Archives for 2017

This blog written by:

Pat Cassella

USDLA Board Member

I’ve been fascinated with technology for as long as I can remember. For my 8^th grade Science Fair I built a motorized model of the planets that would spin when you correctly answered a series of astronomy questions. When I won first place, I knew some type of electronics foundation was in my career.

My involvement in video solutions started back in 1987 and over the years I’ve seen hundreds of innovative solutions that solve everyday problems using a form of technology.  At the recent 2017 United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) national conference I was able to meet Lee Gambol (virtually) and see first-hand another example of thinking out of the box to solve a common problem.

Virtual field trips have always been a favorite application for me when it comes to using video communication technology. It’s such a powerful solution for a real problem: it’s expensive to transport classrooms of students, it takes an incredible amount of coordination, it is not environmentally friendly, and we all know how risky it can be.

While video conferencing technology has dominated this application in the past, Lee found a newer solution from a provider called Georama© that puts a new spin on an older application – allowing free-roaming access into all sorts of behind-the-scenes areas that is difficult to accomplish with traditional video conferencing.  This new streaming video service also includes a chat feature for collaboration and records the sessions for later playback, say for students that couldn’t attend the initial live virtual visit. While this technology was initially focused on university campus tours, Lee approached the founder of Georama after a USDLA conference session and asked if he’d be interested in using the museum as a location for virtual tour testing.

Especially attractive in this application is that Georama© is driven through a common website URL and supports unlimited participants per tour. This means entire schools could watch the adventure simultaneously without the need for specialized video conferencing equipment.

The Distance Learning Team at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History have a powerful philosophy behind their program development: “Technology is Just the Tool.” Oddly enough, this is very similar to that of my company, IDSolutions, whose tag line is “It’s only technology until it becomes a solution”.  This is so true, especially when it relates to the classroom as I’ve seen piles of expensive technology sit unused at schools just going to waste.

I’ve always believed that the proof of success for any good technology is closely tied to the response of user base. For Lee, the very first test tour invited Lorain County’s Midview North Elementary teachers to connect in with Lee as she interviewed Wildlife Specialist Katie Overholser. The tour quickly generated comments like: “This was a great experience”, “My class really enjoyed it. Thank you for this opportunity!” and “The students loved seeing Lancelot eat!”

This application is very satisfying to me in several ways; for one, it provided the opportunity for students to go where they likely wouldn’t be able to go without the help of Georama’s technology. Another is that Lee connected with Georama© at a USDLA conference, one of the main purposes (networking) that we pride ourselves on. Lastly, the USDLA Award program was an opportunity for Lee to showcase what she did so that she could share it with others and hopefully change the lives for students in other schools.

Learn more about the USDLA and how you too can be a member by visiting www.usdla.org/membership. The association supports all core markets including Enterprise, Government, Telemedicine, Education and others.

This blog written by:

Michelle Duran, Ph.D.

Assistant Vice President for Teaching and Learning
Texas A&M University-Kingsville

Digital innovation can be a long winding road at times and is not always suitable for all passengers. There takes a special dynamic to change a mindset of traditional educational practices, but flipping an entire university takes just the right formula. Oral Roberts University, a 2017 USLDA Innovation Award Recipient, had just the right combination to create one of the leading Global Learning Centers that is paving the way for digital creativity that serves a global market of students. Let’s look at the key pieces of the puzzle that ORU put together to lead unparalleled global education developments.

Administrative support for practices that push the boundaries of traditional education are essential to implementing campus wide innovative strategies. Support in the sense of both financial backing to fund practices that may be deemed risky by some but a sound investment by others, and visible support that has the potential to inspire a culture shift. Such was the case at Oral Roberts University (ORU) in 2014, where the Board of Trustees initiated a Globalization Case Statement to initiate the discussion around the global learning center concept. The case statement included that ORU would use “New Paradigms in Technologies to Reach Millions with Whole Person Education.” ORU invested $8.5M into a Global Learning Center that was designed with a global approach to using augmented and virtual reality (AVR). With the idea of the center began the process of looking for a chief information officer who had experience at this level and who would be a change agent and help lead others in an educational adventure that would test the limits of imagination.

Another essential factor in successful innovative deployments at educational institutions is faculty, staff, and student buy in. Identifying individuals who are willing to engage and stand behind practices that have not been vetted by years of educational successes is difficult, but is at the core of establishing a firm pedagogical foundation for innovation. With the entire global university community behind them, ORU designed and currently provides over 8,000 learning objects available via smart phones to a fully immersive virtual reality theater with 500,000 learning environments that can be broadcast around the world.

