In defense of online learning - a balanced approach

Nice article.  Sorry I missed this before.

Online Learning: Reaching Out to the Skeptics - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Teaching is so complex that categorical distinctions—traditional courses are superior; online, inferior; or vice versa—are far too simplistic to take seriously as a basis for institutional decision making.

Professionals with many years of experience and a track record of proven success should be allowed, within appropriate boundaries, to exercise their own judgment about the best ways to reach their students. On the other hand, the rhetoric of traditionalism can sometimes be more than a legitimate assertion of time-tested personal experience; it can be a mask for understandable but counterproductive attitudes and emotions.

---

Thomas Benton's excellent article in the September 18th Chronicle of Higher Education is a well-reasoned discussion of how we should approach the topic of instructional delivery methods.  Of particular interest are the seven goals.

---

Obviously, some faculty members have convictions that no amount of evidence to the contrary can change. But I think there are increasing numbers of teachers who, while mildly skeptical, are at least open to the idea of experimentation. Persuading them to recognize the possibilities of new technologies has at least seven interlocking components:

1. Move away from a dichotomous view of teaching as online or face to face, and toward the idea that all courses can potentially involve both methods.

2. Create opportunities for consultation and collaboration among faculty members, librarians, and technologists.

3. Eliminate most of the uncertainties and technical problems faced by faculty members who would like to try new methods but don't know how and lack the equipment.

4. Provide continuing support to faculty members who experiment with new teaching methods, not just during the development phase of a course but throughout its implementation, so that teachers can learn and adapt "on the ground."

5. Find new ways to streamline the process of developing online content and managing courses to protect the time of faculty members.

6. Reduce the isolation of teachers by promoting the development of collaborative new-media projects—with students as well as other faculty members—as a legitimate and recognized supplement to traditional, solitary research production.

7. Show the effectiveness and complementarity of different approaches to teaching, taking care that assessment instruments do not skew the results.

---

And in conclusion, he really gets the obvious, but often ignored part of the job for those of us in the elearning support business.

---

Ultimately, the quality of the teacher and the effort put forth by the individual student are more important than any specific method. A method that fails for one person can succeed for another, and so I want to keep the chalkboard, the overhead projector, and the cross-legged conversation under the trees just as much as I'd like to see more faculty members supplement their traditional teaching with a variety of new-media and online projects.

This is a test of the mobile blogging feature. Sent from my cell phone.

Developing the Educational Widget - undergraduate courses

In a very insightful interview, Kevin Carey provides a glimpse of several attempts in the direction of innovation in higher education by a private sector, for-profit company.  I'm not talking about publishers or software vendors, the interests of whom are not likely to demand innovation anytime soon. No, this is a genuine attempt to develop an education widget (I use the term with some affection) - the undergraduate course.  As difficult as it is for us to admit, the delivery of undergraduate courses is, more a required component of university campus practices than it is a demonstrably effective method of teaching and learning.  Is it possible, therefore, to build the widgets and sell them online to a group of students who willingly and knowingly buy them?

I recommend the whole article, but these two concluding statements caught my attention.

College for $99 a Month by Kevin Carey | Washington Monthly

Which means the day is coming—sooner than many people think—when a great deal of money is going to abruptly melt out of the higher education system, just as it has in scores of other industries that traffic in information that is now far cheaper and more easily accessible than it has ever been before. Much of that money will end up in the pockets of students in the form of lower prices, a boon and a necessity in a time when higher education is the key to prosperity. Colleges will specialize where they have comparative advantage, rather than trying to be all things to all people. A lot of silly, too-expensive things—vainglorious building projects, money-sucking sports programs, tenured professors who contribute little in the way of teaching or research—will fade from memory, and won’t be missed.

