Have a Wonderful Holiday!

Hi Everyone

I hope that you all have a wonderful break over the next couple of weeks. I'm in Calgary tomorrow to pick up our youngest daughter from the airport, so I won't be in for the rest of the week. I will be checking email consistently over the next couple of days if you need anything.

It's been quite a year! Many of us are working this week on completing projects, which feels quite wonderful. The bigger projects include Hubbard, China, eCampus (OCDF4), and Learning Connections. Other projects are just beginning, which also feels good. And there may be some big things shaking when the DL Strategy is completed and communicated in early January. This is also very exciting as it will likely impact - in very positive ways - many of the things we do.

In early January, I'll be putting together a brief report that describes all the work we've done, so watch for that. I think we need to do a better job of showing off all the good things we do . . . another thing to work on in the new year!

And welcome to Ian, Diana, and Stacey. We're thrilled to have you join our team!!

Thanks to everyone for your contribution to all the work we've done. The team focus has enabled us to be responsive to diverse academic needs on campus, and we've experienced growth in many areas. You are making a difference!

Enjoy every minute of the next couple of weeks. Enjoy your families and your friends - and take the time to play and to laugh - lots!!

Safe travels!! See you in January!

Karen

Here are the results from the EET Mantra survey. The first choice is "Empower, Create, Educate".

The writing is very small on the visual, so I'll send it to you separately as well.

Thanks to everyone for your input on this. We'll talk more about what's next in the new year!

Karen

Ecampus Submissions

Today we submitted three proposals to eCampus for course development projects in the following programs:

- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Education (FASD)
- Electrician Alternate / Blended Delivery
- Therapeutic Recreations - Gerontology (TRG)

eCampus is reviewing the proposals in mid-January, and we'll know soon after that . . .

Strengths Inventory

Over the past year I think almost all of us have completed the Strengths Inventory. At the Chair Academy in October I had an opportunity to realize the potential of these inventories. One of the things I learned is that it can be an extremely valuable tool for helping us work more effectively with others. It's about understanding our own strengths, respecting others' strengths, and using this awareness to communicate and work more effectively in a team environment.

To get us started on developing a better awareness of our strengths, sometime this week, would you please go into the Inventory Spreadsheet (link below) and add your 5 strength areas simply by coloring in the appropriate box.

If you don't have the Strengths book, just let me know and we'll get you one.

I'll be following up on this with some printed material for you to read, and we'll be discussing this again at our next EET meeting in January.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AldhQrmOOc6VdEtUYzFYcXR5enAtNTQwVVp3cEl4OUE&hl=en

Thanks for your help with this. There's lots to learn . . .

Karen

EET Updates - December 7

Lots going on . . .

Budget (from Townhall on November 27)
- Can watch the recording if you weren't at the session
-Typically provincial grant is +6%; possile ths year it will be -5%
-Won't know for sure until February or March
-Many "what if's" being asked
-Three drivers: Oil, Natural Gas, and Exchange Rate
- Don't see improvement or next 2 years
- Implications?

Curriculum Support - Sue, Debbie, and Julie

PD, Awards, and Conference - Debbie and Julie

New Projects:
- NATOA - National Aoriginal Trust Officer's Association (currently in development) and one more coming our way
- ESL / Nursing Pathways - series of 4 courses
- eCampusAlberta Student Stupport Site - with Learning Cafe
- First Nations Metis Inuit (FNMI) - 3 courses / instructor resource materials

Existing Projects
- China - currently completing semester 4 of 4. Tight timelines!
- Angel Implementation - Celebration on December 18 - all production staff invited
- Angel Support - 1 on 1 sessions last week - 37 instructors
- eCampus

• OCDF - 4 / 2009 - almost complete
• OCDF - 5 / 2010 - submissions due Friday, December 11 (FASD, Electrician, and TRG)

- Internally funded course development projects
- Learning COnnections website - almost ready to go public
- Hubbard Virtual Wilflife - will be finished by December 24
- Police Recruit Training