The last sometimes overlooked pieces of the formula, yet the most vital are patience and resiliency. Every creative idea or program has encountered layers of planning and trials before a complete successful project was in place. Constant reviews of processes and practices only build a stronger product. ORU’s Global Learning Center was not created in a day and not on the first attempt, it took two years of varied approaches to find the right design for success. The end result is now bringing a world of learners together to experience futuristic educational trends and has yielded the following noteworthy accomplishments for faculty who have been leveraging their current curriculum and allowing students to engage in the AVR learning environments: increases in retention and test scores, reduction in time to transfer new knowledge to students, increases in engagement with class materials by students, increases in international students, and establishment of direct connections to industries using AVR.

ORU had the right formula to make what some had deemed unattainable a reality: administrative visible and financial support, a champion and leader of innovation, a community of knowledge producers and consumers who were willing to break the status quo and set new innovative standards for education, and the essential skills of resiliency and patience. A formula that can be replicated at campuses and industries across the globe to revolutionize the way we teach and learn. As CIO Mathews states, “ORU’s Geovision Technology spans the globe to harmoniously connect innovative teamwork with innovative technology solutions that directly impact each student — making ORU’s Flipped University (OneCampus) a true game changer.”

You can learn more about how ORU is Flipping their University at https://vimeo.com/165200782

Save the Date: 

2017 Policy Forum

National Distance Learning Week (NDLW)

2018 National Conference

Learn more about the USDLA and how you too can be a member. The association supports all core markets including Enterprise, Government, Telemedicine, Education and others.

USDLA Membership

Our Association is unique, not only for its historical commitment to distance learning, but also for engaging with a broad spectrum of distance learning professionals – K-12, higher education, corporate, government, military, telehealth, and home schooling. While more narrowly focused organizations have an important role, a powerful perspective emerges when bright minds serving diverse constituencies come together.

The USDLA was formed in 1987. At that time, companies like Yahoo and Google were still years away. “Power users” were boasting of their Intel 386 processors. In that context, DL was a concept well outside the educational mainstream. Granted, a few people knew something of the process but hands-on DL experience was rare. USDLA, then, provided a means for these pioneers to find one another.

Today, with more than one-third of college students taking an online class, it’s a far different world but USDLA remains a vital player. Our members continue to seek out other DL professionals. These practitioners still want to grow and want to offer students a strong education in a robust community of learning. Today’s USDLA stands out as a remarkable resource for teachers and administrators who want to enhance the learning experience.

Become a USDLA Sponsor today!

This blog written by:

Janine Lim

USDLA Board Member
Associate Dean, Online Higher Education Andrews University
Department of Digital Learning and Instructional Technology

As a social media online instructor myself, I was thrilled to learn about USDLA 2017 Award Winner Kinda Wilson, online social media instructor. Her creative work is an inspiration to any online teacher!

Professor Kinda Wilson has been teaching various marketing courses for the Oklahoma State University Spears School of Business for 12 years. Kinda is popular with students because they notice and appreciate her sincere desire for and efforts toward their success. Besides her work in the classroom, Kinda has published two books, is an entrepreneur, and is a popular public speaker. She has worked as a marketing consultant as well as a PR and Marketing Director. 

Kinda began teaching the online version of her 8-week Social Media Strategy course in Fall 2016. The overall learning goal of the course is, “At the end of the course, students should have gained both a theoretical knowledge of social media and a skill set of tactics with which to market a company, person, or organization on social media.” The students learn how to post strategically on    Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. The online course currently has around 35 students in the online section. The course is delivered via OSU’s system-wide LMS, Brightspace by D2L.

Kinda has a variety of best practices included in her online course, but let’s look at what I consider to be the top five excellent strategies she uses:

1. Organization

Professor Wilson is very perceptive of her learners’ needs. For example, while most of her students come to her class with a basic knowledge of the social media platforms used in her class, some do not. Kinda does not leave anyone behind. She chunks her instructional videos into short, one-topic videos, so that students who need to re-watch how to use a particular platform, such as Instagram, can easily find and review the step-by step-step instructions. A current student emailed Kinda about the course organization, “Thank you so much for your videos on Brightspace and the emails! I have never felt successful at online classes because I usually feel lost. I have felt in control of this class and have learned so much thanks to the organization of it!”

