Today’s generation of students know how to use the web for a lot more than just checking their email. They’re perfectly comfortable with dynamic web pages and highly interactive content. They spend hours a day on social networking sites communicating and collaborating with friends. So why is it that the only interaction they have with Learning Management Software is when they check to see if their grades have been updated?

LMS systems offer a hub of interaction for today’s online students – at least, they should. Instead of collaborating within an LMS, students are organizing themselves into independent Facebook and Google groups, and teachers are making outside blogs for their students to follow. Some teachers avoid LMS software altogether because it’s too clunky and confusing. There’s a growing disconnect between what LMS solutions provide and what students and teachers actually use or want.

Many new technologies have an exciting potential to help educate, but become difficult to apply and manage with a teacher’s constraints of time and tech ability. At Instructure we’ve created a new type of course software that embraces the open technologies of the web and harnesses them for better teaching and learning.

We’ll demonstrate Instructure Canvas, a new learning management system that saves teacher’s time, better engages students in their education and provides a usable and accessible interface for all users.

Many of our clients have adopted EQUELLA to liberate and store all digital content in a repository that is integrated with their CMS and library systems.   Our core belief is the idea of Content Without Limits in which EQUELLA acts as a centrally managed “engine” to share, create, and manage content across an institution.  With this platform approach you can centralize your content and make it accessible to users on and off campus in a secure manner.  This content can include documents, websites, journal subscriptions, library content and much more that would be seamlessly integrated in your current delivery mechanisms and available to all those who teach and learn.

This session will provide an overview of the repository, highlight EQUELLA’s ability to integrate with multiple CMSes concurrently, and showcase live client sites – including the University of Utah and Utah Education Network.  

Presenters

Peter Van Tienen and David Spiegel

This will be a panel (of one) discussion about the challenges and rewards of making an open source LMS the university’s enterprise LMS. I’ll share the dilemmas and the rewards of dealing with early adopters, non- adopters, skeptical administrators, realizing a true cost savings, integrating with other enterprise systems, and generating enthusiasm versus managing expectations. Bring your questions and concerns and we will share mistakes and successes so other open source enthusiasts can find even greater success in their efforts.

Slides for Presentation

In this session participants will:

* Receive an overview of TPCK/TPACK
* Receive an overview of TPC 3D
* Explore a set of Instructional Design tools that utilize TPC 3D
* Observe how SME/F data informs Instructional Design decisions

Abstract

Online-Video Madness: What’s the big deal? Wait- does it belong in my course?

The purpose of this workshop is to provide
an overview of basic online-video principles and a comparison of video
solutions that integrate well with Learning Management Systems. In this session we will address preproduction, production, post-production and delivery aspects of online video publishing.
Additionally, this introductory course will cover
ease of use, learning curve and cost of software/hardware.
The workshop is technical in nature, but designed as a guided for staff and
instructors new to online video publishing. This workshop will help bring focus to the daunting question of whether an instructor should
be communicating with their students through
online-video. At the end of the workshop, the attendee will have a better understanding of online video principles that will enable him or her to decide how to best use the diverse solutions available to meet the specific requirements of their course. Most importantly, attendees will understand all facets of online video to determine if they should NOT be using online video in their course.

We are in a time when it is commonplace for everyone to easily discover,
watch and share video online. Today, videos ( whether on ULive or Hulu or you name it) are an integral part of our everyday online experience. You are either creating, stumbling upon or passing them along to your friends or colleagues. The big question to tackle is whether it belongs in your course. If students are ingesting information everyday through visual-auditory digital format, does this really make a difference in the way that they receive the information an instructor is providing in their class? Will the instructor who uses or will use videos to demonstrate a problem have more engaged students and as a result students with better grades? Conversely, if the instructor who teaches a face-to-face class starts to additionally present all the lectures as on-demand webcasts, will the students stop coming to class? This session will address the nuts and bolts of these questions as well as other questions that have risen as a result of the online video tidal wave.

