Thoughts on the Future of Teaching / Learning

I am at the Distance Learning Alliance Conference in New Bern North Carolina. As I sit through the keynotes and various presentations I’m realizing its mind boggling where education is has been going just in the past few years. To think where online instruction was ten years ago and the phenomenal strides that have been made in just one decade. Such as the high level of technical sophistication that Course Management Systems like Blackboard are developing and the vast array of instructional communication tools online teachers have at their disposal.

Teaching / learning has gotten more mobile and the thing that is becoming more evident to me is the MELDING of tools, applications and rich media throughout the internet and in our culture in general.

This is all new territory and I don’t think anyone can predict where the technology is going. I see it all getting more and more seamless and fluid weaving between the web, course management systems, blogs, podcasts, video content, text messaging, Instant Messaging, Screen casts and even voice mail.

I see the bigger challenge as educators is to harness, channel, master all the various technologies, applications and media into our teaching styles and methodologies.

There’s no doubt the culture is changing worldwide and without a basic understanding of the various learning styles of different groups of learners we as educators can’t truly incorporate / apply these powerful tools into our classes.

All this change can certainly be intimidating to teachers. Especially instructors that are new to online education. The one thing that is becoming more and more evident is just how computer literate educators have to be these days, in addition to being willing to commit to the concept of “life long learning”. Its not just about knowing your content anymore. We have to be content specialists as well as keep ourselves abreast of the constantly changing / evolving content delivery systems and melding tools and applications. To me its a matter of embracing it and NOT being afraid of what the future has in store for us as educators. There really is no choice if we are going to remain viable and credible in our classrooms whether they be online or in a more traditional setting.

Teaching is so much more than just teaching in 2008. We are all at different points on the technological continuum and be willing to accept this fact of life and do our best to accept and even thrive in an ever changing and very dynamic teaching / learning environment.

Click here for link to my presentation that my colleagues and I gave yesterday.

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The Human Element

I’ve written a lot about “teaching with technology” and harnessing the power of the internet / computing into education. Lately I have been thinking back to when we didn’t have the internet, e-mail, cell phones or computers.

We taught our students in classrooms “face to face” without anything more complicated than overhead projections and slides. There’s no doubt in my mind that we as college teachers in 2008 are working harder and longer trying to keep up with the various software, hardware and course management systems that constantly are getting upgraded with new and more sophisticated versions. Sure, I’m a strong proponent of distance learning and incorporating technology into my photography and art courses, however I think it’s important for educators to step back every once in awhile and remember that our primary focus should always be on teaching students.  We’re dealing with human beings and it’s very easy to lose sight of the human element when we are all caught up (and stressed out) by the various dynamics and challenges of incorporating technology into our teaching.

I for one am a little nostalgic for the days when I spent hours in the darkroom and studio with my students - now I teach digital imaging, graphic design and commercial illustration (for the most part) via the internet and blackboard. So the questions is….HOW do we as instructors keep and nurture the HUMAN ELEMENT in our courses? That I believe is our challenge as we forge ahead in this new millennium.

On Teaching….

   I’ve been teaching at Carteret Community College for 22 years. In fact, I have taught Photography in some capacity for over 25 years. Education has changed dramatically since the first day I walked into a classroom/lab. To think that I’m sitting in a coffee shop on the coast of North Carolina (this very cold Sunday morning) checking in to my Art and Photography classes with my laptop computer. I’m picking up a wireless signal and just finished having a discussion about art with a group of student 8 hours away at a college (SWCC) in the mountains of western North Carolina. If you would have told me I’d be able to engage my students, teach my students, connect with my students and help them learn a variety of college level subjects without actually seeing them 10 years ago I would have thought you were absolutely crazy. Now it’s an integral part of what I do as an educator. Online education (distance learning) has been accepted and embraced by high schools and colleges around the world. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s good online teachers and bad just like in the classroom. It takes a completely different approach to be an effective teacher in the online environment. It’s almost as if you become a moderator / facilitator instead of a didactic talking head standing in front of a group of students (sage on the stage) imparting your knowledge to them. Good teaching is still good teaching whether its in the traditional classroom or in the online environment. Good teaching is proactive, dynamic, engaging and takes a certain amount of empathy and compassion. Good teaching online also takes innovation, creativity and a willingness to think (and communicate) in completely new ways.

Distance learning empowers teachers and students in a variety of ways and offers so many more options and alternatives to the traditional instructional model. Teaching online has reinvigorated me to literally reinvent myself as a teacher in addition to making me think about (and teach) my subject matter in a whole new way. In other words it forces me to be a better instructor because I MUST rethink and retool every aspect of my teaching strategy and methodology to be effective in the online environment. The other part of this equation is our students. Especially the ones coming out of high school. Most of them are very comfortable working, communicating and socializing online and they expect their educational experience to be every bit as dynamic, interactive and sophisticated as their other online worlds such as My Space and Face Book.

