Pre-Conference Workshops - eLearning 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Morning Sessions: 7:30 a.m.—1:00 p.m. (times include lunch & transportation) actual workshop time 8:30 a.m.–11:15 a.m.
Afternoon Sessions: 10:30 a.m.—3:40 p.m. (times include lunch & transportation) actual workshop time 12:15 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
These workshops will take place at San Antonio College. The meeting times are when participants need to meet in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency San Antonio to board the bus that will travel to San Antonio College. Registration is $75 to attend one session, $140 to attend two sessions. The registration fee includes transportation and a box lunch at San Antonio College.
Register to attend any of these workshops when you submit your conference registration to attend eLearning 2013. Space is limited to 25 participants per workshop, so register as soon as possible!
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Morning Workshops |
Afternoon Workshops |
Morning Workshops
Designing High-Quality Online Courses for Student Success - Morning - Sold Out
Rhonda Spells, Executive Director, eLearning Services, Prince George’s Community College
What does a high-quality online course look like? In this session, we will discuss standards of best practice necessary to design high-quality online courses that focus on student success. During this hands-on workshop, participants will explore an existing online course for ideas and best practices for student success. We will also explore free online resources that will improve the quality of the online course.
Participants will have an opportunity to create a design plan for an online course they are preparing to create and receive worksheets and other tools that can be used as a starting place for designing a high-quality online course.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Ensuring Your Institution’s Web Presence Works for All - Part I - Morning
Ronda Edwards, Executive Director, Michigan Community College Virtual Learning Collaborative, Cyndi Rowland, Executive Director, WebAIM and Technology Director, National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), and Jonathan Whiting, Director of Training and Evaluation, WebAIM
The materials your institution offers students, faculty and staff through its Web site are important. Yet the site can exclude those who have disabilities if it does not incorporate some necessary updates. The presenters for this hands-on workshop will introduce participants to the Project GOALS initiative and to some tools educators can use to improve access to their college's online resources at a system-wide level.
Attendees will learn how to use the project's benchmarking and planning tool, which the presenters will make available for participants to access at no charge after the workshop is over. The presenters will provide additional resources, including an action paper to give to college administrators, a best practices document which outlines institution-wide Web accessibility, technical cheat sheets, and institutional snapshots that outline the costs for offering different levels of Web accessibility.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Game On! Using Games in an Educational Environment - Morning
Landon Pirius, Ph.D., Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, North Hennepin Community College
While most games are entertainment-based, they are built on powerful learning theories, including experiential learning, constructivism, activity theory, flow, and social interaction theory. This workshop will examine how entertainment-based and education-based games can draw on these theories and be used for instruction and student learning. Landon Pirius will also highlight examples of games being used for instruction, with particular emphasis on those using games effectively.
Participants will learn how to design a course using games, how to effectively cover academic content, what works well when using games for instruction, and what pitfalls to avoid. Participants will also come away with new ideas for establishing and maintaining a connection with learners through games. This workshop is designed with instructors, academic leaders, and instructional technology professionals in mind.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
La Vista Nueva: Change is Good - Morning
Carol A. Keller, Ph.D., Professor, History, and Pamela B. Hill, Ed. D., Professor, Psychology, San Antonio College
Perplexed about how to maintain academic standards as more students with diverse skills and needs arrive in your classroom? Stressed about the changes occurring in education and the “do more with less” message? If so, attend this hands-on interactive workshop designed to produce tangible ideas and practice for immediate application in your online or on-campus classroom, wherever and in whatever format!
Using existing digital technology strategies for engaging and retaining students, two Alamo instructors representing different disciplines (history & psychology) will share re-designed courses that reflect research-based effective teaching and learning techniques that better engage the student with course content, each other, and you, the instructor. These techniques will focus on collaborative learning and team-work solutions, such as peer-review, grading rubrics and wrap-up discussion forums, and using digitally embedded interactive activities in text to reinforce “Learn by Doing” and “Did I Get This?” These techniques have been shown to increase student retention and productive grade rates, while freeing up your class time to focus on the fun in teaching.
Our motto is, "Let the student do the work," and our commitment is to provide students with collaborative tools for concept mastery and skills building. Collaborative learning starts with instructors sharing ideas, tips and techniques to meet today’s educational challenge. Time will be spent with audience participants sharing their best teaching and learning strategies and techniques.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Socrates in Cyberspace: Creating, Facilitating, and Assessing Critical Thinking in Online Environments - Morning
Tony Roberts, Professor of Philosophy and World Religions, Tarrant County College – Northwest
If Socrates were given the choice to drink the hemlock (for his bothersome habit of asking critical questions to the Athenians) or to limit his manner of inquiry to an online environment, would he find these two choices to be equivalent? Is online learning the end of critical thinking, Socratic dialogue, and student interaction—an alternative, capital punishment for the mind?
