Monthly Archives: April 2016

Avatar photo

Tipping the Balance Towards Scalability

I attended the Council on Global Affairs’ International Women’s Day Global Health Symposium. The focus of the day was on the health of the next generation for women and girls locally, nationally, and internationally. The keynote panel focused on new initiatives and challenges with implementation. Rebecca Winthrop, the Director for the Center of Universal Learning at the Brookings Institute, talked about the science of scalability and her project, Millions Learning, which “…explores specifically not just how to improve learning, but how to do so in a way that can be efficiently and effectively implemented at a large scale.” Her comments really resonated with me. Specifically, she emphasized that successfully scaling up means releasing the idea of having a “gold plated” model that can be replicated with fidelity. That model is too complex and requires finesse specific to a particular author. When scaling up, sustainability is the goal. To achieve this, the cookie cutter model will not work. Rather, it is best to identify the core “ingredients” and aim to replicate those and then allow the user to adapt to their particular context. This creates a partnership that allows the program to maintain its essential attributes, but allows the user to “make it into their own” and have some ownership. Continue reading →

Avatar photo

Beyond QualityMatters: Introducing the Pedagogically Distinctive Features (PDF) of DePaul Online Courses

In 2008, DePaul adopted QualityMatters (QM) as the quality standard for online and hybrid courses developed through the DePaul Online Teaching Series (DOTS) program. During the past eight years, nearly two hundred courses have been through the QM internal review process at DePaul.  Since 2011 when the first instructor was rewarded with a QM star for developing a course that met all of the QM standards, the number of QM star recipients has increased drastically.  These days, becoming a QM star has become a common expectation of all faculty participants of DOTS.

As designers, we are pleased by the numbers and the feeling of “getting a hang of QM”; on the other hand, we ask whether this is the place where we want to be – because that pounding question remains loud and sound: Does QM guarantee a successful learning experience for students?

Continue reading →

What to Expect When Syncing: Best Practices using Video Conferencing Tools

Technology is changing how we do everything. Gone are the days of classroom strategies that focus solely on using static content to engage students. Thanks to high-definition (HD) video ubiquity in mobile devices, tablets, laptops, etc., engaging in real-time (instantaneous) with folks across the globe without leaving home is feasible and affordable. To take it a step further, video conferencing, or as some may describe as web conferencing, webinars (web seminars), or webcasts, enables online collaboration with limitless implications for student engagement, in the US and abroad.

The formal definition of video conferencing, as defined by Merriam Webster, is:

  1. a method of holding meetings that allows people who are in different cities, countries, etc., to hear each other and see each other on computer or television screens.
  2. the holding of a conference among people at remote locations by means of transmitted audio and video signals

While there are a number of solutions that exist to host virtual meetings, it’s important that standard features embedded in these systems are easy to use and work seamlessly during an online session. Some of the more common features include the ability to stream HD video, instant chat, screen sharing, recording, and the use of a whiteboard to jot down important points during the meeting. While nothing compares to face-to-face interaction, these tools help connect users in ways that a teleconference (see definition) are incapable of doing.

Some of the usual suspects—Skype, Webex, Gotomeeting, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Adobe Connect, Avaya Scopia, Blue Jeans, Polycom, etc.—have worked tirelessly to create user interfaces that are intuitive and function with minimal to no latency issues. In order to make an informed decision, it’s important to develop and prioritize the functionality that’s paramount to a successful implementation for “you.”

Continue reading →

Avatar photo

Browser Tabs and Keyboard Shortcuts: My Secret Productivity Weapon for Batching Repetitive Tasks

Sometimes your learning management system just doesn’t provide the large-scale bulk editing or bulk creating options you need it to. So, when you need to make big changes to a course, it can seem like you’re going to be clicking away all day.

A few days ago, I had an instructor who wanted to convert all fifteen of his discussion assignments from whole-class discussions to group-based discussions, and the student worker I would normally delegate this task to was out of the office. I was faced with what would normally be a half day of tedium, creating the group-based discussions, copying the prompts from fifteen discussion assignments into seven group-restricted discussions per assignment, and re-linking the group forums in the modules.

Fortunately, this wasn’t my first rodeo. I got my start in instructional design as a student worker myself, and I found a massive time-saving technique that not only dramatically cuts down the time these things take, but also reduces the opportunity for errors. This project took me about 25 minutes.

I’m going to share the secret to my success–a way of batching these repetitive tasks together.

Continue reading →