Category Archives: World Campus

Reflection for 4/27/15 to 5/1/15

This is the last week of Spring ’15. I’m excited to be finishing up another great semester. But I’m also looking forward to completing last steps toward starting Summer ’15.

Monday has been productive in getting EA/UG IST ready. I’m really glad to have the help and support of an IPS in getting this to the opening. I had a chance to take a final pass through the sections that I’m responsible for and send final notes to instructors to make their final updates.

It’s now Friday, and I’m finally getting back to this. In the interim, I’ve been busy getting things ready for Summer ’15. There is only one course, IST 140, that is not done. I’m hoping that the meeting that I have for Monday will be one to tie up loose ends.

I found out about several new developments and revisions for EA. I’m hoping to get more clarity and have a plan to make these successful endeavors.

Today is the last day of Spring ’15 semester. I’m glad for a good semester and am looking forward to a good summer.

The personal items in my life are still up in the air. I’m not sure what I should do to remedy the situation, but I’m counting on things coming clearer before I make any decisions.

Reflection 1/28/13 – 2/1/13


Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
    • MOOC on Evolution
      • Finished the 1st graded quiz without issue
      • Instructor is saying this week is more difficult
        • from my experience so far, I agree.
        • I’ve decided to take the quiz before watching lectures, then I will work on making adjustments after watching a lecture based upon what I’ve learned
    • MOOC on Game Theory
      • Dropped
    • MOOC on Personal Finance starts
      • Course has videos and quizzes to complete.
      • We’re only allowed to take quizzes a few times. But it would be better to integrate the quizzes into the videos and informally assess.
      • The discussion forums are crazy. I’m not sure how to even start to engage in that environment. And it’s hard to get a snapshot of what is happening overall.
  • Spring ’13 revisions/developments
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • Larry says that he will take a look and let us know
    • IST 250
      • Met with Brett about the course
      • He’s going to make the changes
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Have readings for the course & need to get someone to create pdf’s – delegated this to Audrey
          • Double checked to make sure this was okay with Amy G, & it was
  • Course Committees
    • Subbed for Amy G at the Penn State Online Coordinating Council meeting
  • Spring ’13 Courses
    • All courses
      • Updated Blackboard Collaborate info from Elluminate Live
    • IST 110
      • Sec 007 (Farrugia)
        • Made a few adjustments to IST 110 dev section based upon email
        • Send back a reply to let him know that I was done
    • IST 210
      • All Sections
        • Sent out a note to Gary and Fred that I’d like to meet to discuss future direction of labs
      • Sec 001 (Gary)
        • Note from Gary about Dreamspark
          • Answered he and wc helpdesk and further clarified
      • Sec 002 (Fred)
        • WC Helpdesk had created an elive room for him and he had to have it upgraded to Collaborate
      • Sec 003 (Marc)
        • Marc checked in with everyone
        • Seems like the communication is better
    • IST 220 –
    • IST 301
      • Sec 002
        • Jan has decided she wants to use CATME
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
        • Met with John H from wcld about rubrics
          • Definitely appears that there are issues with the rubric tool interface in ANGEL
  • IST 421
    • John is planning to use surveys and teams to do the peer eval

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated Summer ’13 info and sent to WC
      • updated IST 402 Cameron info
      • updated IST 420 Ocker inof

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

Important Dates:

  • Jan 1 Holiday
  • MOOC Jan 4 – March 15 called Introduction to Genetics and Evolution
  • MOOC Jan 7 – Feb 11 called Game Theory
  • MOOC Jan 14 – Mar 4 called Fundamentals of Personal Finance
  • Jan 7 WAH in AM
  • Jan 8 Dental Appt (3 h)
  • Jan 14 Dr. Appt (2 h)
  • Jan 17 Family Sick in AM – 4h
  • Jan 18 Vacation Time – 8 h
  • Jan 21 WAH
  • Jan 21 Family Sick – 1h
  • Jan 23 Education Gaming Brown Bag: Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges!
  • Jan 23 Family Sick 1h
  • Jan 24 Family Sick – 2h
  • Jan 25 WAH in AM
  • Jan 25 Vacation Time – 5.5 h
  • Jan 28 Family Sick Time – 1.5 h
  • Jan 31 WAH all day
  • Feb 4-6 EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Annual Meeting in Denver, CO
  • Feb 18 WAH in AM
  • March 4 WAH in AM
  • March 6 WAH all day
  • March 18 WAH in AM

