Administration of Education

This week I introduce the faculty to our, much anticipated, new Learning Management System: MOODLE. It has been over a year in the implementation, and I am very pleased with the outcome. My first two presentations were well received and there are a large number of faculty who are excited about moving over to MOODLE. The design of the site: the colors and imagery makes for a pleasing experience, but more important is that the first few minutes with Moodle, and a side by side comparison with Blackboard,makes clear the smartness of the move.

In addition to the ease of use for both the faculty and the students, the number of tools we've added by switching is significant. We were not an enterprise school; that edition of Blackboard was simply out of reach for us. Blackboard basic did not allow us to integrate our system with Active Directory, nor turn-it-in. It did give us wikis, nor blogs. But even if it did, Moodle is simply much more smart in its design. The question marks next to each item, makes using it simple. The options of setting up four different types of forums (discussion boards) and even allowing students to rate postings, is not something Blackboard afforded. The ease of designing a quiz, and the fact that students do not need to search through various links and buttons to figure out where the course materials are, are more of the pluses. But students and instructors may find that the built-in instant messaging system is what makes this truly dynamic (the "D" in Moodle) and interactive.

I'm proud that our college thought outside-the-box enough to adopt this Open Source LMS. We do not have the resources that some schools have claimed they would need to implement such system. We only had the belief that this was better for learning, and a commitment to make it happen. Long hours and lots of creative energy have brought it to life. This is a truly exciting week for me, and one that I am so proud to have been a part of.

Yesterday I spent an hour or so learning how to change the contour of my landscape. My neighbor had created an inlet that caused the ocean to rise further into my land than I wanted. To fix this I had to learn to use the tools for changing the contour of land. I began by selecting an area, this required more thought than you may think, and then using the tools to raise, lower and smooth out the land. It was far more difficult than I expected, and required me to dig far into my long unused recesses of geometric knowledge--a challenge. My first attempts left me extremely frustrated. Water was coming in and I was losing land quickly. Trying to raise the land only created large peaks of green in what I wanted to be a smooth, rolling landscape. There is no "undo" and so I HAD to continue working at the land and trying to make sense of the tools. At the end, when my landscape had been repaired to a satisfactory level, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. I will, however, begin work on the other side of my land to fix the banks of a river that was added by the neighbor on the opposite side. (I've already added a bridge)


Mathematics, and landscape design would be two fields of learning this activity could be used for. The virtual world, in fact, lends itself well to enhance every area of education. I am amazed everyday at the variety of creative ways instructors are using this world to extend their classrooms and enhance learning. Montclair State has an island, a portion of which is being used for literature students. The Edgar Allan Poe House, and the Young Goodman Brown walk are located here. I choose to explore the "House of Usher". In the image below, I am standing on the Young Goodman Brown walk facing the Edgar Allan Poe house. To my right is a large rock that will give you a folder of materials on Poe (if you click on it). Inside the house, you will encounter a secret labyrinthian like room, and the tell-tale heart. I actually found myself lost inside the house for a short time and it did feel a bit uncomfortable.


A friend of mine, who is a writer, once told me that he preferred to have artists illustrate his books according to what they imagined, rather than telling them how to illustrate the manuscripts. He said it was always exciting to see what they "saw" in the book. The virtual world is not unlike that. The individuals in the virtual world, make the virtual world, create the virtual world. It is a display of human imagination.

Thanks to Monroe Community College, I now have a home in SecondLife. The SUNY Live experiment is underway--a six month study to explore how SecondLife might be used to enhance education. I am interested in how the various campuses will interact with one another. Will participants visit each other, and perhaps develop some collaborations? Will the use increase steadily over time, or will the initial interest wane? Will participants build structures (to mimic how we teach in the real world) and then gradually become accustomed to this new environment and change the structures, or will it remain similar to the real world? So many questions.

It wasn't long ago when we began encouraging instructors to include netiquette requirements in their syllabi. The statements usually said something like "no IM speak. No vulgar language. etc". With classrooms beginning to meet online in virtual worlds like Second Life, we may be seeing netiquette statements like the following: students must come fully clothed and in human form.

As we prepare our students for a future in which meetings, and some educational experiences, will take place in virtual worlds (as they are now for some of the larger corporations), we may be teaching students how to dress their avatars for an interview, as well as which facial features, hair styles, etc are most appropriate. In a virtual world an individual can be either sex and any race by choice, not by birth, so discrimination on that basis will eventually have to disappear. Individuals do not even need to be human.

The virtual environment offers us far more than the talking heads of webinars and video conferencing. All participants can be in the same virtual room and interact with one another much like in the real world.