Other
- MM Practicum student interviews this week
- Video Conferencing and Desktop / web conferencing
- Marketing initiatives
- MFD Committee - changing . . .
- DL Stragegy
- Third Floor Tech needs
- Leave a Legacy
- Copyright website
- EET website
- Instructional Design Community of Practice

Staffing Updates
- Project Position - working hard on this one
- New Instructional Designers

• Diana Quirk - Jackie's Mat Leave replacement
• Stacey Goldstein - to help with ESL / Nursing Pathways and FNMI projects

- DL Academic Support Position

• Ian Hepher: half time starting in January

An EET Mission Statement

Hi everyone

Let's spend some time at our EET meeting on December 7 working on a mission statement, or better yet, let's think of it as a mantra. Guy Kawasaki was one of the keynotes at the ADETA conference last spring, and he gave a similar presentation to this one on mission statements and mantras:

capture / 09 - Inside Higher Ed

capture / 09 - Inside Higher Ed

If profs capture their lectures, will students still come to class? This article says that if a professor is an engaging lecturer, students will come to class, regardless of if they capture their lectures or not. Many professors are resistant to this technology. . . .

Here's the presentation from the production debrief on Friday, October 9th. This only highlights some of your discussion. You'll find a lot more in the notes!

Hi Everyone

We will be connecting to an online conference tomorrow and Thursday in TE3213. Sessions will be running most of both days, and you are invited to join in to any of the sessions. Some sessions will be of more interest than others, but consider coming to hear Curtis Bonk speak on his book, “The World is Open”. I’ve read about 3/4 of the book, and it’s very interesting (I’ll bring it tomorrow for anyone who wants to borrow it). He’s very knowledgeable about open source and learning. His keynote is from 11-12 on Thursday.

Here’s the link to the calendar that lists the session titles and times:

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=0op3349vjbp0d3quluatnknbhg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Edmonton

And here’s a link to more information about each sessions:
http://www.onlineteachingandlearning.com/program/

• Click on day 1 and day 2
• Remember that times are Eastern (so 2 hours ahead of us). The correct times are on the calendar link above.
  

Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested . . .

Karen

Quick Update from Leadership Advance

The Leadership Advance in Waterton this week focused on “Accountability: The Foundation for Building a Culture of Trust and Respect”. The following quote from the presentation should help to give you a sense of the discussions:

Characteristics of an Accountable Culture
- Clear vision and priorities for the organization
- Shared ownership for achieving them
- Conflicts are surfaced and resolved productively
- Effective performance execution: The qualities of cooperation, coordination, communication, decision making and actions necessary to achieve them
- Regular recognition
- Performance measurement

We spent time discussing the following questions, and ended the second day by developing action plans for each one:

1. How can we create an environment that fosters greater trust and respect with our internal stakeholders?
2. How can we create an environment that fosters greater collaboration at the College?
3. How can we provide greater leadership and more effective recognition to individuals and teams at the College?
4. How would we describe the organizational culture we desire at Lethbridge College?

The overall tone was positive, although there is a sense of “we have lots of work to do”. I’ll share the notes from the discussion when I receive them, likely at our next EET meeting.

Two ed tech conferences

Here are links to two conferences that would be worthwhile (based on the topics / streams listed).
The first is in Vancouver at the end of October, and the second is in Toronto next July. Both are very related to ed tech / elearning.

http://aace.org/conf/elearn/

http://aace.org/conf/edmedia/

I'm especially interested in the international conference next July. There is huge value in taking a team to conferences such as this . . .. something to think about.

Karen

Another project coming our way . . . NATOA

I've met a couple times with Sean Miles from the Business Training and Development Department. They have a new course development project they have asked for help with. It's for NATOA, which is the National Aboriginal Trust Officers Association. Lori Johnson will be the instructional designer on the project, and we'll also be assigning media specialists and a formatter sometime in the next couple of weeks.

This is a somewhat new adventure for us as we'll be hosting this course on Angel for an external company.

Presentations to the Board

We've been asked to make a presentation to the Board of Governors sometime after Christmas on the eCampus Alberta Funded Projects at LC (Learning Connections and the Learner Support Site) and the Hubbard Digitization Project. This is good incentive to get them finished!

