I thought I'd give you an update on the other positions that we are in the process of filling.

1. Manager of Instructional Technology - We are interviewing tomorrow (Friday) and Monday for this position, so we're still hoping we will have someone in this position in January.

2. Course Development Assistant - We will be advertising for this position early next week with a projected start date of February 1. This is when Marina officially begins her next mat leave. I've tinkered with this position again to include more overall project management. If you know anyone who might be interested in this position, has the right skill set, and would be a good fit on our team, please tell them to check the website next week or early January.

3. Formatter - This is replacement position for Shirley as she retires. I don't think we need to advertise for the position as I have two resumes in already for this position. Again, if you know someone, please ask them to get their resume to me ASAP. We'd like to have this position filled in early January.

You all have networks of people. Please use them to help us find people who will both fit within our team and bring something to the table! Let me know . . .

I'll keep you updated as things progress.

New Curriculum Consultant in EET

We are happy to tell you that we have filled the Curriculum Consultant position that has been vacant since Nancy Russell moved to the Registrar's Office. Candace Lewko will be starting in this position on January 4, 2011.

Candace comes to us with a strong combination of experience and education. She is currently teaching at Lethbridge College in both the English Language Centre and in the School of Liberal Arts, and she has additional previous teaching experience in the K-12 system and in Japan. Candace also brings a strong curriculum background, with a Masters in Education that included curriculum studies.

So welcome to our team, Candace! We're looking forward to working with you in January and beyond . . .

Request for Ideas for Innovative Projects

At the meeting we had last week with Karen O'Dwyer, she talked about the Innovation Fund. I'm looking for ideas this week, so please send anything you can think of my way.

What could we do to help students learn and to help instructors teach / facilitate?

Couple thoughts . . .

- Something around Open Access Publishing / Resources. We could work collaboratively with the library and faculty to publish course text books using Open Educational Resources - or with publishers who are doing this??

- something with an innovative learning space

- Scholarship of Teaching and Learning - not sure on this one, but I know that we need to find a way to support instructors who are moving in this direction.

- Prior Learning Assessment . . .

Ideas so far . . . . Your ideas are important . . . eat chocolate - do whatever it takes to turn the creative parts of your brain on . . . send your ideas on . . .

Revised position within the media specialist team

Starting in January, we are implementing a Media Innovative Project Lead position within the media specialist team. This is a six-month pilot that will be a temporary change / refocus to an existing media specialist position. The focus of this position will be on ensuring innovation, completion,, quality, and consistency across all the work within the media specialist team, including special projects. The focus will remain on "team" as well as on learning / professional development or all media specialists.

Tyler will be assigned to this position. Existing reporting structures will remain the same, with Tyler and the media specialist still reporting to Lorne.

I'll be providing more detail to the other EET staff who are impacted by this change, but feel free to stop by with questions if you have some.

PD - Thank you and plan for next GIFEET session in the spring

Great Ideas for EET (GIFEET) :) Thanks to everyone who shared what they have learned in their PD activities at the EET meeting last week. I was amazed at how much some of you have learned and accomplished since the early fall when these activities started.

Professional Development = continuous learning (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly . . . forever); currency and cutting edge; innovation and excellence; individual and group; here and away. This activity certainly demonstrated how much we can learn when we set goals and integrate it into our every day activities.

So what's next? We'll be scheduling a second session in the spring, likely in April or May. Everyone who didn't have an opportunity to present in November will be strongly encouraged to present in the spring, although everyone will be encouraged to participate.

Topics: I'm going to ask Donna or Liz to set up a list of topics and participants in TE3213 for the existing topics. You can continue on with these groups, or start something new. Although you can do things individually if that works best for the topic you have chosen, I'd encourage you to work with others on your projects. The collaboration often helps you learn more as well as get it done.

So please make sure your name is on here somewhere by the Christmas break.

Thanks again to everyone who made this work!

(here's the link to the original topics from the fall: http://tinyurl.com/EET-Staff-PD)

Reminder - Professional Work Environment

This is a caution and reminder for all of us. We work with a variety of instructors and other LC staff on many of the projects we work on. Sometimes this work is satisfying and challenging, but it can also be frustrating because of missed deadlines, incomplete work, or other issues. Our work environments are also very open and public.

In the spirit of professionalism, let's all remember to only make comments in our open work environments and meetings that we would say if the person was in the room with us. Good reminder for all . . .

Transitioning staff

We have three EET staff leaving around the Christmas break, which means that we will be transitioning new people into EET.

Chris's last day is December 20, although he is only working next week Monday, December 12 and then again on December 19 and 20 as he uses up his holiday days.

The competition for this position closes today, so we'll be trying to interview next week.

Liz's last day will be December 23. Liz has taken a position in the Music department at the U of L, so more closely related to her discipline.

We'll be advertising very soon for a replacement starting February 1. Donna will be taking care of the financials (including payments and hours documentation). I'm likely going to tinker with this position description somewhat to focus more on project management.

And Shirley is retiring. Her last day will be prior to the break as well. We are planning to hire a formatter to fill Shirley's very large shoes too.

Watch for more information about send-offs in the next couple of days.

