Recently in Weekly Review Category

This was a short week for me in the office as I took an extended vacation until Thursday ... it was time well spent! I actually worked close to four hours each day from Monday through Wednesday ... it helped me ease back into work and to complete a few tasks I've been sitting on for weeks. having some time to sit down and think without having to get up and go to meetings was very helpful.

TLT Fellows & Engagement Initiative

During that time I was able to finally finish the final draft of the TLT Fellows program. I think the Fellows approach is a critical step in advancing our agenda and to help us connect on new levels with faculty from across PSU. Our summer spent with Carla Zembal-Saul as a Fellow was so productive I am looking to add at least three Fellowships on an annual basis to our workflow. The goal is to bring faculty into our space during the summer to help further an agreed upon research agenda that is related to our ongoing projects. If last summer was any indication we could be in for some amazing outcomes in the coming year.

I also completed the long over due Engagement Initiative proposal. Essentially we are looking to formalize our RFP process and find ways to engage with faculty on smaller projects in an ongoing fashion. We've done a dozen or more Engagement Projects, but they've been happening without any sort of real, formalized approach. Hopefully getting the thinking down and approved will make a difference.

Schreyer Assessment Conference

Yesterday I hosted two roundtable discussions on student portfolios at the Schreyer Institute's event, Assessment of Student Learning ... it was a faculty/administrator crowd focused on exploring student assessment. I really enjoyed the opportunity to engage with people around the table related to our ideas of portfolios.

One thing I am struck by is the overwhelming willingness and energy around moving ePortfolio forward -- at least from those I spoke with. I am also more aware of the need for us to be more systematic in how we promote our solutions and how we work to make people more comfortable with why students should engage in this type of practice. I am more convinced now than ever that we should, as an Institution, find ways to promote end to end portfolio thinking -- not enhanced resumes, but real reflective activities that work from the moment students step on campus all the way until after they graduate. We need a story that shares this thinking.

Other Stuff

Today I spent time killing old tasks and getting ready for a long week next week. One thing I did do today that was great was a three person iChat with Alan Levine and Jim Groom. Alan is a VP with the NMC and Jim is an instructional technologist at Mary Washington University ... the three of us are presenting together at ELI about blogs as publishing platforms -- really looking to expose them as platforms for digital expression in general. Sounds like we'll have fun and hopefully generate a bunch of conversation during our session. I will also be presenting with Carla and Brad Kozlek on the social nature of ePortfolios ... should be lots of fun!

Next week I also start a new class that I am taking -- not teaching. I'm taking INSYS 522 and am looking forward to it. My advisor, Kyle Peck, is teaching it so it should be an excellent learning experience.

Beyond that, a short week without much to report. On to the weekend!

Crazy week, but all sorts of good things going on. I was out of town on Monday, so the 17 official meetings I had were crammed into some tight spaces. I gave up my standing "Friday is to think and work day" so I could fit in a Digital Commons planning meeting. I've tried to capture the highlights here but am posting this a week late ... things just didn't work out last week.

Tuesday, 6/6/2007

Meeting with Kyle Peck and Jackie Edmondson

The three of us met to follow up on the Chalk and Wire ePortfolio meeting we attended a couple of weeks ago. Good discussion that lead to Jackie and Kyle to say they would run a small pilot in the Fall to see how Chalk and Wire performed. I also urged them to talk more with their colleagues who have adopted TaskStream.

Discussion Related to CE Awareness

Allan Gyorke and I met with Kitt Camplese from Outreach to discuss ways we can help bring CE faculty up to speed with the things currently happening within ETS. We decided that we would start planning a series of ETS Briefings that can be delivered in a face to face mode or via Adobe Connect. We plan to make these all standard presentations -- following the "7 Things you Should Know" outline. They will also contain lots of contextual, "this is how it works in the classroom" examples and videos. We are planning to revisit with Kitt in the next few weeks.

