I would like to congratulate Tracy Black on her new role as "super mother." A baby girl soon to arrive and an upcoming wedding to the love of her life, Tracy will be busy - but when has she not been busy.
She will be taking a year's maternity leave. Her adventurous spirit, her ability to build courses (and roofs), her team spirit, her smarts and her friendly smile will be missed. Lindsay will be lonely without her co-conspirator. Lee will not know what to do with Google courses. Anytime Online math students will miss her expertise but also her encouragement and support. The department will miss her work and direction in the development of exams.
I remember when we hired Tracy. Michael and I had just gone through two rounds of interviews for an "online high school instructor to work at a college". We had interviewed many candidates, from the unstable tutor to the underemployed phd. research assistants. We had turned them all down as unsuitable. We were about to give up hope, when a resume appeared online for a suitable candidate for a casual instructor position. She had taught math at numerous levels, was comfortable with technology, glowing references and was looking to establish herself in Calgary. We called to arrange for an interview. For the three of us the best we could arrange was an Adobe Connect meeting, with Tracy in between classes in Lacombe, Michael at his house, and me at mine, talking over webcams. I gave the sales pitch: established online program using the latest technology, that of course meaning we were using pdfs and we had been around more than two years. She asked how organized we were. I told her that we had an online assistant and we ran a tight ship. In retrospect, we had everything everywhere. Poor Michael's audio was not working well, so he spent most of the meeting nodding. Obviously, she saw or heard something she liked and decided to join us.
She showed up only to find that I was away on holidays for the first week: it could not be helped. She discovered that she needed to help us organize. She found out that we were not so technologically advanced. She saw that a lot of work needed to be done. And she let me know about it when I returned. Ever since, she has worked hard to get us organized. She has always led by example. She is the first one done. She does not accept less: she takes great pride in her work and in the work of others. She genuinely cares about her students and teaches them math as her contribution to making this world a better place. In between all of this, she works on her house and climbs mountains. She is an Anytime Online leader, a curriculum hero and a really good person.
I will miss her. Her baby will be so blessed to have such a mom. Her husband to be is a fortunate man. We hope she will visit and return to the team when she is ready.
Just a reminder that small research grants are now available. The deadline for applications is February 15, 2013.
If you want to talk about ideas and possible topics, please let me know. Research or literature reviews related to classroom teaching, pedagogy, curriculum, testing, etc. are all possibilities.
Over the course of the last four years, our department has made connections with the upgrading area from our neighbours to the north, our sister college, Norquest College. Our online programs have co-hosted two upgrading online conferences, with community college speakers and important keynotes, and our planning to hold our third annual in March 2013. Our respective curriculum teams have worked together on funded course development projects, like the Microsoft Office and new Mathematics 10 courses. For these projects, we built exams and instructional videos which we now share. From all of this work, we participated together in an on-site, once in a lifetime, presentation skills conference with RexiMedia experts.
This last Friday, November 30, 2012, the Norquest crew came down to Bow Valley College for our annual visit. We spent the morning sharing work done in the areas of exam development, media development, course development, and professional development related to the above. Norquest eagerly showed us their online Chemistry and English Language Arts courses. Their designs are clear and concise, being so easy to navigate and "get learning done." Norquest has developed extensively their Real Time Online program with much success and are looking to further develop their Anytime Online program. We were shown their exceptional work on instructional videos as well as their engaging online program promo. We were shown flash interactives for trigonometry and a flash scheduler students could use to build their own calendar to match their learning pace. They shared our concern over the need for ongoing professional development for our instructors who are also our developers. They have their "stars" who care about the work that they do, and it shows.
Next up, we shared some of our new format exams, unit assignments and labs, showing where we are heading. We talked about optimal mark recognition (OMR) as next steps lending towards item analysis and an exam bank. We showed them an exam review document with classification and approval fields as we start a collaborative exam review process. We outlined our media development projects and we brought up our YouTube channel matching theirs. We showed them videos that they produced hosted on our channel. We discussed our use of mybvc.ca and Google Apps for Education for the Anytime Online program and curriculum development. We certainly have our own stars who care as much about what we are trying to accomplish.
Throughout the day, we shared laughs. We had lunch and breakfast together. We swapped stories. We expressed many of the same concerns. We clearly have the same students and challenges. We shared our feelings about restructuring. We identified possible points of collaboration. We will try to start a common online exam bank. We will host another upgrading online conference. We will collaborate on English Language Arts re-development. We will find opportunities to work on presentations and instructional videos where possible. We will examine the possibility of developing exam and media development certificates, with the workshops and activities included, together. We mentioned reciprocated course offering recommends according to our institution's strengths. One item was certain: none of this is possible without doing it together. Having a partner is not nice. It is essential. Our time, funds, energy and expertise are constrained as colleges. As partners, we can advance access to quality learning for adults throughout the province.
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| mybvc showcase team |
Thanks to everyone who was able to come to the mybvc.ca showcase. Faculty and staff from the department and the college came by to discover what can be done with the portal and the associated Google Apps for Education to promote distributed learning. Many questions were asked of our "experts". Many practices were shared. Excitement was generated.
If you attended, take a minute to fill out our online evaluation form. If you would like your own mybvc.ca account, send a request to the ITS Help Desk. To be part of the ongoing discussion, read about best practices and share your own ideas at our discussion group.
Special thanks to the mybvc showcase team who worked hard to make the event successful. I am amazed how much each of them knows, not just about the apps, but about their craft and their students. I am of course always amazed at the hardwork.
