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OLG Meeting Notes Sep 3, 2004 ...

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Ocotillo Online Learning Group
Meeting Sep 3, 2004

Mesa Community College
1:30 - 3:30 PM
AS192 (classrooms immediately east of the library but attached to the library corridor)
See campus map (32k PDF)

Supporting Online Students and a bit of a Breeze ... Distance Learning Startup, Online Tutoring, Macromedia Breeze

Welcome and Introductions (1:30 - 1:35 pm)

Donna Gaudet (Mesa)

What's New in Online Learning at Our Campus (1:35 - 1:50 pm)

all participants
A round up of who's doing what (briefly!) per site represented.

• Scottsdale Community College:
  The student online orientation cd is now available in an online version as the E-Learning Travel Guide:
  http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/scconline/orientation
  
  John Kavanaugh shared his experience using Impatica to stream PowerPoint presentations with audio. He shared that it streams well and compacts the presentation to a manageable size. Before using Impactica, students required a broadband connection to view his content; with the new versions, they are viewable via dial-up modem.
• Rio Salado College:
  RioLearn, the new online e-learning system is up and running. The pilot kicked off August 23. Angela promised a demo at the OLG meeting Rio hosts.
• GateWay Community College:
  The college is fully implemented with BlackBoard 6.0 via the Blackboard Alliance server. The Presidium 24/7 helpdesk is up and running with positive feedback from students and faculty. GateWay has been collaborating with District Technology Training Services to conduct workshops and one on one training with faculty on campus.
• Estrella Mountain College:
  
  • Have developed and piloted 24 Hybrid Courses this past year started with 3 last year and has increased to 24. Our focus in the AGEC courses/University transfer courses.
  • Created an online course presence this past year; converted the self-paced program to online an will add 6 additional online courses this year.
  • Developed and facilitated 4 Faculty workshops
    • Hybrid Redesign Workshop
    • Online Redesign Workshop
    • Preparing to Teach a Hybrid Course
    • How To Web-enhance your Course
  • Redesigned and developed the How-To Modules for Blackboard Alliance group
    • 11 modules
    • Spanish as well as English
    • For Faculty as well as students
    • Interactive
    • Printable version
    • Coming soon transcripts (ADA)
    • Can be accessed from the Maricopa's Blackboard site
      http://www.maricopa.edu/blackboard/
    • EMCC E-Learning site
      http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/academics/Elearning/
  • Student Support Model
    • Goal this year is to identify and begin to implement a comprehensive learning support model which allows face to face learning support to be mirrored in the online environment
    • Cross-training of Information Commons staff and the LEC staff to facilitate 'help is help', more instructional rather than technical after first 2 weeks of the semester
  • Online Writing Center
    • Phase one in our implementation of mirrored F2F support in the online environment
    • Using the Blackboard to facilitate the OWL
• South Mountain Community College:
  Currently piloting Outlook email. The campus has a very high usage of BlackBoard with 492 courses having some online component.
• Mesa Community College:
  • MGT 229 will be offered as an online course in January 2005.
  • DreamWeaver online in 4 hour blocks.
  • Five of eleven instructors in the Fire Science/EMT Program are using online components in their courses. The department plans to have all testing be online in spring semester 2005 using Respondus.
  • Online books are now available from many publishers. They cost considerably less than traditional textbooks. Students receive a skeleton manual and access to an online text that contains full graphics and information.
• District Office:
  • Dave Fraedrich updated the group on Midas and the Blackboard system status.
  • Mike Lang and Ray Ostos are working on a project to develop real world learning objects for and online library. When the project is complete, objects it will be posted in the Maricopa learning eXchange.

Distance Learning Startup Practices at MCC (1:50 - 2:10 pm)

Paul Hietter - MCC Distance Learning Coordinator
Paul will be describing the MCC college-wide activities and events intended to facilitate a smooth start to distance learning courses including student orientations, computer survival workshops, initial student emails, and much more.
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/other/distance/

Mesa Community College was looking for ways to keep instructors and online students connected. They have several ways to address this need.

• If a student registers for an online class in person, they are told to contact their instructor and to set up a MCC email account.
• Letters are mailed to all students enrolled in online course with instructions on how to get started. Dates and times of on campus orientations are listed in the letter.
• On the Distance Learning Website step-by-step instructions are provided for students.
• An email is generated for all students enrolled in an online course that is sent to their MCC email account. It tells students to contact their instructors for specific details of their course.
• MCC portals show classes, rosters, and if applicable a link to the WebCT course.
• The Distance Learning Center offers workshops for novice computer users who are enrolled in online courses.

Online Tutoring at MCC (2:10 - 2:30 pm)

Sarah Henderson (MCC Learning Enhancement Center Coordinator)
Sarah will provide a demonstration and discussion of MCC's online tutoring program.
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/library/LE/online_tutor/

Mesa Community College needed to create an online tutoring system that would work with WebCt and the other delivery systems used on campus. Smartthinking.com and NetTutor.com were investigated and determined to be too costly to be viable.

The decision was made to build a chat room that would be simple to use, simple to find, and include an audio option. The link to the online tutoring system at MCC is buried in the library section, which makes it somewhat difficult to find. Sarah is trying to get a link in a more noticeable space on the front of the MCC web site.