The Learner Support site is primarily the responsibility of Learning Cafe staff, although some of our staff will be supporting the development. For now, this means primarily media specialists, but an instructional designer and formatter will also be involved.

Karen

Social Media on Youtube

Leanne sent this link to a Youtube video on Social Media our way . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

EET Staffing Update

We are in the process of hiring three new staff for EET:

1. We have a new AV technician starting on September 8. His primary role will be to support video conferencing. This will take some pressure off of other staff who have been trying to support video conferencing in addition to their other responsibilities. This is a 10 month project position.


2. We are interviewing for the new Manager of Instructional Technology position next week. Hopefully we will have someone in place by early to mid-September. As many of you already know, this position has moved to EET. The plan is to integrate this position with our already strong team.


3. We're also looking for an instructional designer to assist with eCampus course development and other new projects we have coming our way. Pam will be working mostly on the Police Recruit Training project through the fall.

I'll keep you updated on this!

I've let my blog go for a while during the summer, but I'm back on track. Here's a link to an article on Curtis Bonk's new book titled "The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education". I'll be passing the book around after I've read / skimmed through it. So far, very interesting!

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/25/bonk

Free online courses in the US

Interesting post on Obama's push for free online courses in the community colleges in the US:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/ccplan

Karen

The message I sent to Peter already re the Ed Tech position

FYI, here's the message I sent to Peter prior to our conversation this week. . . .

The Ed Tech position should be part of CTLI. Couple reasons for this:

• it’s closer to the work that’s going on across campus. This includes course development (both f2f and DL), faculty development, Applied Research, AV, etc.

• We have existing relationships across campus. We know that most of the work we do depends on the relationships we have with people / programs / centres across campus. This position would benefit from these connections / relationships.

• Many opportunities for applied research in ed tech are integrated into the work we do – we just haven’t had time to do it.

• The position would be closer to AV and the work they do, including video conferences, learning spaces, classroom support . . .

• Accountability to a team vs. out there working solo

Forget the “manager” or “director” designation. Make this position at the same level as a chair or a curriculum consultant. This is closer to the instructors, and again it’s easier to develop working relationships – and easier to know what’s really going on in the classrooms. Accountability to colleagues comes to mind again here.

If I remember right, originally you were looking for a visionary type person/ an idea guy. This is good, but visionaries have to have resources to draw from to make things happen. Visionary + Resources (the right people on the bus in the right seats, in particular) = things happen :). CTLI / EET has these resources.

The position needs to be filled with someone who has proven teaching experience at the college level and who can communicate effectively with and be respectful of instructors with all levels of ed tech abilities.

Your THoughts on the Ed Tech position

I talked to Peter Leclaire this week about the Ed Tech position (Dwayne’s previous position). He is supporting the move of this position into CTLI, and more specifically into EET somehow. Karen O and I will be meeting with him on June 30 to discuss this further. In the meantime, we have an opportunity to help determine the responsibilities this position would have – so we would appreciate your thoughts on this.



From an EET perspective, how could this position benefit EET and more specifically you in your position within EET?

What responsibilities should this person have?



Please think about this for now. When I’m back on the 29th I’ll be asking for your thoughts. If you’re off on the 29th, please send your thoughts via email or discuss with others in your areas.


Thanks – and have a good week.

Opportunities for grant$

We have two opportunities to apply for grants. They are small ($2000 to $3000), but I'm looking for ideas. Here's the criteria and the amounts:



G.L. Talbot Education Resource Fund
Supporting growth and development through partnerships with a diverse range of individuals, service organizations, businesses and LCC employees. This fund will support a broad range of applications as approved by the President including: library resources, professional currency of College staff, general college educational resources, capital equipment and special event funding.



Industrial Technology Fund
Supporting education and professional development through initiatives such as: industry/education exchanges, technological transfer through educational program development and delivery, applied research and development, international exchange, and purchase of specialized equipment.

Anything in mind we should apply for?

Karen

New Possible Projects Coming Our Way . . .

