365 Days with Mediasite – What a Difference a Year Makes!

This session is a panel of several Mediasite users at various institutions, providing an overview of their own needs, testing, evaluations, etc. from the last year of using Mediasite.

Cuyahoga Community College

Students have access to Mediasite Desktop Recorder on lab/public computers.
Recording hardware is installed in select classrooms

Students at Tri-C have the ability to upload content to Mediasite – faculty & staff are concerned with storage space, security permissions, and inappropriate content. It sounds as though Tri-C has different permissions for students when they record/upload videos (limiting people outside of that specific class or preventing non-Tri-C users).

UWM

Created a low-cost way of setting up Catch in their classrooms, depending on the extensive of needs for those rooms.

https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/1189213118259445760

At UWM, all of the rooms are pre-scheduled for using Mediasite Catch – the techs meet with instructors prior to the start of the semester to teach them how to use the system.

Narrative

I think this was the most informative session so far. It was great to hear about how other institutions are using Mediasite, including installations, the types of equipment, as well as training. It’s perfect timing (maybe a little late, actually) because we’re starting to figure out what the stock equipment would be for upgrading classrooms. With limited Mediasite Catch licenses and limited equipment, room scheduling could become an issue.

Mediasite Intermediate Bootcamp

Mediasite Players vs. Templates

Players are how the audience interacts with the video
Templates define default capture settings & information
Templates allow live and/or on-demand access
Templates can set auto-discard after “x” days

Schedules

Mediasite has the ability to allow schedules by which the recording automatically begins. This would require hardware installed in each of the classrooms. At ACC, we could put devices in select classrooms on each campus, allowing those rooms to be scheduled using AdAstra.

Mediasite Catch vs. Record Now

Record Now is a browser-based tool that allows users to open a browser window and press a button to begin recording. Record Now requires Mediasite Catch or a Mediasite hardware recording device to work.

Mediasite Catch is a bridge between software and hardware recording capabilities. It’s a tool that can be installed on all lectern PCs to capture classroom lecture.

Information about Mediasite Catch

Questions about Storage

One of the big concerns that we have at Austin Community College is the storage space that we are using with Mediasite. Based on some conversations with other workshop attendees, it seems like we’re not unique in our concerns/questions. I talked briefly with some attendees from the Ohio State University—they use their own storage solutions. York University has more than twice the amount of storage that we have at ACC, and they still have storage issues.

One of the things that we thought of to explore is to move our Mediasite storage to Amazon Web Services, which would be significantly cheaper than leasing storage space directly from Mediasite.

Other Notes

Catalogs are being phased out – channels are preferred way of grouping content

Additional Resources

I Am A Liberal

Posted without comment (but with a few formatting changes).”I’m a liberal… I’ve always been a liberal, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of you apparently think it does. Let’s break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: Not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. Period.
I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that’s interpreted as “I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.” This is not the case. I’m fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it’s impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes “let people die because they can’t afford healthcare” a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I’m not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.
I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone. It doesn’t necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I’m mystified as to why it can’t work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.
I don’t believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don’t want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can’t afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.
I don’t throw around “I’m willing to pay higher taxes” lightly. If I’m suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it’s because I’m fine with paying my share as long as it’s actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.
I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn’t have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.
I am not anti-Christian. [substitute any religion] I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is – and should be – illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I’m not “offended by Christianity” — I’m offended that you’re trying to force me to live by your religion’s rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That’s how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don’t force it on me or mine.
I don’t believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.
I don’t believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN’T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they’re supposed to be abusing, and if they’re “stealing” your job it’s because your employer is hiring illegally). I’m not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, [“detaining” = arguably kidnapping], splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).
I don’t believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It’s not that I want the government’s hands in everything — I just don’t trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they’re harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.
I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.
I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.
I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun. (Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine).
I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you’re using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?
I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.
I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I’m a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn’t mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don’t believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.So, I’m a liberal.”- Written by Larry Allenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzGQy7iVrcY

Being Faster and More Productive with Brightspace Tools and other Web Tools

Nate Wadman, Pikes Peak Community CollegeBarry Dahl, D2L

Abstract

Five Free Tech Tools to Make You More Productive at WorkWhat good is technology if it doesn’t make your life easier, or your work more productive, or both? In this session, you’ll learn about five free tools that you can use with or without Brightspace to help you get things done. Phone apps, browser apps and extensions, tablet apps, and PC programs – we’ll look at a few tools that just might surprise you with what they can do.Top 10 Tips to Being Faster in Brightspace Learning EnvironmentIt’s Friday night and you have social plans. However, you have course work in Brightspace. How do you get these tasks done quickly without compromising quality of instruction? Come see 10 Tips to help you be faster and more productive in Brightspace!

