Tag Archives: Lesley Examples

Technology Innovation Grant: Infusing iPads into EEDUC 5104: Literature for Children and Young Adults

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“Through the support of this Technology Innovation Grant I hope to further my own knowledge, improving my abilities to model effective and innovative technology integration for the practicing and prospective teachers in my courses.” Erika Dawes, Associate Professor, Literacy

Erika Dawes, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education is the most recent recipient of a Lesley University Technology Innovation Grant. The grant award will be used to purchase an iPad Pro (Wi-Fi 32GB), essential accessories and iTunes credits for purchasing apps. Access to the iPad Pro will allow Erika to test and evaluate content creation apps, prepare presentations and platforms for content exploration, as well as increase her competence with using a tablet as an instructional tool.

This spring, in her Children’s Literature course, Erika will be employing a set of 11 iPads (previously purchased for the GSOE with a Verizon grant) with the goal of trying to understand how this type of technology can improve the learning experience of teacher candidates while simultaneously serving as models for ways they could incorporate technology into their teaching methods and curriculum design.

EEDUC 5104: Literature for Children and Young Adults is a survey course focusing on resources for locating and evaluating literature across a wide range of genres and serves as an introduction to teaching strategies. Erika’s objective is for her students to become familiar with a range of content creation apps that can be used to encourage, facilitate, and share responses to literature and text sets. Her other goal is for the students to articulate an orientation toward the integration of technology in curriculum design and instruction. By incorporating the use of iPads, Erika plans to assess “whether a tech tool exists that would improve either [her] delivery of content or the students’ opportunity to process and innovate on content.” As part of this assessment Erika will be administering a pre and post course survey where she will ask the practicing and prospective teachers about the potential effectiveness of tech tool integrations. Lesley University sets aside dedicated funding each year to support faculty who are integrating technology into their academic work. The Technology Innovation Grant is open to Lesley University faculty and the application deadline is rolling. For details on grant program and the application process, contact eLearning and Instructional Support at elis@lesley.edu.

New Online Training: Art Portfolio Reviews

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Alumni Admissions Ambassadors from across the country can now learn to review the arts portfolios of prospective students who may be interested in applying to Lesley University. Alumni Ambassadors with a background in the arts will use online, self-paced training to learn how to assess arts portfolios and to communicate with students during portfolio review events.

This new training system is being piloted this fall semester and will be used will be used by BFA and MFA alumni admissions ambassadors. This effort to extend and streamline the training process is important to the goal of enlisting more ambassadors with training and experience in the arts to assist prospective Lesley students in applying to our university.

Central to the training was the development of a set of guidelines by which to assess portfolios. These guidelines were tested by a group including recent Lesley alums and members of the Marketing Design team and updated based on their input. Trainees will learn to assess portfolios primarily by reviewing many sample portfolios and receiving automated feedback on their choices.

Arts Portfolio Guidelines Pilot Testing Event: Lunder Arts Center

Arts Portfolio Guidelines Pilot Testing Event: Lunder Arts Center

The development of this training has been a collective effort involving staff from the Alumni Recruitment, Undergraduate Admissions, and eLearning and Instructional Support departments.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about this project, please contact Liana Caffrey (Director) or Shirley Chin (Sr. Assistant Director) of the Alumni Admissions Ambassador Program: lcaffrey@lesley.edu (x8201); schin@lesley.edu (x8806).

Project Staff

Alumni Admissions Ambassador Program: Liana Caffrey, Director; Shirley Chin, Sr. Assistant Director.

Undergraduate Admissions: Erik Gullard, Assistant Director / BFA Specialist; Mike McCarthy, Assistant Director; Lauren O’Neill, Assistant Director / BFA Specialist / International Student Coordinator.

eLearning and Instructional Support: Robyn Belair, Instructional Technologist/Interface Designer; John McCormick, Director of eLearning Design; Bill Porter, Learning Technology Designer

Learning Online: It’s a Process

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Nancy Beardallprofile image teaches dance therapy courses for the Expressive Therapies program. This September, she taught her Body/Movement Observation and Assessment course online for the first time. To prepare for this new experience, Nancy worked with an eLIS instructional designer over several months to reimagine what her face-to-face content would look like online.

During the design process and while teaching online, Nancy had several realizations. As a dance therapist there’s an intuitive sense that informs her teaching. When teaching online, there’s also an intuitive sense to using and smoothly integrating the technology, but she didn’t have that technology vocabulary to guide her. This created a feeling of discombobulation of how the two would fit together. To overcome her obstacles, Nancy continued working through her content with an instructional designer and attended eLIS’ Summer Technology Institute, The Institute allowed her to use an inquiry model to re-examine her content with other faculty while at the same time exploring technologies and how they might ‘fit’ her content.

