Conference Inspiration

Have you been inspired lately?

This week within the CCCOnline Community, we offer a space for you to share with colleagues anything you’ve learned in recent professional development conferences or workshops. Please feel free to jump in!

Register for the CCCOnline Annual Conference!

This week, hot off the grill we’re serving you a reminder to register for the CCCOnline Annual Conference, “Recipes for Success” . . . we’d love to see you there! The conference will be held Friday, Sept. 21, at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton.

We’ve got a great day planned, with sizzling presentations from CCCOnline instructors, staff, our vendors . . . and smokin’ door prizes!  Visit this page for the registration link and more, including conference schedule and session descriptions:
http://media.ccconline.org/ccco/conference2012/Conference2012_index.html

Post-FUSION Reflections: D2L Conference Inspires

This week, CCCOnline staff share food for thought after having attended FUSION, Desire2Learn’s annual conference (held this July in San Diego). Enjoy their contributions below – and we welcome you to join the conversation in the CCCOnline Community!

“Raif Esquith was a very inspirational speaker. When asked why his students are so successful in his class, one of the things he said was that he wasn't concerned with teaching his students skills that they'll use in class, or skills to pass a test one year from now; he's concerned with teaching his students skills they'll use 10 years from now, or for the rest of their lives. That, to me, was an inspirational point that could have the potential to change a teacher's entire approach to their class.”

-Sean Renner

“I enjoyed hearing Sal Khan speaking about changing teaching by creating tools that motivate students to progress through content at their own pace, and that building the foundation of skills keeps good students strong in a subject area but also helps weaker students rise to a higher level than they may have in a traditional classroom.”

-Karen Kaemmerling

“The future of online education is heating up and there is a land grab for students and institutions worldwide.

The keynote speakers impressed me very much.  Each presented several ideas that could be generally called inflection points of history.

First the creation and then delivery of Online Content is rapidly vibrating between publicly funded institutions and pure commercial interests. Already running ahead and staking out territory are the ‘Oklahoma Sooners’ of the digital education age.  The new products and solutions being introduced are awe inspiring yet at the same time highlight how far behind non commercial interests are in generating and delivering online content.

Secondly, the keynote from Sal Kahn who spoke about how education is not the exclusive territory of ‘old institutions.’ He was harkening back to days where families, communities and students would shop for and procure the services of the best tutors and private instructors. Except that now that private tutor being somehow automated can be played, rewound, or practiced with again and again until the student actually learns that lesson. It’s of no use, nor benefit, to move on if the learner didn't understand the current lesson. Basically the market for education is returning toward the learner as being the one in charge of his/her intellectual formation and its pacing.  A system or school which offers a menu or track that must be done within X amount of time or whatnot is no longer the exclusive place to find an intellectual formation program.

Lastly, in many areas the purpose and intent of online training is going to be highly focused. The Admiral's (ret) presentation spoke about on-the-job training and just-in-time training using online as the media as well as the content was an eye opener. Tactically relevant Virtualization and Simulation embedded into courses is coming. OJT and JIT training in medical or technician type fields are no longer about book based learning looking at static pictures. Students will in the future be presented with a simulation (Graphical, 3d or otherwise immersive) of the equipment or scenario for which they are training. In the future it’s not just about reading, looking at diagrams or videos and taking quizzes. Learners will have to complete a ‘simulation run’ and will then be evaluated post simulation as ‘proof’ for demonstrating they know how things are to be done. This type of education delivery is in the space of hours and days, not weeks and months. He sees a future where learners study, simulate till proficient, then go into the field just after training finishes and do tasks well the first time."

-Joseph Foss

“I was particularly struck by individual conversations with peers at other institutions.  One in particular stuck with me when a representative from The Ohio State University told me that you’d have a hard time finding the text books in the campus bookstore.  This is no longer a significant business for them, and the reasons are that students are finding other ways to buy text books elsewhere or the ebooks and Apple IBooks are changing the model.  So, we are in the midst of a change and this creates opportunities and challenges.  How will CCCS and CCCO deal with this in a beneficial way?”

-David Chatham

Your Training and Professional Development Experiences

As part of our continuing process of evaluating and improving our Training and Professional Development opportunities at CCCOnline, we'd like to open up a discussion about what your experiences. What workshops and webinars have you participated in that you would like to offer feedback about, either positive or negative? What kinds of workshops or webinars would you like to see offered at CCCOnline that have not been offered? What subjects would you like to see covered in a workshop or webinar that you, so far, have not?