Reflection 1/21/13 – 1/25/13


Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
    • MOOC on Evolution
      • Finished the 1st graded quiz without issue
      • Instructor is saying this week is more difficult
        • from my experience so far, I agree.
        • I’ve decided to take the quiz before watching lectures, then I will work on making adjustments after watching a lecture based upon what I’ve learned
    • MOOC on Game Theory
      • Haven’t started this, yet. Starting to wonder if I should unenroll and try later.
      • May have bitten off more than I can chew right now
    • MOOC on Personal Finance starts 1/14/13
      • I originally signed up for this course then unenrolled. But I’m interested in what this course entails. It almost seems like advice you would get from a financial planner. It would be interesting to see these type of self-help courses become more ubiquitous.
    • Attended Educational Gaming Brownbag on Bagdes by Brett Bixler
  • Spring ’13 revisions/developments
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • Larry says that he will take a look and let us know
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Have readings for the course & need to get someone to create pdf’s – delegated this to Audrey
          • Double checked to make sure this was okay with Amy G, & it was
  • Course Committees
    • Attended IST 210 on 1/22
    • Attended IST 220 on 1/24
  • Spring ’13 Courses
    • IST 210 – Note from IT about making sure students know how to login to database for the course. The wording is already in the labs.
      • Sec 001 (Gary)
        • Note from Gary that Elluminate Live is now Blackboard Collaborate.
          • Didn’t hear this from WC.
          • Need to update info in the course. Placed a reminder on my calendar to do next week
      • Sec 003 (Marc)
        • Several requests to update grammar on assessments
        • Updated lab
        • Met f2f to take care of issues
    • IST 220 –
      • Secs 003 and 004 (Hyunjeong)
        • request to provide accomodations.
          • did this for one assessment and provided video
      • All Sections
        • working through labs that Nick is reworking
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001
        • Worked through an issue with Blackboard Collaborate
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
        • Tested scoring rubrics and sent request to WC Helpdesk to see if this needs to be pushed to ANGEL Support
          • Reply mentioned that Rubrics or Scoring rubrics most likely work independently but Supplementaly may work with the other options.

Ongoing Projects:

    • Amy S editted google spreadsheet for Summer ’13 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

Important Dates:

  • Jan 1 Holiday
  • MOOC Jan 4 – March 15 called Introduction to Genetics and Evolution
  • MOOC Jan 7 – Feb 11 called Game Theory
  • MOOC Jan 14 – Mar 4 called Fundamentals of Personal Finance
  • Jan 7 WAH in AM
  • Jan 8 Dental Appt (3 h)
  • Jan 14 Dr. Appt (2 h)
  • Jan 17 Family Sick in AM – 4h
  • Jan 18 Vacation Time – 8 h
  • Jan 21 WAH
  • Jan 21 Family Sick – 1h
  • Jan 23 Education Gaming Brown Bag: Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges!
  • Jan 23 Family Sick 1h
  • Jan 24 Family Sick – 2h
  • Jan 25 WAH in AM
  • Jan 25 Vacation Time – 5.5 h
  • Jan 28 Family Sick Time – 1.5 h
  • Jan 31 WAH all day
  • Feb 4-6 EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Annual Meeting in Denver, CO
  • Feb 18 WAH in AM
  • March 4 WAH in AM
  • March 6 WAH all day
  • March 18 WAH in AM

Reflection 11/12/12 – 11/16/12


Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
    • Didn’t have time this week to work on MOOC called An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python
    • Attended World Campus Faculty Convocation
      • Nice to have the opportunity to present with Keith Bailey and Jen Berghage about Crumbling the Cookie Cutter. Here is a short blurb about our session:
        • Do you feel like courses offered online are mostly cookie cutter or out-of-the box? Are you having a hard time understanding how to create or implement a course because there are too many restrictions? Are you looking for a solution to having a greater say in your courses? If you have said yes to any or all of these, please attend this session.

          During this session we will discuss a cookie-cutter approach to course design and implementation. We will do demos of courses run through World Campus to see what the possibilities are. We will also look at some scenarios familiar to course implementation teams and discuss how to apply the notion of parameter-based design as a way to have greater say in what is in your courses.