Wednesday, 6/7/2007

Meeting with David DiBiase & Keith Bailey

I try very hard to keep regular meetings with directors of College eLearning groups. I enjoy these meetings very much primarily because prior to arriving at ETS I was one of them in the College of IST for close to 7 years. This one proved very interesting as it was the first time Keith, David, and I got together as a group. We have been fighting with how we engage our groups in more meaningful activity. The goal of the meeting was really to discuss open educational resources and how ETS could help with the visioning on that ... it was also to talk about content management tools to help support that.

It turned more into a brain storming session related to the integration of Web 2.0 technologies and philosophies into course design. I mentioned that I have been designing a course "in the open" that I plan to teach in the College of Education in the Spring ... this sparked a lot of discussion related to David's plans to redesign a course that he has been teaching for 10 years ... we came up with a plan to bring a group of learning designers together to help reshape this course using a learning design community approach. SOmetime in early September we plan to get people from ETS, Dutton, A&A, IST, and WC together to think big and see where it goes. We'll likely track the design in the open at the emerging learning design community hub. Should be interesting and could be very important work going forward.

Jim Leous

Jim and I got together to plan our Web 2007 presentation. It didn't take us long to go from being on topic to going off the rails. It is always enjoyable to work with Jim, so this was a pleasure. You can take a look at what we pulled off by jumping over to another blog post.

Thursday, 6/7/2007

Larry Ragan and World Campus Relationship

Larry and I have been talking a lot lately about how we create meaningful contributions to each other's organization. One of the outcomes will be a scheduled visit to the Outreach building to talk about the things ETS is up to and see where we can create opportunities to engage. Looks like I will be heading out with Allan sometime in August to get things rolling. Lots of great opportunities for the things we are thinking about to influence the work happening at the World Campus.

ePortfolio Committee Meeting

Looks like I am now part of this group ... good discussion and it is good that I am more than partially engaged in this space. I have started to talk to several people on campus as to the emerging needs for ePortfolios and I have gained quite a bit of insight into the varying levels of ePortfolio needs. This meeting was good as it was really a status check and a time to talk openly about where we are headed this year. More to come on this as it unfolds.

Friday 6/8/2007

Administrative/Infrastructure Penn State Online Sub-Committee

I had to join this meeting by phone, but was still able to take part. The discussion focused on the final recommendations to be taken to old main for several key pieces to the Penn State Online plan. Looks like the final draft will be sent on to the committee for review.

Digital Commons Planning and Implementation Meeting

The Digital Commons project's goal is to place digital media studios at every location of Penn State. This is a huge undertaking and this meeting brought all the key players together to create a briefing package that will be shared with all interested campuses next week. The immediate goal is to select 5 campuses to take part in the pilot implementation this Summer. The briefing package will help us determine what campuses are ready to immediately work with us. The website is starting to take shape. This project will occupy a majority of our time this Summer.

This was a good week with lots of interesting things going on. I've tried to capture the highlights here and am posting this a day early.

Monday, 5/21/2007

Campus IT Director's Meeting

I attended the PSU Campus IT Director's Meeting to discuss the Blogs at PSU and Digital Commons projects. I spent about 20 minutes sharing updates on both projects. The DC project spurred quite a bit of discussion and lots of interest. I was surprised that the blog project did not generate as much discussion as I expected. Several of the IT directors emailed me immediately following the meeting expressing interest. All in all, it was a very successful use of time. Download a PDF of the slides.

PSU Online Steering Committee

I was asked to attend this meeting to replace John Harwood. I am a member of the steering committee that reports up to this group. It was interesting to see the level at which this group operated. As a matter of fact it was an eye opening experience and one that I truly appreciated. I'm not sure what I can share from this meeting...

