March 2011 Archives

TLT Symposium 2011: High Energy

By MATTHEW N MEYER on March 28, 2011 3:53 PM | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
I participated in my 3rd TLT Symposium at Penn State this past Saturday. Just saying that seems odd because it still feels like I just started here to PSU. While there are a number of highlights from this year's event, the overarching takeaway for me this year was the tremendous amount of energy that this year's event seemed to emit. I don't think it was any one thing in particular about this year's event but rather an outcome of 'the collective'. That collective was the sum of the parts (Shirkey's keynote, sessions, demos, panels) all bound together by binding agent that produces the most energy: personal interaction.

"If We Could Just Bottle it Up..."
I admit that part of my observation is because I've now been here at Penn State for just over two years and in that time I've gotten to become more intimately familiar with the ongoing projects and initiatives within TLT. More importantly, however, is that I now know so many more people and there in lies what I see as the generator for this energy. The TLT 'extended community' has taken on an inertia of it's own and I can see and feel it for myself now that I've been here for a little bit. Just seeing so many familiar faces after months of varying degrees of digitally tracking these people via social media, blogs, web updates, email etc. is worth looking forward to. There really is nothing like getting to see these people in person to ratchet up the conversations that have been slowly nurtured on 'the internets'. Symposium just seemed to buzz with these conversations as I bounced from one familiar (and some not as familiar but just as welcomed) person to the next. Definitely a feeling of camaraderie based upon so many different initiatives that all have the same purpose.

Best Part for Me: The Last Part
Without question, my favorite part of the day was the end-of-day panel that Cole moderated. Having a panel with students and faculty to engage in a true dialog about technology experiences and expectations was a great idea. I've written earlier this year how valuable this format is for someone like me after attending a similar discussion hosted by World Campus. What I liked most about the one at Symposium was the 'uncomfortable' factor it had. Why? Because this is a conversation that's not supposed to be comfortable. It's supposed to yield unexpected viewpoints and experiences- that's why we have it in the first place; to get this conversation out of the #angelsucks twitter backchannel and into a true conversational realm.

Discomfort is Good!
I was amused to watch some of the dynamic start to unfold, in particular around the ANGEL discussions. When the student panelists were flat out asked by Cole about their thoughts on it, the true 'tell' (poker term) was the body language that followed immediately. They seemed to look at each other hoping one would be the first to reply. They could sense the faculty and staff eyes peering in on them. It looked like they were processing how to respond appropriately, balancing between 'telling you that your baby is ugly' and that 'there are some issues we've experienced with it'. That's got to be a lot of pressure on those students but they handled it well. By the way, for any Caddyshack fans, it reminded me of the moment when Judge Smails is awaiting Danny's decision to go along with Ty's doubling of the bet on Danny's putt: "WEELLLLLL? We're WAITING?".

Sure, there was some squirming and steely eyed stares going on but this forum offered the opportunity for complaints to turn into conversation and that is a good start. As I've mentioned before, I really see a lot of value in continued formats in which students step up into these conversations. It's not so much what they want or like that is valuable but the fact that they are in on the conversation. Talking through these things helps identify true pieces of valuable information. This is information you don't get from a survey.

It seemed that all the energy of the day funneled into this panel. At previous events, this energy sort of dissipated by the end of the day. Not this year. It seemed so many people stayed. All. Day. Long. That in itself is a testament to the this year's Symposium. Now if we could just bottle that energy up.



VoiceThread + NBC Learn: A Nice Fit?

By MATTHEW N MEYER on March 11, 2011 11:52 AM | 1 Comment | 0 TrackBacks
On my weekly call with Steve Muth from VoiceThread last week, a thought occurred to me:

"NBC Learn's content would be a fantastic fit with VoiceThread. They should form some type of partnership."

Since Penn State has deployed VoiceThread at Penn State as a university-wide service and is now piloting NBC Learn at Penn State through 2011, I thought we might be in a pretty good position to make a case for this partnership. Consider...

NBCLearn in VoiceThread.jpg

Why It Makes Sense (To Me at Least)
  • VoiceThread, at it's core, is a place to aggregate media content. It's great value is in that you can then have audio, video or text conversations around that uploaded media.
  • NBC Learn is, at it's core, video media content. It's great value is that the video has high-end production value because it was created for delivery via network news.
  • VoiceThread is making great market penetration in both K-12 and higher education markets
  • NBC Learn would like to make great market penetration in both of those markets; that is what the offering is all about
  • NBC Learn content could piggyback into many, many educational customers of VoiceThread.
This list could go on but I think you get the picture from a usability and business standpoint. Going further on usability for a moment, consider what such a partnership would allow you to do was a VoiceThread creator.

If you could put an NBC Learn video into a VoiceThread:
  • It would provide one place for students to go absorb a video that faculty has selected for them. In our current mode, a student would have to go entirely into the NBC Learn website to get the video.
  • Faculty could surround the video with other, specifically related digital media aimed at their students.
  • Entire conversations about a video using VoiceThread's comment features, including video doodling

Current Reasons Why It Won't Happen
I'm sure VoiceThread would love to form a partnership with a content provider like NBC Learn. NBC Learn, on the other hand, may not be so eager. The main reason is that they are still very new on the market and I'm sure they want a chance to prove their product offering, including it's delivery mechanism, can make money. In other words, I'm betting NBC Learn doesn't think they need anyone else to succeed right now. I could be wrong but this is typically the business stance such new endeavors take on.

For example, NBC Learn has tight DRM mechanisms in place on their content. They put a lot of effort in this product to ensuring their videos couldn't be used in the 'mashup' culture of the internet. They clearly have not set the table to have their video content to be used by any one other than those that subscribe to NBC Learn.

