Digital Storytelling at the Apollo

The March Apollo Luncheon featured a seven-minute sizzle with Danilo Baylen of UWG's MIT Department. His presentation, "Digital Storytelling Using Windows Moviemaker," was an inspirational account of the power of using technology combined with visual creativity in a learning environment. A link to the PowerPoint portion of his presentation is linked here.

DDEC Support Services Evolving

As the needs for distance and distributed delivery of courses have grown dramatically, so have the services of the DDEC. The primary functions of the DDEC presently include:

- Advising and assisting eCore students
- Online Course Development Assistance
- Faculty Training (one-on-one, group)
- Development/Maintenance of Virtual Training
- Distance Student Orientations
- Distance Student Helpline (advisement, technology, testing, etc.)
- Coordination/Collaboration in Online Student Services (advisement, registration, etc.)
- Overall evaluation of online degree programs
- Liaison with BOR in DL policies, initiatives
- Distance data collection and reporting
- Administration of central DL technologies (WebCT, Wimba, CoursEval)
- Exploration of new technologies to promote enhanced learning and efficiency
- Promotion of DL research through journal, conference, related initiatives

Since July 1, 2007, the DDEC has provided 28,720 minutes of direct, individual support to UWG faculty through helpcalls, Dr. Ds, Inhouse, and the services of our trained GRAs. The top five users of these individualized support services (FY08) were Nursing (7822 minutes), Media/IT (2860 minutes) and Curriculum and Instruction (2339 minutes), Special Ed (1818 minutes), Biology (1373 minutes), and Educational Leadership (1373 minutes). These totals do not include group workshops or online DDEC-facilitated training courses. DDEC staff also provided 14,796 minutes of individualized assistance to online students so far this fiscal year.

Do You Remember?

 
Just 10 years ago at UWG, distance learning delivery was limited primarily to two-way videoconferencing (GSAMS). The first GSAMS courses were offered in Summer 1995 and had a combined enrollment of 156. GSAMS reached its peak in Fall 1997 with nine courses and a combined enrollment of 401 students. This photo is of the DDEC staff (Melanie and Janet) along with our team of GSAMS student facilitators back in 1998 (Christy Talley was a student facilitator back in those days). In Summer 1997, Matthew Clay taught the first partially-online course through a free system called Nicenet, and the first courses utilizing WebCT were offered in Fall 1997. The first fully online course was a graduate political science course in Spring 1998, taught by Jerry Perkins with Melanie Clay and Janet Gubbins. In Fall 2007, there were 171 distance courses taught at UWG with a total enrollment of 3736 students. There were an additional 827 course sections hybrid or technology-enhanced courses which utilized WebCT as well.

2008 eLearning Predictions

Kineo recently did a survey looking for eLearning predictions for the next few months. Here are some of the future trends we thought were most notable:

- Big, corporate LMSs (think Blackboard, WebCT) will lose favor to open source ones like Moodle.

- Lots more video as it gets easier to create and deliver (our new video server will arrive in April!)

- More and more and more learning will happen on the go (iPhone, Blackberries, YouTube, Kindle).

- Blogs, wikis, and the like will encourage people to collaborate and share their stuff (content, ideas).

- Watch out for Rapid eLearning. It's fast, effective and efficient. Raptivity is an example of doing more with less.

E-learning predictions 2008: Place your bets

DDEC Welcomes Cheryl Copelella

Cheryl Copolella recently joined the DDEC staff as an academic advisor. Her primary function is to screen students for the readiness for taking eCore courses, and to assist them as the course goes on. She also works one day per week on the Newnan campus to advise non-declared students and assists the Assistant Dean of Extended Degree Programs with data collection, planning and research related to distance learning and off-campus centers. Cheryl was previously an academic advisor at the University of Florida. She holds a Master of Education in Higher Education Administration (University of Florida) and a Bachelor of Arts in Pre-Architecture (Fordham - magna cum laude). Her husband, John, is employed with the Atlanta Braves organization.

1 in 5 Students Nationwide Taking Online Courses

The 9.7 percent growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 1.5 percent growth of the overall higher education student population. Nearly one in five college students takes at least one class online, according to a fifth annual report, with Fall 2006 totals reaching 3.5 million. The survey also shows:

• Highest growth rate has been seen in the undergraduate area, for the last five years.
• Institutions cite increasing the rate of degree completion as a very important objective.
• Virtually all (83 percent) institutions with online offerings expect their online enrollments to increase over the coming year.
• Faculty acceptance of online instruction remains a key issue only for the less-engaged institutions who do not incorporate online learning into the school’s strategic plan.
  

For the complete SLOAN report, go to http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/index.asp For a more personal look, see this follow-up story in NPR News: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16638700

Spooktacular Lunch-n-Learn Highlights How to Use WebCT Vista to Get Published

Nearly 30 faculty joined us for a special Halloween Apollo Lunch, where Dr. Sunil Hazari (Management) demonstrated how discussion forums can be used to compare, contrast and synthesize information, and as a result generate papers suitable for publication. As Dr. Hazari explained, discussion forums in course management tools such as WebCT Vista are one of the most underutilized tools. Online discussions among students can be used to promote collaborative and cooperative learning, case study discussions, and research presentations. Assessment and feedback on discussion assignments can help students reinforce their grasp of course content and strengthen their own skills at self-assessment. Furthermore, student motivation is increased when they realize that faculty are interested in their success as learners. For a copy of the presentation or examples of resulting published works, contact Dr. Hazari at shazari@westga.edu.

Happy Day for eCore Retention

Although both non-ecore distance courses and f2f courses have retention around 88-91%, eCore retention hovers around 65-71%. This condition is consistent across the state. In the summer of 2006, Ms. Stacey Rowland (e-core coordinator) and Dr. Melanie Clay (Extended Degrees Assoc. Director) began working on a plan to increase eCore retention. The plan included data analysis and surveys, followed by an expanded and gated advisement program, a comprehensive orientation, and the addition of an eCore Mentor and an eCore Community Leader.

Analysis of the Summer 2007 results have just been compiled, and for the first time, eCore retention broke the 80% mark (81%). Previous eCore summer retention has ranged from 68% to a previous high of 75%. Also, of the 15 eCore courses offered summer term, 11 showed improvement in retention over Summer 2006. For example, in English Comp I and II retention increased from 87% to 95% (English Comp I), and from 71% to 91% (English Comp II). Retention in College Algebra increased from 68% to 82%. Retention in American Government increased from 75% to 90%, and from 79% to 89% in Psychology.