The chat tool built by Melanie Kroening in the CTL includes a drawing tool for creating math expressions and generating graphics in near real time, as well as a built in calculator tool.

Currently online tutors are available for Math, French and Spanish. A live demonstration of a the interactive chat was done with a math tutor from Red Mountain and the OLG participants. There is also an audio option built in to the chat room for vocalization, particularly useful for foreign languages. MCC has Macromedia Breeze; with Breeze there is a camera/video option also.

The system is currently using a five-year-old PC as its server so it can be slow at times, a new server is expected soon. The program is still in the pilot stage. The system is free, but there is some cost associated with paying the tutors. MCC is looking to expand into more languages, including Japanese. The greatest challenge so far has been letting students know it exists.

Break (2:30 - 2:40 pm)

all
Enjoy some snacks while networking. Move to AS192 for hands on demos

Hands on with Breeze (2:40 - 3:15 pm)

Donna Gaudet (MCC CTL)
In the computer lab, you will have the opportunity to experiment and use Macromedia Breeze, the conferencing and web presentation tools recently purchased by Mesa.

Macromedia Breeze is a program that allows users to easily share online meetings, presentations and training courses over the Internet‹using PowerPoint and Macromedia Flash format. The PowerPoint presentation and sound files are compressed into bandwidth friendly flash format. The only requirement for viewing is Macromedia Flash 5.0 or higher, available on 98% of the web audience.

Mesa Community College has a Breeze server that works as the conversion tool. A plug-in is added in PowerPoint for licensed users to create the audio annotations and then access the server tool to generate the Flash versions of the content. Once files are completed, they are zipped and then uploaded to the online course.

Advantages to working with Breeze:

• Presentations are available on demand
• Voice overs are added directly to PowerPoint presentations
• They can be published to the web
• Easy to use wizards are built into PowerPoint
• Quizzes can be created in presentations
• Files play through Flash

Participants viewed a few Breeze content examples including:

• What is Breeze Presentation?
  • Product Overview
  • Short sample presentation - Fractions
• What are some ways that Breeze is used in education?
  • University of Singapore (multiple examples)
  • "The Paradox of Agility and Stability" Ocotillo Retreat 2004 presentation by Diana Oblinger
• How do I convert PowerPoint presentations using Breeze?
  • View Breeze Tutorial

Here are a few more Breeze content examples...

• Macromedia Showcase of Breeze Users
• "Connecting Learning Objects with RSS, trackback, and Weblogs" presemtation at the NMC Fall 2003 Online Conference
• "Mysteries Revealed! Inside the Maricopa Learning eXchange" presemtation at the NMC Spring 2004 Online Conference

The major disadvantage is cost. As a server product, Breeze is more expensive than boxed software. Mesa took advantage of the introductory pricing last spring, the current educational cost is a one time fee of $19,450 and double that to include the Breeze Live module (see Breeze pricing) for the Breeze Presentation system.

Presentations must be published on a PC, although Mac users can view them.

Mesa also purchase Breeze Live for the synchronous conferencing tools. It is used as a way to host synchronous meetings. It is only being used in pilot groups at this time.

The New Ocotillo (3:15 - 3:20 pm)

Alan Levine (MCLI)
Alan updated the group on the progress of the new Ocotillo Action Groups. The four groups maintain weblogs with current information about their group and upcoming events. The action groups are:

• Learning Objects
• Electronic Portfolios
• Hybrid Course Structures
• Emerging Learning Technologies

You can monitor all of Ocotillo via our new "Ocotillo Central", a web site that is part weblog, part wiki, and part discussion board. A Virtual Kickoff is scheduled for September 20-24, 2004. A dialogue day on Eportfolios is scheduled for February 25, 2004 with Helen Barrett presenting.

New E-Resources (3:20 - 3:25 pm)

Alan Levine (MCLI)
MCLI is organizing access or obtaining subscriptions to new electronic resources. You can now find information on accessing:

• wwwTools for Educators - a regularly published collection of valuabel web resources organized by topic
• League For Innovation's iStream - all of the League's publications are available electronically, as well as streaming videos from conferences, live League Ladio (audio webcasts), and other resources for faculty, adminsitrators, and students.

Door Prizes (3:25 - 3:30 pm)

all
Stick around to see if you win one of the prizes (you must register on the sign in sheet and be present to win).

The prizes for this meeting include:

• John Kavanaugh (Scottsdale Community College) won a Macromedia Breeze T-shirt, thanks to Macromedia
• Jennifer Strickland (Paradise Valley Community College) won Adobe Acrobat 5.0 for Windows
• Otis White (Mesa Community College) won Guidelines for Authors of Learning Objects, thanks to New Media Consortium
• Becky Richey (Estrella Mountain Community College) won a Sony Software Sampler CD, 13 titles of multimedia software that expires January 1, 2005
• Bill Demory (Mesa Community College) won a SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB Flash Drive (128 Mb) - your file storage on a key chain?

We will again make use of the random number winner identifier tool!

OLG random number winner identifier
by Alan Levine
Get the .swf file to use for yourself or the original Flash MX file to see how it is done.

Next Meeting...

October 1, 2003 at Phoenix College featuring demos from Chandler-Gilbert Community College