Last week EET was approached to help with several "possible" projects. The first two discussed here are in the preliminary stages so they are not confirmed:

1. Peter Leclaire (through Terri, his executive asst) asked us if it would be possible to do panorama presentations of the Trades building. Tyler helped explain what would be possible. I'm not sure if this will move forward or not. It would likely be a short timeline and we would need extra resources, if it's approved.

2. There is a conversation happening between the College and Agriculture Canada to do an applied research project related to the beef industry. This project would be similar to the Living Home site. Nor confirmed - initial discussions only.

3. This one is confirmed. The College has received extra funding to develop two resouces: "a dynamic website accessible to all post-secondary students in the eCampusAlberta courses . . . focus on Academic Skills resources in the areas of writing, mathematics, sciences, and computers as well as Study Skills resources. Project start date is October, so we'll be putting the team together in September.

Update on Many EET Activities . . .

Good morning everyone

Here's the update I posted on the MFD site this morning. Thought you might be interested . . . it's very long . . . .

Angel Transition:

• Overall, the transition from WebCT to Angel is on schedule and the feedback from instructors has been very positive so far.

• The May Angel Pilot is up and running. We are offering a total of 12 courses in Angel (7 on-campus and 5 DL courses). Some of these courses end in May, and some run until the end of August. The 12 instructors facilitating these courses have stepped up to become comfortable in Angel. EET staff are monitoring the pilot courses to ensure everything is working. A survey is being developed for the students in the pilot as well.

• We had focus groups of instructors and students in to give us feedback on the Angel configuration. The implementation team also discussed the possibilities with Angel staff, before settling on a configuration to use for the Pilot.

• The Angel orientation / training sessions also started last week. We did two preliminary sessions first with the Angel pilot instructors and then with the Angel Champions, and now we are into the daily sessions that will run the first three weeks in May. As of May 13, a total of 91 instructors have attended the face-to-face training, and 160 instructors are signed up to take the online self-paced instructor course. We’re in the process of writing a survey to gather feedback on these sessions.

• When instructors sign up for the online self-paced course, they are also given access to a training course where they can design / build a course in Angel. This has worked very well. Instructors can also request additional shells so they could potentially prepare for all the courses they are teaching in the fall. They have to be aware, however, that they will have to backup and restore this content from their training shells to their “real” fall Angel shells in preparation for fall.

• If you haven’t attended an Angel orientation session yet, or applied for access to the online self-paced instructor course, please do very soon. Because faculty are scheduled to come on campus later this year (end of August), there won’t be much time for additional training before classes start.

• We’re still waiting for the Datatel synchronization to be completed. This is the only factor we can foresee that could stall the complete transition for fall.

• Our WebCT license expires the end of August. This has BIG implications for instructors who have content stored in WebCT from previous semester. We’ll be communicating this to faculty many times over the next weeks and months reminding them that they have to ensure they have transitioned their content to Angel. This will come out in the form of Angel Updates.

• Instructors and students will access Angel through www.lconline.ca, and not through the portal as we did with WebCT. Students and instructors will also have access to 24/ 7 support.

• We’re working with Web Services to ensure a link to Angel is provided on the LC home page in August. Web Services is also searching the website to identify anywhere that “WebCT” is used.

• Angel Community of Practice: To provide an environment where we can continue to learn about Angel and share what we’re learning, we are planning to host an Angel Community of Practice in weekly sessions throughout the year. More info on this will be announced in May with a projected September start.

• FAQ’s: We’re working on a list of FAQ’s and answers that will be posted on the learn.lethbridgecollege.net site.

• The implementation team is spending a lot of time searching for answers to questions and exploring new opportunities in Angel. Lots to learn!


Audio Visual
The AV staff have been very busy supporting the many functions that are scheduled on campus in the spring. This includes convocation, symposium, conferences, video-conferences, and other often urgent and sometimes unscheduled events. They are also busy with video production as well as maintaining and replacing projectors in various areas across campus.

