up on Sunday to go to a Spikes game. It was nice to have their help in getting the boys going in the morning.  When I got to work, it was time to think about a meeting with a gentleman who was interested in Learning by Design & Bloom’s Taxonomy. Stephanie Edel-Malizia & I had done a presentation in Fall ’11 at the Sloan-C conference. During the conversation, we were able to provide some insights about how to implement the approach of Learning by Design. To me, the worksheets included by the book are nice as a starting point. But it is most important to develop trust and adjust to the circumstances. I also heard back from Emily about getting together with Chris G about the 331 revision. It looks like we are on track to get things completed in plenty of time for Fall ’14. I also handled a few administrative items with students and staff. Finally, I did a bit more work for my possible IST 230 Fall ’14 course. I’m hoping to have at least 10 enrollments so that I can pilot the course in BB Learn. For Fall ’14, I decided to make the short videos created by the course author to have a less prominent place in the course. I also decided to move from 5 quizzes to 4.

On Tuesday, I found out about an open position being posted for our unit. I knew about the possibility, but I didn’t realize that it was up & open for candidates. I’m excited about the growth our unit is experiencing and hope for more of the same as we move forward in this venture. This was the last day for me to feed Kent’s fish. Everything went well, and I’m glad to report that the fish is still swimming around and well. Amy G opened the BB Pilot 110, so let the fun begin! I worked a bunch on 230 for Fall ’14. Right now, I have four students which is twice what I had yesterday 🙂

On Wednesday, we welcomed Kent back from South Korea. It’s good to have him back! I got an inquiry about the open position that we have for our unit. I’m excited to see interest from people who would be tremendous assets to our team. I found out about a change in instructor & a potential new 402 for next summer. It was good to follow up with the instructor for both of those slots. I was reminded of how there are folks who still don’t buy in to online teaching & learning being legitimate. It’s a bit disheartening to hear these things in our day & age. Honestly, I think it’s time to stop making designations about resident and online. There are best practices which should transcend this. Sometimes, we need to use face-to-face methods to satisfy learner needs. Sometimes, we need online methods to satisfy needs. I wish that we would stop making this so complicated. There is only one more day in the work week. I’m hoping that tomorrow is a productive day that makes for a nice transition into the extended holiday weekend.

Thursday came quickly this week. I had a baseball game last night & played well. Because of the yoga that I’m doing, I’m feeling much better physically. It’s always so hard for me to think about half an hour to complete the exercises, but I always feel better after doing them. We had a unit meeting. It was fine. I still had a feeling like there was a side conversation going on during the meeting between unnamed members. It bothers me that that element has been introduced. I had a conversation yesterday that reminded me of my time at WCLD. There was an element of that came about. It was one of the determining factors of leaving that unit. I don’t think that directors understand the impact of sarcasm & undercurrent conversations in eroding a good work environment. I had a meeting with David who will be teaching EA 871. It is always great to meet people that I work with virtually face-to-face. Looks like we will be able to address a few of his concerns this fall. The biggest piece is using Blackboard Collaborate, not Adobe Connect. I also had a meeting with Amy G & Kent to talk about course redistribution with Peggy moving to full-time faculty. I’m hoping that the choices that we make will work well.

Reflection 11/14/11-11/18/11

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Accomplishments:

�         Continued with IST 331 revision

o   Received emails from Martin about items to update

�  Readings (probably to be added to e-reserves)

�  Activities and assignments

o   Supposed to have everything by the end of the week

�         Gary H submitted for TLT

�         Attended Sloan. Here’s my blog about the conference: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2011/11/08/17th-annual-sloan-consortium-international-conference-on-online-learning/

 

Ongoing Projects:

�         Working on Spring 2012 courses: IST 111S, IST 230, IST 295A, IST 331, IST 402, IST 495

�         Working on Summer 2012 courses: IST 210, IST 220, IST 240, IST 250, IST 260W, IST 295B, IST 301, IST 302, IST 420, IST 421, IST 440W

�         Check for flash and video that doesn’t show up from the WC version.

�         Adding peer evals in drupal to courses.

�         Working on checking courses (content isn’t always there) from WCLD to be placed in Drupal through OIDI task list

�         Updating syllabi & content in drupal, especially MSDNAA & Virtual Labs section

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

�         Would like to have a better working knowledge of…

o   Kaltura

o   Jaycut

Some things that I learn this week:

�         In drupal to get all of the users in alphabetical order, click on username

�         If a user gets an error in my browser for drupal, have them try another to fix

�         If the camry doesn’t allow the key to turn, press on the brake and turn the wheel. This unlocks the key to turn. This happens when the wheel is turned to sharply before turning off the vehicle

Back Burner:

�         Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

Days off / Conferences:     

�         May be taking vacation on Wednesday (11/23/11)

�         Thanksgiving holiday (11/24/11)

�         Friday personal holiday (11/25/11)

�         March 24 TLT Symposium – thinking of using this opportunity to practice session for Madison Conference

�         Dental Appt scheduled for 2/24/12 (Plan to take half day in the am)

Welcomed a new designer to the IST team, Kent Matsueda.Great to be working with him again. Looking forward to moving the program forward and working with him on many projects to come.

