Attendees: Jan Novak (chair), Nick Alexander, Norman Buchwald, Bob Buell, Mary Dermody, Richard Dinwiddie, Michael Langdon, Scott Hildreth, Judy O'Toole, Andrew Pierson, Wanda Wong.
Guest: Anne Brichacek.
Anne Brichacek shared with us her first use of audio in her online course using the Olympus voice recorder. The committee commended Anne for her experimentation with this technology, and for gathering feedback from students on the usefulness of the audio recordings, and approved Anne's mini-grant payment. The committee also reviewed Cristina Moon's written report on her use of WavePad to convert and edit the audio files she uses in her hybrid online course. Several members commented on Cristina's trailblazing use of technology, and suggested we invite her to a DE Committee meeting in the fall to share her learning. Cristina's mini-grant payment was also approved.
Members of the discussed the proposals that have not yet been approved. Following this review, the committee:
The committee reviewed the final agenda for our meeting this Friday with LPC's DE Committee and District ITS. Topics include the quality of support from Blackboard, the need for a streaming server, inserting hyperlinks into Class-Web, policy for dropping online students, and much more. Jan will also propose some ongoing collaboration mechanism, such as a District DE Committee.
This discussion was tabled, as it doesn't appear that we (Jan) has time to develop, print, and distribute this newsletter before finals week. Nick Alexander suggested that we solicit articles from current online instructors about their experiences--particularly how they approached developing an online course--for a future newsletter.
Although the status of release time for a committee chair, as well as funding for the committee, remains uncertain for next year, it's time to elect a chair. Jan shared with the committee that the current release time for the chair is 50%. She volunteered to remain as committee chair for next year, but would like the committee to consider a transition approach where she shares the role with a co-chair in Spring 09, who would assume the chair for the following academic year. No other nominations were received for committee chair, and Jan was reelected.