DL
We will be starting a variety of new DL course development projects in May. These will be funded through both internal funds and eCampus Alberta Online Course Development Funds (OCDF). We are continuing to fine-tune our processes so we are better able to meet timelines and quality standards. Other priorities in DL:
• eCampus Demonstration Modules: We’ve been asked to provide sample modules to eCampus to post on their website. Their purpose will be to demonstrate online course content to potential students.
• DL instructor pay scale: A subcommittee of the DL Task Team has been working for over a year on changing the current DL pay scale. This is an urgent need because some experienced DL instructors are declining the DL positions because of the pay grid and the increased workload necessary to facilitate using the online environment.
• Course evaluations: We’re in the process of revising the DL course evaluation questions and method of collecting the information. The revised processes and questions will have to be approved at ALT.

Instructional Development
We currently have 71 course development projects in the works. This includes developing new courses as well as transitioning print based courses to the online environment. In addition to these 71 projects, this month we’ll be starting the 8 eCampusAlberta courses we received funding to develop. And then over the next 6 months we’ll be starting work on approximately 22 more courses that programs have identified as priorities.

Professional Development
Debbie Baggs and Julie Boras facilitated another Instructional Skills Workshop last week (May 4-8). ICP2 is currently running and is facilitated by Leanne Elias and Ian Hepher. A Facilitators Development Workshop (FDW) is planned for the last week in May.


Curriculum Development
Nine program or curriculum reviews are being completed before the end of this academic year: General Studies, Business, Culinary, Unit Clerk, Office Admin, Exercise Science, Massage Therapy, CUPP and CYC. Three more are in process: Interior Design, ECE, and PGM.


Blended Learning Project for 09
All instructors will be receiving information within the next week on the proposed Blended Learning Project for 09/10. We’re proposing to do 4 projects that will involve building a true blended course that will have podcasts, vodcasts, and mobile learning initiatives. Now we just need to find 4 instructors (or teams of instructors) willing to join us in this adventure!


Hubbard Digitization Project / Inukshuk Wireless Funded
This Hubbard Digitization project is on schedule. Projected completion date is November 1, 2009. Two instructors from Environmental Science, Shane Roersma and Eliot Terry, are working with two program graduates, Cameron Wood and Deanna McCormick, to prepare content for the site. Matt Smith, a media specialist from EET, has designed the website. The main task currently is to take the photos of the Hubbard collection specimens and prepare them to post on the site. Here’s a link to the first draft of the site: http://www.lcvirtualwildlife.ca/. Over the next few months we’ll be focusing on completing the content and on enhancing the learning opportunities through games, audio, and video.

China Course Development Projects
We are starting to develop the final five courses needed to be able to deliver the entire Business Admin Diploma in China. Students in China are now completing semester 2.

Follow up to Centre Retreat last Friday

Hi Everyone

I wanted to follow-up on a couple things that were discussed at the CTLI retreat on Friday.

1. PD Plans: Some of you have submitted your PD plans already, which is great. Some of you haven't. As you know, all AUPE and Excluded positions have to go through the required evaluation process before the end of June, so we'll be looking at these plans again then. I'm going to ask Karen if we can submit them to her after we've discussed them as part of the evaluation process. For now, please think about your strengths, what you've accomplished in the last year, and what you would like to accomplish next year. More on this later . . .

2. Strategic Initiatives: As Karen O explained, several of our initiatives were not approved at the Senior Academic Team (SAT) and / or Senior Leadership Team (SLT) levels:

• an AV technologist (with the primary role of supporting video conferencing)
• a Curriculum Consultant focusing on DL
• video conference units

The evergreening plan for projectors in the Instructional Building (IB) was approved.

What does this mean for us? Well, there is a small chance that something could happen with funding for these initiatives. As Karen pointed out, the right hand column on her presentation stated "no ongoing funds available. VP discussion for possible alternative solutions". I don't know what the chances are as we've had no further discussion on it.

So this means we need to be thinking about possible alternate solutions. We know these initiatives are badly needed in our department, and we also know that we can't be all things to all people.

To start, let's think about what our priorities are. What are the most important things that we do? Is it possible to reconfigure within our areas? If so, how? Are there things we can say no to? I'm sure that if we work together we will be able to come up with alternatives / solutions. Let's plan to have this conversation later in May when we have more information.

In the meantime, think about possible alternatives. We'll figure something out.