Submitting Leave Requests

Ann from payroll has sent a reminder to all of you to submit your leave requests (both holiday and sick time before you take the leave - and before the 20th of each month when possible. We don't know when we are going to be sick (hopefully never), but please submit your sick leave request as soon as you can.

This will help ensure that both you and your supervisor have up-to-date information on your pay advice each month.

And speaking of holidays, this is where we snorkeled off the coast of Maui. It's half of a volcano crater in the ocean . . .

Everyone should watch this!

Many of us work at our computers for long periods of time every day, so everyone should watch this video. It's a good reminder about the best way to set up our work stations and posture and taking breaks . . .

Thanks to Tyler for finding this one and passing it along.

Kudos to Mark this time

Here's our Jim describes Mark's presentation to the MM students last week. Nice job on this Mark!

"Mark delivered an excellent presentation today in the second-year programming course. Students received a first-class introduction to iPhone (and iOS in general) development. Mark was extremely well prepared and communicated his own passion for this kind of work quite clearly, which kept the students, most of whom do not think of themselves as programmers, engaged and inquisitive. The Q & A following the presentation put things into a larger context for the students, reinforcing many of the mobile Web and cloud-computing topics we have been discussing this semester."

I'm away all next week - Nov 14 to 18

I think most of you know this already, but I'm away on annual leave all next week. I'll be checking email sporadically while I'm gone, so if anything urgent (can't wait until next Monday) comes up, please email and I'll respond when I can.

Hope you all are enjoying your long weekend - and have a great week!

Karen

PS - no, I'm not skiing yet, but this is in my dreams! Love that snow . . .

Two more "Above and Beyond" Awards

Yesterday two more EET staff received the "Above and Beyond" award. Mark received it for work he did on study tip sheets for the Learning Cafe, and Lorne received it for the ongoing amazing Angel support he provides to instructors. Both very well deserved!

Summary of PD Priorities for EET - 2011/12

We have a PD committee that meets bi-weekly on Tuesdays and it's this group that has helped to establish guiding principles and prioritize initiatives for the next year. Here they are:

Guiding Principles

• Achieving the overriding goal of the DL Strategy, that all instructors will have a blended component in their courses by June 2013.

• Balancing PD on teaching and technology
• Reaching out to programs and responding to their requests to better meet their specific needs
• Providing PD for all instructors on campus
• Developing sustainable resources. Presentations and resources can be reused and /or re-purposed.
• Designing all PD sessions for maximum accessibility: Consider the geographic distribution of LC instructors - rural campuses, DL instructors, classroom instructors
• Blended delivery wherever possible. This could include pre-session materials, interactive / well-planned sessions and workshops, follow up materials and / or activities.
• Designing the facilitation so face-to-face sessions will, wherever possible, be accompanied by a web conference option (Elluminate or other web conferencing tool) and posting the recordings on the EET (or alternate) website

Priority Projects:

Continue on with

• We Connect monthly sessions: Panel discussions on topics relevant to instructors and staff
• Book Club: Monthly discussions on “What the Best College Teachers Do”
• Technology support (Angel, Smartboard, VC, etc.) ongoing

Collect and showcase instructor stories. These will be short presentations that could be still photos or video, podcasts or vodcasts. Priority is on capturing the story and posting it to the website.

Develop three digital stories that demonstrate instructors’ experiences blending a course

Reach out to programs and respond to requests. Karen will be encouraging programs to request PD that meets their specific needs as well as sharing with the Chairs a list of potential presentations we could do at program or centre meetings, or with individual instructors or groups of instructors. Examples of topics include the following:

• Examples - 5 to 10 minute demo of an advanced Angel feature
• Presentation or workshop on authentic assessment
• Short presentation on making effective presentations - followed by workshops where instructors work on their own presentations
• Attending a program meeting and working with instructors on integrating technology into their lessons (ie Clickers or Smartboards)
• etc

Complete four blended learning projects with instructors

Complete an “Orientation to Teaching at Lethbridge College” blended course

Re-work Learning Connections website, including resources, so we have somewhere to host all resources

Kudos to Rebecca, Lorne, and Chris

Corene from the library stopped by today to pass on kudos to Rebecca, Lorne and Chris for their work on the library logo that is now posted in all Angel courses. She said the library staff are thrilled with it.

Virtual Conference on Online Learning - Nov 9-11

We are registering to have a virtual seat at the Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning next week from November 9 to 11. The theme of this year's conference is Online Learning, Teaching, and Research in the New Media Ecology.

The number of streamed sessions has increased again this year, so have a look to see what is most relevant to you. We'll have to decide on one session / time because we only have one seat available.

I'll be asking Donna to clear TE3213 so we can stream this both Wednesday and Thursday, so if you have meetings scheduled in there during this time, please try to find other spaces.

We'll also be advertising in Connections so instructors may be dropping in as well.

Thank you Christie!

Thanks to Christie for organizing the Hallowe'en party and potluck on Monday. The best costume prize was shared by Christie (Super pink eraser) and Heather (Super woman). Thanks also to everyone who participated! Wacky events like this are fun and great ways to get to know each other.

Congratulations to Nancy

When you have a minute, stop by and congratulate Nancy on accepting a new position within the College. As of November 25, she will be taking on the position of Associate Registrar in Student Services. This means that Nancy's last day as a Curriculum Consultant will be November 25.

