Rich Media Instruction - The Top Six Reasons Faculty Choose to Teach Online

Hello.

My name is Sean Brown.

And I'm the Vice President of Education for Sonic Foundry,

creators of Mediasite, the world's first and most widely

used classroom to web recording

solution in academia today.

It is my profound pleasure to welcome you to another in our

continuing series of three webinars that highlight the

various advantages and experiences in using rich

media and education.

The topic of today's seminar is rich media instruction, the

top six reasons faculty choose to teach online.

This webinar is brought to you by Sonic Foundry today, and is

originating from our Madison headquarters.

It is broadcasting live right now to--

as of last count--

over 518 online synchronous viewers.

So welcome to all of you who have chosen to tune in.

This seminar will be one hour in length.

So at the end of the seminar we will be taking questions

for the presenter, who I will introduce momentarily.

In a note of housekeeping, if you'd like to ask a question

to be delivered to the presenter towards the end of

the presentation when she's taking questions, all you have

to do is locate the ask button, which is above my head

right now in the streaming video window.

You will be given a form where you can ask as many questions

as you wish either anonymously or you can include your name

and email address in case you'd like further follow-up.

In addition, when this webinar is concluded, at this same url

that you've received in your invitation, it will be

available instantaneously as an on demand webcast the same

way that you are watching it live right now.

You are welcome to redistribute that linked to

others if you find it useful or use it for your own

personal review.

So the only duty I have left is to introduce our presenter.

Diane Zorn is of course director in the School of Arts

and Letters, the School of Administrative Studies, and

the Schulich School of Business of York University in

Toronto Canada.

She has become one of the most requested and highly

recognized speakers in the subject matter of the use of

rich media and online education today.

We have been happy to enjoy and support her performances

and lectures in various

conferences around the country.

And we are happy to have her today in a custom developed

webinar based upon feedback and questions that have been

received by Sonic Foundry and Diane through the past months.

So welcome to you, Diane.

Welcome to Madison, Wisconsin.

Thanks, Sean.

It's a pleasure to be here.

In this webinar, I will be covering three main topics.

In covering these topics, I will be referring to current

research, current literature, on the topics.

And I will also be referring to my own

course design at York.

And it needs to be said that I'm not the only person who's

behind the creation of my course.

So I have a whole team of people helping me out.

And Kelly Clark, who is the Senior Multimedia Designer at

York University is the technological brains behind my

course design.

And also at the Faculty Support Center there are a

whole team of people including Rob Finlayson and Yvonne

MacKenzie who helped make this course happen.

So I will be referring to my own course design also along

with the literature.

There are three main topics that I would like to address

in this webinar.

The first one is what are the top six reasons

faculty teach online?

And why teach online?

And why embrace rich media in particular?

The second main topic that I would like to address is can

students learn better online?

That's a controversial topic.

Is rich media a tool that can drive students to higher order

skills learning?

And the third topic I'd like to cover is why are faculty

members hesitant or reluctant to teach online?

So I'd like to begin with topic one.

Why teach online?

Why do faculty teach online?

And why embrace rich media?

Here are the top six reasons that faculty teach online.

And I'm going to move ahead to the first reason immediately,

which is the desire to get students more involved with

technology.

The number one reason that faculty

choose to teach online--

and this is based on current research that I've done.

In the handouts packaged with this webinar is a bibliography

of the research that I use.

And if you have any questions about something I say in the

webinar or about the bibliography, please feel free

email me at Zorn@yorku.ca.

Just my last name, Z-O-R-N at YorkU.ca.

And many of the references on that bibliography I have as

pdf articles or I have links to them.

So feel free to contact me about that.

So the number one reason that faculty choose to teach online

is because they want to get students more involved and

engaged with learning by using technology.

Engaged learners are effective ones.

As Marc Prensky observed--

that's www.MarkPrensky.com--

Marc with a C at the end.

Marc said, "Our students have changed radically.

Today's students are no longer the people our educational

system was designed to teach.

Today's students, K through college, represent the first

generations to grow up with digital technology.

They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using

computers, video games, digital music players, video

cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the

digital age."

As Prensky notes, "Today's average college grads have

spent less than 5000 hours of their lives reading, but over

10,000 hours playing video games, not to mention 20,000

hours Watching TV. Computer games, email, the Internet,

cell phones, and instant messaging, are integral parts

of their lives.

Engaging students to learn has always been a challenge.

But now more than ever our teaching practices and our

courses have to be designed to teach today's students."

So the number one reason that faculty members teach online

is because they care about engaging their students and

involving their students in learning by using technology.

The number two reason that faculty teach online is to

create a high quality learning experience.

That is to improve student learning.

And in the second part of this webinar, I'm going to talk to

you about exactly why a fully online rich media learning

environment does promote deep and durable learning.

So as soon as a faculty member decides to teach online, they

have made the decision to broaden their understanding of

the concept of quality, to include greater

individualization of learning experiences.

Online education enables faculty to meet the needs of

diverse students, when, where, and how they want to learn.

Moving toward an online learning environment radically

increases the array of possibilities presented to

each individual student.

As Carol Twigg, 2001, explains, "The ability to

customize the learning environment so that each

student can achieve in a variety of ways increases the

likelihood that learning success online will be higher

than learning success in the traditional classroom." The

traditional classroom being dominated by one

size fits all approach.

