Category: News (Page 2 of 3)

Community College Online

April 1, 2015 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

I am a little late posting this report by The New America Foundation on online learning in the community colleges. Some of the findings in the report came directly from research on the VCCS done by the Community College Research Center. Findings such as this:

Given the lack of large-scale studies about online education in the public two-year sector, the Community College Research Center published a longitudinal study in 2013 that explored how well students in Virginia’s and Washington’s community colleges fared in online versus face-to-face courses. The study’s authors found that overall, student performance decreased in online courses. On average, if a student took a course online rather than face-to-face, the likelihood he would withdraw from the course increased by six percent. For those students who did complete online courses, the authors found that their final grades were lower by 0.3 GPA points (for example, a change from a B+ to a B).

Not exactly what we want to hear, but useful nonetheless.

I am still digging through the report but thought I would share the link for anyone interested in reading it.

View this document on Scribd

VCU ALTfest: Burning Man for Educators

March 19, 2015 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

VCU AltFest

VCU’s AltLab will be hosting its equivalent of a weeklong celebration of culture and “radical self-expression” in the Nevada desert with AltFest, an event billed as an “academic learning transformation festival.” While ALTfest will have a bit less nudity than Burning Man, it will offer a “program of formal and informal special events, performances, and festive activities celebrating stories of learning transformation and exploring new possibilities.”

The event is designed to capture and create opportunities for educators and learners to engage in active learning experiences and share stories of learning transformation. ALTfest is May 12-14, 2015 in the Academic Learning Commons on the VCU campus in Richmond, VA, clothing optional. On the final day of the event participants will set fire to a giant papier-mâché replica of Shaka Smart. The call for proposals deadline is March 30th. Registration is open. More info here: http://altfest.vcu.edu.

New America Foundation Event in DC: Community College Online

February 9, 2015 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

CC-BY http://www.jisc.ac.uk

On February 17th, the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program will host an event that will focus on the use of information technology at community colleges. The event will occur in conjunction with the release of a new report by New America, Community College Online, which features case studies of how community colleges are harnessing technology to improve remediation, student services, and content delivery. Here is a description of the two-hour long event from the organization’s web site:

Community colleges are often the only or the last chance for a college education for many of America’s students. Some students enroll in a couple of classes or a short-term certificate to gain new skills, some enroll to obtain their associate degrees, and some enroll with the intention to transfer to a four-year institution. The open access of community college is one of America’s greatest postsecondary strengths, but also one of its greatest challenges. While almost anyone with minimum qualifications can enter a community college and pursue a postsecondary credential, few will actually complete.

Community college students need access to more high-quality, flexible support services, courses, and credentials to succeed. Students should be able to take at least two courses a semester—two in the fall, two in the spring, and two in the summer—so that they can complete their associate degrees in two to four years. Innovative use of information technology can help get them there.

The opening remarks and innovation presentations will be live streamed. If you can’t make it in person, you can participate on Twitter using the hastag #CCOnline and following @NewAmericaEd. You can see an agenda and register for the event here: http://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/community-college-online/.

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that “invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.”

To do: upcoming events

February 6, 2015 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

CC-By: Office Now

Spring 2015 is positively lousy with EdTech-related events, meetings, webinars, and more events. And webinars. There are also meetings: lots of ‘em. Below are the ones I have compiled, at least through April, the cruelest month. For a complete list, go to http://edtech.vccs.edu/upcoming-events/.

If you have an event that you would like to add, please let me know.

February 06, 2015 (Happening now!)
JSRCC FantasTech Virtual Conference
Online

February 09, 2015
Educause Learning Initiative (ELI)
Anaheim, CA

February 11, 2015
Increasing College Access and Success through Zero-Textbook-Cost Degrees
Washington, DC

February 17, 2015
New America Foundation: Community College Online
Washington, DC & online

February 19, 2015
ELET Committee Meeting
Charlottesville, VA

February 19, 2015
VCCS Peer Group Meeting | Accounting/Business/Economics
Richmond, VA

February 24, 2015
Tech Council
Suffolk, VA

March 04, 2015
CODD/ASAC
Fredericksburg, VA

March 08, 2015
Innovations Conference
Boston, MA

March 09, 2015
SXSW Edu
Austin, TX

March 30, 2015
OpenSym 2015 | Call for Papers

March 30, 2015
OxCon: OpenStax Conference
Houston, TX

April 01, 2015
New Horizons 2015
Roanoke, VA

April 09, 2015
Council for the Study of Community Colleges Conference (CSCC)
Ft. Worth, TX