But other parts of those institutions will be threatened too—vital parts that support local communities and legitimate scholarship, that make the world a more enlightened, richer place to live. Just as the world needs the foreign bureaus that newspapers are rapidly shutting down, it needs quirky small university presses, Mughal textile historians, and people who are paid to think deep, economically unproductive thoughts. Rather than hiding within the conglomerate, each unbundled part of the university will have to find new ways to stand alone. There is an unstable, treacherous future ahead for institutions that have been comfortable for a long time. Like it or not, that’s the higher education world to come.

TWU Adjunct Orientation

Recently finished and posted the new TWU Adjunct Orientation wiki site. A team of folks worked on this for over a year, but with the development of the orientation as an online wiki, and using collaborative editing and user driven content, we can have a living and breathing orientation that actually gets used and updated by relevant readers and participants. Next step, to turn on the comment function. It's yet to be seen how soon we release the full wiki function and be brave about having user's actually edit the documents!

Commentary - The Need for Intregity, Collaboration, and Cooperation in the Management of Online Learning Systems

Members of the distance education community are no doubt shocked (and a little embarrassed) by the headlines from Brownsville, Texas in which student employees gained access to the University of Texas - Brownsville learning management system (in this case - Blackboard) to share confidential academic information with fellow students.  In other words - cheating! 

‘Gross academic fraud' at UTB-TSC rocked Office of Distance Education | online, utb, employees - Local - Brownsville Herald A two-month UTB-TSC police investigation found school employees in 2008 had committed "gross academic fraud" after student employees and regular staff used their positions to steal test answers, according to a UTB police report obtained by The Brownsville Herald.  The wrongdoing occurred within the Blackboard Learning System, an online service commonly used at universities. The system allows professors to post tests and course materials for students, teach entire courses online and keep online grade books. Blackboard generally serves to enrich the learning experience; however, former student employees of the school’s Office of Distance Education, the office that manages Blackboard, confessed to a police investigator that they had used the online system to access test answers to help themselves cheat, give the answers to other students, or even to sell.'

While one might be tempted to brush this off with a casual "that could happen to any school", or "if students want to cheat, they'll find a way", I suggest this story provides several object lessons for distance education professionals.

Example 1: It's always hard to find out things the hard way!  In other words, sometimes the only way to figure out you need a better policy or procedure is to have something go wrong.  So while we might be tempted to disparage the folks at UTB, it's pretty clear that they made a mistake and quickly corrected it.

'After weighing the available options, we felt that it was ultimately an academic issue and handling it that way served the university’s educational mission," said UTB attorney Michael Blanchard.  Juliet V. Garcia, the school’s president, when asked why the administration decided to treat the issue as a case of student misconduct rather than pressing criminal charges, responded in a written statement. "After the police investigation and after careful deliberation, we handled the issue under our established procedures for addressing academic misconduct," Garcia wrote.'

Example 2: If it smells like a skunk in the room, you should get out the skunk trap instead of holding you nose.  I suspect the folks at UTB wish they had taken the 'rumors of students misusing the Blackboard system' more seriously.  A general thou-shalt-not-cheat admonition is clearly not enough.

'Distance Education employees said they had heard rumors of students misusing the Blackboard system, and even discovered signs that cheating was occurring, but that they were unsure of how to safeguard against it.  While the school had rules in place — most obviously "no cheating" — university officials admitted there had been a lack of controls to limit access to administrative privileges.'

Example 3: Policies and best practices are essential (e.g. no password sharing, limited student access to systems).  A code of ethics for employees can go a long way toward setting higher expectations.  With the vast expansion of online systems in education, a number of employees will, and should have access to information about students, faculty and staff.  It's how they use it and the code of ethics surrounding that use which become critical. Nothing wrong with employees managing systems.  Lots wrong with employee abuse of systems they manage.  The old Ronald Reagan phrase comes to mind - 'trust, but verify'. 

"As far as we know, no professors’ pins or usernames were compromised," Blanchard said. But Blanchard said that just because information is confidential, it does not mean no employee should have access to it. " ... Appropriate employees on campus have access to confidential information. If we learn our trust has been breached, we take appropriate action."