Now that I've explained the second main reason why faculty

choose to teach online, I need to qualify this reason by

stating that the opportunity to use technology more

innovatively to enhance course quality is not a focus on

technology for its own sake.

Research shows that faculty want instructional technology

driven by pedagogical goals.

Chismer and Williams, 2001, point out that "as long ago as

1972, the Carnegie Commission on higher education created

the litmus test for best use of instructional technology.

Number one, the teaching learning task to be performed

is essential to the course to which it is applied.

And two, the task could not be performed as well if at all

for students without the technology."

Reason number three.

Another main reason that faculty choose to teach online

is the opportunity to meet the needs of

students at a distance.

Callahan, 2003, noted at a recent UCEA conference that

the largest high school class in US history

will occur in 2009.

"A survey conducted by the US Department of Education

National Center for Education Statistics predicts that

college enrollment will grow 16% over the next 10 years.

With this growth in college aged population and

enrollments, and the need for more lifelong learning for

adults, many institutions acknowledge that within a

decade, there will be more students than their facilities

can accommodate.

Distance education models may provide a solution to capacity

constraints growing enrollment place on the current higher

education infrastructure."

A fourth reason that faculty teach online is increased

flexibility in working hours and location.

Of course, faculty are not stuck to a certain time of the

week that they have to teach, that they have to be in the

lecture hall.

They can work from where they want and when they want.

And a fully online rich media learning environments allow

for virtual office hours, which I have in my course.

So the convenience for students is also a convenience

for faculty of flexibility.

The fifth main reason that faculty teach online is to

respond to what students are asking for.

The students are asking for online educational

opportunities.

Current student and enrollment trends affecting distance

education show that students are shopping for courses that

meet their schedules and circumstances.

More and more learners are demanding that programs are

flexible to accommodate their other responsibilities, such

as part-time and full-time jobs, and family needs.

Students have more constraints than ever on the terms of

their learning.

As a result, students are shopping for courses that best

accommodate their schedules and learning styles, even if

this means transferring the credit to the university where

they will earn the degrees.

Johnson et al., 2002, refers to this notion of acquiring

and exchanging credit at different institutions than

the one they received the degree

from as academic currency.

"And note that it is growing.

As of 1999, 77% of all students graduating with a

baccalaureate degree had attended two or more

institutions.

Students' demand is being supported and answered."

The sixth reason that faculty choose to teach online is the

chance to interact with students more frequently.

This is a controversial point.

And a lot of faculty members immediately think what?

The chance to interact more?

Doesn't online distance education mean less

interaction?

That's not true.

It means more interaction.

It may have been true in the past when we didn't have rich

media technologies, and we didn't have webcasting

technologies like Mediasite.

It would have been true then that we couldn't have more

interaction.

That's not the case now.

So take my course that I designed and teach.

In that course, far more interaction is possible in

that course using webcasting, audio and video podcasting.

And I use WebCT currently as the course management system.

So I wanted to give you some examples.

So on the rest of this Powerpoint slide, you can see

here is a list of varied forms of interaction.

I have video welcome messages.

So when a student comes to my course

homepage, they scroll down.

There is a video welcome message that I taped using

Mediasite, where I simply welcome

students to the course.

And I give them suggestions and tips, coaching for how

they can succeed in the course.

But I also have instructional video messages threaded

throughout the site, all over the site.

And these messages are forms of interaction.

And they're face to face interaction that the student

can have with me.

I have coaching video message, which I'm going to talk about

later when I talked about deep and durable learning.

I have grading criteria video messages, and the lectures

themselves.

I have virtual office hours.

So there is real time interactions also.

And I also happen to have in person office hours for my

fully online courses.

And I have another form of interaction that many people

would not have thought of as interaction.

But it counts as interaction with the professor in a very

new and interesting way.

And that is I use Ombuds buddies in all of my online

and in class courses.

Ombuds buddies essentially take on the role of what an

Ombuds person would do.

And that is in an online class of 90 to 100 students, I had

two to four volunteers from the class who will take email

concerns or suggestions for change about the course--

So as the course is going on, if a student has a concern or

even a complaint that they don't feel comfortable

bringing to me, because they want to be anonymous in that

process, they can email the Ombuds buddy

who then emails me.

And I won't know who it was that made that suggestion.

But it allows me to create reciprocally adaptive learning

environments.

That is learning environments that evolve as the

course is going on.

And an Ombuds buddy is another form of interaction with the

professor, one that gives the student more power and more

control over their learning environment.

There are also discussion rooms, real-time chat rooms,

and private learning team tutorial rooms. These all

count as interactions with other

students and with myself.

So now that I have told you about what the top six reasons

are that faculty teach online, I would now like to talk about

why embrace rich media in particular?

So my answer to the question why embrace rich media is a

resounding to improve the quality of student learning.

I would like to explain and support this answer with

reference to my own course design, and by incorporating

the findings and recommendations outlined in

the 2000 Pew Symposium in Learning and Technology.

Embracing rich media and webcasting and podcasting

takes us far beyond what is possible in the

conventional classroom.

there is a widespread myth among faculty members and

instructors designing online courses.

The myth is that the measure of whether an online course is

effective or not.

The measure is to what extent it replicates in class

experience.

I have to tell you that I began to have really genuine

success with designing online learning environments when I

let go of that myth.

And so that is when I began to see that what could be done in

a fully online rich media learning environment goes well

beyond what is possible in a traditional in class

environment.