One of Nancy successful blendings of content and technology was the students’ final presentations. Students recorded and analyzed their application of specific movement theories. Their videos were uploaded to a course media gallery using Kaltura Video in myLesley. Nancy then scheduled synchronous online meetings in Lync. Each student had ten minutes to present their work and five minutes for follow up. Students reviewed each other’s videos in advance of the online meetings and posted feedback to the students within a few days after the meeting. Nancy found that the wait time between the presentation and the responses was an unexpected benefit. Students could review presentations at their own speed as often as they needed and they had time to think and process what they had experienced. She found their responses to be much more thoughtful as they balanced their initial reactions against longer reflections when they wrote their comments. They were simply “terrific.”

Nancy’s second realization was that she probably talked too much in her face-to-face classes. She wasn’t able to do that online. As a result was that the students did more of the talking and presenting while she listened and guided. Nancy liked the result of hearing her students as they worked through the content so much that she is now trying to shift the balance in her on-campus classes and talk less allowing her experience teaching online to inform her face-to-face teaching practice.

If Nancy had one piece of advice for faculty new to teaching online, it would be to realize that “it takes a village” to learn. You won’t be doing this by yourself. Work with the eLIS designers, other faculty and even your students to learn the design, teaching and technology skills you will need. It will be an iterative process. There will be frustrations, but there will also be successes and unexpected benefits. The final result probably won’t be what you originally envisioned. With time, patience and a willingness to adapt, it can be much better!

 

Teaching Body Movement Online with Kaltura Video

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Nancy Beardall teaches Body/Movement Observation and Assessment for the Expressive Therapies program. This September, she taught the course in a fully online format for the first time. Initially, Nancy couldn’t imagine how she could successfully support students learning body, effort, space, and shape at a distance. Enter Kaltura, a video recording and sharing software that is integrated directly into myLesley.

Nancy’s students were required to observe and practice the fundamentals of body movement, but they were only going to be on campus for a few weeks during their summer residency. Nancy’s solution was to record her on campus students performing the body fundamental exercises and then uploaded these videos to her online course using the Kaltura Media Gallery. The online students could then review the videos as often as they needed, comment on what they observed in their assignments and discussions, and then practice the movements on their own. If students had questions, Nancy could refer them to the videos and even reference specific moments or clips within the movies.

body fundamentals video screenshot

The Kaltura videos worked so well that Nancy’s on campus students wanted to use it as well. The videos provided them with an easy way to review and practice their observation skills outside of class. They also uploaded selected dance project videos to Kaltura to share with their classmates for feedback.

Nancy has nothing but good things to say about Kaltura. She refers to it now as a “lifesaver” for her online course. She and her students also found it much more accessible and less cumbersome than previous software tools they had used to share video. Considering that Nancy didn’t get access to Kaltura until three days before the start of her course, and needed to get both herself and her students comfortable with the tool, this is high praise for its ease of use.

So what are you waiting for? Contact eLIS and start using Kaltura Video in your online or face-to-face courses today.

eLearning Institute Proposal Call for Faculty Development Day 2014

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By Heinrich Böll Stiftung from Berlin, Deutschland (Notizbuch) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Faculty and academic staff at Lesley University are invited to submit a proposal to present at the eLearning Institute on Faculty Development Day in January.

Please join us as we enjoy a day of exploring best practices in online learning, mobile computing, social networking and more!

The eLearning Institute will occur on Thursday, January 16, 2014 at University Hall and is the result of a collaboration between the Faculty Life & Development Committee, eLearning & Instructional Support, the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Scholarship, and the Office of the Provost.

Examples of presentation topics include:

  • Innovative uses of media in teaching and scholarship
  • Examples of innovative pedagoggy in the classroom
  • Teaching and learning with mobile devices
  • Fostering engagement, collaboration, and communication with/through technology
  • Multimedia/Video/Digital Storytelling
  • Exploration of trends in social media
  • Updates from Summer Technology Institute participantson classroom innovation
  • Research or best practices related to the use of digital media in face-to-face, hybrid, and online environments

Presentations may be group or individual. Presenters will select one of the following presentation types to share:

  • Traditional Concurrent Session: These are presentations or discussions of a topic or concept. (60 minutes)
  • Bring Your Own Laptop (BYOL): These are presentations that encourage hands-on exploration of specific websites or tools. Participants will bring their own laptops to participate. (60 minutes)

The deadline to submit a proposal is Friday, November 22nd.