        • My thoughts on the session is that is was nice to use google presentation to collaborate. Eventually, we placed the presentation on Keith’s computer.
        • I thought my part went well because I stressed team and had an instructor demo something that they were doing in the course.
      • Found myself tweeting after a bit of guilting by Melissa Hicks. It’s so easy to do with the phone. Nice to follow all of the conversations.
      • Interesting discussion on MOOC’s
        • With all that has been going on in higher ed, MOOC’s are not the 1st attempt at this. How about the Open University?
  • Fall ’12 Courses
    • IST 240
      • Adjustments needed for Clock Assignment
    • IST 250
      • More edits
  • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • Met on Tuesday and Table 7 is mostly done
        • Heard back from Larry but already in production mode
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Have readings for the course & need to get someone to create pdf’s – delegated this to Audrey
    • IST 402 (Saab)
        • I adjusted rubics based upon convo from 11/12
        • I also adjusted the discussion forum code. Not sure what David’s objective is in placing the forums the way he is.
        • Next meeting in 11/19 from 10:30-11:30
  • Course Committees
  • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Mapped out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December. Going to be difficult since we have to go 1 section at a time. Plan has been in motion and seems to be working well. I finishe up the population of the sites early in the week. Then I contact the next courses instructors to start other courses.
    • IST 110
      • Sec 001 (Mahar)
        • Contacted on 9/27
        • Will use section 002 to populate
        • Received a note that is causing me to delay
        • Completed setting up my end of the course on 10/1
      • Sec 005 (Mike M) – Cancelled sections 2-4 and made 5-7
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Will use dev section to populate
        • Completed on 10/25 and sent out note to Mike
      • Sec 006 (Mary L)
        • Told about this by Amy S on 9/27
        • Added Mary L on 10/1 to dev section
        • Will use dev section to populate
      • Sec 007 (Jim F)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Met Jim this week f2f on 10/9 to give him some background
        • Will use dev section to populate
    • IST 111S
      • Sec 001
        • Contacted Deirdre
          • She said to move Fall ’12 materials
          • Need to update category weightings and then grading section of syllabus based upon her feedback (90% done)
    • IST 210
      • Sec 001 (Gary)
        • Contacted on 10/2 about the course
        • Completed setting up the Spring ’13 course space
      • Sec 002 (Fred)
        • Contacted on 10/2 about the course
        • Received note from Amy S that I would be getting this course soon
        • Completed setting up the Spring ’13 course space on 11/8
        • Sent Fred an email
    • IST 220 – Hyunjeong and Mike M are teaching in Spring
      • Secs 001 and 002 (Mike)
        • Contacted on 10/3 about the course
        • Completed setting up both sections for Spring ’13
      • Secs 003 and 004 (Hyunjeong)
        • Contacted on 10/3 about the course
        • Found out from Amy S that the 3rd section is open but I don’t see it on my profile. Alice S put me in the course.
        • Completed setting up section 003 on 11/9 and sent out a note to Dr. Lee
        • Completed setting up section 004 on 11/16 and sent out a note to Dr. Lee
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001
        • Contacted Larry, & he will populate his section
        • Had to merge 2 sections since there had been a change in instructors from 2 to 1.
          • Contacted Larry and Buck
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001 (Fred F)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Will use dev section to populate
        • Walked Fred through the course in the dev section on 10/1
        • Populated course on 10/1
        • Sent note to both Fred and Hal to follow up
        • Contacted by Fred about adjusting syllabus. Redirected since it sounds like this is an unnecessary comstomization to the syllabus. Agreed by Fred and Hal
      • Sec 002 (Hal S)
        • Contacted 9/27
        • Populated course on 10/17
    • IST 250
      • Sec 001
        • Populated on 10/22
        • Met with John on 11/2 to finalize
          • Realized that grading had to be pulled into the Lessons tab to keep the course flexible
          • Made a note to update the syllabus after Fall ’12 is over to make adjustment to syllabus wording
    • IST 260W
      • Sec 001
        • Sent note to Jason L on 11/2 to let him know that I’d be populating his section on Monday 11/5. He replied immediately to say that he was okay with it.
        • Completed populating the section on 11/2 and sent Jason a note
    • IST 295A
      • Sec 001
        • Populated based upon Spring ’12
        • Sent note to Lisa B on 10/22
    • IST 301
      • Sec 001
    • IST 302
      • Sec 001
        • Populated course with materials from Spring ’12 on 10/16
    • IST 331
      • Sec 001
        • Completed populating the section on 11/6
        • Follow up meeting with instructor for 11/13 at pre-convocation
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
    • IST 421
      • Sec 001
        • Populated course by following plan that John and I worked out last Friday on 10/15
        • Asked by John H to changing naming convention on 11/12. Did a find and replace & notified him
    • IST 440W – Filled up quickly, so opening a second section – correction, instructor is at max pay
      • Sec 001
        • Completed populating the section on 11/7
        • Sent note to Jim
    • IST 495
      • Sec 001
        • Populated the course based upon the Fall ’12 version and notified Madhavi

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

Important Dates:

  • WAH in AM (8-12) Dates: 10/15, 11/19, 12/3, 12/17
  • October 15 – December 8 An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python MOOC
  • Nov 6 WAH
  • Nov 13-14 World Campus Faculty Convocation
  • Nov 21 Vacation (8h)
  • Nov 22 Holiday (Thanksgiving)
  • Nov 23 Campus Closure Thanksgiving
  • Nov 26 Vacation (8h)
  • Dec 14 Vacation (8h)
  • Dec 20 WAH
  • Dec 21 Vacation (8h)
  • Dec 24 Holiday
  • Dec 25 Holiday
  • Dec 26 Holiday
  • Dec 27 Holiday
  • Dec 28 Holiday
  • Dec 31 Holiday
  • Jan 1 Holiday

Educational Gaming Brown Bag: Turning an Astronomy Course into a Mission to Mars

Glad to have the opportunity to see a demo of ASTRO 101 for the future. The idea of the course is to move the course into a 3-D environment. The course started as a text-based course made through WCLD to a narrative course. The course has been so popular and profitable that resources were available to create the current version. It still includes narrative, but it allows students to learn concepts by participating in 3-D games/sims. Some of the activities have been created in house while others are available and open through other universities and government agencies like NASA. The idea was to have half made in house and half outside.

Jane Charlton started out by saying that it would have been impossible to accomplish what they had unless the programmers and artists had been astro majors. To her, she would rather find someone with content knowledge that may have outside interests and skills (i.e. coding skills and artistic skills) to create the objects and activities in the course.

Reflection: From a personal stance, this makes sense to me. I’m a mathematician/scientist/educator at heart. The technology and accompanying skills are tools that I use to complete my job. But there are a large group within the community of learning design who feel that we are interchangeable.

Jane mentioned an interesting fact that undergrad gen eds at Penn State are supposed to be Middle School level. For this reason, she plans to share out what has been created to MS around the area.

Jane also shared that she felt like programs should have a plan to make courses narrative based take revenues and ramp up to ideas like the one that will be implemented in Astronomy.

Enjoyable session! Thanks again to Elizabeth and the crew for providing another example of gaming as it applies to education.

