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!