Tuesday, 5/22/2007

ETS Leadership Retreat

The ETS Leadership group took a half day retreat to discuss various organizational topics. The Digital Commons project was a primary focus as was the plans around Studio 204 and the Faculty Multimedia Center -- the big question there is how do we begin to re-brand these two separate spaces under the Digital Commons name. We spent time talking specifically about the processes and approaches we would use to move from concept to implementation related to the DC at the campuses.

We discussed ongoing communication challenges -- essentially how do we better keep our staff and audiences informed about what we are up to. Several ideas were discussed ... providing more opportunities for Q&A at staff meetings, inviting new faces to meetings, and to take time to openly discuss the importance of keeping blogs up to date. We also revisited staff portfolios via their blogs ... we decided to bring it to the group and open it up for further conversation -- there are still questions that cannot be effectively answer.

Space, summer projects, and emerging opportunities were also discussed. We talked about much more that would be premature to share here. If there are additional questions, please either email me or come visit F2F and we can discuss.

Chalk and Wire Overview

I was able to attend a meeting between the College of Education and folks from Chalk and Wire (CW). CW is a web-based assessment tool set designed as an ePortfolio system that the CoE is investigating for College-wide assessment. I wasn't a part of the entire day, but what from what I understand this is designed to help the College manage progress as it relates to accreditation. This is not an ePortfolio system like the ones we are looking at per say, it is designed to manage College level performance. From what I was able to observe it is a very powerful system.

Students are a part of the process in that they place objects in the system for assessment. Additionally students receive feedback throughout the process and can download a "clean" portfolio at the end of four years. A clean portfolio is one without assessment. Students create objects that align to known rubrics that they upload into the system. Faculty then assess these objects based on the determined rubrics.

Just some observations:

• The tool is built on a .Net framework written as web services. There are exposed APIs that we could write to do interesting and useful things with the data.
  
• They find that Institutions want to include all sorts of data into their assessment, but then scale back to tie more closely with the outcomes they are interested in.
  
• Looks like it is a hosted solution that is also available as a stand alone self-managed install ... I'm not sure what CoE has in mind.
  
• Authentication can happen in multiple ways -- they say they can integrate with PSU authentication or they can provide their own authentication system. They aren't sure about shib ... but they do kerberos and would work with us on integration.
  
• CW stores all the data that students upload "forever" ... students can only access their materials while they own an active subscription. All assessment data is hosted in this same way.
  

Much more that would be inappropriate to share here. If there are additional questions, please either email me or come visit F2F and we can discuss.

Wednesday, 5/23/2007

Social Computing Presentation to the PSU Libraries

I was expecting this to be a small group meeting and more of an open discussion, but at the last minute it turned into a more formal presentation. I used a mash-up of slides from Maricopa and my standard Web 2.0 in the Higher Education Enterprise talk I've given several dozen times to produce a talk related to Platforms for Digital Expression at Penn State.

It was a well attended session that lasted about an hour. There was some time left over for question and answer at the end that I think helped make a difference. I enjoyed the time spent doing this. An archive of the talk is available via Media Site Live.

All ETS Staff Meeting

Standard monthly all ETS Staff meeting. Basic agenda included brief updates on positions, the Digital Commons project, Studio 204, summer conferences, the Blogs at PSU, and a few other items. Brett Bixler did a good 10-15 minute demo of Second Life and we talked a bit about how we are going to grow the serious gaming program. We used the last 15 minutes to do an open Q&A as well. I have to say that I enjoyed the open Q&A time very much.

Thursday, 5/24/2007

IST Solutions Institute

I spent well over an hour and a half with Brian Smith, new Director of the IST Solutions Institute to discuss new opportunities for engagement. I used to be the Director there, so seeing someone like Brian move into that role has me very excited. I am particularly interested in his perspective that the Institute needs to think about innovation and doing good work first. I think our relationship will grow into something that will provide ETS and the College of IST with real value.