Recently, I attended my first meeting in Second Life. Outside the window of the meeting room, large palm trees were bending in the gentle breeze. The room was a large wood paneled room and the presenter was at the front. Participants sat on little sofas. I could look around the room, much as I would do in person, or I could look out the window. It was very much like a classroom, and the interaction was much more realistic than any I've had virtually before. I actually preferred it to the webinars that I've attended.

At first, however, my thoughts were that this was fantasy masquerading as life. Here humans can be virtually anything. One of the attendees, an officer in this group of Academic CIOs, was dressed as a purple cat. One of them, a female, wore transparent clothing. Yes, the boundaries do come down! I asked myself, which was the "real" person. The one that came dressed in proper clothing to their "real" office, or the one here. I thought about those school children in their uniforms. Does the uniform reflect the person? I decided that the virtual world may actually be the "real" world after all. There has to be something in a person, already there, that would allow them to come to a meeting in transparent clothing, or as a purple cat. Something that they kept hidden otherwise. In the real world these outfits would've been much more distracting than they were here. It was more of a curiosity than anything else.

As the technology evolves, and more instructors use the virtual classroom for synchronous meetings of students at a distance; as companies require employees to send their avatars to company meetings instead of flying the actual person, the technology will become more sophisticated--by demand, by investment. Maybe the Matrix wasn't so much science fiction after all.

New technologies are emerging at such a rapid pace, that it is difficult for educators, for administrators of education, to keep abreast. It isn't as easy as purchasing an overhead projector to be used in place of a chalkboard, because each new technology has a learning curve which requires time and people for training, as well as infrastructure. But the new technologies also require imagination to reach their fullest potential--in fact they breed imagination.

There was time when modes of instruction, educational phases like "whole language" and the like, were the changing face of education. Now, it is the vehicle through which instruction takes place that is changing at what often appears to be the speed of light. The tools. While many are free, there are still investments required, and it seems as one new technology is learned several more have emerged and are waiting for attention.

Last year, when I attended the Emerging Technologies conference out of MIT, the focus was "folksonomy", sites like Stumble, Delicious, Flicker... This week I will meet with a rep from iTunes University to discuss our institutions participation in the Apple program. My meeting is early in the morning, as the rep will be meeting with at least three other colleges in our area on that day. In addition to iTunes, I will be testing Second Life, trying to get my avatar to navigate in this brave new world. I will be testing the latest version of Moodle in preparation for a rollout this summer. I have Vista and Office 2007 running on my test computer in my office--I have yet to get to it. And yet, I will be holding training sessions on "old" technology: powerpoint, SmartBoards, Impatica, Camtasia, and the like. I see a line of technologies running to the horizon, each waiting to shake my hand and show me what they can do for education. I've got to make quick assessments: go by my first impression, so to speak, or rely on the impressions of others.

I imagine a scene in a science fiction movie, where eggs emerge from the ground. First an egg here or there, that hatch and out comes an alien that this human needs to meet and understand. But over time, the eggs start emerging faster and faster until the landscape is covered with eggs continually hatching. Or perhaps it is more akin to cells dividing and making a new being, or colony of cells. The mathematical equations that can represent the rate of cell division might also express the rate of emerging technologies. While some might be overwhelmed by this rapid creation, for others this is an exciting challenge with possibilities that never existed before. Technology is not the end, but a means to an end, or beginning. We do not know what the result of this rapid deployment of knowledge, of communication will have. Will we rebuild the tower of Babel, and if so will the results be different this time around? The ability to acquire information, to communicate, and to experiment and test hypothesis has never been so high. We are, perhaps, going so fast that we can not see where we are going, and maybe that is part of the thrill.

We are in the midst of developing plans for a possible (some say probable) pandemic. Various colleges are determing the radius from a human to human transmission of bird flu that will close their particular school. For some it is 500 miles, for others--anywhere in North America.

What this means is that the schools will run by skeleton crews, and that all courses that can be taught via distance learning, will be taught that way. The pandemic is expected to only last the length of one semester, so clinical courses can be made up afterward. Part of the plan, then, is to quickly and significantly raise the faculty's level of technological skills, particularly in regards to instruction and communication. Even the just the threat of a pandemic will have a significant impact on the adoption of educational technologies. Will this go down in the history books as something that drove communications faster and in a more direct direction, than would have otherwise occurred.

Those who are doing the planning and who are insisting all schools have plans in place within the next month or so, are convinced that the pandemic is not a "what if" situation, but a "when" situation. "This is not like Y2K", is what I've been told.

