Executive Summary

According to the Magic 8-Ball, the Executive Summary will be posted here, but for now

Try Again Later

Our Presentation
The North Star Presentation

My Take on the Three things for the Provost

Here's my take (WEendy, it's similar to yours in concept, I'm just packaging it differently :-)). Also, I'm basing this on the recommendations by Bruce Guerten in his impromptu session today, and if you need a reminder, it went as follows:

Questions in leaders’ minds:

1. To what problem that I have do you have a solution? (The emphasis needs to be on the positive when stating the problem.)
   
2. What is it going to cost when you implement this solution?
3. How will you measure it?

Therefore:

Main Idea/Problem
Bridging the gap between faculty use of technology as digital immigrants and student expectations of a technology-rich environment as digital natives to create a rich learning environment.

Possible Determinants of Context (largely cultural)

• Faculty are in awe of or fearful of technology and therefore resistant to to its potential in enhancing their learning environment.
• Faculty are not aware of or do not take into account student expectations as it may require them to come out of their comfort zone.
• Students don't perceive technology as a tool, it's their environment and they expect it to be available to them 24/7/365.
• Students don't necessarily expect a high level of technology use in their learning environment, but they do expect it to be used effectively and appropriately. (I have some data on this from focus groups we conducted on campus on the effective use of PowerPoint. We can also cull from Diana's work in this area.)

Possible Solution

• Conduct a gap assessment that evaluates student expectations and faculty delivery of technology use in the learning environment.
• Assess resource availability in the form of support staff and services including training and production services, as well as hardware and software requirements.
• Develop a committee of stakeholders that draws from faculty, students and representatives from the Dean of Academic Affairs office to address the gaps and recommend the appropriate linkages that would bridge the gap and facilitate the transition for faculty. This committee could work in an advisory capacity or be the decision making committee. (Wendy, thanks for this segment, and I hope you don't mind my integrating our ideas.)
• Identify the costs associated with the recommendations of the committee and priorotize based on immediate and future needs.
  
• Establish a timeline or schedule to implement the committees recommendations.
• Survey faculty to assess if their use of technology has increased, by what measure, and how they have weathered the transition. Also, identify requirements that have not been addressed or may have been generated in the process.
• Survey students to identify if their expectations are being met and what their current perception of the learning environment is.

Please excuse any grammatical errors, I wanted to ensure I had contributed . I would like for all of us to present some aspect of this project, no matter what we have brought to the table, and am hoping that will pan out.

Meeting Tonight?

We don't have project time built into the schedule today. Can we meet tonight to work on the project? Hopefully we wouldn't need more than 2 hours.....

Another Step: Work Breakdown

I think our posts have demonstrated that our group has an excellent conceptual understanding for setting up our case. Everyone has offered questions, issues, and many details needed for approaching this project. In my own mind, I would like to narrow a few things down so that we can start identifying the top few things we want to present in our 15 minutes.

For example, there are 7 domains that we need to cover in our presentation. In 15 minutes, that is less than 2 minutes to address each issue (we need an intro, too). So, we should pick perhaps 3 of the domains that are the most important for our case and concentrate on forming our presentation around those.

If that's not possible, perhaps we can choose a handful of concrete activities we want to be proposing? These will have to be the higher-level activities so that we avoid too much information for 15 minutes.

For example, I would like to propose establishing a new support model: Learning Technology Team Model. I could present this idea and provide information about what this program will change and why, how we know it is successful, the kind of budget it needs, etc (addressing all the 7 domains of this activity).

A Way To Breakdown The Work
Perhaps 2 other group members could do the same for 2 other activities? Then another group member could work on the one-page web page (that could go into more detail than the presentation material), and another person can work on getting some of the basic presentation started? Then on Wednesday we can work as a group to put the final presentation materials together and do some practice run-throughs of our presentation.

New Twist presenting to Provost

"Producing campus-wide* buy-in for engagement in and adoption of instructional technology in teaching and learning."
*faculty, deans, and students

I would like to take a new twist on our “Making the Case”. If we are presenting to a panel of “provost” then I would like to propose we be specific about one or two “implementation plans” to solve a “PROBLEM” that would allow for campus-wide buy-in for engagement and adoption of instructional technology in teaching and learning.

How can instructional technology help with this “mystery” provost problem? I will list what our campus issues are or “mystery” provost problem. However, I am a bit weak in this area and could use your input and discussion.