Friday, 5/25/2007

ETS Talk 26

Like all Friday's we have an ETS Talk planned. I think this week we are going to discuss some ideas we have related to how we join a number of the new tools we've been working on so faculty can more easily integrate them into their classes. We've been tossing around the idea of a dashboard for deciding when it might be smart to use a blog or podcasts and a simple one button setup option for them. We'll have to wait and see how the podcast turns out. When it is ready I will link it from here.

I forgot to put this together this week -- just too busy to get to it or something I am guessing. At any rate, I am trying to keep a running list of the things I am spending time on via these weekly updates. This week was a short one for me as I was in Arizona giving a talk as the featured speaker at the Maricopa College Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference. I wrote some thoughts down about it over at my other blog.

Meetings for the Week

I only attended four formal meetings this week. Not as many as usual, but Monday through Wednesday I was out of the office on travel. Speaking of travel, it never ceases to amaze me just how hard it has become to get from here to anywhere and back. At any rate, that ended up putting a big dent in the week. Thursday I focused the morning on catching up. Friday was my standing day to think and work on projects of interest. Some highlights ...

Tuesday May 15, 2007
Maricopa College Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference

I did two talks at the conference. The first was a breakout session and the second was the featured talk -- that took place over the lunch hour. Both went well, with the featured talk seeming more high energy and focused. It is the first time in a while that I have given a talk like that. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Thursday May 17, 2007
Penn State Online Coordinating Council Meeting

I attended the Penn State Online Coordinating Council Meeting Thursday afternoon ... the meeting focused on updates from the subcommittees creating the strategic plan for the implementation of Penn State Online. I was added to two subcommittees as well -- one looking at how to best share the message of the initiative and the other looking at repositories and open courseware/resources models. Both will provide me with a chance to work with and learn from some new people. A very productive meeting.

Friday May 18,2007
ETS Talk Podcast Number 25

Scott McDonald joined us for the 25th episode of ETS Talk. We spent quite a bit of time on gaming theory and a handful of other topics. I haven't listened to it yet so I'm not sure how it turned out. I think the group enjoyed doing it ... always nice to hang out and talk to the podcast crew. We need to find ways to get some other guests to come on the podcast. If you'd like to be a guest, email us or call the ETS Talk Hotline at 814-806-1855.

I am not sure if this was helpful last week, but I got some milage out of it -- if only to have a better grasp on the time spent on things.

Meetings for the Week

I only attended seven formal meetings this week. Not as many as usual, but Monday was dominated by the TLT Strategic Planning Retreat and I was out with a stomach bug on Tuesday and Wednesday. That ended up putting a big dent in the week. Thursday I focused a ton of time on catching up and getting some new projects planned. Friday was my standing day to think and work on projects of interest. Some highlights ...

Monday May 7, 2007
TLT Strategic Planning Retreat

This was a half day retreat. Not much I can/should say about this other than it is the first of several that will happen once a month over the course of this year. It is crucial for us all to get out of the office and take stock in where we are headed. From the meeting I wrote a few small project proposals and we spent a great deal of time talking about the coming year.

Thursday May 10, 2007

eEducation Council

One of the better eEd meetings I have been to in recent memory ... Brett Bixler led a discussion related to Second Life and the conversation was rich. I enjoyed hearing the other members' perspectives on the whole virtual world concept. I provided an overview of the Digital Commons project and we discussed some strategies for aligning the proposed media design studios with curricular goals. All in all a good meeting.

SemReg/LMS Meeting

I also met with John Harwood and Lisa Lacombe, Director of Training Services to discuss the path forward with their Seminar Registration system. We talked about several scenarios, but it appears as though we will continue development on the current version to kill a last round of bugs and then begin working on the new version. We will be moving the whole toolset to the Zope/Plone environment as soon as TS has completed a scope and requirements document. I suspect that within a month or so we should be moving forward with the new version.

Like I said, a short week. Very manageable ... but it did leave me behind the eight ball on several things due to being out.

