Digital Storytelling at the Apollo

The March Apollo Luncheon featured a seven-minute sizzle with Danilo Baylen of UWG's MIT Department. His presentation, "Digital Storytelling Using Windows Moviemaker," was an inspirational account of the power of using technology combined with visual creativity in a learning environment. A link to the PowerPoint portion of his presentation is linked here.

DDEC Support Services Evolving

As the needs for distance and distributed delivery of courses have grown dramatically, so have the services of the DDEC. The primary functions of the DDEC presently include:

- Advising and assisting eCore students
- Online Course Development Assistance
- Faculty Training (one-on-one, group)
- Development/Maintenance of Virtual Training
- Distance Student Orientations
- Distance Student Helpline (advisement, technology, testing, etc.)
- Coordination/Collaboration in Online Student Services (advisement, registration, etc.)
- Overall evaluation of online degree programs
- Liaison with BOR in DL policies, initiatives
- Distance data collection and reporting
- Administration of central DL technologies (WebCT, Wimba, CoursEval)
- Exploration of new technologies to promote enhanced learning and efficiency
- Promotion of DL research through journal, conference, related initiatives

Since July 1, 2007, the DDEC has provided 28,720 minutes of direct, individual support to UWG faculty through helpcalls, Dr. Ds, Inhouse, and the services of our trained GRAs. The top five users of these individualized support services (FY08) were Nursing (7822 minutes), Media/IT (2860 minutes) and Curriculum and Instruction (2339 minutes), Special Ed (1818 minutes), Biology (1373 minutes), and Educational Leadership (1373 minutes). These totals do not include group workshops or online DDEC-facilitated training courses. DDEC staff also provided 14,796 minutes of individualized assistance to online students so far this fiscal year.

Do You Remember?

 
Just 10 years ago at UWG, distance learning delivery was limited primarily to two-way videoconferencing (GSAMS). The first GSAMS courses were offered in Summer 1995 and had a combined enrollment of 156. GSAMS reached its peak in Fall 1997 with nine courses and a combined enrollment of 401 students. This photo is of the DDEC staff (Melanie and Janet) along with our team of GSAMS student facilitators back in 1998 (Christy Talley was a student facilitator back in those days). In Summer 1997, Matthew Clay taught the first partially-online course through a free system called Nicenet, and the first courses utilizing WebCT were offered in Fall 1997. The first fully online course was a graduate political science course in Spring 1998, taught by Jerry Perkins with Melanie Clay and Janet Gubbins. In Fall 2007, there were 171 distance courses taught at UWG with a total enrollment of 3736 students. There were an additional 827 course sections hybrid or technology-enhanced courses which utilized WebCT as well.

2008 eLearning Predictions

Kineo recently did a survey looking for eLearning predictions for the next few months. Here are some of the future trends we thought were most notable:

- Big, corporate LMSs (think Blackboard, WebCT) will lose favor to open source ones like Moodle.

- Lots more video as it gets easier to create and deliver (our new video server will arrive in April!)

- More and more and more learning will happen on the go (iPhone, Blackberries, YouTube, Kindle).

- Blogs, wikis, and the like will encourage people to collaborate and share their stuff (content, ideas).

- Watch out for Rapid eLearning. It's fast, effective and efficient. Raptivity is an example of doing more with less.

E-learning predictions 2008: Place your bets

DDEC Welcomes Cheryl Copelella

Cheryl Copolella recently joined the DDEC staff as an academic advisor. Her primary function is to screen students for the readiness for taking eCore courses, and to assist them as the course goes on. She also works one day per week on the Newnan campus to advise non-declared students and assists the Assistant Dean of Extended Degree Programs with data collection, planning and research related to distance learning and off-campus centers. Cheryl was previously an academic advisor at the University of Florida. She holds a Master of Education in Higher Education Administration (University of Florida) and a Bachelor of Arts in Pre-Architecture (Fordham - magna cum laude). Her husband, John, is employed with the Atlanta Braves organization.