Its like anything else in this world. People evolve, cultures evolve, society evolves and nothing truly stays the same. That certainly goes for the learning process. I think its great that I can get up in the morning, drive to my local coffee shop and start my day off teaching while sipping a cup coffee. Now I have to get back to a discussion about Prehistoric art with my students in Fayetteville. You gotta love technology. Like I mentioned in an earlier post - it can be a curse or a blessing depending on your point of view, attitude and mindset.

Think-In 2007 - Teaching with Technology

CCC Instructional Design Specialist Pre-Ah Hill and I attended Think-In 2007: A Teaching with Technology Showcase at ECU. For over 4 hours we shared our professional development innovations and strategies in addition to our Blackboard Boot Camp initiative with online teachers and distance learning professionals from around the state.

This is my second year participating in the Think-In and I must admit I continue to be amazed at all the innovative distance learning / teaching technology and creative methodology being applied at colleges across the state. The Think-In is an opportunity to share the “best” of what is going on in education. Project Coordinator Ginny Sconiers did an excellent job assembling a diverse mix of faculty who gave presentations via “laptop” poster sessions and course demonstrations.”

You can check out the Think-In Web Cast by Clicking HereJust scroll down the page and click the Web Cast Icon. To learn more about this unique and exciting event check out the ECU Academic Outreach web site.

Click Here for Think-In Podcast

Symposium on T3 - Denver, Colorado

CCC Title III Project Director Don Staub and I gave a a 90 minute presentation at the Symposium on Title III and Title V in Denver, Colorado. We essentially shared our first year journey and experiences with Title III and discussed how being awarded this grant has impacted outcome assessment, distance learning and advising at Carteret Community College.

Don Staub addressed the establishment of an infrastructure for the grant and how his T3 team implemented activities to successfully achieve its stated objectives for improving institutional assessment, distance learning and advising.  We also discussed the importance of changing the culture at the college in order to get everyone on board and behind the various T3 initiatives. There was a great deal of interest from workshop participants about distance learning, especially our Blackboard Boot Camps and various professional development initiatives so we directed them to this blog and our DL training blog for more information.

It was great to hear positive comments and feedback about the presentation. Click here for Audio Podcast of the presentation.

Our Blackboard Boot Camp training modules can be found at our DL Advisory Blog

Teaching Art Appreciation in Afghanistan

I just started teaching another online Art Appreciation class for Wayne Community College. WCC is one of my favorite freelance teaching jobs. I was checking the new student introductions and noticed a post from a Broland Johnson. The thing that amazed me was the fact that he is taking my online class from the front lines of Afghanistan. The following is his initial introductory post to my course.

“Hello everyone. I’m SrA (senior airman) Broland C.T. Johnson. I’m a 22 year old medical technician. I’m currently located at FOB (forward operating base) Clark in Khost, Afghanistan. Today is my second day reading the assignments. The 22nd was the day my book arrived. My login had gremlins, and through patients and some help in the states I gained access around 1a.m. on the 23rd. That didn’t last long. The computers go down for 24 hours when there are casualties. Today is my second day, and I enjoyed reading everything through a fire hose. “

That is one of the reasons I love to teach online. Just think about it? I live in Morehead City, North Carolina. I teach as an adjunct for Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, NC - 100 miles away, and I have a student on the front lines in Afghanistan - on the other side of the planet. Here are 2 photos he attached to his post.

Broland reading his Art Appreciation Textbook out in the field in Afghanistan.

All I can say is be safe and God speed Broland! The internet and the new and very powerful tools and applications in online course management systems like Blackboard enable me to share my knowledge and passion for art with students anywhere in the world. Distance is no longer a factor when it comes to teaching and learning. I feel empowered as an educator like never before. I can only imagine what the future holds for online teaching and technology in general in the coming years.

Now I better get back to my class.

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Moodle Observations

I’ve been teaching on the Moodle online course management system for over 4 weeks now. I was introduced to Moodle at a workshop this past summer conducted at Pitt Community College. I must admit, at first I was a little hesitant to even consider using another CMS beside Blackboard because I have been using Blackboard since its inception (8 years) and feel very comfortable creating courses and teaching on it. With that said, I tried to keep an open mind and got enough training at the workshop to migrate one of my Art Appreciation classes over to the Moodle platform. This in itself took me about 20 + hours because there is no easy way to export course content directly from Blackboard to Moodle. They are two very different learning platforms, so I basically had to rethink how I would teach the class on Moodle and then copy and paste my weekly modules (assignments, lectures, discussion topics, podcasts and external links) over manually.

The only way to truly learn something in my opinion is to teach it so I volunteered to teach a section of my Art Appreciation class for Randall Shearon at Wayne Community College. After having two colleagues look over and critique my Moodle class I then went back and edited and revised it based on their feedback. Once I went through and fine tuned the course I was ready to teach it.