So Carol Twigg, 2001, observed that.

"The problem with applying old solutions to new problems in

the world of online learning is that these applications

tend to produce results that are as good as what we have

done before.

Now student centered highly interactive rich media online

learning environments offer new approaches that go beyond

producing no significant difference between online

learning and learning that takes place in the physical

classroom."

To paraphrase Twigg the focus needs to be on what we can do

with technology that we cannot do without it.

My online learning environment broadens the concept of a high

quality learning experience.

A fundamental assumption of my course design, our Faculty

Support Center team too behind that, is that greater quality

means greater individualization of learning

experiences for students.

So when I go into designing a fully online learning

environment, I don't ask myself what do

all students need.

I don't ask that question.

Rather using webcasting and podcasting and rich media

technology, this allows me to meet the needs of diverse

students when, where, and how they want to learn, rather

than trying to replicate the in class environment.

My courses take the concept of quality far beyond what is

possible in a conventional classroom.

Another reason why to embrace rich media, the ability to

customize the learning environment.

Students have very little control over their learning

environment in general, and in particular, in class settings.

Depends on the kind of course it is, of course, and the

professor, and all of that.

But for the most part, students

have very little control.

In a fully online rich media environment, students can

customize their learning environment.

So Kelley Park, who is the senior multimedia designer at

York, and myself--

we really strive to create flexible learning environments

that provide individualized learning for students.

So that is approaches that serve each student in ways

that he or she can most benefit.

So this course enables greater choice for students in the

following ways.

So students who take my course, first of all they can

choose the mode of delivery for the course material that

fits their lifestyle.

So students can interact with the lectures in several forms.

So that as students can watch the lectures on their Sony

Playstation, on their video iPod.

They can listen to it on their MP3 player.

They can view it on their Mac or their PC.

And that's a lot of choices.

But students can also individually customized the

mode of delivery.

For example, Mediasite allows students to play the lectures

at double speed or as fast as they can and still understand

what I'm saying, and maintain the same audio pitch.

So that they can still follow the lecture.

But they can view it in less time, which means a lot to

students who are multitasking, who have a lot on their plate.

It allows them to view the lecture in less time.

And this is also good for review purposes to sort of

speed watch certain parts of the lectures.

So Mediasite allows my students to click on a certain

slide, like say, slide number 10.

And I pop up, talking about what is on slide number 10.

But something else.

Many of my students are English as a

second language students.

And this feature in Mediasite allows them to slow down the

listening speed of the lecture so it's just slow enough that

they can understand what I'm saying and follow along.

But there's a much higher comfort level for listening

for of those students.

So my learning environment allows the students to

interact with and customize software components also.

For example, WebCT, that I'm currently using now.

York is also using Moodle.

That's something else that we use.

I'm currently using WebCT.

I may use Moodle later.

WebCT has, for instance, a calendar

function that's not static.

It can be altered and used for personal use by the students.

And this customization allows the WebCT calendar to act as a

place to keep more than basic date information for students.

Now the ability to customize the learning environment also

includes addressing different learning styles.

That's a very key benefit from using rich media.

So the course site that I'm telling you about is designed

to address the fact that different students will use

the site differently based on how they learn.

So consider the simple case of a student looking up when an

assignment is due.

This information is repeated in several different

areas of the site.

If the student is a visual learner or has a preference

towards the visual, they may click on the icon of the

calendar and immediately see when an assignment is due.

If a student is more of a linear thinker, they may go to

basic course info, part of the site, and click on

requirements, and scroll down a chart through the

assignments listed in chronological order to the

assignment that concerns them.

And also is they're more of a kinesthetic learner, and they

like to jump around more, the assignments info section of

the site contains comprehensive written

explanations along with embedded instructional videos,

pdfs, samples of previous students'

graded works as models.

Now the lectures themselves, the lectures that are taped

using the Mediasite technology.

They're designed to be interactive experiences that

accommodate different learning styles.

So in the very way that the lecture is presented.

And a lot of faculty members immediately get their backup

with this point, because faculty members think well how

are your lectures using Mediasite not just a talking

head again.

Well they're not a talking head.

Because they're designed to be interactive experiences.

So that my lectures are--

it's my face synchronized with [? dot ?]

[? cam ?] projector, internet capture, like live Internet

capture, and of course Powerpoint.

Now kinesthetic learners who need to be active take

frequent breaks and learn by touching and doing will enjoy

lectures like the ones that I design, because they're

punctuated by exercises, videos, and links to other

online resources.

So I actually include two kinds of

handouts with my lectures.

I include a handout that is just called

a traditional handout.

But I also includes something called a worksheet.

And I let the students know in my video welcome messages and

in my coaching messages that whenever they see the word

worksheet, that means they have to do something.

So that something might include a reflection exercise,

and something that has to be written on the worksheet.

It might include going to Youtube and viewing a link

there, and making notes on that, and other sorts of

exercises also.

So auditory learners can listen to the lectures on

their MP3 players.

Also one of my lectures in module two uses pieces of

music to model the conceptual analysis process.

So they have music clips that are connected up with various

parts of the lecture that also involve doing an actual

conceptual analysis exercise where they have to

listen to the music.

They have to help me go through the lecture using

worksheets, and of course visual learners will be happy

to watch the lectures and video clips associated with

the lectures.

So the technology software and hardware accommodates

different learning styles.