Morning Panel

For the morning panel, there were three faculty talking about different ways that they were integrating games into their courses.

Bart Pursel – Course on building games
IST 446 Introduction to Building Computer/Video Games

  • Bart finds that games as a way to connect to what students are familiar with
  • In his course, he talks about narrative, ascetics, and other aspects
  • HW is to play a certain games (5-8 h)
  • Games provide a common experience but different personal experiences
  • Interactivity is promoted by using games; allows instructors to move into the facilitator role, rather than lecturer
  • Games provide students a chance to fail in a safe environment
  • There are logistics for students to play the games
  • Reflection is important for learning
  • Possibly students get too engrossed in the activity
  • About 7 assessment
  • Team project
  • Advice: Try a current-generation game (3-5 h) before using games in a class

Mark Seguey – Out of the Box games
HPA 101

  • More diverse population (Sim Health) – experiencing how complex Health Policy is
  • Able to facilitate the global thinking about Healthcare Policy
  • Game was an application part of the course (not assessed) in the beginning
  • (Sim Health to Healthbound-CDC)
  • Now, the game is integrated into the curriculum
  • 50/50 about the game (10% hate the game) Why? Technology, audio, and graphics Not the learning preference of the students
  • Games allow for more discussion about alternative ways to form Healthcare policy
  • Improves student understanding that issues relating to healthcare are more complex than what is simply thought
  • Technology challenges with Sim Health, reason moved to Healthbound (browser-based)
  • Assessment: Final Report (rubric that assesses content and style)
  • Advice: Work incrementally; you will make mistakes; it’s a process

Jan Charlton – Course by Story
ASTRO 001
Want to play a game to make students go deeper
Way to develop philosophical elements that cannot do with lecture
Course is all through the game, but assessments are identical to the traditional approach
Game created by 5 on a team of faculty and students
Alien visitors take students on mini adventures
Various multimedia used
Game helps to provide students the chance to build and interact to help create learning
Many in the learning community have negative views towards games
WC push back in providing resources
Some student have certain learning practices that don’t fall within the gaming teaching and learning strategy
Games make learning more fun
Games are not the only strategy used

Accessibility is hasn’t been an issue yet, but they have some ideas

Reflection: This was a great panel! I appreciated many of the ideas presented. I especially liked Mark’s suggestion to take things in increments. It is easy to get overwhelmed when looking at project as a whole, but breaking it down into pieces makes things much more manageable.

Reflection 02/20/12-02/24/12

Accomplishments:

  • Spring ’12 courses running
      • IST 230
        • Saw a note from Allan Gyorke about flipping the classroom
        • Definitely a great idea being headed up by Chris Millet and others at ETS
        • Thought about how 230 is based on this model of learning online since there aren’t any lectures
        • Live sessions are used to provide solutions and address specific problems
        • Here is a video and more info about flipping the classroom: http://tlt.its.psu.edu/flip/
      • IST 295A
        • Some students were unable to get to the course peer eval b/c I didn’t update the course schedule to include the new link.
        • Able to get to the bottom of this with the help of the WC Helpdesk
      • IST 331
        • Got a note from student about the optional evaluation
          • placed a subtitle calling it optional & info for course design and delivery team
        • More feedback about not knowing where the course schedule was
          • thinking that it makes the most sense to include this in the Lessons tab
      • IST 402
        • Met with David about peer evals for the course
          • Need to find averages for each student by sorting my email id of students and doing additional calculations
          • Best practice is to create a new sheet on the original spreadsheet by copying data for manipulation. This avoids tarnishing original data and allows for some creative manipulation
          • Found it useful to hide comments to complete the task
          • Also got same result for average wheather averaged each individual submission or averaged by category and averaged the result
        • Talked about the use of rubrics
          • Need to ask Melissa if she knows about the portability from the interface to excel of the tool being developed by Khusro and group at EMS
          • Also would be nice if could account for late submissions in the rubric
            • can’t use negatives in ANGEL rubric tool
            • move negatively across columns but the feedback will be off
      • IST 420
        • Met with John H and LA’s
          • Talked about rubrics & peer evals
    • Spring ’12 revisions
      • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • Added Ch 1 & 2 Assessments to the dev space
        • Included the essays in the exam
        • Found out that rubrics in ANGEL can be attached to assessments as well as dropboxes
        • Received assessment banks from Gary to be added to the course
        • Decided to use rubrics for assessment essay and project materials
      • IST 220 (Bertin)
        • Still waiting for more info on where the mystery section is located
      • IST 240 (Smith)
        • Received Lesson 09 materials on 2/21
        • These materials include an intro to Java and Coding Standards
        • Set the materials in place. Included the coding standards at the end of the lesson 9 materials
      • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
      • IST 402 (Saab)
        • Met with David on 2/20
          • I got all of the materials on my mac to populate the course
      • IST 421 (Hill)
        • Checked in with John Hill via email about setting up a meeting to discuss the 421 Development
        • Have a preliminary plan in place
        • Met on 2/23 about latest course schedule
        • Set a meeting for Fri March 2 to start making adjustments
      • IST 440W
        • No word on where this is
      • Madison proposal
        • Awaiting confirmation about both the lightning session

      Ongoing Projects:

      • Updating google doc for Summer ’12
      • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
      • Still need IST 260W content added in drupal
        • Rest of course has begun
        • Once this is completed, I’ll check it with the WC offering
        • Sounds like there are some things that need to be adjusted

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      • I don’t have any major concerns since we are moving forward on most of the revisions that need to be ready for summer. The only course that is concerning me a bit is 220 since Lisa Bertin has had to pick up responsibilities for a sick colleague. We have a plan, but I haven’t seen much from it, nor have gotten much direction about what she would like me to handle.