Nancy has been a valuable addition to the Curriculum team and she will be missed.

Another thought re revenue generating activities

In follow up to the blog posting on revenue generating activities from last week, I've been thinking about another possibility in EET. We have a lot of expertise in our area, and several people have been doing or organizing PD sessions for external organizations (such as the Teachers Convention, the U of L, Career and Technology Studies sessions for the K-12 system). There may be more opportunities for these types of initiatives and is something to think about for now. Watch for opportunities and pass them on!

Another EET Awesome

Last week an instructor phoned Karen O'Dwyer to tell her how awesome Lorne is. Of course, we know this, but it was wonderful for an instructor to tell Karen how knowledgeable, patient, and helpful Lorne was - and is - when working with instructors. Lorne, kudos to you for the work you do - all the time!

An EET Awesome

On Saturday, Jackie, Elio, Heather and Elio, along with Skye and Quinn spent some or all of their day helping the ECE instructors learn about developing and facilitating online courses. They also took photos and filmed a variety of activities that will be used to enhance the ECE courses.

Thanks to all of you for taking time on your Saturday to help with this. This work truly makes a difference for both instructors and for students in the ECE program. It helps to develop relationships and I think there will be pay off over time in ways we cannot predict.

Awesome work!

Revenue Generating Activities - Ongoing Discussion

Last May at a Management Forum brainstorm, the idea of "revenue generating activities" was added to the list of things that Lethbridge College should 'start' doing. I emphasize 'start' because some initiatives have been underway for a long time, so in some situations, it really means escalate.

Since then, revenue generating activities have been discussed in several other contexts and now a working group has come together to gather ideas and start initiatives. The momentum behind this is increasing, largely because of the anticipated tight budget situation over the next two years. The direction is that we (Lethbridge College) needs to be very proactive in finding ways to increase revenue, rather than sitting back and waiting for more funding / $ to come our way.

I volunteered as a member of this group because the work that EET does continues to be discussed in relation to ideas for revenue generating activities. We have a reputation out there for supporting a variety of projects that fall into these categories. This includes developing learning materials (think about NATOA, Badlands, and Wind Turbine, Weatherford), facilitation skills (Instructional Skills Workshops), videos, learning objects, etc. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I see our role in this as very much a support role for other areas on campus, such as Industrial Trades and Technology, Business Training and Development, and Applied Research projects across all programs. Departments such have this have an entrepreneurial focus to their work. For now, we'll support them. In the future, who knows? Either way, we all need to remain open to possibilities and listen hard for opportunities as sometimes opportunities knock very softly.

2011 Campus Computing Survey Results

Here's a link to the Campus Computing Survey that was just released. Interesting findings on institutional mobile app growth, cloud computing . . . I haven't read through it in detail yet, but wanted to pass it on.

Board End Statements and EET

The Board of Governors recently released End Statements for the College, and several of these impact the work that EET does in several ways. I'll post a complete copy on my door - and will also email them to you for reference. Here are the end statements that are most relevant:


Lethbridge College exists so that: People have enhanced capacity to succeed and contribute to society (with results optimizing use of available resources).


Priority Results:

• Students enrolling in 2013 will experience curriculum that incorporates the college-wide outcomes. By that time, there will be a means to document student achievement of the outcomes.

• Increase the number of students registered in online courses to 1200 in 2014

• Growth in the number of courses available to students to expand access through alternative delivery mechanisms. All credit courses will have a blended component by June 2013.

• Year-to-year growth in course registration in non-credit courses

• Increase the number of faculty engaged in research from 15 in 2009 to 40 by 2014

Thank you Steve Jobs - Youtube video

I came across this post on the Educause site today. It's a Youtube video from a keynote Steve Jobs gave in 1998. It's over an hour long, but it's really interesting to hear this from a 1998 perspective. The video is poor quality, but the audio is good.

http://www.educause.edu/node/238496

"Thank you, Steve Jobs, for helping us to “think different” about technology in higher education. We celebrate your contributions by sharing this 1998 conversation with our community [1]."

Photos from EET Olympics

Here are a few photos - and the winning teams - from the EET Olympics. Thanks to everyone who organized, participated, cheered, and ate!

Sorry - photos are not great quality from an old iPhone :( . Next time we need to remember to bring our good camera.

Visual notes from EET meeting on Sept 22

Thanks to Brenda and Marina for taking the visual notes of the last EET meeting. Nice job!!

Congratuations Elio and Darwin

Elio and Darwin were the well deserving recipients of the "Above and Beyond" award on Friday. Tracy and Mollie (from HR) visited them to deliver congratulations, gifts, and balloons.

I think the AV crew deserves the above and beyond award every day for the work they do across campus with both supporting instructors and with set-ups for institutional events. Very well deserved award!

Stop by and congratulate them when you have a minute!

Local news report on Lethbridge College's Tech Plan

Mike McCready picked this up on Twitter yesterday. It's an article on a local radio station website about our 3 year "tech plan". It sounds like the DL Strategy. Nice coverage from the Senior Leadership level for sure!

http://www.country95.fm/news/news-detail.asp?ID=4390

Reminders . . .