Top 10 Tips to Being Faster in Brightspace Learning Environment

Put direct links to pages (discussions, etc.) into a bookmark folder and open all tabs at 1 time.
Use Manage Dates to adjust dates when copying courses
Use QuickLinks
Bulk Edit tools (like in Grades)
Edit account settings
Rubric with Pre-Loaded Feedback
Use Grade All / Set Grades
Use email wherever possible, and using the email functionality that provides context (email from within the Grades tool, Discussion tools, etc.)

Five Free Tech Tools to Make You More Productive at Work

Voice-to-text
- Dictate using Evernote app for phone, have Evernote convert to text, then copy paste text into Discussion, etc.
Text Expanders
- Create canned text that gets reused over and over
H5P – Create interactive HTML5 content that can be embedded into D2L
OneTab – Chrome extension
Screencast-o-matic
Relax

Everything Else: Program-level Courses in Brightspace

Ted GirardQueen’s College of Nursing

Abstract

Queen’s School of Nursing, and Health Quality Programs department uses Program-Level Communities in Brightspace. These communities are set up for each program, and are used for automating student interaction, data collection, and administrative tasks as well as coordinating clinical requirements.

Notes

The program-level courses are not for curriculum/course content. The communities are set up as course offerings so that they can be copied from year-to-year.Students are enrolled in the program-level courses upon acceptance into the institution.When students are accepted, the 4-page letter with instructions is cut down to 1 page. The instructions direct students to log into the LMS, access the program-level course, and do the other admin stuff upon entering the LMS.

The first 90 days: Engaging with students before they get to campus

What

Required forms, training modules, quizzes
Set Brightspace notifications
Calendar subscribing
Access to university and clinical resources
Student support services

How

Move the “start” of the program back 90 days

Treat the first 90 days as an online course

Apply pedagogical concepts to administrative tasks

Benefits of Using Brightspace Communities – Students

An introduction to Brightspace
Platform consistency with courses
Everything in 1 place

Benefits of Using Brightspace Communities – Staff

Fewer emails (written & sent out manually)

Less paper (and digital documents)

Automated processes

One master student list

Stretches administrative submissions over several months, instead of all at once

Fewer sick days

Uses for Communities

News & announcements
Events calendar
How-to videos/technology support
Social media
Course introductory videos
Student Handbook
Intensive week information
Required form submissions
Online discussions

Thoughts/Reflection

I wanted to attend this session because of our recent implementation of D2L. We’ve been using it for more strategic programs and are now considering a widespread rollout for all employees to use D2L as a central training/learning hub. Assuming this takes hold, what are the next steps? I’m seeing the possible use of Brightspace to expand to more community based site. In thinking about new hires within our company, having a community site that every employee is enrolled in could prove to be helpful. Including things like our company history, resources that are available, etc. could be beneficial. It would also help us get through some of the housekeeping work that we typically have to do at the beginning of the strategic courses. Having all of the students do this work when they first join the company would allow us to cut down on that work at the beginning of the courses.I thought session was very well done in terms of explaining how they implement these communities at Queen’s School of Nursing. Now I just have to figure out the best way to implement these in our organization.

Bridging the Gap: Evidence Supporting the Value of the High-Tech/High-Touch Teaching Model to Improve Student Outcomes and Perceptions in Two Introductory Level Courses

Presenters

Christopher Roddenberry, Wake Technical Community CollegeClaire McElvaney, Wake Technical Community CollegeRobyn Arnette, Wake Technical Community College

Session Abstract

The High-Tech/High-Touch Teaching Model (HTHTTM) is an innovative evidence-based course management protocol designed to improve minority success in online education. It involves the use of low-cost and free tools and an intentional communication strategy. Three high-tech tools: texting, custom-made videos, and web conferencing, allow instructors to personalize themselves and create opportunities for synchronous interaction. Together, these high tech tools and this high-touch communication strategy enhance student engagement and performance in online courses. Minority student success rates in courses taught by HTHTTM instructors were 12% higher than minority success rates in control classes, with success rates for all students in HTHTTM classes five percent higher than for students in control classes. Participants will leave with ideas for creating and assessing innovation in their online programs, as well as a practical example of an engagement enhanced class.

