TELECOOP Meeting

July 26, 2007

PhippsMansion

Present: Paul Novak, DU; Debi Colbert, CSU; David Kendrick, UNC; Stephanie Wickman, FRCC; Kim Larson-Cooney, ACC; Josefina Tuason, RMPBS; Kathy Keairns, DU; Randy Tatroe, AMC; Kae Novak, FRCC; Donna Welschmeyer, CCCOnline

The meeting was called to order by Randy Tatroe.

Approval of May 2007 minutes

May minutes were approved as presented

Welcome by DU

Kathy Keairns welcomed everyone to Phipps. She noted that some of our absent members pleaded that the group not assign them any horrendous chores due to their absence.

Fall Faculty Development Seminar

  • The TELECOOP fall faculty development seminar is planned for September 28. This is also the date for the CCCOnline fall faculty conference to be held at ArapahoeCommunity College, so after discussion, it was decided to combine the two events.
  • Possible topics included Second Life, Podcasting, Handhelds, with concept presentations in the morning and application presentations in the afternoon.
  • Kae Novak volunteered to develop a Second Life presentation. Debi Colbert also volunteered to develop and deliver a presentation.
  • Kae and Donna W. will work with Cheryl Comstock of CCCOnline and the IT folks at Arapahoe CC to smooth out technology kinks in the delivery of SL presentations.
  • Kim and Donna W. will work together on scheduling and budget.

2008 TELECOOP Conference

  • Josefina reported one proposal from Colorado Springs. She has requested proposals from Breckenridge/Vail.
  • Possible session topics include Safe Assignment or other plagiarism detection tools (UNC), Flickr, and U-Tube.
  • David Skaggs was mentioned as a possible keynote speaker.
  • The most likely dates for the conference are April 16 – 18.
  • Kathy mentioned an “Ask Dr. . . .type presentation that was held at the BB conference. It was presented as a mock talk-show. She suggested a continuous run of “cool clips” at the April conference.

Conference Attendance

  • Kathy K. attended the recent Blackboard conference in Boston. Of note was emphasis on the use of Wikis. BB announced at the conference the purchase of Safe Assignment, which will now be a part of the BB suite.
  • David K. plans to attend the November WCET conference in Atlanta.

Upcoming Meetings

October 26 – AurariaMediaCenter

November 30 – University of NorthernColorado (possible topics include Safe Assignment or Horizon)

January 25 – KRMA

March 28 – FRCC (either Westminster or Larimer campus)

May 23 – CMC (possibly Eagle campus)

July 25 – DU

September 26 –TBA (or the loyal notetaker missed it)

Institutional Updates

The group enjoyed lunch during this portion of the meeting.

Paul Novak, UniversityCollege at DU:

  • Paul updated the group on the innovatively structured undergraduate Liberal Arts degree program offered beginning this fall as well as the revamped graduate studies program which is now 48 credits completed in 4 credit-hour courses.
  • UC at DU is searching for 2 director positions, one in the Applied Communications area and one in Liberal Studies. These positions do not require a Ph.D. These programs have seen good enrollments, and while tuition is still expensive, it is half that of a regular DU program.

Debi Colbert, Colorado State University:

  • CSU is moving to Banner and to WebCT/Vista for fall. Everyone offered their condolences for the impending upheaval.
  • The Institute for Learning and Teaching has 2 new positions. The LimonLearningCenter is a cooperative technical education project for windfarming.

David Kendrick, University of Northern Colorado:

  • UNC’s Banner implementation is virtually complete. A full-time Banner trainer is in place.
  • The University will upgrade to Blackboard 7.2 in August, but eCollege is also courting UNC.
  • Currently UNC is predicting a 300-student enrollment shortage for fall.
  • A newly-formed Information Technology committee consisting of faculty, administrators, information technology staff, and CETL staff will facilitate better communication about campus information technology needs and concerns.
  • UNC has purchased Wimba’s Live Classroom and Voice tools.

Stephanie Wickman/Kae Novak, Front RangeCommunity College:

  • Stephanie and Kae reported that 93 FRCC faculty attended their recent “Teaching With Technology” workshop.
  • FRCC is in the midst of performing qualitative research around why students withdraw from online classes. Kae indicated that they would share the results when those became available.
  • A consultant for the Colorado Trust Grant (awarded for use in updating the media in FRCC nursing courses) has been hired.

Donna Welschmeyer, CCCOnline:

  • Donna reported that Alice Bedard-Voorhees has left CCCOnline for a position at ColoradoMountainCollege.
  • The course migration process (from WebCT CE to Vista) is nearly complete, with the design team looking forward to a focus on improving the quality of and technology in existing courses.
  • The Academic Technology position vacated by the loss of Rick Hadley has been filled.

Kim Larson-Cooney, ArapahoeCommunity College:

  • Kim reported that ACC is shutting down the entire campus on August 10 for “Vital Focus” talks. Brought about by an employee survey to which 94 percent of ACC employees responded, “Vital Talks” is aimed at developing an action plan that will address communication, morale, etc., to be implemented over the next year.
  • A couple of new distance learning positions have been added and filled.
  • Some work is being done with podcasting.
  • Banner and continuing ed are not playing nicely because of course prefix issues.
  • A very successful summer school is being presented around the topics of computer music and animation.

Josefina Tuason, Rocky Mountain PBS

  • RMPBS is hiring an Education Outreach Specialist for the Teacher Line program. This position will coordinate a $25,000 Qwest grant aimed at a middle school writing contest in which 45 semi-finalists from grades 6 – 8 will be brought in to the DigitalStorytellingCenter to develop their stories in multimedia format.
  • The fifth station of RMPBS will go live in the fall.
  • RMPBS is thinking of implementing an internship in its education department.

Randy Tatroe, AurariaMediaCenter

  • AMC is currently working to develop an audio history of its colleges for promotional purposes.
  • AMC will also begin shooting “Roadies,” a reality show pilot for VH1, in two weeks.
  • The super teaching classroom will not be ready for fall, but the Center is working on a less complex version of the super teaching classroom that provides for dual images in the classroom. The schools of teacher education will analyze results from teaching in this classroom.
  • The new science building breaks ground in October. The first phase will house 47 classrooms and 30 labs. The second phase will involve renovation of the current building.
  • The Center is advertising a “media specialist 4” position.

Kathy Keairns, University of Denver

  • The DU campus has standardized use of classroom clickers through Turning Point.
  • Respondus, StudyMate, and Wimba Building Blocks have been or will soon be implemented in the Blackboard CMS.

Rumors and Gossip

This was an especially dull and boring section of the meeting, with few exciting rumors circulated.

Randy adjourned the meeting at approximately 2:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by Donna Welschmeyer (finally) August 7, 2007.