1. Remember to get away from your desk at lunch time. I'm telling myself this too :)
2. Livestrong today at noon! Be there!! Well, and livestrong every day too of course . . .
3. Document your hours on projects - consistently! This is an integral part of the work you do!
4. When you see one of your colleagues doing an amazing job, tell them about it.
5. Follow up on your PD goals. Remember that EET meeting in August where we formed groups around specific topics. We'll be sharing our experiences with this at our November EET meeting. If you need a quick reminder about your topic and group, visit the Google doc one more time . . .
6. Stories - Remember to add your stories to our growing list. This information is very valuable as we'll be using it for reports, showcases, etc. Brief, informal descriptions are all we need so it's quick!
   

Registration Stats for DL Courses

Thought you might be interested in these registration stats as well. The visuals in the spreadsheet (and above) will show you that DL registrations have increased from 1481 / year in 2005 to 3019 / year in 2010/11. It's doubled in six years. It will also show you that average class sizes have also steadily increased. Your work is making a difference!

Interesting Stat re Completion Rates in DL / Online Courses

We're presenting this information today at the DL Operations Team meeting, but I thought many of you would find this interesting. This visual shows the increase in completion rates for students taking D and E section courses between 2008 and 2010. The completion rates have grown steadily over the three years, from 63% in 2008 to 66% in 2009 to 70% in 2010.

Many of you have contributed to this increase through your involvement in developing quality online courses and in supporting DL / Online instructors and in Angel training and video production and the list goes on. There are many contributing factors in students successfully completing their DL / Online courses.

Update from Management Forum last week

Last Wednesday the Management Forum met for the first time this year. The main focus of the meeting was to discuss the results from the "Start, Stop, Change" brainstorm in the spring and then to form four working groups in response to these results:

• Revenue Generation Working Group (Lead: Dennis Sheppard; Tracy Edwards will be hosting the initial brainstorming session on October 5)
• Employee Engagement (Lead: Coreen Roth)
• Service Review Working Group (Lead: Karen O’Dwyer)
• Program Viability Review and Process Working Group (Lead: Karen O’Dwyer)
  

" The focus of working groups is to discuss and vet opportunities or problems that, if addressed, would assist in moving the institution forward – making things work better without compromising the institution. The leads identified will help in creating and leading/facilitating the working groups moving forward." (email from Peter Leclaire). Additional working groups on Sustainability and Communication will likely be formed in the future.

These focus areas were identified through the brainstorm we had last spring.

Livestrong Event tomorrow (Friday) at noon!

Let's all try to participate in the Live Strong Event tomorrow (Friday) from noon to one. Jeff Hamilton sent a special invite to all of us in EET - and you have three choices:

All of us have been affected by cancer. On September 30 we will hosting Livestrong at Lethbridge College. We encourage everyone to wear yellow on that day in support of the people fighting cancer. This is not a fund raising event as there are many venues to donate; it is a celebration. We have organized 3 activities at the noon lunch hour (12:00 - 12:45 p.m.).

• Bike Ride (bring a bike)

• Coulee Walk around the top

• Coulee Hike to the river

Meet at the Centre Core at noon to muster for the 3 treks. BYOWB (water bottle). All participants will receive a yellow Livestrong bracelet and will be entered in a draw for Livestrong apparel.

EET Planning for 2011-12

We started planning last spring for 2011-12 and this included a variety of activities:

• We started by looking at the activities from 2010-11 and asked the EET team to identify things we needed to start, stop and change.
  
• We met with representatives from many Schools / programs to gather their requests for EET support.
• We asked for and received requests from other schools / programs that were not able to meet with us.
• The leaders from each team within EET identified priority areas for the coming year on this spreadsheet (which is still in development)
• And then we compiled it all into one main spreadsheet titled DL Strategy / EET Planning for 2011/12
  
• On Tuesday, we took this information to the Academic Leadership Team (ALT) that consists of all the Deans, the VP Student Services, and the VP Academic / Chief Learning Officer for discussion (and direction / approval).
• Today at our EET meeting, we'll spend some time analyzing this information for two main reasons:

1. Everyone on the team needs to be aware of the scope of work listed on the spreadsheet. Many of the projects are underway already, which is great. The next step is to priorize and plan, which includes identifying which projects will be started when, what resources are needed, etc.
   
2. This spreadsheet will be our guide over the next year, but it's also fluid. Since we discussed this with ALT on Tuesday, I've received 2+ more requests for major projects that will have to be discussed with many of you before we commit.
   
3. All of you need to check the information listed. Are we missing anything? Is it accurate?

We need your stories . . .

We've had many great things happen in the past couple of weeks as we've supported instructors and students. Can you all please all help us capture these stories so we have anecdotal evidence of the work we do to support both instructors and students?

This information will be used to provide updates to Peter, evidence in DL Strategy implementation updates, . . . justification for new positions. We could also do some highlights on the EET site, develop posters that showcase instructors (saw this done at RDC and it was very effective) . . .

I've started a Google doc so we have somewhere to collect this information, so feel free to add very brief descriptions as they happen . . .

Thanks to all for your help with this. The more stories we can collect, the better.

Tobiah's introduction

We sent the following introduction out to DL Instructors, Chairs, and Deans this morning, and I thought it would be good for all EET staff to know more about the focus of Tobiah's half-time position. Tobiah, I think you are going to be one very busy coordinator. Welcome aboard!