I wonder aloud how many other schools are treading on thin ice by not looking at these issues in more detail.  Thankfully, we have a pretty tight security protocol at our institution but there are always areas for improvement.  This example of system abuse should remind us all how important a culture of ethics and responsibility can be.

Innovator's Dilemma and the Diffusion of Innovation

The End in Mind » Deja Vu All Over Again – Blackboard Still Stuck in the Innovator’s Dilemma (Jon Mott's excellent and insightful observations about Blackboard and the status of LMS/CMS products is well worth reading.  I've given a taste of his insight below, but I encourage you to read the entire blog post for it's depth and coherence.

Blackboard can still play a leading role in education. But it needs to think more about end-users and about non-consumers, not just about the universtity administrators who purchase and implement their products. That’s an admittedly tall order for a publicly-traded corporation to take on. But, as Christensen argues, they have to figure out a way to do so if they’re to remain relevant. That’s precisely the innovator’s dilemma.


My comments in response to Jon's excellent article:
Jon, I know your political science background will help you appreciate another relevant concept - the diffusion of innovation.  So, not only do the folks at Bb have an innovator's dilemma, there is the whole question of from whence innovation arises and how is spreads.  The s-curve of how innovation spreads might lead us to flip your model on it's head by suggesting that the innovators are faculty and students, the early adopters are colleagues and peers of the innovators.  I would suggest that, in Bb's defense, their institutional position requires them to be at the opposite end of the innovation curve.  In other words, they are likely to be "laggards" (not my word, but used in the innovation literature).  Conclusion: we expect innovation from Bb but in reality that's not a role they can play. 

Twitter Search in Plain English - Common Craft - Our Product is Explanation

From the folks at Common Craft - more cool stuff for simple brains like mine.

Twitter Search in Plain English - Common Craft - Our Product is Explanation

This video uses a metaphor of “Twitterville” to illustrate the opportunities to use the Twitter Search feature to find people and information, read news and discover emerging information.

Future of education lies online

Very insightful commentary from Matt Culbertson at ASU. Here are some excerpts...

Future of education lies online | ASU Web Devil - ASU's Online News Source

The role of the information gatekeeper isn’t what it used to be. There’s a diminished role of authority regulating the flow of information and decided what content passes forward —and anyone can be a mass-communicating producer and consumer of content.

Every industry and institution that functions as an information provider is facing more competition than ever before.

In some ways, the same forces driving newspapers and more isolated cases of traditional media bankrupt threaten the university model.

An April commentary article in the Chronicle of Higher Education pointed out that universities have a weakness with large, low-level undergraduate classes. An increasing number of online classes from for-profit groups threatens that revenue source.

The author cited the regulatory wall of college accreditation to bar competition, but private sector competition to the university environment is on a growth trend — more students than ever take classes with for-profit institutions like Kaplan University and the University of Phoenix.

A 2008 study by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation found that 22 percent of American college students took at least one online class in the fall 2007 semester.

But universities should be wary of the Internet’s tendency to kill business models — newspapers, recording labels and soon maybe the rest of traditional media demonstrate that lesson.


Shared via AddThis

The End in Mind » I’ve Seen the Future and the Future is Us (Using Google)

The End in Mind » I’ve Seen the Future and the Future is Us (Using Google)
From Jon Mott at BYU, a discussion of the new search and semantic web tools put well into context. Of particular note:

As we adopt and adapt tools like Twitter and Google Wave to our purposes as learning technologists, we have to change the way we think about managing facilitating learning conversations. We can no longer be satisfied with creating easy to manage course websites that live inside moated castles. We have to open up the learning process and experience to leverage the vastness of the data available to us and the power of the crowd, all the while remembering that learning is fundamentally about individuals conversing with each other about the meaning and value of the data they encounter and create. Technologies like Google Wave are important, not in and of themselves, but precisely because they force us to remember this reality and realign our priorities and processes to match it.