The most difficult thing for me the first week of class was breaking myself away from my Blackboard teaching methodology. Moodle is very different from Blackboard and as an online instructor I had to modify my teaching approach because of the way Moodle is configured. Now after four weeks of teaching on Moodle I can honestly say I like it and am starting to feel very comfortable teaching on this “open source” CMS. In fact, it seems to be more intuitive that Blackboard and I have had no technical problems whatsoever, unlike the issues of slowness, pages timing out and various glitches I find on the discussion board and grade book of Blackboard 7.3.

I find it easier to grade weekly homework and weekly discussions on Moodle and it handles audio, video files beautifully. The other thing I noticed was how quickly my students learned how to use it. Most of them had been taking classes on Blackboard and were in the same boat as me as far as never having taught or taken a course on Moodle. I made it very clear that I was new to this and asked my students for patience and told them I would also have patience with them as we all climbed the learning curve with Moodle.

I have nothing but positive things to say about Moodle after working with it daily for over a month. As a Director of Distance Learning at Carteret Community College I plan on incrementally exposing my faculty to Moodle, although I am well aware their will be lots of dissent and resistance  due to the amount of time it takes to migrate Blackboard content over to Moodle. This may be the biggest issue to overcome when selling the idea to faculty. There is no getting away from the amount of time it takes to copy and paste course content over from Blackboard to Moodle, in addition to having to absolutely re-think the instructional design and teaching methodology of your online course.

I hope to teach more sections of my classes on Moodle in the semesters ahead and can envision weaning myself off Blackboard completely in the next 3 years. I am very frustrated with Blackboard, their tech support and the latest version 7.3 in my opinion is disappointing and a step backwards in overall design and navigation.

comments and your thoughts on Blackboard vs. Moodle are welcome

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Summer’s OVER and its Back to the Grind

I have been asked to give a presentation at the Symposium on Title III and Title V. in Denver Colorado this coming November. Have not had a lot of time for personal art, writing or photography with all my distance learning and teaching duties putting demands on me these past few weeks.

Check out the feature article for the League for Innovation on our Distance Learning Initiatives here at CCC.

Click here for my to read my upcoming distance presentation for the Denver conference.

Adam’s birthday is September 16th. Hard to believe he is going to be 23. I am heading to Wilmington tomorrow to take him out to lunch and then back home tomorrow night.

We are Empowered

As an educator teaching college students in the year 2007, I feel so incredibly empowered now that I’m finally “getting it”. Yes… I’m truly starting to harness, incorporate and channel technology (rich media content) and synthesize it with my teaching style, personality and instructional methodology.

I’ve been climbing the digital learning curve for over ten years years, but it’s only been recently after a great deal of reading, research, attending distance learning conferences and presenting online teaching workshops that I recently experienced a personal epiphany. WOW!!! I have more tools, options and diverse (high quality) media content at my disposal than ever before. I’ve been teaching for 25 years and its as if I have been completely recharged, rejuvenated, inspired and absolutely jazzed about these powerful new tools that I have literally at my fingertips.

To think I can embed a U Tube video clip about a famous artist or art style into my online Art Appreciation class after a quick google search or an enhanced podcast with Kevin Bacon narrating the life and times of Van Gogh or an interactive web site about Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions….link to the greatest art museums in the world and I’m only talking about art. My personal empowerment also applies and transcends to every discipline (and instructor/professor) from mathematics to science, literature, engineering, sociology, psychology, etc………….Click and watch…TeacherTube.com.

I’m almost overwhelmed by this new “flattened” world we live in and how advances in technology have changed all the rules - and given everyone with a computer and web access some serious input into where we go from here.

Today anyone can write and publish with nothing more than a web blog - anybody can be a media producer, designer, news reporter, poet, critic, philosopher, artist, photographer, documentarian or even a comedian. Yes…the rules are changing everyday and I have no idea what this this country will be like when my daughter Andei graduates from college seven years from now. What skills will she need to succeed in the new millennium?

One thing is for certain…My daughter Andei and her generation will need to be flexible, multilingual, versatile and life long learners - in fact, anyone trying to compete in the global marketplace from this point on will have to be creative, entrepreneurial and innovative. The old days of learning one trade or skill are over. We all (students and teachers) must be upgrading our skills constantly to stay competitive and viable in today’s economy.

Yes these are very exciting times, however we cannot be complacent in any way because our counterparts in India, Japan, Russia and China are “getting it” too in a big way and are catching up to us in the fields of science, engineering and mathematics - in fact, in some instances they are surpassing us, so it is time to wake up and crank it up a notch if we don’t want to lose ground and get left behind the eight ball in the flattened world.

Any Thoughts??? Click and Comment.

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To Moodle or NOT to Moodle…..Continued

Here are some video resources I found about Moodle such as how to upload files and an explanation (overview) of the interface + another Blogger who is writing about Moodle. Check it out. Scoll down to my earlier post concerning my Moodle Workshop experience - please feel free to get involved in our Moodle conversation.

Another Moodle Blog