My Notes/Thoughts

High Tech Tools

Custom videos
Secure texting
Web conferencing

High Touch Behaviors

Expanded orientation activities
Intentional highly responsive communication style
Opportunities for synchronous interaction
Lots of low risk assignments with quick & detailed feedback
Inclusive course shell design

One of the interesting things that Chris mentioned was that the instructors, as part of this grant, are required to respond to student emails within 6 hours of receiving the initial inquiry. There hasn’t been a chance to ask questions yet, but one of the questions that I have is “are there off-limit times?” What if a student emails at 9pm, is an instructor really expected to respond to a question by 3am? And then as a follow-up, what about weekends? These are just questions off the top of my head, it’ll be interesting to see what their perspective is on these.Not only do they assume that the high tech/high touch method is better, but they actually went through the process of quantifying the results. It’s interesting to see the process by which they created the controlled environment. In looking at the results, student success increased (something like 13 points for minority students), instructor presence increased, and overall there was a positive correlation between the high tech/high touch method and student success.One of the anecdotes that was discovered by instructors is that by using the high tech/high touch method is that teaching is more fun now. Students are asking questions that are more about the content of the course, the number of emails has drastically decreased, and instructors were spending time doing of the “fun” parts of teaching.Overall, I think this was a great session. The concepts aren’t anything new, but what I really liked about this session was the process by which they collected the data. I can’t believe I just said that – I’m not much of a research person. But seeing how they created the control vs. treatment groups and some of the results of the student surveys/evaluations was encouraging. And I think one of the best parts was that one of the presenters (can’t remember his name) is self-identified as “not a tech person,” so it’s nice to see that this can work with those types of instructors as well.

teAchnology: Swaying the Biased, Herding the Dinosaurs, and Overthrowing the Technocrats

Presenter

Cristina Sullivan, Tarrant County Community College

Session Abstract

Adjusting the course to meet the needs of the students instead of expecting students to adjust to our styles and expectations. The biggest obstacle to being student ready is instructor mindset. This session will focus on 1) recognizing and reflecting on our attitudes and actions in online course spaces 2) mapping strategies to address instructor led activity that may diminish student outcomes and experiences. Specifically we will address faculty bias about student abilities, faculty who are not yet proficient with technologies proven to enhance student learning and instructors whose tech knowledge and enthusiasm leads them to give students app overload or feel left behind. We will share and solicit best practices for creating inclusive, accessible, and engaging online courses.

My Notes/Thoughts

Dinosaurs

Definition/characteristics: Care about students, less confident with tech, grounds in older paradigms, want to improve, may be easily overwhelmed, initiative overload victims.Herding the dinosaurs

Scaffold changes
Communicate
Allocate resources
Make it meaningful

https://twitter.com/TGustafson/status/963817084063924224What I find interesting about the dinosaurs category is that they (Tarrant County CC) is providing A LOT of resources to help instructors revamp their courses. They have a studio for instructors to record videos and then the ID staff makes it look fancy/cool – that’s a great idea, but how many resources (people, money, etc.) does that require? And is that scalable?What I like about their approach with course design is that it’s an 8-week course, and the instructors that work on the courses are given a $1000 stipend. It’s done as a team approach with the ID as the project manager. Not only does the ID work to keep the development team on track, but the process is very prescribed – during week 1 of the process, you are developing the syllabus; during week 2 they are creating the course outline, etc. I really like this process because while every course design is different based on the content/department, but this process breaks it down to make things easy to understand and not as overwhelming for the instructors who are developing the course.

Biased

Deficit mindset
Feel “alone in wilderness”
Weary, burned out
Afraid to be enthusiastic
Confident in their skills and their “way of doing things”

https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/963819140640206848

Technocrats

They love technology
They use Twitter, GroupMe, Padlet, Wizlette, Bitmoji, Google Hangouts
They are early adopters
They get excited by potential fixes
They care about engagement

https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/963820863916093440I really liked this session. Oftentimes, people assume that all instructors are dinosaurs or biased and therefore resistant to change, but that’s not the case. Also, people assume that all students are technorats, but they discussed during the session that that’s just not the case either. There are ways to engage with all categories of faculty, and similar to us not wanting to leave our students behind, we should feel the same about our instructors also. Like I mentioned earlier in this post, however, the types of engagement to cover all categories of instructors requires adequate funding – which is usually not available.https://twitter.com/MsEyres/status/963822722177355778

eLearning Master You Will Become!

Presenters

Alison Consol, Wake Technical Community CollegeJessica Hatcher, Wake Technical Community CollegeCindy Foster, Wake Technical Community College

Session Abstract

This session focuses on advanced professional development for online instructors. As part of Wake Tech’s QEP project, a certification program was developed and deployed to train faculty to become Master Online Instructors. The objective is to develop eLearning experts and leaders within the college to raise the quality of online courses and ultimately, student success rates. We will discuss the development, deployment, and effects of this program. The session is interactive, with Q&A.