Inside Higher Ed - Impact of Adjuncts...an interesting article

offtrack / 27 - Inside Higher Ed
Some fascinating observations about adjunct instruction and the implications.

"Like the rest of higher education, elite universities have grown increasingly reliant on non-tenure-track faculty members. Leaders of those institutions are frequently unaware of the role played by adjuncts or how they have come to make up a larger share of the teaching force. The causes for this shift -- while related to money -- go far beyond the savings from hiring off the tenure track, and the blame may need to be shared by senior professors and graduate student unions. At the most celebrated institutions of higher education in the United States, the teaching quality of the adjuncts is many times better than that of those on the tenure tack."

While the rationales vary, the authors stress that they found that most universities never considered the direction their hiring was headed at senior levels. Such trends don't get attention from boards of trustees or senior administrators. And while boards and senior officials may exercise tight control over certain relevant issues -- such as the creation of new tenure-track slots -- at leading universities, much more autonomy is given on other issues.

On the issue of cost, the authors wrote that the impact is most apparent not in the creation of adjunct positions, which usually isn't done to save money. Cost is a factor in moving away from adjuncts, they write. Whatever rationale has been given for the creation of the slot off the tenure-track, officials see a high cost to either converting the slot to one on the tenure track or eliminating the job, they write.

Another challenge that the authors say the use of adjuncts create for elite universities is an uncomfortable reality: those off the tenure track -- with lesser working conditions and less money -- are frequently better teachers."

This summary doesn't do justice to what the book must contain, so I'll be getting a copy and reading the whole text soon.


Shared via AddThis

Change Magazine - Breaking Higher Education's Iron Triangle: Access, Cost, and Quality

Change Magazine - Breaking Higher Education's Iron Triangle: Access, Cost, and Quality

Posted using ShareThis

Thoughts on BB and Angel acquisition

More from Jon Mott at BYU...The End in Mind » A Post-LMS Manifesto

"While LMS providers are making laudable efforts to incrementally make their tools more social, open, modular, and interoperable, they remain embedded in the classroom paradigm. The paradigm—not the technology—is the problem. We need to build, bootstrap, cobble together, implement, support, and leverage something that is much more open and loosely structured such that learners can connect with other learners (sometimes called teachers) and content as they engage in the authentic behaviors, activities and work of learning.

Building a better, more feature-rich LMS won’t close the 2-sigma gap. We need to utilize technology to better connect people, content, and learning communities to facilitate authentic, personal, individualized learning."

---

My two cents:  There is no doubt the landscape in technology, LMS and all related tools will continue to move.  That's why our focus needs to be on philosophy and goals (e.g. learner centered, personal learning networks, or whatever) first and foremost.  Who's to say that Blackboard won't next be bought by Microsoft or Sun or _____?  Vendor dependence vs. vendor relationship management presents interesting challenges but not new challenges.  This latest purchase of one company by another is not earthshattering in the sense of a new paradigm.  It simply should remind us all of the folly in placing institutional outcomes in the hands of vendors whose goals, performance, and incentives are not aligned with that of my institution.  Nor should they be.  What are the two phrases we all learned in economics class - "buyer beware - caveat emptor, and "there are no free lunches".  Good time to remember it.

More from Insider Higher Ed article about teaching online

This article is good enough that it gets two posts from me!

Career Advice: Take a Walk on the Wired Side - Inside Higher Ed

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that online teaching is easy once you get your course “set.” First of all, it will take you awhile to master the vicissitudes of whatever Web-based program your school uses. I’ve used four now and their logics are about as interchangeable as AC adaptors. Second, expect to spend more time preparing for an online course. You can’t “massage” anything online; every word you post must be clear, every assignment must be self-explanatory, and each learning module must be 100 percent self-contained. You don’t have the luxury of the routine self-adjustments that you can do in the classroom. You will also spend more time doing gate-keeping tasks such as checking to see who hasn’t logged in for awhile, contacting wayward students, and redirecting discussions. In addition you’ll burn more hours grading as students won’t be around to discuss their evaluations; hence your written feedback will be more extensive.

