Desire2Learn CEO Speaks Up

Recently, John Baker, Desire2Learn's president and CEO, gave an interview where he discussed the case with us, its impact on the company and its customers, and the implications for education technology as a whole.

Blackboard vs Desire2Learn

Interested in keeping up with the Blackboard vs Desire2Learn saga? You can learn more at these sites:

http://www.desire2learn.com/patentinfo/
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?topic=8
http://tatler.typepad.com/nose/2008/03/east-texas-cour.html

The Higher Learning Commission's Academic Quality Improvement Program

For me, this seems to be the Spring of peer review. In February, MCLI launched the Maricopa Quality Matters Peer-Reviewer Program and in March (over the last 3 days), I attended the the Higher Learning Commission's Academic Quality Improvement Program Peer Reviewer training in Chicago, Illinois. The training lasted a total of 55 hours over 2 1/2 days and was extremely valuable and insightful in many ways:

• what is the role of accreditation in the US
  
• who are accrediting bodies in the US and how were they established
• what are the options for accreditation and continuous improvement for institutions
  
• what is AQIP, how does it differ from PEAQ and how do institutions interact with each

It is my understanding that PEAQ is the traditional form of accreditation and that AQIP is the new kid on the block, at least over the past 7 years. From the past few days, I've learned that AQIP seems to be a much more continuous improvement process. PEAQ takes place every 10 years, while AQIP has contact with the institution regularly over a 5 year period in a process that emulates strategic planning. It seems that several institutions are opting in to AQIP and out of PEAQ (although an institution has to be PEAQ-approved to be able to participate in AQIP).

It may seem odd to some that an instructional technologist would be involved something like this, but this experience gave me such a comprehensive overview of quality and improvement issues in higher education. Our training concludes tomorrow and then I'm on the list to be a peer-reviewer. Aside from the time commitment (of 25-30 hours), I'm very much looking forward to participating.

Quality Matters comes to Maricopa Community Colleges

Yesterday, I attended the overview session of Quality Matters (QM) with Dr. Ron Legon, Executive Director of QM and although I already knew something about the program, I was very pleased for its potential for Maricopa students and faculty members.

MCLI has secured a subscription for its one-year pilot of QM to begin in 08-09. Today 35 Maricopa peer reviewers will be trained to begin reviewing courses next year.

So... a bit about QM:

Quality Matters came out of a FIPSE grant that was meant to support adult learners and distributed/distance learning and originally had these 4 goals:

1. provide statewide leadership in distance learning
2. maintain a web gateway for online higher education in Maryland
   
3. collaborate on faculty training
   
4. facilitate online course and program sharing

Over 700 faculty members, 158 institutions and 28 states participate in QM (they are non-profit).

The QM toolset and processes include

1. faculty-driven, peer-review process
2. collaborative process among faculty peers
3. commitment to continuous quality improvement
4. based on national standards of best practice, the research literature, and instruction design principles
5. designed to promote student learning
   

Overall, QM is designed to support student retention and satisfaction in online and hybrid courses. Reviewed courses don't have to be perfect, but QM aims at better than just "good enough".

Here you can read about the underlying principles of Quality Matters and how it aligns with accreditation standards and is supported by the research literature.

The review team takes the perspective of a student (as a novice to the course) and asks basic questions to assess quality. QM is NOT about the individual instructor, about faculty evaluation, or about win/lose pass/fail regarding course review.

The rubric contains 8 key areas of course quality, 40 specific review standards including 14 essential standards, and detailed annotations and examples of good practice for all 40 standards.


The 8 key areas of course quality include

1. course overview and introduction
   
2. learning objectives
3. assessment and measurement
4. resources and materials
5. learner interaction
   
6. course technology
   
7. learner support
8. ADA compliance
   

Areas 2-6 must be aligned. Throughout the review, their is a focus on improvement and support of instructor-student interaction, content-student interaction, and student-student interaction.

We are hopeful and excited about bringing QM to Maricopa (first in Arizona--who says we don't lead). Stay tuned for more...

Web 2.0 and the Student Experience

I recently had the privilege of speaking with EDUCAUSE and Laura Blankenship, Senior Instructional Technologist at Bryn Mawr College about Web 2.0 tools and the Student Experience.

Podcasting and Google Apps at Educause SW Regional 08

This week I attended the Educause Southwest Regional Conference in Houston, TX. At the start of the conference, I presented with Dr. McGee on Blended Learning: Implementing the Instructional Model of Tomorrow.

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Our presentation covered all the essential components of implementing Blended Learning on an institutional level: faculty development and support, student support, costs, blended learning models, marketing, and course redesign processes. 25 faculty members, CIOs, IT professionals, and faculty development professionals attended our session. This is a much needed area of support as our attendees spanned the spectrum in their involvement and awareness of Blended Learning.

Also attended a podcasting session presented by the University of Southern Mississippi: http://podcastpilot.blogspot.com/. They have a nice site supporting podcasting with video tutorials. This session was packed.

Yesterday, I attended a session on Google Apps. At the end of the session attendees started asking questions (and also sharing their interpretations) about copyright and web 2.0 technologies. I was struck by how much poor information is out there. Perhaps there is a need for another session: Copyright 2.0: How to navigate web 2.0 without violating copyright...

Gateway and Mesa Colleges Kickoff with Technology

Both Gateway and Mesa College of the Maricopa Community Colleges kicked of 2008 with Cole Camplese (and a little help from MCLI). Cole, Director of Education Technology Services at Penn State, identified 3 trends in teaching and learning as they intersect with technology: social spaces, mobility and user-created content. Social "virtual" spaces involve creating an environment that is interconnected or networked with FOAF applications, such as facebook or myspace. Such environments enable profile creation, connections, and collaborations, which lead to a very interesting point that was made: identity management and marketing.

This concept is related to the next area: the rise of student as creator and developer of knowledge in the "content is king" paradigm (sorry, I tried not to use this word). We've all heard of constructivism, but now it has really taken off. With such a plethora of tools that a 5-year old can use (literally), students are taking off with content development. Tools such as utube, blogspot, google, and others have enabled students to do all the things they wanted to do. While higher education was figuring out how to, how much it would cost to, and if they should, students found easy-to-use tools to meet their needs. Now their content is connected, shareable, and preserved for all time. The accelerated use of these tools is a testament to what can happen when you put a simple, but powerful tool in the hands of a user: The State of the Live Web, April 2007.

What else? Well, that leaves mobility. Mobility and technology is not new, but consider that by all reports, technology use and ownership is spreading progressively faster among our youth than in the last few years. This is true. For those of you who have kids or have friends or family that have kids, what kinds of gifts did Santa bring them?? How about ClickStart's My First Computers (for toddlers)? Or Webkinz (don't ask). As one faculty member said in response to the question, "what motivates you to use technology?" "Keeping up with my kids," he said. If nothing else, toddler technology will force you into the 21st century.

As a means to communicate, today's students prefer cell phones, text, instant messaging, and email---in that order. The other idea of identity management and marketing...well, I'm still thinking about that. As a former BSchool learning technologist, I totally get this, but I'm not sure how that fits in with what students perceive as an identity. Which identity? Marketing to whom, anyone? Perhaps it's as simple as "this is who I am, what I'm doing, and who my friends are." I think identity management can really evolve, especially when coupled with content creation.

On a final note, Cole demonstrated a nifty tool: feed2js.org. What is it? In Alan's words: It is a rather simple technology that allows you, the humble web page designer (or instructor), to have RSS feed content displayed in your own web page, without having to know a lick about XML! Thanks Alan!