What problem would the provost be attuned to that instructional technology could help solve that would allow for campus-wide buy-in of an appropriate use of instructional technology?

Major problems
-Increased enrollment not enough faculty and space for teaching.
-Large course enrollment (Chem 101 ), not enough space

Other minor problems? (don't think these are worth addressing at this time)
-Expense of hard copies of course material. (place material online-push the cost to students)
-Today’s student’s learning styles and emotional intelligence becoming more important in the workplace vs GPA.
-All faculty should use a CMS or have a web presence for every course. WHY??

________________________________________________________________________________

Here is some research I had done previously on implementing CHANGE in this area.

Higher education involves many complex facets of culture even among the same institutions and across institutions. The culture of the university (research focused/rewarded versus instructional focused/rewarded) and it’s methods of faculty engagement can be dependent upon resources, trust and types of innovations used in teaching.[1]

One model “organizational development” suggests that there must be strong support from top management and trained consultant on site. In contrast, the “linkage model” depends upon the facilitator’s knowledge of the new product and their ability to persuade and help others with the new resources. A key feature of the “linkage model”, found in studies by Louis and Rosenblum (1981) ,that successful “linkers” are characterized by their initiative, the amount of time they spend on-site, the amount of training they provide and the variety of training tools they use.[2] And in yet another model it suggests that in order for change to occur (or adoption) the idea needs “to be relevant to what the particular group of instructors perceives as the problems” and the solutions should be designed and delivered with differences in mind.[3] For example, once innovators users are confident and competent in their use of the new practice, they can afford to be more concerned about how their work is influencing students.
As for the leadership role in the process of facilitating change, Hall & Hord, (1984) stressed that there appears to be no particular “leadership traits” that better facilitates change, with the exception that in the educational setting successful leaders fluctuate their leadership style with the situation at hand.

What has developed for facilitating change in technology and teaching in the 21st Century? Hagner suggests a combination of support (resources, incentives and benefits) and knowing the type of University “culture” one has will help reach the Early and Late Majority which he refers to as the “second wave” of faculty.[4] Have we not bridged the gap to this “second wave” of faculty because of the “one size fits all” model? Are the innovators and early adopters’ needs different than the “second wave” faculty needs? What do the “second wave” faculty need to adopt instructional technology? Is there a compelling reason to adopt?

[1] Hagner, P.R. (January 25th, 2001) Interesting Practices and Best Systems in Faculty Engagement and Support, NLII White paper
[2] Louis, K. S., and Rosenblum, S. (1981, July). Designing and managing interorganizational networks. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Institute of Education.
[3] Hall, Gene E. and Hord, Shirley, M. (1984) Change in Schools, Facilitating the Process, State University of New York Press
[4] Hagner, P.R. (January 25th, 2001) Interesting Practices and Best Systems in Faculty Engagement and Support, NLII White paper.

Imagine

We ask the "provosts" to whom we are pitching our case to imagine that they are each a beanie baby at Beanie U. We give them pictures of particular beanies, in fact, and ask them to assume those identities -- identities as administrators at Beanie U, a medium-sized institution that values teaching. Beanie U has recently had the largest entering freshman class in its history (all of those "retired" beanies have now found the time to attend university!).

The Board of Trustees -- all of those valuable Limited Edition beanies -- want to see Beanie U approach the cutting edge in technology on the campus. Typically, it has been difficult for Beanie U to incorporate alot of technology because many of its students have special needs -- special keyboards since they don't have moveable digits, for example.

University Administration wants to connect all of the pockets of technology already on campus, foster communication among current technology users, among support staff, and strengthen faculty development programs that help faculty to adopt and use technologies. They also want to hear from the student body to gain a better understanding of the direction the university should be considering.

Beanie U administration tend to have very short attention spans. Most of them would rather be chasing other animals, or eating, or grooming themselves than be listening to a pitch to give money to new, expensive initiatives. It sets up a challenge, for sure.

Some notes and clarifications on the MTC project...

Here are some notes that I took yesterday and this morning about our MTC projects. They may or not make sense...

Making the Case project clarifications
We are keeping things on the loose side, means that there will be more negotiation amongst the team members.

Have to keep this in perspective. This is not the entire institute. This can’t consume us for the next two-three days.

Keep in mind the ‘why’ of what you are doing, not just ‘what’ we should do.