Had staff retreat today at the BJC. Alot of fun and good to connect with colleagues from around IST.

Travel Home from Sloan-C 2011

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Glad to have had the opportunity to attend and present at the Sloan-C conference.

Interestingly enough on the way home, I sat on the plane with a student from Penn State who was being recruited by IBM. She was a thoughtful and obviously successful student who represents what Penn State does, mainly provide an environment for students to reach their potential and find employment with companies that make a difference. Great way to end a great experience.

The Reality of Virtual Worlds: Theory & Research Become Practical Application

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The Reality of Virtual Worlds: Theory & Research Become Practical Application

Last session of the conference for me. It was interesting to think about how we have created virtual environments to be like real life, but the best way to implement the world is to make it something that fits our needs. For instance, instead of teleporting, make everything come to the learner. There were some cool applications of graphs that animated and products going from design to the grocery store shelf right in front of students. Definitely food for thought.

Active Learning in Virtual Worlds

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Active Learning in Virtual Worlds

Great session on using VW in a social way. The designer who presented were using Second Life (SL) for two different audiences to accomplish their educational goals. The first type of learner had to do with health. SL was used to get patients together to talk about healthy living. There were two face-to-face sessions to orient the learners to SL. They used a place called Club 1 as the setting for the sessions. They even had attendees change their avatars as they lost weight in real life.

The second group of learners was for Health Care Professionals to work on Motivation Interviewing with patients. These users were more acclimated to virtual environments. To display results of assessments (mock interviews), the designers used a vlog and machinimas.

Great session! I’m planning to connect with the designers moving forward.

Developing an Accessible Online Course: A Process Overview

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Developing an Accessible Online Course: A Process Overview

Enjoyed the part of the session that I was able to attend. Julie and Mike did a great job of providing information like using Section 508 1194.22 and explaining how this would likely roll over into WCAG 2.0 eventually to make it more of an international standard for accessibility. They also provided resources which are available above like a checklist to highlight certain elements of accessibility.

My Explorations of Social Media and Social Media Literacies in Teaching and Learning

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My Explorations of Social Media and Social Media Literacies in Teaching and Learning

The final plenary address was a good one. Enjoyed Howard Reingold’s talk.

Reingold quote, “Questions that students ask are more important than the answers to the questions.”

It’s important to listen to students to help inform good teaching.

Reingold coined the term Virtual Communities.

I like Reingold’s suggestion to layout the syllabus in different formats. I also liked his use of mapping tools to see what students have learned.

Here is a link to Reingold’s site: http://socialmediaclassroom.com/. As you will see he uses drupal as the engine.

During the address, Reingold talked about students needing to be able to be good “crap” detectors. Here is a site to elaborate: http://www.infotention.com/.

Epcot Dessert and Evening Activities

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At this point in the conference, I was missing my family. In retrospect, it would have been nice to bring them along, but considering a future trip that we’ll have to make to Colorado I had to make a tough decision.

The night was fun. Along with Amy Stever, Fred Aebli, and a few friends from Arts and Architecture’s eLearning Institute (Keith Bailey, Megan Kohler, Natalie Novak), I was able to do the ride Soarin’. Later, I ate dinner with Fred Aebli at La Hacienda de San Angel. It was good to talk to Fred about family and how things are going at Penn State.

Moving Forward with Backward Design

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Moving Forward with Backward Design

Since I was copresenting for this session, I attended and helped facilitate the session. What a great experience! Thanks to Stephanie for including me. I felt like the session went well but am awaiting the evaluations.

I thought that the poll went well. Here is the poll: http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/NjgzMDg4NzM

We were surprised to see that the most chosen topic was an overview. I found it a bit cumbersome to make a mark on my written notes about which areas to spend the most time on. It’s a bit difficult to determine how to ensure that specific areas would receive more attention or if the attention is what the one who the poll was thinking.

Participation from the audience was excellent. Great group to be a part of. I really like the suggestion from one of the attendees to come up with interview questions to help with the design process that relate to using backwards design.

Hands-On Lab Projects in an Online IT Course: Virtualization or Simulation?

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Hands-On Lab Projects in an Online IT Course: Virtualization or Simulation?

I was glad to see this session in light of all of the discussions swirling around about labs for IST 220. There is a hand out that the bottom of the session info about different simulation and virtualization tools that may be good to investigate further.

Jeff Tjiputra, the presenter, did a good job of laying out the pluses and minuses from each approach, sim or virt. One of the items of note for simulations is that it isn’t a real and; therefore, impossible to “screw up.” It’s important to provide students a context for real-world activities that allow for failure and resolution that leads to growth. Virtualization allows for this, but it may be cost prohibitive, especially since it usually requires tech support from the company that is deploying the environment.