If you decide to give online teaching a try, here are some suggestions:

* Discuss pay upfront.
* Own what you post.
* Be careful of copyright law.
* Make sure your assignments are doable.
* Don’t plan on synchronous learning.
* Limit text-heavy lectures.
* Be very active in discussion.
* Set guidelines on posting.
* Have a plan to deal with inappropriate postings.

News: 'Show Me the Money' - Inside Higher Ed

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/11/enroll

Career Advice: Take a Walk on the Wired Side - Inside Higher Ed

Rob Weir gives a good summary of teaching online. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do believe he gets most of it absolutely right. I encourage you to read the full article in Inside Higher Ed (May 11, 2009) but here are some nuggets:

Career Advice: Take a Walk on the Wired Side - Inside Higher Ed:

"There are several seemingly counterintuitive experiences I’ve had with online courses. In summary:

-Older students generally perform better than younger ones.
-The range of achievement is much narrower.
-Online courses work best when they mirror live classes.
-Discussion is generally more robust online.
-An online course definitely will not run itself"

Western Governors University To Launch Nation's First Competency-Based B.S. In Nursing Leading To RN Licensure

Western Governors University To Launch Nation's First Competency-Based B.S. In Nursing Leading To RN Licensure:

If this were math class, the problem would be stated something like this:
Number of nurses needed minus number of nurses available equals shortage of nurses.
NN - NA = NS

"Last year, more than 50,000 applicants to nursing schools were turned away, despite a nationwide shortage of registered nurses. To address this crisis in U.S. healthcare, Western Governors University, has joined with state workforce agencies as well as healthcare institutions to develop the first national, accredited, online competency-based bachelor's degree program aimed at preparing students for initial licensure as registered nurses."

A Student's Thoughts on Distance Learning

Internet has the possibility of cutting out lecture-based classes altogether. This student at UK describes an increasingly popular scenario and does so in a way that make some sense. He questions the large-lecture, location based courses that so many institutions still deliver. He's missing one critical piece, though - that delivery of content via technology is great but there still must be interaction and assessment. He's gone in the right direction and all we need to do is follow up by enhancing the learning experience.

YouTube Edu Launches - Digits - WSJ

YouTube Edu Launches - Digits - WSJ

Wondering aloud whether YouTube edu competes with Teacher Tube and all that. Not sure it matters (from a faculty standpoint) where content can be stored, but it probably matters a lot (from a student standpoint) where content can be obtained and how easily it can be found. Of course specific media used to supplement particular classes is generally linked directly in CMS or LMS systems and often authenticated. Not sure the YouTube approach has too much to do with that kind of delivery.

On the subject: Eportfolios

It's pretty clear that the only controversy surrounding electronic portfolios is how to spell it. Suffering from the same ills as all the other "e" words in modern language, e-portolios or eportfolios, hold great promise. Randy Bass and Brett Eynon offer four compelling arguments and conclude:

Wired Campus: Electronic Portfolios: a Path to the Future of Learning -
Chronicle.com: "In the past five years, according to the Campus Computing
Project, the percentage of U.S. colleges and universities using ePortfolios has
more than tripled. It is possible that 10 years from now we will no longer even
be discussing these collections as if they were a special practice; they might
be a pervasive and transparent part of the learning environment. At the moment,
ePortfolios represent perhaps the most promising strategy for responding to
calls for accountability and at the same time nurturing a culture of
experimentation with new forms of learning"

To lecture, or not to lecture...that is the question

These Lectures Are Gone in 60 Seconds - Chronicle.com

Take a 60-minute lecture. Cut the excess verbiage, do away with most of the details, and pare it down to key concepts and themes.