- have to convince an admin group that our project is worthy and should be sponsored

- use digital tools to make the case, not to make the project

- Our job is to get the leadership to listen. They don’t want to hear about the structure of our projects. We need to grab their attention.

o Have to speak to them on their level

o Student facts etc… will grab a provost’s attention

o These issues apply whether it is a small or large institution

o We need to define our context

o Listen to the way Diana Oblinger gives her talk, model our project after that approach

o Think of ourselves as a change agent, not just an instructional technologist

o ‘to what problem I have are you giving me a solution.’

§ Define the problem, describe your solution, what will it cost, etc…

§ If it meets, talks, studies, teaches, researches, etc… - then it is not a product

§ Always ‘flip it over’. “I want to create a favorable learning environment.” – you wouldn’t say you want an unfavorable learning environment, so this is the wrong way to say this

§ We need to be careful with language, we should be interpreters.

§ We have 15 minutes to make our case to a president, provost, etc… NOT to our colleagues.

A start to Tuesday's discussion

"Producing campus-wide* buy-in for engagement in and adoption of instructional technology in teaching and learning."

*faculty, deans, and students

Can we define the type of Institutional Settings where our plan will be implemented (Not sure if this is correct). To start, maybe small universities that value teaching.?

These are some “determinants of context” from the presentation on Monday morning:

• Teaching vs. research
• Governance
• Dominant Disciplines
• Identity Traits
• Affiliations
• Prestige Position
• Dominant values
• Leadership traits

Can we identify the current and desired states of our three target groups? The path between the two?

For example, Professors:

Current: Most are resistant to technology or may only use it to deliver information (post notes, syllabus). They rarely attend training seminars to learn more about technology. See technology as a threat to their job security or a means by which their work will be judged by others (too many people looking at their stuff).

Desired: Actively integrating technology for pedagogical purposes. Open to emerging technologies, eager to learn, and good relationships with IT and ID Staff.

Path between current and desired states (based on Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Model)

Develop awareness

• Survey faculty about their technology needs and offer workshops on these topics.
• Distribute brochures about services.
• Work on establishing relationships with the individual colleges through volunteering to speak at their monthly departmental meetings and new faculty orientations.
  

Persuasion

• Identify professors (via IT and ID staff) who have utilized technology in their course for pedagogical purposes rather than for information distribution. Preferably, these professors should be full-time, tenured and well-respected by those in their field.
• Include quotes from these professors in marketing materials, have them interviewed by the university newspaper or have them submit an article about their experience for publication.

Decision

• Have these professors provide demos of their courses within their department or at faculty luncheons scheduled for each college on the campus. May also encourage them to sit in on panel discussion at IT events.
• Form a committee of representatives from each college to conduct a needs assessment in regards to the current status of technology integration at the university and the faculty’s perceived needs to continue its growth.

Implementation

• Identify a pilot group of instructors to incorporate technology into one of their courses and develop a program to support faculty in the development, administration and maintenance of that course.

• Provide incentives.

Confirmation

• Host “Lesson Learned” luncheons or dinners where those involved in the program discuss their experience.
• Publish an article describing the experience.
• Hold a one day seminar for professors to demo their courses.
• Hold an annual conference as program grows.

Issues that ARE addressed in the above plan:

• Improving the relationships between faculty and IT and ID staff.
• Faculty issues of fear, resistance and egos.
• Establishing a leadership role for faculty and IT/ID staff.
• Changing the institutional perspective toward technology integration.
  

Issues needing some more discussion:

• Program management - who will oversee this all and how will that person be paid - could be distributed among the full-time IDs.
• Finances - where is the $$ coming for all this? An initiative from the provost?

Setting The Context

Our University could be called "Beanie U". A group of 5 campus representatives are trying to devise an institutional plan for engaging more faculty, administrators and students across the campus in educational technologies and garnering buy-in for new initiatives and better communication across stakeholders.

The 5 campus reps are: Professor A, IT Director, Instructional Designer, Technology Expert, and Provost or Student. In order to illustrate points, we cut to the Beanie group or to pairs so they can "act out" the issue and present the solution. For example, we could make small video clips or have their digital pictures in our presentation. In other words, we use a picture of the otter when we are talking from the instructional designer perspective in the presentation, the penguin for the faculty issues, etc....

If we present from the perspective of the animals....they could talk about the problem of the "Wild Dog", which could actually be a pseudonym for our case (campus buy-in of technology development). So we could fit some humerous euphemisms into the serious nature of the case study.