My Notes/Thoughts

Successful online courses includes student and faculty preparedness
Best practices in online design and delivery
- Navigation
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Assessment
Participatory, team-based development by faculty and eLearning staff
Based on research into best practices

Options for online teaching certification can consist of either

30 hours of professional development
Having your course peer reviewed
Mentorship

When looking at the 30-hours of professional development, the courses include LMS training, accessibility, UDL, and then the core components of a course (communication/collaboration, navigating, assessments, etc.) and then the PD concludes with a capstone. The capstone consists of having a partially completed online course.I definitely like this approach, no surprise there (I’m sure), because it creates levels of consistency across all of the online courses. This also allows faculty to keep their academic freedom – much like programs similar to QM.One of the tools that they recommended for creating videos is TelePrompTer, an app that allows you to read from a teleprompter while recording yourself. It’s a useful tool because faculty have to create a transcript for the video anyway, so why not read from the transcript when doing the recording?! I’ve used (and still use) this tool for larger scale videos and it’s a great tool.Overall, it was good session. I enjoyed hearing about the different ways that faculty can get “certified” to teach online. In my role, the Instructional Designers are the only ones who really teach classes, but I can definitely tell that implementing these techniques in higher ed can reap strong benefits for faculty (and students).

Mini-Bytes: Introducing Non-Traditional Students to Online Classes

Presenters

Carli Cockrell, Great Falls College Montana State UniversityBrenda Canine, Great Falls College Montana State University

Session Abstract

The eLearning team at Great Falls College Montana State University often hears students say they do not want to take online classes because they have never taken one before. GFC MSU is a 2-year community college located in rural North Central Montana. Our average student age is 26+ and our students often drive more than 30 miles to attend courses. The flexibility and remote nature of online classes would be a great fit for a lot of our students, but many are nervous about trying something new or worry about the technology component. The eLearning departments solution was the creation of Mini-Bytes. A Mini-Byte class is a free 2-week sample of an online course. Instructor that teach the full 16 week watch over the courses and interact with the students who can sign up at any time. Students get to dip their toe into the college class in the actual LMS environment they would be taking the full class in. We will discuss the implementation of Mini-Bytes, what we have learned so far, and share our perspectives of the Mini-Byte pilot.

My Notes/Thoughts

Unfortunately, after about the first 10 minutes, I decided that this session wasn’t for me and I stepped out.

What is Learning Experience Design (LxD)?

Presenter

Eugene Jars, Pima Community College

Session Abstract

This session focuses on Learning Experience Design (LxD). In this session we cover the differences between instructional design and learning experience design and why you should consider the learner experience when designing your online classes. We cover how creating a good learning experience requires different skills than the traditional Instructional Designer uses to create a course. I provide a brief history of the roots of Learning Experience Design, including how LXD evolved from User Experience Design (UX). We’ll then go over a few basic tools for designing the learner experience, including how to build simple personas and a user journey map. These tools help you plug the loopholes in your traditional online courses. You walk away from this session with an understanding of how LXD focuses on the learning experience and why designing for the student learning experience is just as important as designing for the content and course objectives.

My Thoughts/Notes

Parts of the definition of LXD

Experience
Design
Learning
Human-Centered
Goal-Oriented

Differences between instructional design and LxD

Typically ID focuses on content, the what and how (delivery).
LxD focuses on the learner and how they acquire knowledge.
Less about building modules and more about curating the learning experience.

LxD is a new concept to me, although not so new in terms of the principles. I appreciated hearing about the history of LxD and how it evolved. Knowing that helps see the evolution of design.https://twitter.com/chambo_online/status/963159764673871872One of the interesting distinctions between LxD and ID. In Instructional Design, the most common design model is ADDIE. But one of the LxD models includes:https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/963160684367290368I think the issue that I have with this model, as well as how ADDIE is typically presented, is that it’s a linear path. Whether you’re looking at ADDIE or the model above, it should be a cyclical process. Continuous improvement is incredibly important, but usually isn’t included in visual representations.https://twitter.com/chambo_online/status/963163722016481280Another thing that he points out is that empathy is the strongest difference between ID and LxD. Focusing on student/learner feedback, by allowing small “focus groups” evaluate and provide feedback on the course, will help in design the course for learner experience. He suggests that having a group of 1-5 students provide feedback will identify 30% of issues in the course. This is different than course surveys because these focus groups review the course beforehand (or during), not after.https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/963164146060570624Moving away from the background/history – what tools are available for LxD? He identifies the creation and use of personas – user profiles of fictional students that you can keep in mind as you design courses. By focusing on the personas, you can consider how someone that doesn’t have access to a tablet device or an ESL student would proceed through your course and identify points in which they may get stuck in the course. He then mentions xtensio.com that allows you to create personas.https://twitter.com/marcdrumm/status/963167169872764928Overall, I really enjoyed this session. It’s not often that I sit in a session where the content is completely new/foreign to me. The only thing that would have improved this session is to take a real example and walk through the difference in ID/LxD approaches. Take a math/English/science class or module and walk through what the approach would look like. Regardless, this was a great session and I look forward to learning more about LxD.