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A year ago the next evolution of Ocotillo had been planned and the process was well under way to build a new team to carry out a new mission. We sought to positively impact teaching and learning across the district by providing quality learning opportunities to faculty and staff. Where are we now? Are we fulfilling our mission? What does the future hold?
Below you will find a recap of the accomplishments of our four action groups for spring 2005, and some hints of things to come. You can always stay up-to-speed with our work via Ocotillo Central, the digital hub for our weblogs, wikis, and discussion boards.
We are very excited about the format of the May 17, 2005 Ocotillo Retreat with a GPS related theme of "Lost in Technology." In addition to two excellent national guest speakers, the bulk of the day will be open demos of how faculty and staff across Maricopa are using technology. Each registered participant will be able to quickly record their ideas and questions for the demos that interest them. Over the summer, our Ocotillo Chairs will analyze this data and provide, in August, to each participant a personalized "map" of suggestions and activities to help them "find their way."
Emerging Learning Technologies (ELT)
Action Group
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/emerging/
Based on focus group meetings across the district in fall 2004, Co-Chairs Jim Patterson and Dr. Roger Yohe have synthesized their findings into six fundamental areas of emerging technologies displayed on the Gartner Group's Technology Hype Curve:
- Bandwidth and Internet2
- High Definition Visualizations
- Webcasting
- Digital Content
- Portable Devices (PDA's and Tablet PC's)
- Wireless Technology
You can find more details via the report available on the ELT weblog. Starting April 22 and running through May 2, 2005, ELT is hosting an online discussion session to have a dialogue about their findings. In addition, in April, this group has arranged a visit to Arizona State University to see first hand how they are using Internet2 technology.
On September 14-15 2005, EDUCAUSE is bringing to Phoenix a national focus session on "Informal Learning Spaces" hosted at Estrella Mountain Community College. Since participation is limited and experts will be in town, the ELT team would like to extend that event for one additional day of discussion and planning specifically for Maricopa on September 16 - as part of the Fall 2005 Ocotillo Kickoff.
Hybrid Course Structures Action Group
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/hybrids/
During the first week of March, the Hybrid Structures group held an extremely successful online discussion board activity with guest experts visiting virtually from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UW-M). With presentations and topics established each day, our UW-M facilitators initiated a great round of dialogue with 240 messages posted online. Faculty participants were able to earn 1-5 clock hours toward Faculty Professional Growth Non-Academic Advancement for this online activity.
That same week, Glendale Community College was host for a "Designing Successful Hybrid Courses" workshop led by experienced hybrid instructors Dr. Craig Jacobsen (Mesa) and Marla DeSoto (Glendale).
As another part of our Ocotillo kickoff on September 16, 2005, co-Chair Shelley Rodrigo is leading the planning for a "Text and Technologies Dialogue Day" to be held at Mesa Community College. This event will include participation of a number of textbook publishers and faculty authors leading discussions on the use of publisher provided course content, as well as an expo where participants will be able to evaluate the newest technologies publishers are developing.
We congratulate Shelley for being selected as a 2005-2006 Maricopa Institute for Learning Fellow, and welcome two new leaders for next year: Polly Miller (Estrella Mountain) and Alisa Cooper (South Mountain).
Electronic Portfolios Action Group
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/eportfolios/
On February 25, 2005, co-chairs David Weaver and Dale Doubleday welcomed us to an "ePortfolio Dialogue Day: Digital Stories of Deep Learning for Students and Faculty" at Rio Salado College. In addition to powerful presentations by guest speaker Dr. Helen Barrett, a highlight was the panel discussion with five Maricopa students experienced in electronic portfolio activity (Audio recording is available). In addition, we had a very active showcase of faculty and student portfolios. If you missed the event, do not worry - the presentations, handouts, an audio recording of the student panel and more are all available at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/dd/eport05/.
As a follow-up to the dialogue day, the ePortfolio Action group scheduled a "Build Your Own ePortfolio Workshop" on April 15, 2005, at three locations for your convenience. Participants used the Maricopa ePortfolio tool and by the time they left they had a start on their own ePortfolio and the skills to continue developing it. District-wide, we have seen encouraging growth of interest at Phoenix College, Paradise Valley, South Mountain, and Chandler-Gilbert.
Learning Objects Action Group
http://zircon.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/objects/
Our Learning Objects champions Lisa Young and Donna Rebadow have been very active this semester. From March 1 through the end of April, they have led an online Introduction to Reusable Learning Objects LearnShop that is hosted on the District Blackboard server. More than 20 people are participating, and additional activities include online discussion board visits from Scott Leslie, educational researcher from British Columbia as well as software developer D'Arcy Norman from the University of Calgary.
Also, on April 1 we were fortunate to have another expert from Canada, Brian Lamb of the University of British Columbia, come to Maricopa for a Dialogue Day on "Learning Objects, Wikis, and Other Curious Things" at Glendale Community College.
But wait, there's more! At South Mountain on April 2, Lisa led a "Build Your Own Learning Object Learnshop." This session was scheduled on a Saturday to meet the needs of adjunct faculty and was pre-approved for 4.5 clock hours toward Faculty Professional Growth Non-Academic Advancement for residential faculty. Participants used SoftChalk software to create their own "RLOs." Because of the popularity of this session, Lisa and Donna have scheduled a repeat session in June, 2005, at GateWay Community College.
Summary
Clearly, more work is needed to help faculty discover and implement the best use of these technologies within their courses. We are seeing that Ocotillo is working toward a new definition of "learning space." Continued workshops and seminars offered across the district and online provide learning opportunities for district faculty and staff as they move into these new spaces. Attendance and participation was a bit slow to start back in September, but recent events have been extremely promising. A critical nucleus of progressive faculty is surfacing. These innovative faculty lead the way for the next generation of teaching and learning.
In March, 2005, we presented at the League for Innovation conference on "Maricopa's Ocotillo Evolves Again: 18 Years of Faculty Led Instructional Technology Initiatives" - there is a lot of history there. And after 30 years in education, we are still looking forward to seeing where this journey leads.
 John Arle, Phoenix College and Alan Levine, mcli
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