DL / Online Instructors,

My name is Tobiah Goldstein and I am the new DL/ Online Learning Coordinator. I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and promote the services I provide to instructors at Lethbridge College.

My role with the Educational Enhancement Team is to support DL and online instructors in providing a high quality, engaging, and accessible learning experience for students. Many of you have been involved with course development and are now transitioning to teaching DL. Others may be teaching an online course for the first time and are unfamiliar with the online teaching resources, tools, and teaching methods that are often used.

I will be the main contact person to handle concerns and questions you may have as you begin to deliver your courses in an online or even blended environment. This may include working to make your teaching ideas work well online, helping you gain confidence with unfamiliar online teaching tools, and troubleshooting in Angel. I'm excited to collaborate on projects and help instructors work through barriers as they arise in this unique learning environment.

I encourage you to contact me with questions, concerns, and ideas as you begin teaching your online courses this semester.

• Office - TE3215
  
• email tobiah.goldstein@lethbridgecollege.ca
• Phone ext 5396 (1.800.572.0103 - ext 5396 - Long Distance within Canada)
• I will be in the office Mondays-Thursdays from 1:00-4:30 and on Fridays from 11:00 – 2:30
  

I look forward to supporting you in your teaching and helping you to make the courses your teach online work well for you and your students.

Sincerely,

Tobiah Goldstein
DL/ Online Learning Coordinator
Lethbridge College

The Unintended Consequences of Innovation

It would be great to get some discussion going around this YouTube video titled The Unintended Consequences of Innovation.

This is a 16 minute TED talk by Edward Tenner says that it's not that easy to now the lessons we learn from innovation, that the work we do often has unintended consequences, some positive and some negative. He gives lots of good examples (bedbugs, spam . . .) Great quote at the end: "Chaos happens - let's make better use of it".

It also has some interesting connections to this very interesting article that talks about the unintended / unexpected outcomes of an iPod project at Duke university. One very interesting consequence was students' responses to the "old school" assessment methods the prof used in a course with a very unique and innovative approach.

Thoughts?

Skype!

We need a consistent way to communicate among the staff in EET, as well as with external clients, through instant messaging (and phone, video, etc. when you want to use it). Because a majority of staff - and the external clients we work with - use Skype, everyone in EET needs to have a Skype account that is set to open automatically when you boot up your computer.

Liz or Donna will be gathering everyone's Skype addresses by the end of next week, Sept 16, and we'll be distributing this information across the department.

We'll set up a session next week for anyone who needs assistance setting this up.

Here's a description of Skype features. You are only expected to get a free account, but other options are available if you want to upgrade on your own.

And here is the link to the Get Skype download for your computer.

If you have questions, please come talk to me . . .

Course Development Assistant Position - Update

Here's an update on the Course Development Assistant position. Marina will be coming back from her mat leave on September 14, and she will be back at work for approximately six months before her next mat leave starts. Yes, Marina is expecting another baby - very exciting for Marina, Josh, and Sadie.

To ensure continuity in the work that the Course Development Assistant is responsible for, we have figured out a way to keep Liz working so she can continue on through Marina's next mat leave. She will be working in EET every morning from 8 to 12, and then working for Accessibility Services in the afternoon.

I'm thrilled that Marina is coming back to EET and also thrilled that we can keep Liz working with us part time. This is an opportunity to utilize both Marina's and Liz's strengths as we decide what each of their responsibilities / workloads will consist of.

Liz will continue to do much of the financial work to ensure continuity, and you'll know more about each of their responsibilities as we figure them out.

Visual from EET - PD Meeting last week

Thanks Darcie and Heather for taking the visual notes from our EET meeting on PD last Thursday. Wonderful visual representation of our discussion!

Update on the EET Lightbulb . . . It's been moving . . .

Thanks to Liz and her sleuthing, we have an update on where the EET Recognition Lightbulb has been over the last few months. Congrats to everyone who has had this perched on their desks!

• Adam - for doing perfect media work on RSP151, no changes needed
• Amber – for all her work on the RSP courses
• Mark – for his work on the eLearning Café
• Stacey – for her work on the Badlands project
• Brenda – for formatting work on Wind Turbine
• Diana – for getting straight A’s on her exams and completing her Masters in Distance Ed through Athabasca U
• Shirley – for formatting the Police Recruit and Training Program
• Stella – getting accepted into the Bachelor of Nursing Program at the university
• Donna – for being the amazing person she is and taking care of EET

For those of you who are new to EET, we pass this around as people do amazing things! The goal is to keep it only a week or so and then pass it on to someone else who has done something deserving. Let's keep it moving!

PD and Goal Setting for EET Staff

Thanks to everyone who submitted their PD goals in prep for our EET meeting on August 18. The Google Doc lists the general categories and topics that you identified. Here is the plan:

The end goal of this first time frame is to present a “GIFT” type session at the November EET meeting. We’ll divide the group in half, with one group being presenters and the other group listening and learning. More details will be provided on this later. What you need to know now, however, is that you will need to share what you have done and learned with the other EET staff at this time.

How will you do this? Your groups can decide what you will do and when you do it over the next two months. One group, for example, might decide to meet once a week at lunch time. Another group may decide to find a facilitator to come in and teach them a specific skill. It depends on your topic and your goal.