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but hey, it's after 5 PM, so I am allowed to be a little goofy (-ier).

(semi) Final 'Making the Case' project assignment.

Here is what is on the paper:

"Producing campus-wide* buy-in for engagement in and adoption of instructional technology in teaching and learning."

*faculty, deans, and students

Taming the Wild Dog

Bear with me as I brainstorm some more.....

Title: Taming The Wild Dog -- Fostering campus-wide buy-in for instructional technology engagement

Goal: Present a spectrum of programs/activities/opportunities that contribute to building partnerships and fostering communication leading to innovative faculty development opportunities, improved collaboration between support units, and sharpened understanding of the benefits of educational technologies by administrators.

Questions

• Overarching Question: From the perspective of the campus leadership, why and where would a campus need to invest people, time, and money to accomplish the goals?

• What programs are contributing to positive faculty development right now?
• Where do faculty want to learn about instr. technology?
• How do you penetrate the faculty "interior" and gain acceptance?
• How do you become partners with groups "different" from your own?
• How do you share resources to benefit the greater good?
• How do we pay for new initiatives?
• How will this improve our institution?
  

Assessment (My weakness)

• Is there improved communication between groups? [evidence of new collaborations?]
  
• Is there a development of programs with diverse participation (taking the ed. tech. development out of the silo and including diverse groups in the design, development and implementation of transformative practice)?
• Are faculty happier with the new initiatives? [focus groups, surveys]
• Are there more courses online (are the campus supported technologies being utilized more)?
• Are students reporting that they are learning more or better due to incorporation of instructional technologies? [Senior Surveys, Student Advisory Boards, focus groups, course evaluations]
• 
  

Now submitting this for group feedback..... Please feel free to make changes to any or all of this!

Just how off-topic can I get?

I think we should ask them to open the blinds. It it about 2:40, and it feels like 9 pm. I want light...

New Post for New Topic

Here was my suggestion for the topic combining Mike and Leslie's suggestions:

how at an institutional level do you create the culture and linkages that establish an institution-wide culture for supporting instructional technology adoption and innovation.

I beleive we all ahve expertise to share in this area and we can attack it from numerous angles, so we can adapt it to the MTC requirements. Leslie, I think a lot of your draft can be used for this topic.

It gets my vote.

a suggestion for a completely new topic

What if we just made up a new topic... Here is something I will throw out there to perrhaps start a conversation...

"Create a program that fosters communication, conversation, and collaboration between faculty members and technologists both within and outside of an institution."

This could be done by providing showcases, workshops, and other opportunities for conversation between these groups. We could also examine some models that are currently out there.

Brainstorming here...

Utilizing (undergraduate and graduate) stuent resources to create a full-service faculty support center - this means expanded services and hours, specially trained graduate students supervised by qualified Instructional designers, and partnerships with faculty/courses in the IT field.

We have experts in this area don't we?

Two groups with #10

Hey - two groups have picked #10 - see the wall closest to the door!

Expert needed

I think the most important question when selecting a topic is does anyone have some knowledge or expertise in one of these areas? Time is short - we don't have the luxury of doing research in the time that we have.


Also, which topic can we clearly define in terms of current and desired state? For relatively new technologies like iPods, I am not sure what the desired state is.

Plan B or C or whatever!

Just as a back up perhaps we should have an alternative topic/theme. I'm not big on Learning Objects, but I'll go with popular consensus :-). But nobody seems to have taken on learning activities with iPods, cell phones, PDAs, etc, and that would be something I would be interested in.

I see faculty using these tools for themselves and incorporating them into pedagogy might be exciting for them and take them away from the purely "prodouctivity/entertainment" tool perception they may have about these tools.

Any interest for # 1, # 8, or # 11??

Number 1 - course mngmt -> learning mngmt

Number 8 - learning spaces

Number 11 - learning with consumer technologies

These would not be my first choice, but I found them to be somewhat intriguing.

New Twist on our Topic

I have to admit, I am not too crazy about learning objects, but we should keep that option open. How about this twist on #10:

Integrating faculty development programs into the campus culture: engaging faculty, support professionals, and the administration in faculty development in educational technologies. This case study will explore how instructional technology programs can create synergy in teaching and learning with technologies leading to innovative, effective uses of campus technologies.

Vidya's Comments

Column A - The Blue Chamber

Clicking on things like crazy since I don't have a clue what to do, everything's in Japanese. It reminds of the old interactive fiction games like the Leather Goddesses of Phobobs.