What's left? A "microlecture" over in as few as 60 seconds. A course designer for San Juan College, a community college in Farmington, N.M., says that in online education, such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.

Skeptics, however, argue that lectures involving sustained arguments, such as literary analyses or explanations of complex equations, cannot be boiled down in this way.

HOW TO CREATE A ONE-MINUTE LECTURE

Professors spend a lot of time crafting hourlong lectures. The prospect of boiling them down to 60 seconds — or even five minutes — may seem daunting. David Penrose, a course designer for SunGard Higher Education who developed San Juan College's microlectures, suggests that it can be done in five steps:

1. List the key concepts you are trying to convey in the 60-minute lecture. That series of phrases will form the core of your microlecture.

2. Write a 15 to 30-second introduction and conclusion. They will provide context for your key concepts.

3. Record these three elements using a microphone and Web camera. (The college information-technology department can provide advice and facilities.) If you want to produce an audio-only lecture, no Webcam is necessary. The finished product should be 60 seconds to three minutes long.

4. Design an assignment to follow the lecture that will direct students to readings or activities that allow them to explore the key concepts. Combined with a written assignment, that should allow students to learn the material.

5. Upload the video and assignment to your course-management software.

 

---

http://chronicle.com
Section: Information Technology
Volume 55, Issue 26, Page A13

Mike: Let me be not the first to suggest that this is not an either/or proposition.  Surely there is value in these chunked, modular pieces of content - particularly when they are supplemental and not primary learning materials.  You might have a different view, but for the online learner a talking head in the box does have limits just as for the lecture hall student the podium speaker has limits.  Mix, match, engage, supplement to meet the students where they will meet you.

Taking Back Your Time

Michael Dolan shares this great example email from a supervisor to his employees in a busy office environment.  It's worth a look for all of us in the always online, always urgent, always available, and always email world in which we live, work, and play.  As Dolan says, it may not be the exact language I would use, but the overall idea is pretty solid.  I think this applies to everyone from the busy executive to the harried homemaker.  I also recognize that not everyone can dictate the world around them like the boss in this example.  However, some of the concepts apply in any situation, in smaller doses.

Time the Great Normalizer

As many of you know, I am a big fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done. If you find yourself overwhelmed with "stuff" and are having a hard time balancing it all, his book is a great place to start. David also offers one-day courses throughout the year, often in Chicago, that are really good. Many of our group leaders took his course last year.

One of the big tenets in his system is the idea of processing. The reality is we have less work than we think, but because we don't take the time to process information effectively, to organize our work into contexts and build a system (focused on actions) to address it, the work quickly becomes overwhelming.

I, as I'm sure many of you, can very much attest to this. As roles have changed and the firm has grown, I found my schedule quickly overwhelming me late last year. A schedule, like a meeting, will fill up the time allotted. I've found that if I don't block out time to work on the important stuff, not to meet, I spend my days in meetings that are often more urgent than important. The ironic thing is if I had more time to work, I actually could meet less as I could spend that time on helping solve the problems discussed in all these meetings.

I'm really excited about where we are going and can't wait to work with you on big problems, but to do this I first need to set some bounds on my schedule in 2009. I want feedback on this, so please let me know if you have any thoughts on how I could improve this (or if you have any concerns). With that in mind, going forward this year, here is how I'd like to operate - at least for now:

* Open Office Hours:
Tuesday: 2-4:30pm
Thursday: 2-4:30pm
Friday mornings: optional

Please use this time to come by and chat with or without an agenda. You can schedule time with Angie directly or just stop in. I am dedicating this time just to meeting with people, I will not be on a call, working on anything else, or distracted. Seriously, please use this time, scheduled or unscheduled, for serious stuff or not-so-serious stuff - just come by. The flip to this is that, going forward, outside of these times please do not stop in and sit down, especially when the door is closed. If you need an answer to a problem, and it's not an emergency, please come by only during these office hours (again, scheduled or unscheduled). Please see below for the process for addressing urgent matters.