I would encourage each group to set their own SMART goals for November. Have fun on this journey!

PD Schedule for August and September

This is mostly an FYI for all of you related to PD for instructors. Below you will find the message that I sent to all faculty this morning. We have a variety of PD activities planned for the next few weeks. This takes a strong team effort to choose and schedule the information and then prep for and facilitate each session. Thanks to all of you who are playing an active role in making this happen. This is a very important role that EET plays in supporting instructors in all learning environments at Lethbridge College.

Hi everyone, and welcome back! You'll find a variety of PD sessions have been scheduled for the next few weeks in prep for the fall semester.

Please visit the PD calendar on the EET website for descriptions and specific dates for the following sessions:

• Angel (basic and advanced, including Angel 7.4)

• Smartboards

• Teaching Online / Orientation to DL

• Survival Skills for New Instructors

• Peer Evaluation

• Teaching through Video Conferencing

• Facilitating webinars using Elluminate

Please register as soon as possible for the sessions by clicking on the registration links on the PD calendar. If you have questions or have requests for additional sessions, please contact Donna Blanchard at 3327.

Sketchbook Project

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the deadline for joining the EET Sketchbook Project. This is part of a world wide project where people pick a theme, fill in their sketchbooks, and then send it in for cataloging. A few of us are ready to join already. I'm doing this as part of my PD on creativity. Yikes!

For more information, visit the Sketchbook Project site or talk to Jackie. Remember the deadline for joining as part of our group is tomorrow (Wednesday).

New coffee machine and social fund

1. Is anyone interested in contributing to the purchase of a Keurig coffee machine. We have $80 in our coffee fund to contribute but we would have to raise another $100 to buy the machine, along with the coffee packs, at Costco. We estimate that a cup of coffee would cost about 50 cents each.

Who is interested? If we have more than 10 people willing to participate it will cost less than $10 per person. We would like to propose this option before we go to some sort of fundraiser.

Here is a link to all the coffee that is available from Keurig. Please let Donna know this week.


2. Social Fund: It would be very very helpful if everyone could contribute $10 to the social fund for this year. This covers the cost of cards, cakes, and such for events we have throughout the year. Donna is the keeper of the social fund, so please help us out with this one.

As you all know by now, our budgets are pretty much non-existent for college functions this year, so we'll need to be creative when planning our celebrations.

Great day in the mountains

Slightly off topic - here's a photo of Waterton from the top of Vimy Ridge. We hiked this on Sunday - even got chased by mama grizzly!

YouTube Video on Strengths

Tyler found this link to a YouTube video that reinforces how important it is to focus on our strengths. It's a quick one - 3 minutes.

We didn't take time yesterday during our discussions on PD topics for this year to integrate the Strengths Finder concepts. As you reflect on the goals you have set for this next year, think about how your top 5 strengths influence your ability to achieve these goals. In what ways are you enhancing your talent areas?

Here's an interesting finding: In follow up to the initial Strengths Finder research, Gallup continued on to interview more than 20,000 senior leaders and more than one million work teams. Three key findings emerged:
1. The most effective leaders are always investing in employee strengths.
2. The most effective leaders surround themselves with the right people and then maximize their team. While the best leaders are not well-rounded, the best teams are.
3. The most effective leaders understand their follower' needs, which tend to be related to trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

This information is from a boot written by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie titled "Strengths Based Leadership", and you are welcome to borrow it from my office if you are interested. Just thought you might find this interesting.

Name Tag Reminder :)

Over the summer, how many of us have worn our name tags on a regular basis? Not me - it's been safely hiding in my drawer. Time are changing . . . With instructors and students starting to appear on campus again next week, please remember to put wear your name tags all the time you are at work.

Notes from our EET spring planning session

Here are the notes from our EET spring planning session. Just to remind you, we worked with the following topics during our session:

- Significant achievements in the last year (we had many!)
- Things we should start and stop doing
- Things we should change

I'll be working in this document over the next couple of weeks grouping content and priorizing initiatives. This information will then be integrated into our processes and practices on a daily basis as well as in the department planning for 2011 / 12.

Much of our work into the next year will be related to the DL Strategy implementation, which includes requests from various schools / programs. We have completed year 1 of this implementation and will be moving into year 2. Watch for more info over the next month, as we will be working with this at the next EET meeing.

Info Graphic with lots of info on Digital Education

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Follow up on EET Planning Session

In August I'll be following up on the planning session we had in June. I've gone through the notes several times and have been thinking about a variety of things, but we'll need to get it documented with some focused goals to work towards. This will happen in August and September. Just wanted you to know that this is still in progress.

Workload and Holidays!

It's been a very busy summer this year, mostly because we have been short staffed, especially in the instructional design area. Thanks to everyone who has stepped up to help us keep projects moving forward for September. Several people have had very heavy workloads over the last couple of months, and your work is very much appreciated!

I hope that all of you are finding some balance between work and life through the summer. Many of you have taken - or are taking - holidays. This is critical time to spend time with our families, relax, think, play, read, and refocus for the September rush. And for the days you are working - make sure you get away from your desks and get outside for some time each day. That work - life balance - very important to have but not always easy to maintain!