April 17, 2015
VWCC 2015 Instructional Technology Mini-Conference
Roanoke, VA

April 22, 2015
OpenEd Global Conference
Banff, Alberta, CANADA

April 22, 2015
OLC | Emerging Technologies for Online Learning
Dallas, TX

OER policy: Both Big P and little p

September 24, 2014 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

The Education Commission of the States, an organization that, among other things, tracks state educational policy trends, recently released a report titled Open-source textbooks can help drive down the overall cost of college. The report highlights both legislative and non-legislative initiatives in a number of states that have been launched to address textbook affordability.

The short 5-page report gives some of its precious ink to the VCCS, mentioning the Chancellor’s OER Adoption Grants, TCC’s Z-Degree, and the OER projects at NVCC and Reynolds. You can download the full report here: http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/01/14/37/11437.pdf

Governor Honors VCCS Sorcerers with Coveted Plaque of Invisibility

September 8, 2014 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

The Virginia Education Wizard has once moreÂ cast its spell on the Commonwealth, winning Â a 2014 Governor’s Technology Award in the Innovative Use of Technology: Education category for the Virginia Education Wizard Mobile App. The special award ceremony was held at the annual Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium (COVITS) in Richmond on Sept. 3, 2014.Â The Wizard appÂ was developed as a native app available for both iOS and Android platforms, and designed for both phone and tablet platforms.

“The developmentÂ of the mobile app wasÂ to ensure the greatest usability for the greatest number of users, particularly the increasing number of usersÂ for whom mobile devices are their primary access to the internet,” states Director of Student Support TechnologiesÂ Chris Pfautz.

VA Wizards Erika Poindexter and Chris Pfautz showoff invisible technology award

The Wizard app simplifies the often overwhelming process of gathering information about occupations and colleges. With a free account, users can access supply & demand for numerous occupations in the user’s area, median salary for occupations, and colleges in Virginia offering relevant college programs of study), college details (admission criteria, application closing dates, application & tuition fees, average per-student cumulative undergraduate indebtedness, & more) for colleges across the U.S., and a cost calculator to compare the cost of attending Virginia’s community colleges with four-year colleges, demonstrating to the user annual savings and transfer savings.

The Governor’s Technology Awards were presented to honorees in nine categories. Winners were determined by a panel of government information technology (IT) experts. You can find a list of the other winners and finalists on the COVITS website, http://covits.virginia.gov/winners.cfm. Contact the Man-Behind-the-Curtain,Â Director of Student Support TechnologiesÂ Chris Pfautz, for more information on the Virginia Education Wizard.

Get your hammers. Weâ€™re building an OpenVA

July 18, 2014 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

It is encouraging that last year’s OpenVA conference wasn’t a one-off event. It easily could have been. The conferenceÂ was initiated and supportedÂ by the McDonnell administration, now gone, and could easily have ended with a round of pat on the backs and atta boys afterÂ the conference’sÂ closingÂ session, held at the Stafford campus of the University of Mary Washington. But OpenVA has come back for a second year, kept aliveÂ by the passion and dedication of the conference organizers, an enthusiastic group of educators representing Virginia’s public post-secondary institutions.

TCC’s cool-looking student center, Virginia Beach campus

The Â follow-up event isÂ scheduledÂ forÂ Saturday, October 18thÂ at Tidewater Community College’s Virginia Beach campus. The event will be a little different this year, focused less on sharing best practices and more on the development of a framework of policies that support greater adoptionÂ of open resources and promote collaboration among institutions across the state. The summit, called Building OpenVA,Â will gather input from participants during four focused discussion sessions with the purpose of developing recommendations for a statewide open resource strategy.

The summit is for administrators, educators, legislators, librarians, and learning technologists involved with public post-secondary education in Virginia who:

have launched successful open initiatives that they would like to expand or scale,
know, or want to know, how to support an open initiative at their institution,
understand the importance of openness and want to better understand how â€˜openâ€™ is currently being deployed throughout Virginia,
believe in the promise of â€˜open’ but arenâ€™t sure how to start or sustain an open initiative,
want to learn how to form and write policy for open education.