* Meeting Requests: In addition to the open office hours above, I have blocks of time set up on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for meetings to be scheduled. We'll use these slots for monthly group leader meetings, reviews, or whatever else comes up. To get on the schedule, please email Angie directly (if your email goes to me and not to Angie, assume that I will not see it and thus will not be able to meet). Also, please give Angie an agenda and an estimated duration for the meeting. The default time for a meeting will be 30 minutes instead of the typical 60 minutes. If you send an Outlook meeting request, by default this is not accepted and needs to be confirmed. Assume if the meeting is not confirmed it is not scheduled.

* Leadership Meetings: Also, so everyone knows, I spend Thursday mornings in firm leadership meetings where Chuck, Brian, Aaron, Tad, Jeff, and I get in sync for the week and make any necessary operating decisions. My Friday mornings are dedicated to MM leadership meetings with a similar agenda.

* Flexibility: With this said, any system we use to manage time has to be flexible. These rules are not written in stone, but if they must be broken, there should be a good reason. I would define this as the need to discuss the immediate termination of an employee or another personnel issue of similar severity; a trading, risk, or expense decision regarding an amount greater than $50K that needs an immediate response (i.e., it can't wait the 48 hours until the next office hours); and other similar situations. If you need to talk to me about one of these urgent scenarios but can't find me, your best bet is to email Angie and cc me. In a true emergency, call my cell.

* Emails: When emailing, assume that I will read email within 24 hours. I typically check it in the morning and late at night. Assume also that if it is actionable, it may take a couple more days for me to get back to you. Email is another thing that expands to fill the time allotted, and if I leave it open all day, I can spend all day replying to it. I have large blocks of time on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to "get to zero," a David Allen idea. So twice a week, my inbox is actually empty, which is quite an incredible feeling as an inbox with 1,253 emails represents a long list of tiny (or not-so-tiny) commitments that weighs on you every time you look at it (consciously or unconsciously). If something does come up and you need assistance in less than 24 hours, please notify Angie.

* My Travel: In terms of travel plans, I have a fairly busy schedule this year. I will be in New York often, as well as a couple other cities for conferences. I plan on visiting London again later in the year as we get things going there and have a few other trips planned as well (for example, hopefully, China in the fall to learn about Asian markets). My travel schedule is typically set 2-3 months in advance; in fact, many of the dates for 2009 are already scheduled. If we need to get large blocks of time on the schedule, please let me know as soon as possible so we can integrate these times with my travel schedule. I will not make up office hours or other routine meetings that I miss while traveling.

Overall, my goal is to spend focused time with our teams to work on the big problems and less time in meetings this year. I can make this happen but will need help from all of you. I believe that with a firmer schedule, I'll be able to work more effectively on the problems that matter.

So, to recap, here are the basics of my weekly, non-travel, schedule:

Tuesday:
Scheduled meetings (appointment, agenda, estimated duration required)
Open office hours 2-4:30 pm (no appointment necessary)

Wednesday:
Scheduled meetings (appointment, agenda, estimated duration required)

Thursday:
Morning - firm leadership meeting
Scheduled meetings (appointment, agenda, estimated duration required)
Open office hours 2-4:30 pm (no appointment necessary)

Friday:
Morning - MM leadership meeting
Morning - optional open office hours

Thanks for your understanding, and I welcome feedback from everyone.

The Big Picture - what we need to do

As usual, I could not say it any better than Jon Mott, who posted this excellent commentary in his blog.

The End in Mind » The Case for Strategic IT Leadership

Lev Gonick, a friend and the CIO of Case Western, is the author of a piece in that appeared today in the Chronicle of Higher Ed today about IT leadership at colleges and universities. It’s a thoughtful, provocative piece which, coupled with a previous piece about leadership in the “wiki-way,” provides an excellent set of principles and directions for university IT leaders.