But in time, I think NBC Learn will realize their core value is video content and be willing to partner. And let's not forget there's a chance that other big media companies will follow suit in this business (ABC, CBS, CNN etc.) who may jump on the partnership model much faster. If there is a proven market for this type of product, someone will have to do something differently in the business model because the content itself really won't be.

Penn State as Matchmaker?
I think it would be interesting to at least put VoiceThread and NBC Learn in touch. For all I know, they don't know much about each other. Who better than Penn State to do the introductions? After all, we've launched VoiceThread at PSU this year and we are currently piloting NBC Learn at Penn State through the fall of 2011. Perhaps if we demonstrate the desire for a more integrated solution, they might start talking. I'm just sayin'...

Let Me Revise That Post...

By MATTHEW N MEYER on March 10, 2011 5:29 PM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
A few weeks ago, I posted on the how the upcoming budget picture was looking "grim" and that those of us in educational technology should work harder to seize the moment by working even harder to create groundbreaking work in our chosen craft. However, after the proposed PA State budget was released this week, I felt it necessary to revise my opening paragraph in that post.

Matt_thinking.jpg
Time to Revise!

Editor's Note: Bold indicates added from previous post.

"The business of higher education is taking some lumps right now being attacked as no longer for the public good. Like most everything, it has much to do is all about the economy politics. While no longer on the brink of disaster, this economy is not experiencing the explosive growth necessary to lift government revenues quickly enough to support expected spending. To compound the problem, the proposed budget is not even attempting to do what other states do and get rightful tax revenue from gas drillers. And it won't for a number of years. As a result, many states in an attempt to find areas to cut, are assembling budgets that contain significant absolutely devastating cuts toward state-supported colleges and universities. Obviously, this trend is not new in that it not only wants to cut education funding, it points toward dismantling state support for education altogether. Just last year, Penn State had to make contingency plans in the all-too-possible scenario that it would not get it's assumed appropriations funding from Harrisburg. PSU eventually avoided the big hit that time but it's budget time again and it's looking grim like middle and lower class armageddon. Most likely, when this year's budget process is all said and done, Penn State, like so many universities, will be faced with the daunting reality of scale of managing both cost cutting measures as well as revenue increases in the form of the dreaded tuition increase forming a powerful coalition of support to fight the governor's full proposed budget cuts on higher education.  Otherwise, PSU and these other PA higher education institutions will no longer be able server the commonwealth as has been intended for a century and a half."

The rest of that post can remain as is...for now.

Student Panels: Let's Do More!

By MATTHEW N MEYER on March 3, 2011 9:45 PM | 2 Comments | 0 TrackBacks
Last week I had the opportunity to attend a session sponsored by World Campus as part of their World Class Connections series. This session was a panel of Penn State students brought up to the Penn Stater to discuss their experiences with online learning. The students were from a range of demographics and disciplines and were very ready to share.

It was an interesting and very crisp session. Larry Ragan, director of World Campus Faculty Development, did a great job moderating the panel (despite some not-so-shocking technical problems with the Adobe Connect production) and keeping it flowing. The format was fairly simple: each panelist was given 3 minutes (almost all took more) to give their story and then Larry took questions from both the live attendees as well as questions from those on the Connect session. The questions were directed toward the different members of the panel and were often based upon what a particular panelist had shared earlier.

While the outcomes were not particularly unexpected, it was still insightful to hear it in conversational style with these different students. Among the issues they discussed:

  • More consistency in web experience: While the common denominator is still ANGEL, they feel that most everything else is different. One student said he feels he spends the first few weeks of a new course just figuring out how to navigate through the content. He felt that it seems as if faculty all do their "own thing" when it comes to content.

  • More consideration of their schedule: As expected, most of the panel were "non-traditional" students, meaning they have jobs and families to tend to during day hours. They do experience some flexibility in this regard, they would like to see it more consistently applied in all courses they take.

  • More timely responses and feedback: This is probably an issue with all students but perhaps more so for this group because of their longer stretches between being able to get back to their studies. Perhaps more frustrating for this group because in their typical 'real world' jobs, such feedback is expected and critical to moving on. There was some very good discussion around this issue.

But What I Really Like About This...
As I said earlier, this feedback is not all that unexpected but it did provide a somewhat of a picture of the state online learning experiences at Penn State. But what really struck me about this entire session was the mere fact that it had been all pulled together in the first place. Clearly, hearing educational experiences from students is nothing new but the way this event was executed seemed to really work for a number of reasons.

  1. For me, being there in person to see and hear them really works. Especially when we got to the questions portion. It's good to see how questions and responses build off each other and lead into a real dialogue. Questions lead to answers that lead to questions and so on. Very effective.
  2. The attendees were instructors, faculty, learning designers and other assorted folks involved with creating and delivering instruction online. Again, the in-person nature allowed me to put some names with faces as well as see some familiar ones around. This led to some very interesting F2F discussions immediately afterwards. Like hearing the story about an instructor assigned to each an online course during the summer who decided that, since it's online, there's not much to do so he...went on vacation. When students began complaining about a lack of feedback, and instructional designer called him one afternoon and found he was 'a bit enthused' on the beach and very annoyed at being bothered in such a way. That let me know how some instructors may think of the effort to deliver a course online. Good stuff!

Good Model so Let's Do More
This session showed me a great model for getting a dialogue with students. Like a marketing focus group, it provides a great environment to dig into deeper issues on the fly. I know that Larry and his team had to work hard to make this come off so smoothly but it seems this was an excellent model for mimic for many other areas at PSU. And not just for online learning either but for all the various modes of delivering instruction. I look forward to the similar session at TLT Symposium this year in which we hear from students and faculty on their expectations for educational technology. I'll be not only paying attention to the conversation but also the format.

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