In this workshop, we’ll look at how courses across the curriculum (humanities, social sciences, math, business, fine arts, sciences, etc.) have successfully created, facilitated, and assessed critical thinking in fully online and hybrid learning environments. Part of the session will involve a close examination of some current learning strategies and real world examples from courses and instructors that have been on the front end of the e-learning curve for ten years or more.
In addition, you’ll create learning modules that are practical, critical, and easy-to-grade—AND that draw EVERY student into the dialogue, while training them to ask as well as answer questions that move them beyond the level of mere data retrieval. So bring your eLearning challenges (those problem assignments that just don’t seem possible in cyberspace), and we’ll attempt to ‘Socratize’ them together.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Afternoon Workshops
How'd You Do That? Tips and Tricks That Might Account for My 95 Percent Retention Rate - Afternoon
Kari Frisch, Instructor, Speech Department, Central Lakes College
Kari Frisch tracked her retention rates over two consecutive full-time semesters and every class came in between 92 and 98 percent. She will share ten tips and tricks from her online teaching experience that might have contributed to those high results. She will highlight teaching ideas, best practices and even some course management tools which are transferrable to most disciplines.
Participants can easily implement most ideas into existing online courses, regardless of the course management system. This is an interactive session so be prepared to participate, learn, and have a little fun!
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
iPad 101 Workshop - Afternoon
Howard Beattie, Educational Specialist, Holland College, and Michael Amick, Dean of Academic and Technology Services, Central Lakes College
Have you recently purchased a iPad? Wondering how to best use the hottest new tech gadget? The iPad is so much more than a giant iPod. Besides the entertainment value of the device it really is transforming personal productivity and the learning environment. Bring your iPad and attend this hands-on workshop designed around the academic uses of this multiple purpose mobile device.
The presenters will discuss some of the hidden secrets of the iPad and how they can boost your productivity. They will also explore ways to apply a wide variety of Apps to your classroom. Do you have a favorite educational App? Bring it along to share with the group.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Making your Instructional Materials Web Accessible - Part II - Afternoon
Jonathan Whiting, Director of Training and Evaluation, WebAIM, Cyndi Rowland, Executive Director, WebAIM and Technology Director, National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE), and Ronda Edwards, Executive Director, Michigan Community College Virtual Learning Collaborative
The presenters for this hands-on workshop will introduce participants to the principles of Web accessibility and offer techniques educators can use to create accessible instructional materials. They will discuss the materials educators commonly upload into the college's learning management systems (for example, Word, PDF, and PowerPoint files) and HTML content college staff has created locally or procured for their institution’s use.
Participants will learn how to evaluate the accessibility of existing Web pages, with tips they can use to improve them. The presenters will provide handouts participants can take home to distribute to non-technical staff at their institution.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Online Teaching: Redefining Training, Structure, and Tools - Afternoon
Shirley Bass-Wright, Psychology, Dr. Christopher Davis, Chemistry, Chris Grayson, Sociology, Dr. Audrey Mosley, Speech, and Luis A. Lopez, Director of Instructional and Professional Development, St. Philips College
With the growth of online learning, the demand to reach more students, and the continued focus on quality, it is imperative that faculty receive the appropriate training in both the technology used to deliver online classes and in the pedagogical concepts that address how to develop effective online courses that foster student success.
This workshop will enable participants to work with a training course and other training materials within the Instructure Canvas platform, and to see and use training concepts and techniques that have been developed during more than 10 years of training distance learning faculty. The Instructional Innovation Center at St. Philip’s College has worked closely with faculty to develop effective distance learning training programs and support faculty teaching online classes.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
Opening Up Learning: The Why, What, How, and Who to Discovery and Adoption of High-Quality Open Educational Resources - Afternoon
Una Daly, Community College Outreach, Open Courseware Consortium.org, and James Glapa-Grossklag, Dean at College of the Canyons and President of the CCCOER Advisory
Whether it’s called open educational resources (OER), open textbooks, open courseware, or open credentialing, it can seem like open education is the new green. OERs promise to expand access to education and increase collaboration between faculty and students, but the shift from traditional textbooks and course packs takes thoughtful planning to be successful.
In this hands-on workshop, the presenters will clarify the varying definitions and motivations for OERs and give participants an opportunity to find and select discipline or course-specific OERs from open repositories. In addition to guiding you through the nuts and bolts of finding and evaluating OERs, Una and James will discuss the process for adopting OERs, including how to get buy-in from various stakeholders on campus.
Participants will gain an understanding of open licensing, the legal infrastructure for sharing creative works in a digital age, and learn how to ensure the OER you select is accessible for all learners. The presenters will finish up with lessons learned from several successful community college OER projects and discuss the latest trends in open, online education and what they might imply for colleges and learning in the future.
Space is limited to 25 participants (first come, first served).
