Attendees: Jan Novak (chair), Kathleen Allen, Norman Buchwald, Tom Clark, Scott Hildreth, Judy O'Toole, Andrew Pierson, Minta Winsor, Wanda Wong.
Priorities for the Semester:
We discussed a list of possible goals for the semester. Our initial list of priorities includes:
A survey of online students, to be conducted 4-5 weeks into the semester. Jan and Minta will work on survey administration. All committee members are asked to provide final feedback on the survey instrument.
Development of an online learning brochure for distribution by counselors.
Preparation for our upcoming Blackboard upgrade--preparing faculty for the transition, and working with students to smooth the transition.
Investigation of new online teaching technology, including Respondus and it's Lock-down Browser to strengthen academic integrity, Campus Pack for collaboration tools, SafeAssign/Turnitin for plagiarism detection/prevention, podcasting, etc.
Further development of an informational website for current or prospective online students.
Strongly encouraging faculty to consider the development of hybrid online courses, which could ease the parking and classroom stress for both students and faculty during the campus construction over the next few years.
Beginning the development of a strategic plan for online learning at Chabot.
Completing the "must do's", which include program review, the DE unit plan, a budget proposal, and new online course proposal reviews.
The committee supports all of these goals. We'll prioritize these at our next meeting, which will be a "regularly scheduled meeting" and should enable broader committee participation.
February FLEX Day DE Workshops:
The committee reviewed the three proposals we plan to submit for FLEX day workshops:
Blackboard 7.3 (morning) workshop to focus on new features in this upgrade as well as ways for all Chabot instructors to use Blackboard in their courses--whether on campus, hybrid, or fully online courses. Jan, Minta, and Lisa will meet on Thursday to develop a more detailed outline for this workshop.
Meet the online student (working lunch) workshop. This workshop will center on the "Going the Distance Video", and ALL Chabot faculty and staff are encouraged to attend. We will also have a moderated discussion on how classified staff can support online students, and what staff would like to learn about these classes and the students. Sean McFarland will co-moderate this workshop. Kathleen reminded us that this video must be close-captioned, and volunteered some funding for this effort if its required.
New tools for online teaching (afternoon) workshop. This session will demonstrate some of the new teaching tools available to online instructors, including Respondus, SafeAssign, SearchPath, Podcasts, and Camtasia. The major presenters will be Minta (Respondus), Lisa (SafeAssign), Norman (SearchPath), Richard (Podcasts), and Scot (Camtasia and captioning). Our format will be a 5-minute overview presented by Jan, followed by 15-20 minute tool presentations by the experts using a somewhat common format (to be discussed at our next meeting), followed by 15-30 minutes of small group discussions and/or hands-on work with the tools.
Next Online Learning Newsletter:
Jan distributed a draft of a new online learning newsletter, which focuses on the results of our faculty survey about online learning and teaching, some spring semester updates (Online Learning Orientations, enrollments, our new Intro to Online Learning course), the results of an analysis of online offerings at 6 key Bay Area Community Colleges in selected disciplines, and our FLEX workshops. The committee suggested revisions, which will be incorporated into a final newsletter we hope to distribute next week.
Next Meeting:
We will meet again next week for our
first "regularly scheduled" meeting of the year. We will participate in
one final online course demonstration for a late start spring online course.
We will also finalize our plans for FLEX workshops and the online student survey
administration process. The committee as a whole will prioritize goals for
the semester, including brainstorming ideas for working with faculty to broaden
our hybrid online course offerings.