      • Talking more about transcription. We also mentioned something to Greg about the tool that Pat Besong had developed. Greg sounded like he was interested and was going to look into using it. Not sure where that is, should we have IT add the software to the student computers? Do we need to  discuss how we will handle the transcription? Is there a protocol that you would like us to follow?

      Some things that I learned this week:

      • See notes from IST 402 in the current semester about the peer evals in google
      • See notes for IST 210 revision for rubrics in ANGEL
      • Learned that in ANGEL when in assessments, text is added to the Page Text settings field, it shows up on the screen where students can Begin Now.

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

      Days off / Conferences:

      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 22 S.T.A.R.T Conference
      • March 24 TLT Symposium 
      • June 11 & 12 Web 2012 Conference
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days

    Reflection 02/13/12-02/17/12

    Accomplishments:

    • Spring ’12 courses running
      • IST 110
        • Worked on assignment groups with Amy since the UPick quizzes have three options
          • drop the lowest
          • drop the highest
          • never drop
        • What we really need to select the three highest, but since that is not an option, we need to send in a request for this option
        • Spoke with Fred A about group work
          • He’s finding the audience being quite varied many are superior with alot of experience while others are taking as a gen ed
          • Many students who are more motivated are tiring of waiting for teammates to accomplish teamwork only on weekends
          • It seems to me that it is time to put together a prof dev opportunity that includes Larry R and faculty to talk about strategies to facilitate and maintain healthy teams in online courses
      • IST 210
        • Adam suggested a few fixes to Visio hanging up
        • Gary liked the suggestion to create a template for students to access, but this didn’t work
        • One of the other options was to disable the printer settings by the individual student. Here are a few screen shots of what to do
          • Start by bringing up the remote desktop connection application
          • You will get the following dialog box:Visio_fix_1.jpg
          • Select the Options circled above
          • Next, go to the tab called “Local Resources” and unselect the box for Printers shown below:Visio_fix_2.jpg
      • IST 420
        • Met with John H and LA’s
        • Focused on rubrics and how they work, especially increased granularity on the higher end of the scale
        • Spent time at the OIDI team meeting talking about rubrics in theory and in practice. Here is a document that John H created and I gave some feedback to refine: Rubrics-ANGEL Percentage Spread.doc
    • Spring ’12 revisions
      • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • Sent Gary an email
        • He let me know that book came in
        • Also sent me test bank for Ch 1
        • Here are my thoughts about the tests that I sent to Gary:

          I saw that you sent the Chapter 1 Test Bank. I also saw that there are several question formats, true/false, multiple choice, short answer, and essay. My thinking is that since we want these to be around 20 questions and autograded, we should nix using the essay questions in the assessments since the instructor would have to assess those manually. There are plenty of other items in the course that will be assessed that way.

          To me, we should group the types into 3, multiple choice (15), short answer (3), true/false (2). So I will make 3 banks for each chapter assessment that include all of the questions of each type and choose those number of problems at 1 point each for each section. Does this sound like a good plan to you?

      • IST 220 (Bertin)
        • Emailed and got reply that she set up another section with her stuff
        • Couldn’t find the section so emailed back
      • IST 240 (Smith)
        • Finished Lesson 6 next week
        • Received more materials (Lesson 8)
        • Have the materials in place and sent follow up note to Hal
        • Sent a note to Hal about transcripts. I put a ticket into footprints for students to begin transcription
        • Also discussed with Kent that we need to have an overall plan
      • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
      • IST 402 (Saab)
        • Met with David on 2/13 from 11-12
        • Here are the notes that I took:
          • David had ANGEL materials restored from the last time that he taught the course (Spring ’10)
          • He also shared files with me that I can’t read on the PC
          • I plan to bring my mac next mon
          • Talked more about using blogs and possibly mind mapping
      • IST 421 (Hill)
        • Checked in with John Hill via email about setting up a meeting to discuss the 421 Development
        • Here is the agenda with notes:
          • Here are a few initial thoughts of mine based upon what you have sent and what I’ve been thinking about this process:

                     It’s amazing that you were able to fit so much content (18 topics) into 12 weeks. We could definitely make this work, but I think that it would be worth taking a second look at the current topic count and make adjustments first. As I think about this from a student perspective, I would feel overwhelmed to take a course that includes 18 topics whether it was 12 or 15 weeks. I think that we can fix this by taking the 18 topics and considering how we could morph those 18 topics into 12 topics. We would do this with the eye that when it runs as a 15-week course that weeks that make sense to run over 2 weeks would be able to do that. This is a daunting task, but it will help us to start thinking about which assignments we could integrate or eliminate in order to make this a course that is much more student friendly. How does this resonate with you?

          o   Keep content

          o   Adjust activities

                   In this course there are a few assignments, like the Background Questionnaire, that should be placed in a survey instead of a dropbox for easier grading and review. I think we can find all of these types of situations much more easily if we go through the course in small pieces.