Different options are available for allowing the

learner to choose the environment place or time that

suits them best. Some students used all the different modes

in combination for true flexibility.

And the course also contains varied forms of assessment,

which I'm going to talk about when I talk about promoting

deep and durable learning.

So my final point about why embrace rich media is creating

a learning experience that is quite different from

traditional online courses.

So using rich media, you can create highly interactive

learning environments.

So for some of the reasons that I've already mentioned.

So rich media lecture user controls and empower the

students to stop, rewind, search, print notes, all from

the same interface.

And the course management system that I use with this--

the student lounges enable students to chat in real time.

The homework and test room gives

students immediate feedback.

I have a virtual office and virtual office hours that

allows students to get immediate and direct answers

in real time.

And also many rooms on the site contained pages with

links to Youtube, to wikis, that sort of thing.

Using rich media helps students feel that they are

more part of the community.

And through varied interactions on the site, and

for me the biggest thing that helps you create community is

not just the interactions in those rooms, but also the

welcome messages, and the coaching, and the mentoring.

And it's quite astonishing the extent to which students

mentor students in my course site in ways that I wouldn't

have imagined, and in various places on the website

community will erupt that I never imagined

would happen there.

And my course design-- the way I've set the course--

is based on certain values that I have about teaching,

including the fact that I am trying to combat using rich

media and webcasting and podcasting.

I;m trying to combat four main factors in the culture of

higher education that I think need to be changed.

Those are scholarly isolation, lack of mentoring, the valuing

of product over process, and aggressive competitiveness.

So in my course design I'm using the webcasting, the

podcasting, and the rich media, to give you a

particular example, to help combat the possibility of

impostor feelings among students.

Impostor feelings is the fear that students have that

they're going to be found out that they don't know what

they're talking about.

And that fear is not their fault.

Faculty also experience the imposter phenomenon.

Some people call it the impostor syndrome.

But it's not the students' fault or the faculty members

fault for feeling those kinds of feelings.

Because the very culture of higher education fosters those

sorts of feelings through these factors like aggressive

competitiveness, the

isolation, the lack of mentoring.

So you can design fully online rich media courses that

address all of those, so that people don't feel

that they're alone.

And they feel that they're being mentored, and that they

can mentor others.

Friendly and welcoming tone.

Using rich media, you can really create a learning

environment that's very different from traditional

online courses with that friendly and welcoming tone.

In particular, the simple, simple addition of video

welcome messages, which I tape through

Mediasite and put all over.

It's a three module course.

And each module has its own welcome message a

student can click on.

I pop up.

And I give them tips on how to succeed in that module.

And for each module it's different.

And built in continuous assessment and clarified

expectation.

That creates high expectations for the students.

And this is a good segue to the next topic in the seminar,

which is can students learn better online.

Is a rich media a tool that can drive students to higher

order skills learning?

Now I want to mention that for this

topic too of the webinar--

I've used different research.

But in particular, I use this one book that really, really

helped me a lot.

And I would say to your face, one book that you buy this

year that will help you, help inform and inspire you with

designing online learning environments.

It's this book.

And the person who wrote it is called Van B. Weigel.

And that's on your bibliography so you

can look that up.

And it's a book called Deep Learning in the Digital Age.

It might be Deep Learning for the Digital Age.

But it's on that bibliography.

And so a lot of the specific research that I'm drawing on

is from a part of that book that

talks about deep learning.

So first of all, what is deep learning?

What are the attributes?

And deep learning is distinguished

from surface learning.

And on this slide here you can see some of those attributes

of deep learning.

Learners relate differently to knowledge, and information,

and the learning experience in deeper learning, than they do

to surface.

And as you would imagine, it's durable and deep.

Depth education is what Weigel calls it.

And learners relate ideas to previous knowledge and

experience more in deep learning.

They look for patterns and underlying principles more.

And you can see.

I'll let you read the slide on your own.

But there are the attributes of deep learning.

And this is originally taken from Noel Entwistle.

And that's in your bibliography too, which is a

really good article in a book that you might be interested

in reading that's called Promoting Deep Learning

through Teaching and Assessment.

And here I have the attributes of surface learning.

And I won't read through this whole slide due to time

constraints with the webinar, But I'll let you

read through that.

And that gives you a sense of surface learning.

Now something that Weigel pointed out in his book is

that deep learning is rooted in these three points that you

see on this slide.

The first is conditionalized knowledge, that is a certain

kind of knowledge.

And conditionaized knowledge refers to knowledge that

specifies the context in which it is useful.

It is knowledge that recognizes its own limits.

So students gain conditionaized knowledge only

when they have the opportunity to apply disciplinary concepts

and methodologies to varied contexts

and knowledge domains.

The seconds point that deep learning is rooted in is

metacognition.

This refers to the ability to think about thinking.

So this is the art of thinking.

It involves being able to monitor and reflect on one's

own level of understanding, to know when this understanding

is not adequate, and to know how to remedy this adequacy.

And the third point is communities of inquiry.

This refers to communities of practice or learning.

And much learning in everyday life takes place in

communities.

So what's my answer to can students learn better online?

A resounding yes.

And in the interest of time, I'm not going to go into

detail on Bloom's taxonomy.

But I've given you handouts in the package.

The deep learning involves rising up

through Bloom's hierarchy.

And you can read through that handout.

Deep learning also involves addressing

different learning styles.