As the hype of online video reaches its apex, we will start to see a clear picture of how online video can be effectively used in online course. Though there are instances where video can augment the content being presented in a course, there are also moments when video can take away from the learning experience. A couple of the elements that can get in the way are technical barriers, for example the student not having the appropriate media player plug-in, or the nature of the content being presented, a talking head lecturing endlessly for 90 minutes without a visual break.

Video technology will get better and online video best practices will emerge within the next two or three years. The peak of online video’s inflated expectations will come to an end and instructors and educational institutions will reach a plateau of productivity with were video best practices are common. To best maximize the plateau of productivity, there will have to be a large initiative by campus media service providers to encourage the development of campus-wide media literacies. For this to occur, small steps will have to be taken to teach both digital migrants and natives about best practices; because even though a digital native might understand how to upload a video to Vimeo, they may not necessarily understand how to get the highest quality video published. It’s up to media service providers to continually develop and share media literacies with all faculty and university staff for a more effective and efficient learning experience. In this session we will give examples of effective as well as ineffective uses of videos in online course. Participants of this session will not need any tools or any prior knowledge about video and online publishing methods. This session will address both online video technical and theoretical aspects.

Presenter

Juan Aldape
Media Lead
University of Utah

tacc.utah.edu

Juan Aldape is Media Lead for the Technology Assisted Curriculum Center. His passion is developing and sharing media literacy for a more effective and efficient learning experience.

Abstract

Drupal’s use is exploding in Higher Education. This session will introduce a new Drupal distribution designed to serve as a platform for building rich intranets for educational institutions.

Universities are large complex enterprises. Drupal’s modularity and flexibility make it the perfect platform for building a new social learning environment which “glues” together legacy LMS systems, Student Information Systems, grading systems, and learning happening on 3rd-party tools such as Google Docs, wikis, blogs, micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter, and so on.

I’ve been working on Eduglu for the past two years as a student at Brigham Young University and am now releasing it to the world and starting a company to provide commercial support and hosting.

This session will serve as an introduction to Eduglu.

• How we build and maintain Eduglu.
• Eduglu’s current functionality and roadmap for the next year.
• Where your help is needed to make Eduglu thrive.
• What needs a tool like Eduglu fulfills.
• And why Eduglu is the perfect base for your next social learning project.

I expect to make the first beta release for Eduglu by Drupalcon. Alpha testers are welcome (and needed) now!

Presenter

Kyle Mathews
entrepreneur
n/a

http://kyle.mathews2000.com

I run a company that builds social learning products based on the open source CMS Drupal.

Abstract

This presentation will demonstrate how Wimba’s Collaboration Suite empowers educators with a unique collaborative approach that facilitates learning interactions, addresses multiple learning styles, and builds community online. Regardless of discipline or subject, faculty can EASILY add interactive elements to blended, hybrid or online courses.
Learn how you increase collaboration among your students with one single source of interactive tools. We will demonstrate how Wimba’s suite of collaborative products can allow faculty to EASILY create a complete and engaging teaching and learning environment by adding numerous interactive elements to their online courses.
Wimba Classroom supports audio, video, application sharing, and content display, enabling instructors to add vitally important elements of interaction that simply cannot be provided in a text-based course. Instructors can personalize their online courses by holding live, online classes, office hours, guest lectures, webcasts, and meetings. Instructors consider personal interaction to be the most valuable element of the teaching and learning process. Wimba Classroom allows faculty and students to build relationships by combining state-of-the-art interactive technologies such as voice, video, application sharing, polling, and whiteboarding, with traditional best practices of instruction. Now, enjoy the best elements of face-to-face and online instruction as faculty and students can talk to each other, express emotion, and feel as if they’re part of a single community.
Wimba Voice allows faculty to add voice to their course with Voice Email, Voice Board, Voice Direct, Voice Recorder, Voice Presentation and Podcaster. You’ll see actual examples of how these tools are used in the online environment regardless of the Course Management System you use.
Wimba Pronto is an instant messaging system that uses text video and voice to communicate with students. The list is populated with the names in your current CMS.
Wimba Create helps faculty create content and content modules easily from within the MS Word environment.
Wimba is helping educators enhance learning, improve outcomes, and increase student retention. Find out what Wimba can do for you and your students….