          o   Convert Background Questionnaire into an assessment

                   I don’t like how the materials are organized in types instead of weeks. All of the other courses in the program are either in this format or moving into that format. It would be worth our time to move change this to make the course easier for students to find materials.

          o   Organize into Lessons not by material type

                   I don’t like that there are three categories of grades, especially since the course probably has several different types of grades that are in the same category. As we look at the course, it would be worth determining early on what the categories are.

          o   tbd

                   I also don’t like that 5/8 of the grade revolves around one category (team). There are several reasons for this. One teamwork is difficult, and students have to depend upon individuals who either have conflicting schedules or may be very busy. It would be best if we could tone this down a bit.

          o   Create a 50/50 split indiv v. team and make natural categories within each larger group

                   Just like in 420, the grades are based on percentage, but they are auto calculated. Once we have determined the categories, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to distribute percentages to reflect a fair distribution.

                   Just like in 420, once the percentages are determined, it would make the most sense to update the points to make them more instructor friendly to grade. I made everything 100 points in 420 except the peer evals which were 5 based on the tool. I see the same type of process working here.

                   Speaking of peer evals, there is only one in this course which for a course that is so heavy on teamwork makes no sense to me. I think that 5, like in 420 is a bit much. Maybe we would have 3 peer evals, one early after the teams start, another at the mid-term, and a final one at the end. The tool will be much more effective implemented this way.

          o   3 peer evals (Func- What am I going 2 do, Tech-How am I going 2 do it, Final-What did I do)- Sys Dev Cycle

      • IST 440W
        • Met with Amy S and Shawn C about possible revision Summer/Fall for run in Spring ’12
        • Proposed course definitely more manageable for students (no app completion necessary) and new faculty (more structured)  
      • Madison proposal
        • Awaiting confirmation about both the lightning session
      • Met with John H and LA’s to discuss rubrics in the am. Here are a few notes:
        • Creation of rubrics by using the Manage tab to get to Rubric Manager
        • Create new rubric or copy one that is already there
        • Possible to edit the rubric once it’s made
        • Make the rubric more granular on the upper end of the scale
        • Attach the rubric by selecting settings and choosing the Assignment tab then drop down to the correct one (don’t forget to check to box for student rubric preview and review)
        • When grading select the correct button and autocalculates the assignment
        • Remarks can be recorded in the box in ANGEL or track changes on the assignment
      • Attended Black History Month Event and lunch. Here is a blog with my thoughts: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/17/sac-black-history-month-event-and-lunch-021712/

      Ongoing Projects:

      • Updating google doc for Summer ’12
        • Checked in with Karen about info since PM was wondering if we sent the data over
      • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
      • Still need IST 260W content added in drupal
        • Rest of course has begun
        • Once this is completed, I’ll check it with the WC offering
        • Sounds like there are some things that need to be adjusted

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      Some things that I learned this week:

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee (maybe Kent and I need to keep this going here at the College of IST or maybe we should consider joining the group from ETS)

      Days off / Conferences:

      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 22 S.T.A.R.T Conference
      • March 24 TLT Symposium 
      • June 11 & 12 Web 2012 Conference
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days

    Reflection 02/06/12-02/10/12

    Accomplishments:

    • Spring ’12 courses running
      • IST 110
        • Worked with Larry Newcomer to update items in the course to spell out to students the purpose of activities
        • Updated in the dev space and section 3
      • IST 111S
        • Got a note from Deirdre about setting opening dates for group work video for earlier next week.
        • Set the dates and sent reply
      • IST 210
        • Received note that “old” versions of the lab overview were floating around
        • Checked in with IST Helpdesk & they will send out list after things settle down a bit
        • Still having problems with Vision in vlabs environment even after an intervention by Adam
        • Alot of conversation back and forth on this
        • Hoping to reach a resolution so that we can continue with Visio for the course
      • IST 250
        • Shared dev space with Rich P from Greater Allegheny upon request, suggested to by Brett B
        • He’s more interested with using the space as a reference rather than importing the course in as a boiler plate
        • Adjusted the Course Content to point to drupal so that Tim L could see content
      • IST 301
        • Had an issue with peer eval that we will send a student to the WC Helpdesk to resolve
        • Found out the problem is that one of the merged sections for this course is unable to view the evals by diagnosing myself
        • Sent request to John B to have Adam check and fix the peer eval
      • IST 331
        • Got a request from the instructor with question about ANGEL. Sent a request to WC Helpdesk with the following video:
        • Received the following feedback:

          Good morning! We checked out your video and I was able to duplicate this issue. Upon further investigation, it turns out that this student, Student Name (Student email ID), has her/his overall ANGEL Profile Name Settings only viewable by “Course/Group Mentors”. If the student were to change this setting to “Students/Members”, then s/he and other Team 3 students will be able to view him from the Course Roster.

          Here is how the student can change this setting:

          ANGEL Profile Page–> Preferences (button on left with silhouette image)–> Personal Information link–>  very first section is Name Settings–> change Viewable By to “Students/Members”

          I hope this answers your question as to why this is happening. I believe that if the student changes this, it will fix this issue. If you would like us to contact the student regarding this issue, let us know and we’ll be glad to help.