And I've given you a detailed handout with a chart and

definitions of each of those kinds of learning styles.

I really need to tell you about cognitive

apprenticeship, and how I use that in my course.

That's a really key part.

So designing deep and durable learning and online learning

environments means using this method of instruction.

So cognitive apprenticeship is best suited to achieving these

aims. Now this approach, cognitive apprenticeship,

attempts to integrate the salient features of the

apprenticeship model.

And a lot of this information is in that book on deep

learning in the digital age, if you'd like to

follow up on that.

Now you're familiar with what it means to be an apprentice

and to learn that way.

This is the model.

And another person who you might want to read on-- this

is John Seely Brown.

And Google that name.

Come to his website.

He's got a lot of really interesting articles

that will help you.

Now I'd like to talk about the six methods for cognitive

apprenticeship and how I achieved those in my online

learning environment.

So here they are on this slide.

I'll began with one, modeling.

Modeling is different from coaching.

So take note about that.

Modeling is the externalization of internal

cognitive processes.

That's essentially where I as a teacher put my thinking

process step by step on display for the student.

Examples of this.

I use webcasting, or Canadians call it video

streaming more often.

And a document projector.

So that Mediasite will synchronize the document

projector with me light at the time and

taping it in the studio.

So that I use the document projector to go through

exercises, how are they done step by step?

And I couple that with pdf handout of an A plus example

of a different exercise--

like a different topic but same exercise.

So students can compare that.

I also use the web casting plus Powerpoint plus an

example and music with an embedded task, so that the

students are working with me.

But I'm showing them step by step how I would do it.

That's modeling.

The coaching is something slightly different.

Coaching-- if you think about how a tennis coach or a hockey

coach would watch how somebody's

playing and tell them.

No.

You've got to move your foot there.

Or you've got to do that differently.

That's coaching.

I also have coaching webcast messages on my site.

So with the coaching--

for instance, taking up homework is a great way for

coaching in the context of my course.

So I would use webcasting plus a pdf Word doc, and the insert

comment function on the Word.

My class has 90 students.

I take about 10 to 15 examples of homework.

I don't have the student's name on it of course.

And ahead of time, I grade it with insert comment bubbles,

so that then I can actually coach, look at individual

students' homework, to and OK.

Let's look at how this was done here.

How could we do that differently?

I don't go through all 14, because I don't have time.

But I do five or six of them.

And then they have the examples.

They can print that as a pdf.

I do the same with assignments and grading criteria videos.

Now scaffolding is something that my

course relies on a lot.

This refers to the ways that I put supports and hints and

helps into the structure of my course.

So how do I do this?

Think of what scaffolding means, how it's different from

coaching or mentoring.

I do a lot of scaffolding.

And the feedback I get from students is it makes a huge

difference to their learning experience.

Video instructional message, I told you about.

Coaching messages--

I have an orientation to my website that students are

required in the first week of classes.

They don't have to watch a lecture.

They don't have to to do homework.

But they have an orientation, exercises they have to do so

that everybody will learn the website.

And that includes messages for me and Kelly Clark, the Senior

Multimedia Designer at York I told you about has--

I put one on the site that's him telling students how to

use the Mediasite to their best advantage

to their best advantage.

So even though it's impossible for a teacher to make every

student comfortable in any given class, I can certainly

try to create an even playing field when it comes to them

using the technology.

And that's all scaffolding including what discussion

rooms you set up.

So I have post questions for the professor here.

Post questions for the TA here.

But I also have a private room just for students that-- it

says in the title prof and TA never enter here.

And that's usually the busiest of the discussion rooms.

That's all scaffolding.

Now articulating is another instructional methodology for

cognitive apprenticeship.

So articulating students have to be able to

practice those skills.

That's the articulation of it.

And there are so many ways that you can do this to

encourage deep learning, like using wikis.

At York think we can have wikis and blogs that are part

of our courses.

Using those along with your media site, taped lectures,

and your messages, and all of that, you can have a group

projects that use learning team blogs, that use wikis,

peer review in the private learning team rooms where

students will post work that they've done in there.

And for part of their mark, they have to review that.

And that gives you a good sense.

That last point I want to talk about there, internet-based

research team projects.

In one of my business ethics courses that I teach I have an

assignment called the corporate report card.

This is where students pick a corporation, and they go on

the Internet.

They use the annual report.

They use that corporation's website.

And they evaluate.

And they post a report card for the rest of the students.

And they have suggestions for change.

Articulating--

those are some of the ways.

But reflecting is another aspect.

So students have to have debriefing time.

So a good way to do this is to have them relating again in

teams with other students.

So I webcast my grading criteria.

I have them grade their own assignment with criteria, and

then peer review other assignments, and post those to

learning team rooms. Those are some examples.

Students have to explore.

How can we get them to explore?

I have set my courses up as cumulative skills-based

courses with modules.

And in there using not just the face to face messages and

the Ombuds buddies.

Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, blogs--

all of these sorts of things can really encourage students

to explore.

Now intellectual curiosity is something that a lot of

faculty members don't talk about or think about.

It doesn't come up much in the literature.

But that's an important part of learning is the curiosity.

But how do you learn to be curious?

So you learn to be curious by being in the company of people

who are curious.

And so in your Mediasite taped lectures, in your messages,

and using rich media, you can express a passion.

And you can raise curiosity for students.

And then students will make other students curious in the

discussions rooms.