I'm away today until August 15. We're leaving today for our next adventure - first to a wedding in Vegas and then I'm going on to meet my daughter in Costa Rica for about 10 days. Should be fun!

The picture above is one of the Orcas we came close to in our kayak trip earlier this week to Johnstone Strait. Very cool!

New Staff Start Dates

Here's a confirmation about start dates for our new EET staff:

• Kathy Schwarz, Instructional Designer, is starting on August 15.
• Christie Robertson, Instructional Designer, is starting on August 29.
• Nancy Russell, Curriculum Consultant, is starting on August 15.

The DL / Online Learning Consultant position has been posted and we will be interviewing the week of August 15.

Congratulations Stella!

Stella has been accepted into the Bachelor of Nursing program for September. Stella has been taking courses since last year towards this goal, so her hard work has paid off. Stella will be leaving EET in August to pursue this goal. Congratulations Stella!

Revised Org Structure for EET

You will notice a couple changes on the EET org structure. We've added the new staff and the new positions. As a result of the new positions and other reasons, the reporting structure has changed somewhat: The ID's now report to Jackie; the Curriculum Consultants now report to Sue; and Lorne now reports to Karen.

Through the fall I'm planning to look at all the position descriptions again to ensure the descriptions are accurate and then we'll adjust as necessary. If you have questions about this org structure, please just ask.

Today is officially celebrate Jackie's new position day!

Jackie moved into her new position as Instructional Development Coordinator this week, so take a minute today to congratulate her on this new position. This is a move into a more clearly defined leadership position within EET, and now all the ID's will report directly to Jackie.

Here is a more specific list of her new responsibilities:

• Coordinating projects and documenting progress for the development unit while focusing on quality and quantity
• Providing vision and leadership for developing processes and practices that enhance efficiency within the production unit
• Practicing and modeling effective project management skills
• Working with the ID team to establish evidence based practices within all aspects of course development processes; includes gathering and analyzing feedback from development teams; identifying challenges and finding solutions
• Supporting and engaging in scholarly activity related to the enhancement of teaching and learning
• Assigning and monitoring instructional design and formatter workloads
• Planning initiatives for developing, implementing, and evaluating resources (may include templates, guides, tips, how-to’s, online tutorials)
• Developing detailed project plans in collaboration with clients for substantive projects
• Working collaboratively with the team that plans, designs, and facilitates professional development activities
• Mentoring and coaching team members and EET staff participating in developing courses and course materials
• Researching and sharing best practices for enhancing the teaching and learning process
• Fostering community, excellence, and innovation among instructional designers, formatters and other EET staff
• Acting as a resource and/or participates on committees and groups relevant to instructional development and instructional design
• Coordinating and conducting regular meetings with staff
• • Preparing communications for internal and external stakeholders, including monthly program updates
• • Approving payroll and leave requests
• • Managing staff workload and performance, including completion of yearly performance reviews
• • Acting as an ambassador for EET within the College community

Research and Development Presentation today

As many of you know, Chris has been working with the media specialists through the winter and spring on Research and Development projects. Topics include Virtual Spaces, Mobile Apps and Websites, Virtual Spaces, and html 5 / CSS3. This morning they did a wonderful job presenting their findings to Peter Leclaire. Several interesting things came out of the discussion with Peter:

• There may be opportunities to link into external research funding opportunities. The College has hired a full-time grant researcher / proposal writer to assist in securing grant funding.

• Peter asked specifically about building capacity for this type of work so we continue to move it forward. We all know that it's very difficult to focus when we're doing it "off the side of our desks". This certainly means we will need to continue to look for opportunities to apply what we've learned in our College wide projects as well as look externally for funding opportunities. Perhaps more importantly we also need to integrate the challenge of building capacity into our EET plans for next year and beyond. We talked about trying to find a balance between the work we need to do to support instructors and programs but still find time to be innovative.
  

• The presentation today put us in a very good position to apply for internal funds that have been put aside for innovation. This is very exciting, and may be one giant step towards building capacity within EET.
  

• We will also be looking at opportunities to collaborate with other institutions and / or with industry. Again, this could lead to some very exciting opportunities.
  

Kudos to this group of dedicated EET staff for their commitment to this very important project - and for their very professional presentation this morning.

Another staffing update

We have some very exciting news about new staff starting in EET:

• Nancy Russell will be starting in a Curriculum Consultant position on August 15. Nancy has previously taught at Lethbridge College in the Office Administration program. For the last few years she has been working in industry in a leadership and curriculum development role.

• We've hired two full-time instructional designers. Kathy Schwarz will be joining us on August 15 after she relocates from Saskatoon. And Christie Robertson will be joining us on August 22 after she relocates from Edmonton.

• We've also hired a contract ID to work specifically on the wind turbine projects. Nicki Renn met with Jackie and I yesterday, and she is ready to go to work. Nicki will be travelling back and forth from Calgary, and a lot of our communication with her will be through Skype and email.

• The DL / Online learning coordinator position is on hold for now. We should know more this coming week.

We're busy working on the EET Staff Orientation documents as well so we'll be ready when they arrive!

News from Management Forum on May 25

We had a full day Management Forum session on May 25. The focus of this session was related to the current budget situation and what we can do to thrive and grow in this environment.