      • IST 420
        • There was a note about adjusting Minicase #1. I will update the development space. Would you like the rubric added to Lesson 3, 4, or both? Should it be added as a Word Doc or included in the dropbox? You mention that there are no questions, do you have questions that they should answer?
        • Met with John & Justin on Wednesday from 1:30-2. 
          • Decided to place rubrics into ANGEL for Minicase #1 and Enterprise Paper
          • Added rubrics and attached to those two assignments based upon rubric written in Word
          • Looking forward to feedback from the group on how the rubrics work for them
    • Spring ’12 revisions
      • IST 210 (Heberling)
        • Haven’t heard more back from the committee about their feedback
        • Plan to move forward as soon as Gary gets his text
      • IST 220 (Bertin)
        • Health of Lisa’s colleague has forced her to pick up slack
        • No progress for the week
        • IST 240 (Smith)
          • Finished work on Lesson 4 & 5 from last week
          • Plan to finish Lesson 6 next week
        • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
        • IST 402 (Saab)
          • Met with David on 2/7 from 11-12:15
          • Here are the notes that I took:
            • textbooks/online content mix
              • No textbook – videos, online materials
              • Textbook on Computer Ethics is a possibility
              • Supplement the textbook with materials that David has used
              • Course could include text and extend with online materials, included in discussion forums, voicethread, or Elluminate Live
              • May be best to use a blog as a way to integrate the course
              • Maybe gamify the course
            • lesson assessment
            • assess basic knowledge – randomly generated assessments from a bank
            • extend knowledge – discussions forums v. voicethread
              • voice thread for some of the activities by embedding segments and starting discussion
              • Then continue the video and change the scenario to see how it changes
            • team work role
              • team project needs to be chunked out for online delivery
              • proposal would be the delivery, not a website
            • paper
            • exam
            • website
            • vocab – flash cards
            • Work flow
            • ANGEL for materials
            • Format of materials
            • Setting up items in ANGEL
            • Communicating progress
            • Email
            • F2f
            • Virtual
            • Weekly
            • Bi-weekly
            • IST 402 SMO Peer Evals – set up a meeting on 2/20 to work details on handling the peer eval google form
        • IST 421 (Hill)
          • Awaiting response on email sent on Friday
          • Placed a reminder on my calendar to contact him 2nd week of February
      • Madison proposal
        • Awaiting confirmation about both the lightning session
      • Attended the Forum on Th at the Penn Stater done by Michael Mann. Here are my thoughts and reflections: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/09/forum-series-speaker-michael-mann/.
      • Attended the monthly LD Community Meeting. Here are my notes from the meeting: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/10/ld-community-meeting-feb-2012/

      Ongoing Projects:

      • Updating google doc for Summer ’12
        • Sent info to Karen M and updated google doc
      • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
      • Still need IST 260W content added in drupal
        • Rest of course has begun
        • Once this is completed, I’ll check it with the WC offering
        • Sounds like there are some things that need to be adjusted

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      • Here are the items that I have for this week:

        • I’ve had a few issues with students who are taking resident courses but using online materials (IST 230) who are requesting assistance from the WC and IST Helpdesk. This is because we forgot to update some materials in ANGEL, but it is also because our syllabus includes items like MSDNAA and Vlabs which are only available for UP and WC students. Here are some solutions that I think will work:
          • Remove the items referenced above from the syllabus and place in ANGEL so that those items can be removed more easily later
          • Make the syllabus more generic and upload the syllabus as an html file within each ANGEL section so that it can be edited there
          • Create individual drupal sections for each ANGEL section so that instructors can customize if necessary
        • Would it make most sense to have only content on drupal? The other items seems to be better in ANGEL.
        • I’m a bit concerned with the direction being taken with regard to course committees.
          • We will not be able to complete revisions in the time allotted unless there is a process in place in which faculty on the committee are held responsible for completing what they need to do before the revision with a single faculty begins or maybe we need to consider the revision being a part of the committees responsibility. If they had more ownership in the final product, they would be less likely to judge all of the final products as I see many of them doing now.
          • A faculty member or members from the committee needs to be involved in the revision process. This will eliminate the need for the revising faculty to have to check in with the committee about proposed revisions. If the committee is responsible for the content, then they should lay out what should be done. It seems to me that if the faculty committee had a common project on which to work they may be able to work out some of the differences which lead to conflict.

      Some things that I learned this week:

      • See WC Helpdesk resolution for IST 331

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee (maybe Kent and I need to keep this going here at the College of IST or maybe we should consider joining the group from ETS)

      Days off / Conferences:

      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 24 TLT Symposium attending only since our proposal wasn’t accepted
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days

      Reflection 01/30/12-02/03/12

      Accomplishments:

      • Spring ’12 courses running
        • IST 110
          • Created a practice peer eval for section 4 in order to prepare Jan and the LA’s for use this semester
        • IST 210
          • Sent roster to helpdesk for creation of individual sql databases for 1st assignment. Also placed a note on items to do for the semester that this needs to be done earlier.
          • Got a note on Tuesday that everything is set for the course.
          • Made the following video to send out to a student to help on the “Getting Started” Lab:
        • IST 230
        • IST 250 CE – shared google form with Stevie since Brett and Gerry don’t seem to want to go in that direction
        • IST 301 – Fixed gradebook issue and shared the following screenr:
        • IST 331
            • Got a question from the instructor about ANGEL and Elion sync issue. Encouraged a WC helpdesk request since the request is not my area of knowledge.
        • IST 420
          • Met with John, Justin and Marco on Wednesday from 1:30-2.
          • Clarified the issue with grading peer evals. We’ve decided to update the current course by making the gradebook percentage based, but in practice it will remain unchanged.
          • We’ve also decided to grade the peer evals by percents and allow the points to auto process.
          • I updated the development space to make the Categories multiples of 5 and the peer evals out of 5 points. Everything else is out of 100 to make it easier for the prof to grade and students to see progress.
      • Spring ’12 revisions
        • IST 210 (Heberling)
          • Spoke with Gary over the phone
          • Sent email to course committee on 2/2/12 to give them clarity on the plan
          • Plan to reorganize the Lesson tab to be organized based on Lesson rather than activity type
        • IST 220 (Bertin)
          • Here is the agenda from the meeting that I had with Lisa B on Monday 01/30/12:
              • Discuss 
                • textbooks/online content mix – keep the old text and update the content a bit
                • lesson assessment
                  • review questions – basic knowledge, discussion forums would extend
                  • discussions forums v. voicethread – pilot
                  • randomly generated assessments from a bank – keep separated and 10% of the grade
                • Labs
                  • Questions/concerns – instructions will have to be rewritten with an individual focus rather than team
                  • Chance to try – work out bugs
                • Work flow
                  • ANGEL for materials
                  • Format of materials – materials will be sent via Word Docs and pdfs
                  • Setting up items in ANGEL
                  • Communicating progress – weekly
              • Ask Lisa for google info so can add to google spreadsheets
                • Done in email after the meeting
                • Added her to all 3 peer evals
              • Check with John F about labs
                • Checked on 1/31 and seems that the revision plan relating to the labs is fine. 
                • Sent follow up email to Lisa ccing John
              • Get Lisa rubrics for discussion forums and review questions
                • Completed on 1/30
                • Awaiting feedback
        • IST 240 (Smith)
          • Received email on 2/1/12 with materials for lessons 5 & 6
          • Also received a response to earlier email sent
          • Made adjustments to the course on most of the day 2/2/12
          • Hope to finish up Lesson 5 & 6 (actually 4 & 5 by next week with feedback)
        • IST 402 (Cameron) – I’ll be assisting Melissa when needed
        • IST 402 (Saab)
          • Won’t be starting until the beginning of February
        • IST 421 (Hill)
          • John mentioned at a meeting for 420 that he’ll be ready to discuss 2nd week of February
          • In the meantime, he sent me an email highlighting his thoughts about how to rework the course to fit into 12 weeks
          • Sent back a response on 2/3/12
          • Placed a reminder on my calendar to contact him 2nd week of February
      • Madison proposal
        • Awaiting confirmation about both the lightning session
      • Attended Adobe connect info session on 2/1/12 – Here is the link to my notes and reflections: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/01/adobe-connect-session-2112/
      • Attended Demo by Khusro Kidwai on Rubric tool. Here is a link to my notes and reflections: https://sites.psu.edu/rep129blog/2012/02/03/rubric-tool-demo/

      Ongoing Projects:

      • Updating google doc for Summer ’12
        • Used the info to put together WC Summary when Karen M asks for it
      • Working on Summer 2012 courses: 110, 111S, 210, 220, 230, 240, 295B, 301, 302, 420 EA (Melissa), 421, 495
        • Placed notes about updating IST Helpdesk about # of sections and # of students per section for IST 210 and 220
        • Added a column on the google spreadsheet for redundancy
      • Updating peer evals from drupal to google forms
        • Created peer evals for all courses in google forms, even if not currently using peer evals
        • IST 250
          • sent a note to Gerry and Brett about using google forms that led to a larger discussion about a university-based rubric tool.
          • Met with Khusro for demo on 02/1/12 at 3 PM
        • IST 301
          • Placed notes on my calendar about dev space relevancy and placement of peer evals to summer ’12 space
      • Still need IST 260W content added in drupal
        • Rest of course has begun
        • Once this is completed, I’ll check it with the WC offering
        • Sounds like there are some things that need to be adjusted

      Immediate Decisions / Issues:

      • I’ve had a few issues with students who are taking resident courses but using online materials (IST 230) who are requesting assistance from the WC and IST Helpdesk. This is because we forgot to update some materials in ANGEL, but it is also because our syllabus includes items like MSDNAA and Vlabs which are only available for UP and WC students. Here are some solutions that I think will work:
        • Remove the items referenced above from the syllabus and place in ANGEL so that those items can be removed more easily later
        • Create individual drupal sections for each ANGEL section so that instructors can customize if necessary
      • Would it make most sense to have only content on drupal? The other items seems to be better in ANGEL.

      Some things that I learned this week:

      • See IST 210 currently running video to student

      Back Burner:

      • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee (maybe Kent and I need to keep this going here at the College of IST or maybe we should consider joining the group from ETS)

      Days off / Conferences:

      • February days out of the office 3 (half day vaca in pm), 6 (vaca), & 24 (half day sick-dental/half day vaca)
      • March 24 TLT Symposium attending only since our proposal wasn’t accepted
      • June 22, 25-29 vacation days