Appointed to Council of Distance Learning Directors in Theological Education

I am pleased to announce that I have been invited to serve with an energetic new group of educators and administrators seeking to provide leadership in distance theological teaching and learning environments, the Association of Theological Schools' Council of Distance Learning Directors in Theological Education.

A common theme in theological education is embodiment, a pedagogical imperative that includes modeling Christ-likeness to integrate faith and learning. The other primary concern of theological education is spiritual and ministerial formation, which requires building relational skills and practicing community engagement. Theological educators express doubts about the ability of online learning environments to allow for the goal of embodiment or relationship and community building. 

As the Brains of Full Tilt Ahead, LLC and Online Learning Instructional Designer for Emory's Candler School of Theology, serving with this group will help me explore how the disciplinary culture of theological education interacts with online learning decisions for theological courses and programs.

Resources:

Hess, M.E. (2005) Engaging technology intheological education: All that we cannot leave behind. Rowan and Littlefield: Lanham, MD.

--> Naidoo, M. (2012). Ministerial formation oftheological students through distance education. HTS Theological Studies,68(2), 65-73.

Adobe Connect Training Experience

I have just finished offering a series of training sessions on Adobe Connect for a small number of faculty and staff in a theological school. The training was open for all to attend online in an Adobe Connect meeting room once every two weeks without needing to attend every session.

The Reason
We need the faculty of our new 90% online degree to become very familiar and comfortable with the Adobe Connect environment because they will be hosting 2 classes a week in these web-conferencing meeting rooms. Only a few faculty a year will need this skill, but we have a full six year projection of the faculty who will be teaching in the program, so these faculty have also been invited and some are beginning the training now.


Shout out to Lynda.com

I prepared to do these trainings by reflecting on my experience using Adobe Connect as a participant and host and realized I needed to learn more. I used Lynda.com's training on Adobe Connect to get a full introduction- excellent resource.


The Training Approach
I started the trainings with a very structured approach- the first three sessions were scripted and participants were limited to short application practices at the end of each session. By the fourth session, I was able to make all participants Hosts upon entering and let them play around with features as we talked about them. Happy accidents and collegial cajoling made these sessions fun and seemed to get results. We even tried out a mobile session with participants logging in with I-devices from touch to pad.

The Results
The few faculty who attended the structured training series have expressed gratitude and increased comfort levels and have also signed up to continue in weekly sandbox meetings to start brainstorming teaching ideas and experimenting with carrying those out on Adobe Connect. Additional faculty have also signed up to join.


My Opinion
The only negative experiences we had were related to bandwidth- delays that interfered with effective communication. So far, I've only been able to gather information on how to guide faculty and students on troubleshooting. I would rather have discovered more solutions towards prevention.

At an institutional level, we are reconsidering which web-conferencing platform to continue using. I like the features of Adobe Connect that help hosts create a learning environment beyond sharing mic, cam and screens. The training participants in my sessions were particularly interested in the reusable objects and customizable layouts as well as the breakout rooms.


Shout out to The Thiagi Group

The most creative part of this process was getting to modify Interactive Lecture ideas from Thiagi et al's book for the online learning classroom. For example:

Chat Box Interrupted Lecture

·      Pause from time to time during the lecture

·      Ask a random student to "translate” the lecture into plain English

·      Useful for complex topics and with students who have high level of language skills

Set it Up

·      Create a Note explaining the activity.

·      Create a Chat box named “Plain English”

Run it

Step 1> Begin lecturing for about 5 minutes.

Step 2> Randomly select a student to type an interpretation of this segment of your lecture into the Chat box (alternatively, call on students and enable their mics/cams).

Step 3> After the interpretation, ask if other students have anything to add.

Step 4> Repeat approximately 5 times at different intervals throughout the lecture.

Instructional Design Basics for Online Learning

In every online learning design decision, you will find elements of the above considerations.