And also using other pieces of technology, other

Internet-based technologies, things like Google Earth, like

Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, you can incorporate exercises

into these.

And those are things students are already curious about.

So that really helps.

It gives them permission to be curious.

So embedded assessment is the last point here I'd like to

talk about.

And that is that we have to think of assessment in a fully

online learning environment as completely embedded, which is

what Weigel refers to.

So some of the different ways that I embed assessment so

that assessment becomes part of the natural interactions in

the environment.

That's what's important.

The Ombuds buddy are a form of assessment, because they hold

me accountable.

And grading your own assignment, peer review,

students making their own podcasts, webcasting testing

grading criteria.

I post my teaching philosophy on the site, and that students

can hold me accountable too.

And then there are the traditional ways of assessing.

And I've got those examples here on this site.

Now I'm getting close to the end of my time.

But I would like to talk a little bit about why faculty

are hesitant or reluctant to teach online.

There's a lot of literature out there about this.

And in your handouts, I've given you three charts that

outline it all.

So I'm not going to go over those.

But you can take a look at those.

And those three charts look at inhibiting factors for faculty

teaching online from the perspective of distance only

faculty, combination delivery, and classroom only.

So I'll refer you to those charts.

But I have to say my take on these studies, most of the

ones I've read and others like it, is that they are not

critical enough of the assumptions driving the

factors that deter faculty from

participating in online education.

What I mean by not critical enough is that when I read

these studies--

and they pretty much have all roughly the same findings--

I yearn for a sense of what they mean.

So when I was doing research on the topic, I came across a

study that helped me understand the other studies.

And it talked about the actual decision process that faculty

go through when they want to innovate.

And there were three factors involved in

that decision process.

The first with compatibility.

The second is relative advantages.

And the third is complexity.

Now two and three on this slide are really

straightforward.

Complexity is a factor that plays into whether a faculty

member will decide to innovate with their teaching or not.

And complexity just means that faculty perceive the

innovation as complex and hard to do.

So that's one.

Now the relative advantages is really clear too.

So that's just the idea that faculty--

what plays into their innovation decision process is

that there are advantages to them, whether it's social

prestige or flexibility, et cetera.

But this first point compatibility--

This is really interesting.

And that is that faculty will innovate when that innovation

is compatible with beliefs they already hold, so

previously introduced ideas about teaching socio-cultural

values and beliefs and user needs.

I want to briefly talk about the first two, and that is

that faculty will decide to innovate when it's compatible

with things they already believe about teaching.

Now I just want to point out that values and beliefs, as

you know, guide our behavior and our actions.

But this second point, previously introduced ideas--

Are we running out of time, Sean?

You're good.

OK.

I'll just take a couple more minutes.

I want to make sure there's enough time for questions.

So I'll just talk about two more minutes.

But this is really interesting.

Because previously introduced ideas are not

like values and beliefs.

So I'll get a little bit philosophical here.

This is my own thinking, not something I read somewhere.

And that is that the way that values and beliefs guide one's

actions and behaviors--

previously introduced ideas don't work that way.

So previously introduced ideas just means the ideas you

already have about how teaching is supposed to go in

the classroom or online.

That those previously introduced ideas operate as

habits of inattention.

If you want to read about inscribed habits of

inattention--

these are now not values or beliefs in the positive sense

that they guide.

But rather, these are ideas that prevent us from

looking over here.

They're habits of inattention.

They prevent us from taking that step and innovating.

You should Google the name Megan Boler, M-E-G-A-N,

B-O-L-E-R. She has a book, Feeling Power.

And in there she talks about habits of inattention.

And I wanted to point that out.

And so this is my final slide.

It's my final slide.

So with debunking the myths, what I find needs to be

debunked are these previously introduced ideas that prevent

faculty from actually seeing, and trying what can be done,

and also these assumptions, and these values and beliefs

that are about teaching and what teaching means.

And we have to go beyond these, most certainly.

So threats to standards.

I've already explained, when I talked about

deep and durable learning.

Fully online rich media education is

not a threat to standards.

It's certainly not a threat to jobs.

What it may be a threat to for faculty members who choose to

teach in the classroom is that it's a challenge in the sense

that innovative teaching being done online--

faculty in the classroom are going to have to

rise to that challenge.

Because a lot of teaching going in on a classroom is not

highly interactive and is not student centered.

And what we can do now online goes beyond that classroom.

And the notion that some skills can be taught online is

simply not the case.

Now that we have technology like Mediasite, we can model

behavior, coach, do things through cognitive

apprenticeship that we couldn't do before.

And now over estimates of the time, support, and training.

The first time that you design a course like this, and even

the second time you teach it, for sure you're going to be

overworked.

The learning curve is huge, but it's fast. And I can tell

you anecdotally and based on my experience, the third time

you teach the course, and progressively over time, it's

going to take less and less of your time.

And it will be a higher quality learning experience

with more interaction with students.

OK, Sean.

I hope I haven't gone over time too much.

And I want to ensure your questions get answered.

And feel free to email me at Zorn@YorkU.ca if there's

something I said you want to follow up with, or you want to

answer a question.

And now considering that there are over 500 people viewing

this webinar, if you all decide you're going to email

me, be patient.

Because it might take time to get your email.

Like 30 minutes.

Yeah.

Don't be happy.

As long as she gets back to you within a half an hour.

Well Diane, that was absolutely fantastic.

We have a ton of questions coming in.