Karen

Ideas for Communities of Practice for 09 / 10

Hi Everyone

Attached is a link to a Google doc with some initial ideas for Communities of Practice for 09 / 10. Included is a new approach to the blended learning project, along with ideas related to Ed Tech, Angel, and Video Conferencing. The following link will take you to the document, but you'll have to sign in to add your comments. What do you think? Do we have the existing resources to do these things? Other ideas?

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgq5k8xz_17f969x5cr

Karen

Red Deer College is coming to visit EET!

On Monday, May 25, a team from the course development area at Red Deer College is coming to visit. They are very interested in learning more about our processes and staffing for course development projects. I'll know more soon, but I know they are bringing their learning designers and media specialists. They are also interested in the AV part of our team. More details later!

Karen

Angel Training Dates

Hi Everyone

I'll be posting an update in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here's a link to the PD Calendar. It includes all the dates for Angel Training in May.

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=0op3349vjbp0d3quluatnknbhg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/Edmonton

Karen

Congratulations Marina!

Congratulation to Marina Williston. Effective May 1, Marina will be moving into the full-time course development assistant position. She’s been working with us since August as the course development assistant in a project position. I’m thrilled that she’ll now be joining us in a full-time continuing capacity.

So when you have a minute, please congratulate Marina!

Few interesting DL stats

Hi Everyone

Did you know that our DL offerings currently include

- 85 print based DL courses (55.2%)
- 14 web enhanced courses (9.1%)
- 55 online courses (35.7%)
- 154 total DL courses (100%)

We're planning to complete our current projects on schedule, so by the end of 2009, it could very likely look like this:

- 56 print based (lower because many are transitioning to online delivery) (31.5%)
- 14 web enhanced courses (7.9%)
- 108 online courses (60.7%)
- 178 total DL courses (100%)

This does not include any of the new projects that have been approved for development in 2009.

Wow!! We've been busy - and we're going to busy for a while yet!!

Karen

EET Goes Curling!

Here are the curling pictures! Connie developed a slide show using Animoto. Thank Connie! Thanks also to Team 3 (Julie, Donna, Lyle, Matt, Elio, Shirley, and Jamie) for organizing this one for us. It was lots of fun!!

http://animoto.com/play/4FuNsuNJOeRzlI1dYXfqKA

It looks like Team 4 is next on the list for team events . . . Go Team 4 !!!


Karen

Next EET Meeting - Friday, March 20 at 8:30

We're a bit overdue for our next EET meeting. Let's plan for a Friday, 8:30 meeting on March 20! Agenda to follow . . .

Karen

Course Development Assistant Position

Well, it's official. Carla McNally has officially resigned from the College and is planning to stay close to her grandson in PEI. She will continue to work for us formatting on a contract basis, so this is a win-win for both her and for us!

Because this is a full-time, continuing position, we have to go through the advertise (internally only), interview, and hire process. The advertisement should go out within the next week.

Karen

Updates from CTLI . . . February 26 09

What does EET need from Physical Facilities? This includes chairs, furniture, painting, whatever . . . Let's get a list going. I've already sent a request for chairs for media specialists and formatters because they spend the most time at their computers.

Centre Retreat
May 1 - all day Centre retreat at the Galt Museum. 9 to 4

RFD's and Budget Process
By end of April we'll know which RFD's will be funded, and then it has to go to the Board of Governors meeting. CTLI submitted 8 RFD's. Four of these RFD's were from EET (DL Curriculum Consultant, AV Tech (Video Conference support) , VC units, Evergreening technology (projectors and Smartboards) for IB)

So far 350 strategies and 50 RFD's were submitted, but they are still waiting for 2 major Centres to submit.

HR Updates
Line Gagne is our contact. Lori McGinnis is the workflow contact.

In the AUPE contract, additional discretionary day for employees. This includes two days between Christmas and New Years. For this year, the additional discretionary day will be tacked onto holidays. If you don't use it by June 30, you will lose it, so you should use these days first. There will be a place to identify this on the leave request.