IT leaders must play an increasingly strategic–and not simply a tactical–role at colleges and universities. Accordingly, I agree with Lev’s assertion that IT leaders deserve a central, strategic role in presidential cabinets at colleges and universities. However, you have to have the right kinds of people (people like Lev) in these positions if that is what you expect of them. The day is past that we can consider IT merely a “support function” of the university. If we think of it as simply auxiliary, we will miss significant opportunities to transform (for the better!) our practices through strategic (not simply tactical) IT initiatives.

I would however, make one addition to Lev’s list of strategic directions for IT, and I’d put it at the top of the list. CIO’s should take an active role in working with the academic community to create a more a flexible, open, integrated toolset to support authentic teaching & learning activities. Our current tools help us manage courses and grades, but we can and must do much more than that to meet the challenges of educating the rising generation.

It is not enough to provide faculty & students with tools to manage the activities that occur inside semester-long courses. That might have been sufficient 5-10 years ago, but it is not today. Today, we need tools that allow students to build relationships with each other, with their teachers and with the content they access. Just as importantly, we need to support students’ creation of new content in the learning process and the discourse around that content. And we need to proactively build bridges between the tools we build, license and provide and the larger, often more dynamic online world in which our students live. CIO’s, IT personnel, and academic technologists must be critical players in the conception, creation, and implementation of tools that support such activities. Otherwise, we’re likely to see repeats past failed technology implementations that were tactically sound but that missed the mark because they were not strategically aligned with the mission of institution.

Generations Online in 2009 - Pew Foundation

Pew Internet: Generations Online in 2009
More fascinating data from the folks at Pew.  Good information for thinking about who is accessing the internet and why.  Categories are beginning to break down and generational gaps, while still present, seem to be less important in the online world.  One particular gap widens - the use of email - the younger you are, the less email you use.  Organizations, take note!

Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008.

Student Teaching Online, Well, Online

UCF Newsroom

"The University of Central Florida and Florida Virtual School made history today when they announced a groundbreaking program that promises to enrich student education.

For the first time, college students will train to become educators by interning with teachers at the Florida Virtual School (FLVS). In the 2007-2008 school year, the virtual school served more than 63,000 students in grades six through 12, harnessing the power of the Internet.

Six UCF education majors will be immersed in the virtual school environment and gain experience teaching online. During the internship, they will work closely with FLVS teachers, providing direct instruction via webinars and meeting with middle- or high-school students and their families via conference calls. The interns also will interact with other online teachers and teaching teams at FLVS and grade student work.

Comparing Synchronous Technology

This is a very nice summary of the use of tools in online education.  Hrastinski summarizes the pros and cons well.

Asynchronous and Synchronous E-Learning (EDUCAUSE Quarterly) | EDUCAUSE
CONNECT  EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4 (October–December 2008)

When, Why, and How to Use Asynchronous vs. Synchronous E-Learning
	Asynchronous E-Learning	Synchronous E-Learning
When?	Reflecting on complex issues n When synchronous meetings cannot be scheduled because of work, family, and other commitments	Discussing less complex issues Getting acquainted Planning tasks
Why?	Students have more time to reflect because the sender does not expect an immediate answer.	Students become more committed and motivated because a quick response is expected.
How?	Use asynchronous means such as e-mail, discussion boards, and blogs.	Use synchronous means such as videoconferencing, instant messaging and chat, and complement with face-to-face meetings.
Examples	Students expected to reflect individually on course topics may be asked to maintain a blog. Students expected to share reflections regarding course topics and critically assess their peers’ ideas may be asked to participate in online discussions on a discussion board.	Students expected to work in groups may be advised to use instant messaging as support for getting to know each other, exchanging ideas, and planning tasks. A teacher who wants to present concepts from the literature in a simplified way might give an online lecture by videoconferencing.