Presenters

Steve Kann – Co-Founder and Senior Vice President, Engineering

Steve Kann is responsible for the research, product strategy, architecture, and development of Wimba’s Collaboration Suite of products. He is a co-founder of Wimba and chief architect of Wimba Classroom, the industry’s first virtual classroom technology to use voice-activated switching to enhance the natural flow of collaboration.

Kann received his bachelor’s degree in Engineering from The Cooper Union. He is a thought leader on open source with several published articles in security and multimedia domains. Kann also is an industry expert on eliminating barriers in information technology for people with disabilities, a key part of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Shelley Constant

Shelley Constant taught computer courses at Barton County Community College in Kansas for over 12 years and was an Education Account Executive with Apple for 13 years. She is a former IT Director and was the owner of an education technology consulting company. Shelley has been a Regional Sales Manager for Wimba since June of 2008.

Abstract

The development is a loosely coupled (i.e. standalone) gradebook is an essential component of BYU’s long-term strategy of providing an open learning network for faculty and students. Our intent is to develop it in-house then make it freely available to the academic community.

This project is funded for development in 2009 and will be well underway by the time of the conference. We propose to provide session attendees with an update on our progress, including screenshots and demos of the product to date.

We will also solicit feedback and input regarding the product and its future.

Presenter

Jon Mott

Jon Mott currently is the Assistant to the Academic Vice President – Academic Technology. He reports to the Academic Vice President and provides strategic guidance on academic technology issues. He also works closely with the University’s Chief Information Officer and serves as the liaison between the Academic VP’s office and the Office of Information Technology. He serves as chair of the Academic Support Coordinating Committee and the Academic Technology Advisory Committee. Jon is currently a member of the Blackboard’s customer advisory board and the Adobe Higher Education Advisory Board.

Jon previously served as Managing Director at the Center for Instructional Design (now the Center for Teaching and Learning). He earned a B.A. in political science from BYU in 1992 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oklahoma in 1998. He is an adjunct faculty member in Instructional Psychology & Technology, Political Science and Public Policy.

Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley

Today’s generation of students know how to use the web for a lot more than just checking their email. They’re perfectly comfortable with dynamic web pages and highly interactive content. They spend hours a day on social networking sites communicating and collaborating with friends. So why is it that the only interaction they have with Learning Management Software is when they check to see if their grades have been updated?

LMS systems offer a hub of interaction for today’s online students — at least, they should. Instead of collaborating within an LMS, students are organizing themselves into independent Facebook and Google groups, and teachers are making outside blogs for their students to follow. Some teachers avoid LMS software altogether because it’s too clunky and confusing. There’s a growing disconnect between what LMS solutions provide and what students and teachers actually use or want.

At Instructure we’re working to create a new type of course software that embraces the open technologies of the web. Our real goal, though, is to create a system that will actually get used. We have our own ideas about how to make a modern LMS really shine, and we’ll start the presentation off by going over some of these thoughts. Then we’ll open it up for discussion to hear what you want/need in an LMS. We’re building this product for you, and we want to make sure it’s something that will actually fit into your educational plans.

This presentation will be the chance to start participating in the creation of a meaningful, useful educational product. It’ll be an open-discussion opportunity for us to get to know you better, and for you to get excited about a fresh new take on educational software.

Although Weber State has been using the Blackboard/WebCT LMS for the
last six years, it has also been investigating the promise of open
source learning management systems. Weber’s rationales for deploying
an open source LMS will be outlined, and the strategies and challenges
that Weber has faced in pursuing open source will be discussed.
Participants will be invited to share their own experiences and
concerns with open source learning management systems.

Objectives of the presentation (what are you planning to do)

A case study of how open source LMSs are being deployed (and evaluated) at Weber State University.

Practical Applications (how can your results/strategies be used by others)

Consider some of the merits and demerits of open source learning management systems.

Bio

Luke Fernandez is Assistant Manager of Program and Technology Development at Weber State University. On the side he writes articles on university IT issues and teaches adjunct courses in a number of learning management systems. His blog is at http://itintheuniversity.blogspot.com