This discussion will take place in the CCCOnline community in Desire2Learn. Enter the CCCOnline Community, go to the discussions tool, select the Training and Professional Development forum, and select the "Your Training and Professional Development Experiences" topic. Here you can post your thoughts and ideas, or respond to posts from your colleagues.

Thank you in advance for contribution to this important discussion!

Sean Renner
Training and Professional Development Coordinator

Changes to the Library Resources Web Pages and New Resources

This week, exciting news from CCCOnline's Instructional Online Librarian Mary Cash! 

Hey everyone, take some time to check out what’s new with our Library Resources.   

*First, the Library Resources and Research & Writing Toolkit pages have officially moved from the student wiki over to the ccconline.org website: http://www.ccconline.org/Library_Resources.   

*Once you’re on the main page of the Library Resources, you’ll also notice a link to the EBSCO article databases.  So, in addition to being able to access the databases once you’re logged in to D2L, you can also click on the EBSCO link, login with your S# and password and get into the databases right from the Library Resources page.  

*Inside D2L, you will also notice a change to the Helpful Links widget, with just one link to Library Resources instead of several.  Click on the Library Resources page, and you’ll see the same page that you see out on the ccconline.org website; you just won’t need to login to access the databases.

*Please take some time to check out the article databases as well; we now have some additional databases – including  CINAHL (nursing and health science database), History Reference Center, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Science Reference Center, Points of View, Consumer Health Complete, and more.  We still have the always wonderful Academic Search Premier, and Business Source Premier.  Visit the Library Article Databases Tutorial to see descriptions of all of our databases.

*Note also that CCCOnline is now a member of AskAcademic, the 24/7 academic Ask-a-Librarian service offered through the Colorado State Library.  Check out the AskAcademic widget on the Library Resources main page.  Students can still email me, cccolibrarian@ccconline.org, with their questions; I will have more first-hand knowledge of specific research assignments in their courses, but do encourage your students to use the AskAcademic reference service.  The service is manned by trained reference librarians from the AskAcademic member libraries – visit the AskAcademic website to learn more: http://www.askacademic.org/ and here’s a list of the participating libraries: http://www.askacademic.org/participating.html.  CCCOnline pays a small fee to the Colorado State Library and mans the virtual reference desk for 2 hours a week in return for great reference and information service to both students and faculty.

Be sure to check back to the Library Resources web pages from time to time   - I have some ideas for new features and will be adding those as I have time. Have interesting ideas related to anything library related?  Have questions?  Email me at mary.cash@cccs.edu.

 

Thanks, Mary Cash, Instructional Online Librarian, CCCOnline

Online Learning News

Below please find several recent Online Learning-related news links. (Our last installment of these links was published in January.)   We welcome your additional links and conversation in the CCCOnline Community.

“Professors and Online Learning” by John Thelin (7/10/12)
Commentary from Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/07/10/professors-shouldnt-be-afraid-online-learning-essay

“Online Learning and Liberal Arts Colleges” by Steve Kolowich (6/29/12)

From Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/29/liberal-arts-college-explore-uses-blended-online-learning

“Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012” by Steve Kolowich (6/21/12)
From Inside Higher Ed, about their joint study with the Babson Survey Research Group.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/conflicted-faculty-and-online-education-2012

“4 Professors Discuss Teaching Free Online Courses for Thousands of Students” by Jeffrey R. Young (6/11/12)
From The Chronicle:

http://chronicle.com/article/4-Professors-Discuss-Teaching/132125/?sid=gn

"Online Classes and College Completion" by Rob Jenkins (3/13/12)
From The Chronicle:
http://chronicle.com/article/Online-ClassesCollege/131133/?sid=cc

“5 Foundational Principles for Course Design” by Joshua Kim (2/2/12)

From Inside Higher Ed’s “Technology and Learning” blog:

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/5-foundational-principles-course-design

Happy Fourth

This week, we’d like to wish a happy and safe Independence Day to you and yours. Enjoy the holiday!

Question for discussion: If you incorporate holidays into your courses, how do you do so? Comment with colleagues in the CCCOnline Community.