Convocation
Marshalls are needed for the convocations ceremonies (both morning and afternoon). April 21, 2009. If anybody is intersted in helping, please contact Cassandra ASAP. This person organizes the graduates, leads them in, and then escorts them to their seats.


Managing Generational Diversity Workshop - March 18. Registration by March 12. Registration is $100. Lethbridge Lodge. 8 to 4 approximately. Interested? Just let me know . . .

Karen

Make a live audience poll at Poll Everywhere

eCampus Funding Update

eCampusAlberta Course Development Fund (OCDF): It was announced on February 4 that we received funding to develop 8 additional courses in the Disability and Community Rehabilitation / Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Education (6 courses), and Special Needs Educational Assistant (2 courses). We submitted several other proposals, but they didn’t fit the Alberta Ed focus areas of health, science, technology, trades, and business.

DL Course Development (Internal LC Funding) – Decisions for internal funding are now waiting for feedback from Peter Leclaire.

When we have the information on the internal funding, we'll be able to determine which projects we will be tackling, in addition to the eCampus courses, in 2009.

Karen

Furniture and Space

You may have heard this yesterday, but Web Services is moving from IT to Advancement. This means that Mike, Ron, and Jonathan will now be part of Advancement. Mike told me they are trying to physically move them to the Advancement area as soon as possible. I'll keep you updated as this progresses.

And the furniture order has been finalized, and I believe it will be ordered this week. It typically takes about 6 weeks to come, so we're looking at March. Yahoo!!

Karen

Course Development Stats etc.

I've been working on a list of recommended course development projects for 2009 to present to the Deans and Peter Leclaire. As part of this process I updated the list of projects we are currently working on. The number of projects has more than tripled since 2005:


- 2005 - 29 projects (completed 27)

- 2006 - 28 projects (completed 25)

- 2007 - 43 projects (33 completed or in phase 3)

- 2008 - 105 projects (27 completed or in phase 3)
- 2009 - We've received requests for 70 more course development projects (No, we won't be doing all of them :)



And this doesn't include all the other work we're doing:

- Hubbard Digitization Project / Inukshuk Grant
- Video Conferencing and increasing demand for other AV services
- Blended Learning Project (currently 7 projects)
- WebCT support
- Angel Transition
- Distributed Learning Initiatives
- eCampusAlberta Faculty Development Fund: Learning Connections Website
- Professional Development activities (Instructional Skills Workshops, etc.)

We're busy! Good thing we have such a great team working on all these things!!

Karen

Strategic Planning Comments

I'm working on the strategic planning documents this morning. As part of that, I'm reviewing the Institutional Access Plan (otherwise known as the IAP) that all Colleges have to submit. This one is for 2009 to 2012. Here are the highlights that impact EET and that we need to focus on in our strategic planning:


- The challenge of declining enrollments will be met with strategies that support increased participation, enhanced retention, and promote learner success. One of the main reasons for the declining enrollment is the growth in the economy, and more specifically, the lucrative job market.


- A key strategy will be on providing flexible learning opportunities. "Our strategy is to increase access to educational opportunities through the development of more programs and courses in DL or blended delivery models. " In response to this, the performance indicator is to increase DL / Blended credits sold by 10% or 17 FLE's over the next two years. Another performance indicator in response to increasing community collaboration is to provide programming via video conference facilities.

EET is already supporting several programs approved for expansion in 2009 / 2010:

• Practical Nursing Expansion
• Wind Turbine Technician
• Business Admin - China
• Police Recruit Training

There are others that are scheduled for expansion that EET may become involved with:

• Bachelor of Technology in Envi Sci
• Collaborative degree in CYC with MacEwan
• EMR/EMT/Paramedic Programs
• Collaborative Degree in Design

Some interesting stats:

- The Lethbridge region transition from high school to post secondary is 56%, which is the 4th lowest in the province.

- Stats Canada is forecasting a population increase of 7% in the Lethbridge region, but a decrease of 2.2% in the traditional post-secondary sector.

EET is mentioned specifically in the "Resource Implications" section of the IAP:
"With the development of online course and blended delivery formats and their growing demand by learners, investments have been made in the EET. Although investment in the development of online courses is available through eCampusAlberta and with the College itself, the skilled staff required for the development of effective and high quality learning materials and courses is an institutional investment and not typically associated with present funding models."

