PDC Notes from NJ Edge - Nov 3 & 4 in Plainsboro NJ by Maureen Greenbaum

Here are some thoughts I took away:

• Creating community among students in online courses was the focus of several talks:

  • a session presented by a RVCC Film prof and his instructional designer who together had created a 2005 WebCT Exemplary course and

  • a "poster" who had looked at Pepperdine Univ online course dropout rate of 3% (no typo here), and found that it was attributable to the efforts they make to create community.

• WebCt was purchased by Blackboard.  Version 6 will be the last WebCT version, and then there will be a new combined product. 
  A very interesting competitor that I spoke to is Desire2Learn.  Currently the product does everything WebCT does, and in many cases, in a more intuitive way.  AND Desire2Learn will import either WebCT or Blackboard faculty developed pages and tests, etc.  I was very impressed because they claim everything can be done in no more that 2 clicks.  But more importantly, the product integrates the sharing of resources. Learning Objects developed within our college and among other colleges using Desire2learn can be incorporated into a course - so each prof can do a little less re-inventing the wheel.

• A "poster" from Stevens explained Pathways a very interesting project of The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education that is cataloging Learning Objects.  Unlike Merlot, which has a large catalog of these objects, CIESE's Pathway object (currently 40 with a 200 by 2007 goal) are all reviewed and Real World.  CIESE has NJ funding to teach NJ Community colleges to integrate the Internet into curriculum. 

• Schools have large instructional support staff - Seton Hall has 6 and a team of Technically Trained students.  Raritan Valley Community has 2.

• The students today are used to video games.  They play an average of 2 hours a day (guys much more than gals).  These games are highly interactive/responsive.  Our online offerings pale in comparison.  I saw some relatively easy techniques for making courses more F2F link such as recording voice with a PowerPoint slide show.

• Bohdan and I went to the faculty sessions while Jack Farrell, Dorothy Andrews and Gino Grossi went to sessions of interest to administrative staff.  There were 30 or so vendors demoing smart boards and PC stuff and several selling security and "Identity Management" solutions. 

It was a valuable 2 days spent.