1) All decisions should be learning centered. Note: This does not say learner-centered. Even though learners are a primary concern of all design decisions, the learner is only part of the learning equation. You are also working with instructors, subject-matter experts, content and resources as central variables as well. So, the imperative is to stay focused on the desired learning outcome. 
GROAN
Yes, I hear the collective reaction to the tiresome drumbeat of the instructional designer about learning outcomes. But don't think of them as that bulleted list of objectives with verbs from Bloom's taxonomy. Think of them as something to hold on to whenever you are faced with a variety of choices, tools, ideas and possibilities. You can always grab one anchor- what is the desired learning outcome? And how do we get the learners there?

2) The process of instructional design should be systematic. Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, done- right? ADDIE and we're outta here. Well, not quite so easily. But having a clear sense of method and a plan can keep your progress steady and ensure thorough attention to details. You can determine what this system is, based on your work style and parameters. As we'll see in #6, the systematic approach is rarely linear, but you should have non-negotiable procedures and checks in place to keep you on track and to keep your learning design accountable to a high standard of quality. 

3) Every online learning design will be evidence-based if the formula of show, scaffold and sustain is followed.  

• Show learners the knowledge, skills or attitudes needed for the learning objectives;
• Scaffold their ability to practice these skills, and 
• Sustain learning beyond the classroom by offering resources and encouraging reflective practice.
  

This formula has often been shown to be successful in educational research. Any additional experimentation with approaches to online learning should also build from existing research on evidence-based practices.

4) As much as possible, the strategy for online learning should make information available just-in-time when the learners are looking for it and ready for it. The structure of an online classroom can attend to this by keeping current resources available on opening pages. The important notion to shake loose is "I put it in the syllabus." Even though it is useful to provide an overview of all activities at the beginning of a course, it is more strategic to repeat this information when it will be most useful to learners.


5) In line with the just-in-time approach, you can be strategic about how much information you provide when learners are looking for it. Similar to "chunking," providing "just what's needed" helps keep learners focused and works against overload. For example, the same information that may have originally been delivered in a long classroom lecture could be rolled out strategically in bits and pieces through asynchronous discussions.

6) The process of instructional design is not so neatly tied up in the profession's acronym, ADDIE: analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate, as it may seem. An initial design, even when based on careful needs and audience analysis, may fall apart in the idiosyncracies of a particular context. Or new constraints may present themselves. Instead of proceeding in a linear way, the steps of ADDIE are part of an iterative process that allows us to experiment, prototype, test, rethink, redesign and keep improving. 


7) In order to meet the needs of learners, instructors, administrators and institutions in authentic learning environments, instructional designers must ensure that learning tools and activities can be easily integrated with existing practices and resources. This requires ecological thinking, working back and forth between innovative learning goals and institutional and instrumental parameters. It is also important to consider the lifestyles of learners and consider how to make the learning environment accessible and flexible for their habits. 


8) Repeated messages are learned. This fact has been shown in study after study of cognition, memory and even marketing.  Making sure that information and materials are placed redundantly throughout learning activities and environments will ensure not only ease of use but also increased learning.

9) Finally, every online learning decision should be responsive to the needs of users and provide the mechanisms for continued feedback loops. No learning design should be considered final as long as new users and goals are being added. By creating environments that can be customized for unique demands and automated for convenience, instructional designers can effect the right balance for usability and scalability.  




Just to make it a nice round number, what would you add for #10?

Lecture Capture: Echo 360

We are implementing an A/V content management and lecture capture system at Emory University, Echo 360.

Echo360 allows users to schedule and record lectures and presentations from their desks (personal capture), the classroom (podium/classroom and system capture) or outside source (media import). All content managed in Echo360 can be made available through a web link or embedded content areas in a Learning Management System. The Echo360 interface allows users to track student interaction with the lectures and provides space for students to discuss the content.

Below are some of my thoughts and experiences with Echo 360 after 6 months of use. 