And there are some for you, and some for me.

OK.

Good.

Because they are Mediasite or technical related questions.

But one quick thing-- a note of housekeeping.

The most common question people are asking is you were

referring to these handouts.

And I did not say not only can you ask a question by clicking

over our streaming media window where it says ask.

But below us, you'll notice that there's a button that

says links.

It says links like url links-- that word.

If you click on that, you will see the information change to

a list of hyperlinks that are associated with Diane's

presentation.

And that's where you'll find the pdfs for the handouts and

other things that she's referred to today.

Additionally Diane has been kind enough to give us

permission to release the final copy of her slide

presentation that she was using here in our classroom

laboratory to present from.

And so we will make those available to

those of you who requested.

It's about a three megabite file.

So all you have to do is ask a question.

And all those questions are coming to me right now.

We're tabulating those.

So if you just ask a question, and say please send me that

Powerpoint presentation, we'll get it right out to you.

And as long as I can still make my plane to get back

home, I'm willing to go a little bit

time over for questions.

That's fantastic.

Because if you knew the weather here in

Madison right now--

As long as I--

5, 10 minutes.

So as long as I can still make it to the plane--

That's a big request.

I just want to get the questions answered.

Thank you very much.

So that first big question.

A nice person, Roger, asks.

Dr. Zorn, what was the biggest challenge that you faced in

embracing the rich media in your courses.

Technology, course development, becoming an

effective on camera presenter, which I think

everyone agrees you are.

OK.

You're probably not going to believe this.

But the biggest challenge I had to do with my assumptions

about my role as a teacher and the

role of distance education.

The technology I was able to learn.

Standing in front of the camera--

at first it's a little different.

But you get used to it.

And the learning curve is fast with the

course management system.

The hardest thing for me was first of all, I had in my mind

that the role of distance education was to replicate the

in class experience.

It wasn't til I let go of that that I found I was really able

to create dynamic learning environments.

And that was hard.

And the other thing is that-- and you

probably heard this before.

But it's really true.

And that is that my role as a teacher really changed.

So I became a coach and a mentor.

Now I teach more like a facilitator in the classroom.

But online I found all my lectures were up there.

And that's advice I would give to somebody who

is designing a course.

If you can and you have time, try to work as much ahead of

time as possible.

Because it just makes everything a lot easier.

But I found that I became a coach and a facilitator.

Now that is a role that takes time to be comfortable with.

And for a lot of people, faculty members, there will be

discomfort with that unless they are already

teaching that way.

And that's in part because of the social construction of the

scholar and the professor--

the idea that we are supposed to be the experts.

And the bottom line is in online learning, you have to

be much more of a coach and a mentor.

So those were the biggest challenges for me.

Great answer.

That's good.

I have a lot of support too at my university.

So that helps the team that helps all of us do this.

You absolutely do.

The people at York are absolutely fabulous.

There are a couple of questions that I can combine

together that are more for me.

They ask the question how is the moderator-- how are the

questions that you're asking being received?

Right now you are basically watching a Mediasite

presentation for all of the different technologies that

Diane refered to that she uses.

Mediasite by Sonic Foundry is merely one of them.

But one we are very proud that she uses.

And you are watching a Mediasite presentation today

that is actually recorded in situ, or live,

or just as we teach.

So Diane walked in with her laptop, plugged it into the

VGA system that would project in this classroom.

And we were able to gather this information with the

built-in cameras and the built-in recorder, and just

teaching naturally.

But one thing that we chose to do since we wanted to keep to

an hour, to a 60 minute time frame for you since you're so

kind to join us, is all of the questions that you ask in

Mediasite come to a secure website that

is part of our product.

It's not a chat that's interactive with everyone

watching the questions coming in.

But it's directed right at the teacher themselves or a

moderator if they choose to have, but someone who logs

into a website and can watch those questions

as they come in.

You can reply to them via email instantly, as I've done

to some of you during the presentation.

Or you can watch them and integrate them into your

presentation the way we were doing right now.

That's one question for me.

Another question for you, a quick one.

You referred to-- and I'm going to mispronounce it,

because you do all the academic stuff.

Weigel or Weigel You referred to that person.

And the person noticed already that it wasn't in your

bibliography.

Or she couldn't find it.

Oh, shoot.

You know what?

Thanks for saying that.

I realized that I didn't put that in there.

It's 2002.

And it's Jossey-Bass.

And it's Deep Learning either for the Digital Age.

And that the person's actual name on the cover of the book

is Van, V-A-N, initial B. And then last name, W-E-I-G-E-L.

Now on some of the slides, I have in little brackets

W-E-I-G-E-L, 2002.

And I emailed Van B. Weigel, and told him just a couple

days ago that I was going to be mentioning his book here.

I don't know him.

I've never met him.

But he was very approachable.

And I expect even that he'd be willing even if you dropped an

email to him-- he was very responsive talking to--

So a last minute addition.

And that's great promotion.

Sorry about that.

Forgot that.

Another question that I can combine that people have for

you is a lot of the people who are writing in to us are

actually instructional technology experts, more so

than faculty.

Although a lot of people seem to be faculty as well.

And they were interested in asking you how do you get the

faculty to embrace it as enthusiastically as you have.

What can IT staff do to get the response the way you

embrace the technology.

I can tell you quite frankly, the number one thing that you

can do as an IT technologist, or running an IT department,

to help faculty feel comfortable about doing what I

am doing is to use modeling.

