ITC e-learning 2008 

The Instructional Technology Council held its annual e-Learning conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, from 16 to 19 February.  Xeturah Woodley, Executive Director of Distance Learning, presented a session entitled “Putting Our Stake in the Ground: Baldrige and Distance Learning”.  The presentation reviewed the Distance Learning Department’s use of Baldrige criteria in formulating a strategic plan for 2008-2011.

Distance Learning Specialist Jeannie Luther attended sessions, took notes, and visited Web sites for information and ideas that can be used by Distance Learning faculty and staff.  Jeannie’s three favorite sessions are reviewed below.

Barry Dahl's Free Web-based Tools Blog                       

Barry Dahl is the Vice President of Technology and the Virtual Campus at Lake Superior College, located in Duluth, Minnesota.  He's a board member of the North Central Region's Instructional Technology Council, and is serving on the executive committee for Minnesota's Online Council. 

Sounds like a busy schedule, but I have not yet listed Mr. Dahl’s hobbies.  He maintains a high-quality  Web site and three associated blogs to support educators and developers involved in online education.  Mr. Dahl's home page at Lake Superior College includes links to some of his conference presentations and handouts and to three blog pages.  The blogs are Barry's Tech Ed Blog, Barry's e-learning Blog, and a Free Web Tools Blog.

Have you ever wanted to add audio, blog links, cartoons, video presentations, RSS readers, social bookmarking, wikis, or Web Office tools to your online class?  You can find all of these tools, and learn how to use them, at Mr. Dahl's Free Web-based Tools site.  Mr. Dahl's other sites are also filled with helpful information and Web tool links, so create a favorites folder entitled "Barry Dahl Links", and take some time to look at these great sites. 

E College Faculty Training

LoneStar College's E College staff from Texas presented a four-hour session entitled “Preparing Faculty to Teach Online”.  E College is really prepared.  Their faculty support Web site, which is currently available to outside connections, contains links to documents, tools, and articles presented in a clean, easy-to-read style.

E College uses Blackboard Vista, which is similar to CNM’s CE6 Enterprise version of Blackboard.  System CE6 tools work in the same way as Blackboard Vista tools, although Blackboard Vista has a few more bells and whistles.

The Distance Education & Instructional Technology Director, Debra Rockefeller, oversees a staff of 12 employees who have produced a robust program with course standards, quality assessment forms design tools, and plenty of faculty and student support.  In their presentation, Ms. Rockefeller and Hilton Lasalle (Director of the Center for Teaching and Distance Learning) discussed the department’s faculty training and support programs, and LoneStar's strategic planning program.

A great deal of this material can be located on the Distance Education & Instructional Technology Department’s Web site, including faculty training materials, a distance learning faculty handbook  that includes distance learning course standards, and links to other e-learning resources.

Project Eagle:  How to Grow an E College

Instructional Technology staff from St. Petersburg College's eCampus shared their Pathways to eLearning program, which was designed to assist interested faculty in making the transition from on campus classrooms to the distance learning environment.  Although the eCampus faculty tutorials are not available online, the Web site Project Eagle Revisited contains links to presentation that were created during the development of the Pathways programs.

Project Eagle is a state funded initiative to build a national model for increasing access to four year degrees and workforce training for community college students.  As part of that initiative, the state invested $5,000,000 in the development of eCampus in order to build a robust educational Web presence that would serve students throughout Florida.

All of the planning and implementation material from Project Eagle are available online, including the project's Evaluation Plan, the Best Educational E-Practices (BEEP) newsletter Web site, Project Eagle's presentation and publications Web site, and the Project Eagle Research Capsules (PERC) Web site.