You can find out more about the Building OpenVA Summit, as well as respond to an open call for submissions, atÂ the event website:Â http://openva.org/. And don’t forget that the 2014 Open Ed Conference will take place a few weeks later in Washington, DC, anotherÂ great opportunity for VCCS faculty and staff interestedÂ inÂ learning more aboutÂ OER and global open initiatives.

Microsoft Office Now Available for the iPad

March 28, 2014 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

iPad

From LifeHacker:

At long last, Microsoft is bringing its Office suite to the iPad, and you can download it today. The Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps are specifically designed for the iPad’s touch environment and will sync, via OneDrive, to other Office apps on other devices.

In today’s demonstration, Microsoft showcased how formatting is consistent between the iPad apps and desktop versions, as well as some nifty touch-only formatting and editing capabilities. Some of the more interesting features include previewing charts in Excel before you insert them, laser pointing with your finger in PowerPoint, and very flexible Word layouts.

The full version, with full editing capabilities, is free for Office 365 subscribers. For everyone else, you’ll be able to use Office for iPad at least to view or present documents.

You can download the apps today in iTunes via this link.

NVCCâ€™s OER Project Makes Headlines

March 10, 2014 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

OCW | NVCC | GED ED | OER

Northern Virginia Community College’s Extended Learning Institute (ELI) is currently being showcased on the OpenCourseware Consortium website for their OER-based General Education Project. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a worldwide community of higher education institutions and associated organizations “committed to advancing open education and its impact on global education.” NVCC’s OER-Based General Education Project utilizes free and/or open courses materials to deliver a high quality learning experience and lead to a General Studies Certificate and satisfy the first year of the Associate of Science Degree. The project was funded through a 2013 College Innovation Fund grant received from the Virginia Community College System.

Dr. Preston Davis, Director of Instruction at Northern Virginia Community Collegeâ€™s Extended Learning Institute, and his staff of faculty, librarians, and instructional designers used the grant funds not just to reduce costs, but also to create greater awareness of OER among faculty at NVCC and, most importantly, Â improve teaching and learning through the use of engagingÂ new OER content.Â Â—
Currently, the Gen Ed OER project offers twelve courses that have no course material or textbook costs. The courses areÂ ART 101 and 102, ENGLISH 111,112,125, and 251, HISTORY 121, 122, and 262, MATH 151, PHYSICS 201 and 202, and STUDENT DEVELOPMENT 100. A second CIF grant awarded to NVCC in 2014 will allow the college to develop OER for additional second year courses in order to offer a General Education degree with no textbook costs.

Watch the video below to hear the ELI Â team talk the project.

Affordable College Textbooks Act

November 18, 2013 / Richard Sebastian / 0 Comments

franken_durbin

U.S. Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Al Franken of Minnesota have introduced legislation called the Affordable College Textbook Act with the goal of making college textbooks affordable and openly available under a Creative Commons Attribution license.Â Bill S.1704 does 5 things, according to Senator Durbinâ€™s press release:

Creates a grant program to support pilot programs at colleges and universities to create and expand the use of open textbooks with priority for those programs that will achieve the highest savings for students;
Ensures that any open textbooks or educational materials created using program funds will be freely and easily accessible to the public via a CC BY license;
Requires entities who receive funds to complete a report on the effectiveness of the program in achieving savings for students;
Improves existing requirements for publishers to make all textbooks and other educational materials available for sale individually rather than as a bundle; and
Requires the Government Accountability Office to report to Congress by 2017 with an update on the price trends of college textbooks.

In its own press release about Bill S. 1704, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) noted several existing open textbook programs that have proved successful in lowering costs for students, including Tidewater Community Collegeâ€™s “Z Degreeâ€ Program in Business Administration, the first degree program in the nation with zero textbook costs.

Also, last week at the OpenEd Conference in Utah, three OER projects from Virginiaâ€™s Community Colleges were included in the closing keynote: the Chancellorâ€™s OER Adoption Grant, Tidewaterâ€™s Z Degree, and Northern Virginiaâ€™s OER General Education Certificate. The calculated cost savings to students from these 3 projects as well as other OER projects across the nation were tallied at $1 million dollars. (see related post on OpenEd 2013).

These are exciting times, and there is some real momentum developing around textbook affordability and OER. Virginia has a foot in the door. I hope the Commonwealth, and the VCCS, will continue to be a big part of these important efforts.