So that the best thing is to have somebody show what can be

done and how easy it is.

Even verbally, when I--

there were some philosophers in my department, profs who

were nervous about doing this.

And all they needed to know was to be introduced to what

was involved.

So if you had demonstrations, for instance, for faculty,

where you could show them how easy it is to do this.

The easiest part of my course design is using the Mediasite

and the podcasting, the video and audio podcasting.

All that's involved is that Mediasite

presentation being converted.

But faculty need to know.

Because they're coming with all these

assumptions and also fears.

And some of those fears--

we'll they're listed on that chart I gave you.

So the best way to make them comfortable is to show them

that it's not the Frankensteinian monster that

they think it.

That's probably the best thing to do.

The other thing is to have patient trainers.

At York we have trainers who help with every aspect of it.

And because we have so many faculty members--

York's a big university.

We've got close to 60,000 students there.

So it's hard to have enough people to

train in those areas.

But we have groups.

So that you just sign up.

We have many options of times where faculty can come into a

room with other faculty members and be trained on how

to use Mediasite, how to use WebCtT, how to use Moodle.

So those are really the two suggestions.

And you need to give faculty not just demonstrations, but a

link that they can go to, like a course, for instance,

someone's course that they can go into-- or a sample course

they can go into, and roam around, and look and see what

it looks like.

Well there's another set of questions that I can group

together that's on the same vein that you

were talking about.

You talked about how to get faculty engaged.

They asked generally-- a couple people asked how would

you evaluate students' readiness for the adoption of

this type of learning, a?

OK.

And, b, if I could synthesize it, what do you do when some

of the students are reluctant or not engaging?

What are some of the tactics you use to encourage those

students to be techno-ready.

Yeah.

I've got to tell you.

I've got the best solution for that.

And that is I make no assumptions about how ready or

not really my students are.

I assume that no one's ready.

And I start there.

And I have a really great set of orientation exercises that

I make worth between 2% and 5% of the final

mark of that student.

So that's a lot of marks.

And it's because I'm sending a message to the student and

telling them that it matters to me that they know how to

use every aspect of that technology and

site to their advantage.

So I have a part of the home page that is called make the

most of the website.

When students click on there, there are two Mediasite taped

webcasts they can view.

One of them is under 10 minutes.

And the other's about 20 minutes.

And one of them is how to use Mediasite to their advantage

and depending on their learning style.

The other is me walking them through the course site.

So I just tape myself on Mediasite giving the a tour.

Here's how you send an email.

Here's how you use the discussion room.

Here's where you find everything on the site.

And those exercises--

I think I have 12 exercises that they have to do,

including--

York has an online academic integrity tutorial.

And I make them email me the results of that.

If you would like to see those exercises, please email me.

And I'll attach you a copy of the Word doc that I put up on

the site that tells the students what they should do.

Like for instance, they should send me email.

They should view those instructional videos.

They should try out a quiz in the quiz room.

I would be happy to forward that document to you.

And also my Ombuds buddy document.

If you're interested in that, I'd be happy to

attach that to an email.

And you can certainly just use my document or change it.

It just talks about what an Ombuds buddy is, and how you

can use those in your course.

And I'm just putting up the first slide so that you can

have Diane's email address.

The last question, because we're out of time here.

There's a whole group of questions.

One is for me.

And one is for Diane.

The last question for me so to speak is all about the room.

What kind of camera we use, all that sort of thing.

And essentially the Mediasite technology if I can talk about

it briefly, is a simple strategy, but a profound

strategy from Sonic Foundry that has literally changed

instructional technology and academe.

We target your existing legacy multimedia classrooms that

you're teaching in.

And we help you add technology to it-- your choice, what type

of camera you want to have, what type of audio equipment

you want to have, either high end, low end.

But you can enable your multimedia teaching

environments that teachers are using

right now at a Mediasite.

And they teach exactly as they did before you've added

Mediasite to it.

And you end up with results like what

you're watching today.

So Diane didn't have to manipulate any extra

technology to make her presentation happen for you.

And that's how Mediasite works.

So the answer to the camera question is right now we're

using a basic Canon DB type camera in this room.

But you can use any variety of cameras in your solution.

And the final question.

I hope I know your answer.

I hope you'll do this favor for our nice group

who joined us today.

But a lot of people wish that they could have a link to one

of your actual courses, maybe a dummy course or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they can see how it all flows together.

Is that something--

Yeah.

That we could arrange to share.

I would be happy to do that.

York does give me a dummy student name and password to

allow faculty to see how the course looked.

I'd be happy to share that with you.

If you email me, I would be happy to have you look around

and see what a course looks like that I've designed that's

fully online.

And I strongly suggest that.

Her email address is here.

Please don't overwhelm her.

But I get to thank you so much for doing an excellent job.

Thanks, Sean.

And thanks everybody for showing up and

attending and listening.

And I'd like to thank all of you for taking the time out of

your busy day to join us on this rich media webinar.

Look in the future at your email box to see more

invitations from Sonic Foundry to other future topics that

relate to the advancement of technology in academe through

real time rich media recording on your campus from your

classrooms. Again this presentation is available at

this same url.

There's no new one that needs to be distributed.

You can keep coming back to this website, and watching

this presentation, and distributing it to your other

colleagues as you please.

So thank you very much.

And we'll see you the next time.