Using Echo 360

• Personal Capture: We have had a few faculty members use the personal capture feature to record lectures at their desks and upload to an online learning environment. 
• Pedagogy: This feature allows faculty to experiment with hybrid and flipped learning so they can offer lectures as supplemental materials like reading assignments and use more class time for discussions and activities.
• Technology: The tracking and discussion features surrounding the personal capture once it is posted on the course site are useful. The integration with the Learning Management System is also a great convenience for faculty.  However, the limitations of the recording feature for editing and for switching between screen recording and webcam recording are clunky. If a user wants to record herself briefly at the beginning of a presentation, then share the screen for a slide presentation, then it would either need to be two separate recordings or the box where the webcam recording appeared will stay in place as a blank gray box throughout the screen recording. Because of these drawbacks, I am currently recommending to faculty that they use software like Camtasia to record personal lectures instead. These recordings can still be imported into the Echo 360 environment through the media import option.
• Podium or Classroom Capture:  We now have all of our classroom computers equipped with the Echo 360 classroom capture client. However, we only have half of those rooms wired with mics to capture audio. We have a roaming mic we can move to any room to use for capture if needed. 
• Pedagogy: Faculty users are both interested in making their lecture recordings available to students after class and hesitant to offer this "get out of class free" card. Those faculty members who had already embraced the use of I-tunes to offer their lectures have been first to make this change to Echo 360 and have been using it with success. They comment that students are glad to have access and have observed through tracking that students are using the lectures to study in the course. 
• Technology: Users are pleased that they do not have to turn this system on- no additional technology support is needed once the user is trained to use the mic and the recordings have been scheduled. The system tray that displays on the computer is helpful because it confirms for users that the capture is recording and also offers them the opportunity to stop, pause or extend recordings.
  The use of Echo 360 instead of I-tunes has resulted in one loss of functionality that users are not happy with- they cannot stream the audio from the lecture on their mobile devices and listen to the lectures in the car. They could download the m4v file and add it to their device to listen to, but this creates an extra step. 
• System Capture:  We have just installed our first Echo 360 appliance with an HD camera in our largest lecture hall. We are still in the early stages of this process and do not have a full class recorded yet.
• Pedagogy: Our faculty are most interested in this tool because it can also capture video. Some believe this is important because of the performance aspects of their lectures. Others are more interested in being able to include student discussion groups in the recording archive. I am curious to see how faculty experiment with this more versatile tool.
• Technology: This tool is more flexible than the personal capture tool. If a user moves from capturing screen display to video or does both simultaneously, students are able to close windows or adjust their size as needed when viewing recordings. However, these captures also cannot be edited. This restriction on editing is the biggest drawback of Echo360 that I've observed so far.
• Media Import:  This is one of the most versatile options for Echo 360 and we have a few faculty using it already who are not using the other features.
• Pedagogy: This feature highlights Echo 360's capabilities as a content management system. This tool creates a space for integrating media in the online classroom because of its compatibility with the Learning Management System and surrounding features. We are using this as the primary tool for offering multimedia in our online classes because we can track student interaction, create discussion spaces and streamline issues with video streaming. 
• Technology: The first time we used this feature was to allow faculty who were in a room without Echo 360 installed to record their lectures as they would for I-tunes and import the recording into an Echo 360 site. Now we are also using it to support faculty who have multimedia components to their courses.

Administering Echo 360

As someone who is usually quick on the uptake with new tools, I have found the administrative interface and workflow for implementing Echo 360 to be less than optimal. The process for entering terms, users, rooms, devices and schedules into the system could be improved. It seems a little ad hoc instead of carefully designed.

It requires quite a bit of infrastructure to support the use of the tool as well. We have campus level support that I frequently have to call on. I have also needed support from the IT team we have at our school for desktop support of A/V components, media support and classroom technology support.

Overall, I am a fan of the potential of the tool, pedagogically, technologically and administratively, and look forward to each version improving the user experience. n.b. I am writing this the first week of classes while support for the tool and the scramble of last minute requests is intensive. After lectures are being recorded automatically on schedule, and I start to forget the system exists, my tone of praise is likely to be more enthusiastic.