One of the presentations in the morning discussed the following four areas and used the analogy of each one being located in a swimming lane, where they all progress simultaneously. This provides some context as we plan for the next few years.

• Programming (General Program Assessment (GPA), DL Strategy . . .)
  
• Partnerships ( and external relationships)
  
• People (succession, recruitment . . .)
  
• Processes (challenge, change, look for efficiencies)
  

Few other quotes from my notes . . .

• Will what made us successful yesterday make us successful tomorrow?
• We need to be agile and nimble - ready to respond
  
• The collective intelligence is greater than the individual
• Play the same game better
• Redesign and make it easier to do business with
• Transform and change the rules
• Make money
• Develop sustainable practices and programs
• Scrutinize programming (by leveraging core strengths / leveraging and expanding our career-based programming)
  
• Look for efficiencies
  

So what are the implications for us in EET? This is the main question I left this session with, and this led to our EET "start, change, stop" activity at our EET meeting. How do we continue to thrive in a very tight budget situation?

Staffing update - June 20, 2011

We continue to see staff transitioning out and new staff coming in.

• Our new curriculum consultant, Nancy Russell, starts on August 15.
  
• We're also in the process right now of hiring two FT instructional designers (replacements for Jackie and for Chris A). We had strong applicants for these two positions and HR is conducting reference checks now. We anticipate decisions will be made this coming week, and we'll have new ID's in place for mid-August.
• The DL / Online Learning Coordinator position is still in limbo. We had unanticipated news last week related to budget for this position and we'll know more this week. The position is ready to be advertised, if approved.
  

In preparation for these new people starting in August we are updating our EET Orientation manual. You will be asked for input on this document when a more complete draft is ready for review.

Heads-up on a few upcoming things . . . .

It's been very busy the last month or so, so I've been a little slow posting updates to the blog, and I apologize for that. It's looking like by the end of this week I'll have some time to breathe a bit and provide you with more information on a variety of things. Watch for more postings next week.

For now, here are a few things to think about:

1. Planning for 2011/12 - Chris G., Sue, and I have been meeting with programs to discuss their needs and requests for next year. We'll be compiling a list of recommendations, much like we did last year, that will help to guide our priorities through 11/12.

2. You will all be involved in planning at a variety of levels for next year, and this will happen in June. More info to follow . . .

3. We're headed into the time of year when we need to complete performance reviews. Here's a question for you to think about for now: How can we transition the focus from a review to an opportunity for personal and professional growth? Again, more information will follow in the next couple of weeks.

Enjoy May! Before you know it, it will be June.

One more staffing change . . .

As some of you already know, Chris Aitken has accepted a position with Alberta Health Services and will be leaving EET. His last day will be June 3.

Congratulations, Chris, on your new position and we wish all the best with your new position. We'll miss you in our work environment. You've been a strong fit on the ID and PD teams, and you've certainly made a difference working with the more specific development teams.

And yes, your spamming legacy will live on forever!

Jackie - new Instructional Development Coordinator

We're very fortunate to have Jackie moving into the Instructional Development Coordinator position. We interviewed for this position last week, and Jackie was the successful candidate.

Jackie's teaching and technology background combined with her experience in EET and strong instructional design / project management skills made her a good fit for this position. I'm thrilled to have Jackie move into this role. This position takes affect on July 1, and we'll provide more information on her specific responsibilities in June.

Congratulations Jackie!

EET and reFresh Conference

Following the keynote address at the reFresh Conference on Wednesday, I started thinking about all the EET staff who helped make this day a great day:

• Debbie, Julie, Donna, and Chris G were all on the organizing committee (along with others) that put this amazing day together! Liz also jumped in to help when needed.
  
• Lorne, Heather, Jamie, and Tyler produced the amazing video that we watched at the end of the day. I've been hearing comments about the video ever since! Amazing!!
• Elio, Darwin, and Ryan were busy making sure all the AV was set up, including the audio for the keynote and streaming a session following the keynote.
• Several people presented . . . Jackie, Chris A, and Tyler on Connective Learning; Ian and Diana on 5 Easy Pieces (ways to blend a course)
• Others did GIFT sessions: Connie on View from the Field; ; Tyler on screencasting; Jackie on Aha Presentations!; even I did one on the Student Technology Survey.
  
• Mark and Tyler also had the new EET website ready for the follow up PD sessions.
• Darcie, Rebecca, and Lyle all helped to develop the visuals for the printed cards and for the digital screens

Many of us were involved in some way, and it really illustrates the service we provide for academic initiatives like this. You should all be very proud of the work that you do!

Twitter at the reFresh Conference!

It would be great if everyone who attends the reFresh conference today could add some tweets to the reFresh Twitter account that we've set up for this week. The hash tag is this: #refresh@lc

Happy tweeting!

New EET website!

If you haven't heard already, the new EET website has gone live! Mark and Tyler put a lot of work into the redevelopment - and guided us through the process of designing a website very nicely. Both Chris G. and Chris A. played a role in this as well.

Our goal was to have the site ready to promote all the PD sessions in May, and we achieved this.

We still have some work to do on the site, so it will evolve over the summer as we add more visuals, including social media tools, and more examples of our work.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen!

http://eet.lethbridgecollege.net/