The President of the college has stated that she'd like to see courses taught as independent study courses; I'm not sure I agree that's a better solution than simply guiding instructors in the use of our learning management system. Perhaps, though, if the level of participation will be quite variable, since it must be assumed that many of the students will contract the flu, independent learning will be the better option. Many believe the success of distance learning relies on the ability of the instructor to encourage the development of a learning community. Learning Communities, in turn, rely on participation.

How will this, if it does at all, affect how we teach at a distance? How we look at teaching at a distance? And, what kind of technologies might this help encourage?

I guess the next couple of years will tell.

So often in discussions around higher ed learning, and in particular distance learning, we hear about facilitated learning and the end to the Sage on the Stage. I do not, however, believe that in order to have facilitated learning experiences, one needs to eliminate the "sage on the stage".

One of the best professors I had was a history professor who told history in the form of mostly anecdotal information that he often acted out. His passion and his years of research were clearly evident in his lectures, and made my learning memorable. What is often missing in the online environment is that anecdotal information, the often contagious passion of the professor, and the years of research she/he has spent learning about the subject matter that is often conveyed in the form of a lecture--not the powerpoint slides, but the audio portion of a lecture. In deed, if powerpoint is used properly it only serves to support a presentation, not become the presentation--but that's another topic for another day.

In the previous posting, I spoke about the collection of research on education published by the National Academies Press: How People Learn. What we have learned about How People Learn is in order "to develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: a. have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, b. understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and c. organize knowledge in way that facilitate retrieval and application." The manner in which an instructor presents information, can effect the deeper understanding of factual knowledge by helping students place it into a conceptual framework, something that is often facilitated by the stories and connections instructors share in their "lectures".

When encouraging instructors to put their courses online, it is important to provide ways for them to add their voice to their online classrooms. The easiest way, is for them to record a presentation that they may be giving in a similar f2f course, and put that online. PowerPoint's "record narration" feature makes that extremely easy to do. A simple, inexpensive mic works fine and background noise can make the online experience even richer, lessed canned.

Research in effective multimedia for learning, done by Richard Mayer, would support the addition of audio, as well some animation. When I speak of animation, however, I'm not referring to the often distracting type, but animation that helps students to focus: examples would be bullets coming in one at a time, circles drawing around important items, or arrows indicating an item in a picture the instructor is referring to.

"But the file size is so large when you include the audio portion!" you might say. In addition, to adding the voice to their powerpoint presentations, an application like Impatica for PowerPoint, which will easily compress the powerpoint to a much smaller file (in some cases 1% of the original size!) Impatica has some additional features: like changing the powerpoint to an applet (which prevents students from downloading the slideshow).

A free way to include audio, is to use the free program Audacity to record audio and save the file as an mp3.

The faculty do, in fact, bring a passion for their subject matter. Encouraging all learning to be facilitated learning only, can deny access to what is often the richest part of the classroom experience--the interactions and mentoring that can occur between the professor and the students. All of this is most easily done when their is a common focus, or "anchor". That anchor can be a video, a reading, or some other tool of learning, but don't forget the lecture. The old idea that is so spurned these days: Sage on the Stage, can be tweeked and the real reason professors are needed for true education kept in tact. The trends in online learning toward the development of community between students, and facilitated learning rather than directed learning, can exist on that stage as well.

In the 1998 the National Research Council pubished the landmark report How People Learn. The report was a synthesis of research on, well, how people learn. While the report did not contain new research, and nothing in it was particularly surprising to those who've spent their lives researching effective methods of instruction, pedagogy and the like, it did put the research into a framework. Unfortunately, as the subsequent publication How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice points out, "The influence of research on educational practice has been weak..." (6) "Strategies for change are often short-lived and responsive to fads rather than to sound research and theory."

In comes the age of social computing: tagging, social bookmarking, instant messaging, places like myspace, facebook and even some of the gaming sites. In comes blogging, RSS, podcasting and wiki. The amount of information accessible at any given point in time, has never been as great as it is currently. But, it is all too easy for one to become a mere consumer of information, with little time for reflection and deeper levels of thinking and knowledge. Even those who are authors of blogs, broadcasters of podcasts, and writers to wikis, have more facts to consume than ever before, and less time for reflection. The acquisition of factual knowledge is what is most supported by the rapid exchange of information.

Factual knowledge is far easier to assess than is conceptual knowledge, and thus educators tend to gravitate towards encouraging the acquisition of factual knowledge. Factual knowledge, is likewise, easier to obtain than is conceptual knowledge. (Remember cramming for a test). But "the key to expertise is the master of concerpts that allow for deep understanding of that information."(2) For example: to not just master a particular software program, but to understand how software works conceptually, so that no matter what type of program you have to use, you can navigate your way around in it.

