Academic Senate Authorized Task ForceProposal for the Formation of anEducational Technology Committee

The Need

Currently, there is no forum and no concerted effort to support the rapidly developing need for planning and support for integration of educational technology in the classroom, including the use of Canvas LMS. While it has been assumed that the Distance Education at COS (DECOS) Committee is the location for this forum, the charge of the DECOS committee is limited to online learning as follows:

  • Review and recommend policies and procedures for the conduct of online instruction and the operation of online courses
  • Make recommendations to the Academic Senate regarding priorities as they relate to instructional support for online and hybrid courses
  • Provide input to the Academic Senate on the development of policies and academic initiatives as they relate to online courses
  • Serve as a discussion forum for pedagogical issues regarding the teaching, learning, assessment, ADA/504/508 compliance, and student support services for online and hybrid courses

A proposed new Educational Technology Committee(ETC) would operate in support of the following Academic Senate 10+1 items: 1 (curriculum); 4 (program development); 5 (student preparation and success); 8 (faculty development); and 11(other academic and professional matters). DECOS would function as a subcommittee of the ETC.

The ETC charge:

  1. Develop and make recommendations concerning the management and support for the District’s learning management system (LMS).

DECOS has historically been the default location for making recommendations concerning the District LMS (currently Canvas), but with the increased use of Canvas by instructors using it for web enhancement of traditional lecture classes, it is no longer appropriate for DECOS to serve in this role. There are approximately 700 active Canvas courses (Fall 2017), and approximately 600 of those are web-enhanced courses. Typical Canvas management decisions include, but are not limited to the following:

  • adding support personnel or course reviewers to Canvas courses,
  • managing course settings,
  • creating manually created classes,
  • exporting and importing course content,
  • global announcements,
  • third party app integration,
  • second tier Canvas support for instructors and students,
  • managing statistics and course analytics,
  • communicating information to users about changes to Canvas
  1. Serve as a voice and advocate for the appropriate application of technologies to the teaching and learning process.

Some Examples:

  • An instructor may want to require students to use Facebook for a course (communication and submission of assignments). Faculty should discuss the use of Facebook and develop recommendations concerning best practices and compliance with FERPA and the Academic Senate social media policy.
  • Open Educational Resources (OER)and programs are being adopted and encouraged through various initiatives across the state. Faculty should explore the potential for program and instructional material development related to OER and make all instructors aware of the possibilities for participation in such innovation.
  • When applying technology in the teaching and learning process, faculty should be aware of student readiness and success needs. For example, if requiring a student to use computer or mobile technology, it is important that the student be aware of access and technical requirements, support resources, and personal safety concerns. The faculty should be involved in making recommendations to the District related to these issues.
  1. Facilitate District-wide communication on instructional technology issues, including compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and U.S. Copyright laws.

Some Examples:

  • It is relatively easy for an instructor to embed a video from YouTube into a Canvas course and either display it in the classroom or require students to view it as a homework assignment. Instructors should be aware of both accessibility and copyright issues related to the use of the video.
  • Instructors should also be aware of their responsibilities concerning accessibility and copyright when providing students with access to any instructional media. The proposed committee could provide resources and direction concerning faculty responsibilities.
  1. Develop and make recommendations for the specifications and uses of classroom technologies.

For example, the faculty could make recommendations to the District’s Technology Committee concerning the installation and maintenance of hardware and software such as the interactive whiteboard and accompanying software in District classrooms to support the Technology Committee’s development of technology standards used by the Technology Services department to procure hardware and software for the District.

  1. Develop and make recommendations concerning professional development activities related to the District’s learning management system (LMS) and other learning technologies.

Some Examples:

  • Currently, the DEC serves as the Canvas trainer for the entire District. After a general orientation to Canvas, the DEC has provided weekly Canvas tips by email to all the faculty to support continued learning. Canvas constantly adds and modifies features and capabilities, so the District would benefit from a group effort by the faculty to provide analysis, resources, and recommendations to the Faculty Enrichment Committee for comprehensiveongoing Canvas training focused on web-enhanced classes.
  • Instructors who desire to incorporate learning technologies other than Canvas into their teaching do not have any District resource available to them for training. For example, interactive white boards, Skype and other Office applications, screen recording, video production, and collaboration software are considered valuable and adoption of these technologies and other technologies is encouraged. However, nearly 40 years of the existence of educational technology has taught us that adoption of instructional technologies is often ineffective or even counterproductive without training that includes technical and ethical aspects of the uses of these technologies. The proposed committee could provide direction to all faculty concerning effective, legal, and efficient adoption of new teaching technologies.
  • When adopting technologies, instructors must be able to ensure that the technologies are accessible for all students. Therefore, faculty need to learn what steps they can take to prepare accessible instructional materials. While creating accessible media often requires special skills and training of a computer specialist, there are many things that are under the control of instructors that can be easily taught.
  • Copyright compliance is central to the uses of digital materials. Faculty should be made aware of their responsibilities concerning U.S. Copyright laws, as well as ways to communicate students’ responsibilities to them.