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.