I am thinking about trying something new here ... finding time to (when I can) write up weekly reviews of the stuff going on. This will be mostly sanitized, but there may be some comments or thoughts that could spur a conversation. I have no idea if I should be doing this or if it makes sense ... or if I'll keep it up for that matter. Every week is different and that means the number of meetings, emails, phone calls, etc will vary greatly vary week to week. I should also add that at this time, this is for me -- so if it is boring or annoying just skip it.

Meetings for the Week

I had 19 formal meetings this week all over campus ... I did find time to meet informally with a handful of colleagues to discuss all sorts of things. Typically meetings last an hour, but this week I had a few that were longer than that. I will not go into detail at each as that would be more annoying than helpful ... I won't, for example, discuss my standing Monday morning collection of meetings or my 1 on 1 meetings with my direct reports (if I do it is only to highlight very specific things). There were a few highlights this week that I'd like to share.

One thing of great interest that I can't classify as a meeting, but is worth noting ... the Blogs at Penn State project is opening the pilot doors this week. We invited about 60 people into the first round of the public pilot. We are thinking we will let about 25 people in a week for the next several weeks as we move towards production. So far, so good!

Monday, April 30, 2007 12:30-2:00
College of Education Presentation

I was lucky enough on Monday to talk to a group of faculty (and a few grad students) from the PSU College of Education. Amazing hour and a half ... one that left me feeling very good about the relationships we are developing there. In general I would classify the faculty there as both innovative and very interested in the use of technology to appropriately enhance the learning environment. I should have written about this as soon as it was over, but I didn't.

The talk was really focusing on the infrastructure we have been trying to put into place to support digital expression. I spent time on everything from trends and key statistics we are collecting our campus, to FaceBook, Net Generation expectations, to what we are doing to support it all. I spent quite a bit of time actually showing faculty the insides of both Penn State on iTunes U and the Blogs at Penn State toolset. There were great conversations related to how one might integrate these things into their classroom experiences.

Slides are available as a PDF.

Tuesday May 1, 2007
Meeting with Librarians to Discuss Web 2.0 in the Library

This was an eye-opener for me on a whole bunch of levels. I got to sit and talk with three women from the Penn State Library who are really into the web 2.0 space and are trying to find ways to incorporate these approaches into the operations of the Library. I won't spend a bunch of time writing about this here as I wrote my thoughts about it directly after the meeting. I will say that I expect more interaction with this group in the coming weeks.

See my original post to read more.

Wednesday May 2, 2007
Meeting with Management Development

This was sort of a follow-up meeting from a few I've had over the last few yesrs with a few people in the MD organization. It started out as a discussion of how podcasting could be used to support their training programs but quickly moved into how to organize their content to gain the greatest exposure. We also discussed how web 2.0 technologies could promote a more open a fluid conversation with potential clients.

Looks like we will be helping them get started in the world of podcasting. We'll start with some low hanging fruit -- looking at how could take some of their micro-lessons and support them with some podcasted micro-content examples. Should be interesting.

Thursday May 3, 2007
Meeting to Discuss Managing Workstations from a Distance

This was a meeting between myself and two colleagues within the Classroom and Lab Computing group to talk about how we can support workstations remotely. We are looking at doing some very interesting things with digital media studios at various PSU Campuses -- these are all geographically dispersed so we want to be able to manage the environment as if it were next door. We discussed solutions for safely storing large amounts of data for digital media development as well as ways to make sure every user log-in is personalized to the individual. From what it sounds like, we are on our way to making that a reality. Very cool.

Friday May 4, 2007
Presentation to the PSU Outreach Advisory Board

Again, I don't need to say much about this as I have already blogged about it ... I will say that it was an outstanding opportunity to share not only a little vision for the future of education, but also to share time with some very influential people about how PSU is rapidly addressing the needs of the net-generation student. I made the case that by studying today's students, Outreach could better predict the types of customers (learners) they will need to support in the coming years. I think it went well. I really enjoyed the opportunity.

Read my blog post about it.