There once was a time, when an individual noticed a flower growing from a rock, and they
1. noticed it
2. asked some questions about that in regards to the knowledge they had already learned about flowers and whether that fact that this flower growing from a rock, challenged what they already knew.
3. developed a hypothesis about this new fact
4. did some research
5. added to their conceptual framework

6. but in addition they gained a metaphor they could apply to their creative writing, an analogy they could use when explaining something else in the future, and a broader understanding of how the world works.

Deeper levels of thinking require time to reflect. Time to explore, discover and ponder the deeper questions of life and how they apply to us individually. Curriculum and instruction must encourage reflection. In the age of social computing we are more likely to hear an individual spew off what they've heard others say, rather than the conclusions they themselves have come to through deeper reflections and connections. We must ask our students WHY they believe something, over and over, and get them to formulate a deeper level of thinking and a higher level of inquiry. That has always been the challenge of education, and always will be.

As administrators our job will be to make sure that the instructors know the research and understand it's implications--sometimes that requires opening the minds of our teachers. Then, we need to encourage teaching that encourages deeper levels of thinking, and problem solving, by requiring more project-based activities, allowing opportunities for our students to be producers of knowledge rather than simply consumers (this may require getting our network admins on board), and by keeping our fingers on the pulse of education.

How People Learnis available to read for free on the internet.

This week Michigan's governor signed a new law that requires all students to take a least one "online learning course" or participate in an "online learning experience" in order to graduate. While Michigan's Board of Education struggles to define these experiences, the rest of us need to begin to ask ourselves what new teacher training experiences may be required in the future. Will new teachers need a course in pedagogy for online instruction? Will they be required to prove competency in teaching online? If the K-12 students get their online experience from a local college, will those professors be required (as are certified teachers) to take human development and/or education courses?

As I struggle to write our own distance learning policies and procedures, which will include a requirement of online professors to prove they meet certain competencies in the online environment, I face a great deal of opposition. Instructors believe that faculty needs to take responsibility for writing and policing competencies. Our accrediting body, however, requires one person be responsible for the ensuring the quality of our distance learning programs, and that one person is me. If I do not set policy, if I am not allowed to approve courses and instructors, how can I quarantee quality. It is my job to answer to the state.

College professors have never been required to take courses in pedagogy before--at least professors who taught anything other than education courses. They wonder why it is necessary now. They see this as an intrusion by administration. I guess I can understand why they would think so, but we all sit in classrooms from the time we are 4 or 5 years old. We are immersed in that learning environment, and we learn something from it, but the online environment is new and many of our professors are not comfortable with communicating via this new technology, let alone teach. The online environment requires skills that few of the professors teaching today, picked up from their professors.

The face of education is changing rapidly. As we move more and more to an online delivery system, courses will need to be developed and assessed by curriculum and instruction experts--whether that be training required of teaching professors, or course designers. The age of "the sage on the stage" is rapidly becoming ancient history, and we are finding ourselves moving into a new era.

Part of the application for institutional review includes an analysis of "Time on Task". The credit hours assigned to a course in a face-to-face classroom is generally calculated by the number of hours the course meets each week. Each hour in a classroom is also supposed to equal a specific amount of out of class work. In a distance learning classroom, credit must be assigned by Time on Task--a number that equates with an equal amount of time on task hours for a face-to-face course. The calculations are somewhat unequal, in that it takes a longer time to read through postings on a discussion board, and then post a response, than it does to sit in a one hour class in which a discussion is taking place.

Most of our distance learning students, choose distance learning because they work and/or care for their families during the day. Distance Learning courses are an easier fit into an already full schedule. But, the same information that is covered in a face-to face course, must be covered (and just as thoroughly) in an online course; to do less would be to offer watered down courses, and to grant watered down degrees. Sadly their are many students who would opt for the watered down degree, as long as they got one.

I am in the process of developing the policies and procedures for our school of distance learning; the intention being to raise the quality of those courses. While it will look good for accreditation, and can eventually get our name listed as a top-notch school for distance ed, it may not get us any more students, or any better students. The competition is fierce, and we are not just competing with like schools any more. The competitors are coming from business and for-profit corporations. I can't help but wonder...

This semester, I taught an online course to a cohort of 25 students. In their student response forms, one of the students wrote that they felt too much was asked of students who work and have a family to raise. Sadly, a good portion of these students did not know how to write a proper research paper, wh-n to site sources, nor even how. These are college juniors. They are required to have completed two years at some other institution, before entering this program. Watered down. I do think there are a good many people who simply don't care to learn, in truth they only want the degree. Sadly, it's exactly what they will get, but hopefully not from us!