2. Being Personal: Creative Videos

Often in online courses, one feels disconnected from the teacher and other people. Kinda, however, jumps through the screen! You immediately feel like you’re getting to know her, her enthusiastic personality, and her creativity. For example, look at this video lecture about Developing a Buyer Persona. Marketing personas may be a topic undergraduate students struggle with, but she literally brings the concept to life. Kinda came up with the innovative idea of having the persona appear as a person, rather than just Kinda’s being a head talking about an abstract concept.

See how this Week 1 intro video makes you feel. Look at the extra touches that make it special: the call outs, using her hand to count off the five items, even emphasizing five items!

3. Video Content Engagement

Aren’t 60 minute lecture videos the worst?! Lecture videos can be the bane of online learning. But look at the best practices in one of Kinda’s online lectures:

• Around 10 minutes long or shorter
• Illustrations
• Opportunities for students to engage and write something down (see about 1:23 on)
• Talking to the students as if they are right in front of you

4. Real-World Application

Kinda maintains eight sets of social media accounts for the groups in her course. Each fictional “company” has an Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest account. The students “take over” the social media accounts of the company at the beginning of the course, and then make a video giving advice on what they learned to the future students who will be in charge of those accounts. In these videos and others where the students talk about what they learned during the course of their group social media project, students demonstrate their use of inductive reasoning to determine why some social media posts worked and others didn’t based on their observations of evidence such as post likes and shares.

Several of Professor Wilson’s students commented that they could immediately apply what they were learning in class in their own businesses or jobs. One of her Fall 2016 students provided insight into her focus on real-world success:

I loved the Social Media week assignment as it prepared you for a real life Social Media position. You have timed and scheduled posts you must prepare for review. It was like working in a corporate environment and extremely beneficial for those who want to pursue a career in with a social media position.

5. Humor and Storytelling

While humor is a tried-and-true classroom engagement methods, it’s not often seen in online courses and makes a huge difference when it’s natural throughout the course.  “Her sense of humor really cannot be matched. She is funny in every video, and approachable via email and Brightspace, but still maintained a professional demeanor and delivered TONS of knowledge,” stated one of her students. It’s clear from the video clips of her speaking that she is a master storyteller!

Meet Kinda Wilson

If you’d like to learn more about Kinda Wilson, visit her websites:

• KindaWilson.com
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• Her book, The Echo Factor

This blog post written by

Linda Dickeson

USDLA Chair of State Chapters

There are some times when I would love to be a student again, specifically a math student. I had extremely high SAT scores in math, but frankly never liked my math classes. Perhaps it was the teacher…he was always so grumpy. And the book was so boring. Oh, to be a student in today’s classrooms learning math concepts. Read on to learn about a great example of engaged learning of math—specifically calculus—with Variant: Limits™ (an honored USDLA 2017 award winning project).

Calculus, which is critical to STEM degrees, has one of the highest failure rates of any college course. In fact, the Mathematical Association of America estimates the failure rate for Calculus I is reaching 38 percent. Variant: Limits™ is aimed at significantly reducing calculus failure rates, empowering students to take a more active role in the learning process and engaging them with the content on a deeper level. The high-stakes adventure leverages effective forms of instruction, leading to achievement and retention of knowledge in Calculus I, including Finite Limits, Continuity and Infinite Limits.

Variant: Limits connects mathematics and game play through immersive learning. It allows students to explore, develop new knowledge, and practice college-level calculus concepts visually in a 3D environment. Students don’t just memorize and regurgitate information, but rather apply it. As students achieve learning objectives and advance to higher levels, they are motivated to keep going.

Variant: Limits introduces essential game play narrative that explains immediate objectives, with the option to discover supplemental back story and lore to unlock additional information about the planet and technology. In Variant: Limits, the player takes on the role of Equa, who is the main character for the Variant series. Equa interacts with two additional characters: 1) the Preceptor, an artificial intelligence whose role is to guide Equa, and 2) Celare, a floating wisp that explains the planet.

The goal of the game is to save the planet that is threatened by powerful and unnatural geomagnetic storms. Equa must attune the Energy Limiters to reconnect bridges, power transport pads, get passed the security system, and access emergency energy nodes. If Equa can energize the node, the storms will stop. Through game play, the player explores and applies conceptual understanding of limits, by selecting limits, changing operators, manipulating functions, and applying concepts like the Intermediate Value Theorem to interact with the 3D environment.

Variant: Limits was developed by Triseum, which grew out of the LIVE Lab in the Department of Visualization at Texas A&M University. Triseum’s games mirror the imagination, interactivity, suspense and sophistication of commercial entertainment games while maintaining strict learning efficacy supported by research.