Lots of food for thought - and now back to planning . . .

Karen

Copyright and Textbooks

Here's a link to an article in the Toronto Star on Copyright infringements. It's about copy shops that are allowing students to photocopy complete textbooks to avoid paying the high cost each semester. Interesting . . .

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/568628

Karen

Time Management and Meetings

Here are a couple interesting sites - one on time management and one on meetings. Sometime this semester I'll show you a video on meetings (mostly it illustrates ineffective ones) in an entertaining way.

http://www.effectivemeetings.com/meetingbasics/index.asp

http://www.time-management-guide.com/

Karen

EET Update / MFD Report

Well, here's the first post for 2009. Here is the brief report I sent off to the Multi-Faceted Delivery (MFD) Committee today (for our meeting on Monday).

EET Report for MFD
January 9, 2009

• Instructional Development

Semester start up with WebCT – smooooooooth, but busy!

New DL Initiatives with WebCT:
- Added 19 online courses to the inventory in January
- Currently have over 100 courses in some stage of development
- Adding a WebCT component to all DL print based courses

LMS Access schedule has been implemented. We’ve discovered a few programs that need additional access, and these are being dealt with on an individual basis.

eCampusAlberta Course Development Fund (OCDF): Proposals submitted in December will be reviewed on January 14, and decisions for the next round of funding will be announced on January 21.

DL Course Development (Internal LC Funding) – Programs with DL development requests have until Friday, January 9 to submit their DL plans identifying the courses that need to be developed in 2009. Decisions will be made in conjunction with the eCampusAlberta announcement.

Prep for LMS Transition: We’re still waiting for the official “GO” on this – contracts have been finalized (as of January 8), so we’ll be moving forward next week.

Inukshuk Project: This is the digitization of the Hubbard Collection. Team is almost complete, and work has started. Deadline for this is November 09.

China Project: We’re currently working with four instructors from Business on four courses in the third semester. We have courses from approximately 1+ semesters left to complete in this course development project.

Supporting course development for Windmill Technician, Police Recruit Training Program, Licensed Practical Nursing Program, Massage Therapy . . .

Project Management Tool – 5 pm: EET has adopted a new project management tool to help increase efficiencies in our production area.

Multimedia Production Practicum Students: We have five students joining our production team this semester and will be working on various projects in both course development and AV.

• Audio Visual

- Plans for more communication re how to schedule and run a VC
- AV staff will be ordering and installing 10 projectors in remaining classrooms and meeting rooms this semester.
- We need to develop an evergreening program for the projectors in IB. Two projectors in the lecture theatres are causing problems, and several projectors in the classrooms have quit and had to be replaced. We’ll be submitting an RFD later this month.

• Curriculum Development

Program Reviews currently underway in the following programs:
- Professional Golf Management
- Early Childhood Education
- Office Administration
- Child and Youth Care
- Interior Design
- Therapeutic Recreation Gerontology (possibly starting this mid semester)
- Instructional Certificate Program (likely started this year)

Program Reviews will be collecting/addressing:
* Course outlines for all delivery methods
* Range of delivery formats that are available for program courses
* Survey of instructional, assessment, and retention strategies
* Surveys/focus groups with Year 2 students, graduates, employers, faculty

• Professional Development

- Facilitated another ISW in December and a Survival Skills for New Instructors Workshop in early January.
- Watch for upcoming sessions that will focus on technology integration in the classroom (Smartboard training, Web 2.0 tools, etc.)

• MFD Conference – update next month . . .

• Other Conferences

March 11-13, 2009 Distributed Learning Symposium 2009: Embracing and Becoming Drivers of Change/Innovation, Alberta Distance Education and Training Association (ADETA). Hyatt Regency Hotel, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. http://www.adeta.org
- EET is planning to take a group to this one . . .

And if you’re interested in a very comprehensive list of Ed Tech conferences, here’s the link to Clayton Wright’s 2009 list.
http://edtechtalk.com/node/3472