Column B - Music Maker
Seems to require some time learning the interface before you can actually create music. Consequently, one could go a little crazy as the elves start playing all sorts of stuff that you were simply trying out. I can see a music maker having fun with it though. It would be interesting to compare the learning curve with learning say Finale or GarageBand.

Mike's review of todos los websites... (check out http://itl05.blogspot.com/2005/06/interaction-experience.html)

Column A: Digital/Net Narratives
http://www.99rooms.com - a visual adventure, a little creepy, good mix of auditory, tactile, and visual components. not too tough to figure out.

Column B: Web Sites Where you create things
http://www.zefrank.com/xmas/ - a website that balances dangerously between interesting fun and flat out obnoxious. the technology is interesting, and the level of interactivity is impressive. check it out, just have your volume cranked down to minimize the risk of getting your butt kicked by your peers.

Column C: Web interfaces
http://www.dontclick.it - a great website that is frustrating at first, but challenges you to break out of the normal point-and-click routine. seems to enhance the desire to explore, and the quick movement and solid color scheme entertain the eye. finally, good inclusion of stats and history. validates the experience, making it a little more than just a 'cool site'.

The North Stars Case Study

Here's a brainstorm for our group project. It's an early, early draft version and we may decide to take a totally different direction. I tried to start forming an Executive Summary for us to get started.

Faculty support center for fostering research and development with new technologies and processes for implementing innovative applications to the teaching and learning process

Executive Summary

Without regard to institution size, mission, and software supported, teaching and learning support centers, especially technology-oriented ones, are seen as utilitarian resources by the majority of faculty, staff and students on campuses. Support staff spend the majority of their time providing support for “mechanical” aspects of educational technologies, approached by most faculty and instructors to answer ‘point-and-click’ questions and never broaching the topic of pedagogical frameworks for teaching with technologies. The campus community and faculty are not recognizing them as credible resources in pedagogy and teaching methodology.

Strategies for Change

The units supporting technologies for teaching and learning want to see a transformation of the central educational technologies support providers into pedagogical centers for designing effective methods for incorporating technology into teaching. In order for this to happen, campus community members must change their perceptions of the support providers. This cultural shift may be accomplished by implementing programs designed to address both the ‘point-and-click’ needs of the population and introduce pedagogical frameworks for working with the technology systems. This is best done by involving faculty, local support in departments, and the central support organizations, as well as by garnering support of the Deans, Department Heads, Provost, Academic Officers.

Important Characteristics for Success

• Administrative buy-in
• Faculty Incentives (cash grants, in-kind grants, release time, tenure credit)
• Faculty buy-in (participation in curriculum development for faculty development programs, faculty mentors, faculty advisory roles, value perceived at the discipline-level)
• Adequate amount of support staff (learning technology team model: instructional designer(s), content expert, library/literacy, center for teaching excellence staff, technical expert, local support) (coordination of resources; stop competing for faculty time; make it easier for faculty to learn and implement changes)
• Sense of community
• Becomes part of campus culture

Some Models

SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning)
Developing community
Classroom Research-based
Encourage publishing results
"SoTL, which is a scholarly inquiry into the relationship of teaching and learning, is defined as seeking to "render teaching public, subject to critical evaluation, and usable to others in the field" (Lee Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation). It involves a rigorous approach to research (as in one's own discipline) and uses appropriate measures and design."

Online resources:
The Research University Consortium for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (RUCASTL)
http://www.oir.uiuc.edu/Did/SOTL/RUCASTL.htm

Journal Related to SoTL
http://www.oir.uiuc.edu/Did/Resources/Journals.htm


PITA (Provost Initiative on Teaching Advancement)
*This program at University of Illinois (others too?)
Grant-based
"Implementation of Instructional Enhancements: the PITA Program will provide support for the modification of existing courses to incorporate techniques or materials intended specifically to enhance learning. Preference will be given to departmental initiatives to redesign core courses in a major, general education offerings, or groups of related courses."

Using undergraduate students for faculty project support

Learning Technology Teams Support Model

Welcome to the North Stars ITL05 blog...

Here it is. Our team members consist of members from Wisconsin (Kathy Konicek), Penn State (Wendy Mahan), University of Illinois (Leslie Hammersmith), DePauw (Mike Whitesell), and Trinity (Vidya Ananthanarayanan). Enjoy...