Take a look at this educational trailer of Variant: Limits to see why they were an obvious choice for a USDLA award!

Save the Date: 

2017 Policy Forum

National Distance Learning Week (NDLW)

2018 National Conference

Learn more about the USDLA and how you too can be a member. The association supports all core markets including Enterprise, Government, Telemedicine, Education and others.

USDLA Membership

Our Association is unique, not only for its historical commitment to distance learning, but also for engaging with a broad spectrum of distance learning professionals – K-12, higher education, corporate, government, military, telehealth, and home schooling. While more narrowly focused organizations have an important role, a powerful perspective emerges when bright minds serving diverse constituencies come together.

The USDLA was formed in 1987. At that time, companies like Yahoo and Google were still years away. “Power users” were boasting of their Intel 386 processors. In that context, DL was a concept well outside the educational mainstream. Granted, a few people knew something of the process but hands-on DL experience was rare. USDLA, then, provided a means for these pioneers to find one another.

Today, with more than one-third of college students taking an online class, it’s a far different world but USDLA remains a vital player. Our members continue to seek out other DL professionals. These practitioners still want to grow and want to offer students a strong education in a robust community of learning. Today’s USDLA stands out as a remarkable resource for teachers and administrators who want to enhance the learning experience.

Become a USDLA Sponsor today!

This blog post written by:

Julie Young

USDLA Chair Emerita

It’s hard to change the world.  People spout platitudes about being world-changers, reaching to be a landscaper of thoughts, ideas, and practices. Leaders strive to be part of a system that makes such a difference to the people within it.  One of the most impactful practices that has truly changed the world is distance education. A leader in the pack from within distance education, Western Governor’s University once again has set itself apart as a winner of the 2017 USDLA 21^st Century Learning Award. 

When I first worked to open Florida Virtual School and now launching ASU Prep Digital, I learned that the landscape of distance education evolves very quickly:  thought leaders emerge, soar high, and then welcome other leaders into the space. It’s the rare school that remains constantly at the forefront of innovative learning practices because ideas wane, new thoughts rise to the top, and it becomes another’s time to shine.  However, year over year, WGU has proven that its mission-driven approach to competency-based education remains the leader for all those who come after. And this year, WGU has once again been honored for their breakthrough practices in distance education.   

Western Governor’s University had a good idea—it wanted to take high quality education and ensure that everyone, regardless of geography or resources, had access to education to meet the demands of employers and industries across the nation.  To put it simply, WGU took that good idea and made it more than an idea:  they made WGU a household name.  They did this with a combination of some great ideas, hard work, and absolute faithfulness to their mission to expand access to higher education for all. 

All innovators have to face the hard choice between mission fidelity and mission drift—remaining and improving upon a good idea, or iterating far away from center.  WGU has navigated its evolution through the last 20 years with poise and devotion to helping adults meet their goals—educationally   and in their careers. 

Nelson Mandela wrote, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Western Governor’s University started with a mission to change the world.  And so they did.

In Photo: Dr. Allison Barber, Chancellor of WGU Indiana and Dr. Fred Hurst, WGU’s Vice President of Institutional Advancement, and John Flores, PH.D., C.E.O/Executive Director USDLA

Save the Date: 

2017 Policy Forum

National Distance Learning Week (NDLW)

2018 National Conference

Learn more about the USDLA and how you too can be a member. The association supports all core markets including Enterprise, Government, Telemedicine, Education and others.

USDLA Membership

Our Association is unique, not only for its historical commitment to distance learning, but also for engaging with a broad spectrum of distance learning professionals – K-12, higher education, corporate, government, military, telehealth, and home schooling. While more narrowly focused organizations have an important role, a powerful perspective emerges when bright minds serving diverse constituencies come together.

The USDLA was formed in 1987. At that time, companies like Yahoo and Google were still years away. “Power users” were boasting of their Intel 386 processors. In that context, DL was a concept well outside the educational mainstream. Granted, a few people knew something of the process but hands-on DL experience was rare. USDLA, then, provided a means for these pioneers to find one another.

Today, with more than one-third of college students taking an online class, it’s a far different world but USDLA remains a vital player. Our members continue to seek out other DL professionals. These practitioners still want to grow and want to offer students a strong education in a robust community of learning. Today’s USDLA stands out as a remarkable resource for teachers and administrators who want to enhance the learning experience.

Become a USDLA Sponsor today!