Distance Education Newsletter
Kapi‘olani Community College | January 13, 2020
New Years' Resolutions Are a Scam!
idea 1: monthly resolutions (check out Try Something New for 30 Days, 3 min. TED Talk video, Matt Cutts)
If you're like me (Leigh), you have plenty of resolutions on your list, and you want to do them all at once. Instead, parcel them out one a month, and only commit to them for 30 days each. By the end of the year, maybe you'll have a handful of new habits to celebrate.
idea 2: word for the year
My mother-in-law picks a word for the year rather than making resolutions (for 2020, hers is "opportunity"), and at the end of each month, she checks in with the word, to notice how it's manifesting in her life and to recharge her investment in it. My 15-year-old daughter and I decided to embrace her tradition: my daughter's word is "growth" and mine is "vulnerability." What might yours be?
Together, we have the power to make 2020 an amazing year.
Kapi‘olani CC Syllabus Template
Try an Interactive Syllabus (thanks to Susan J.)!
Want to ramp up engagement with your syllabus AND gain some valuable insights from your students?!? Susan Jaworowski shared an idea with us that we think is nothing short of PHENOMENAL: the interactive syllabus! (Did you just read "Susan J." and wonder if this is too high-tech for you? Don't scroll away - it's not!) Susan has brilliantly built a Google form-based syllabus and sprinkled questions throughout. The items go well beyond those "did you read the syllabus?" checks...they both require the student to read AND they gather data on student preferences, preconceived ideas, and values. They help her students plan for success in her course and give them choices in their learning experience. (You could even follow up with brief polls throughout and at the end of the semester to see how and whether student preferences and perceptions are changing and adapt accordingly...hooray for useful data!) Susan has generously allowed us to share this copy of her syllabus - feel free to adapt it to your needs. You can copy directly from your traditional syllabus and plop the content into Google forms. Get Your Copy Here! Note: You may notice that the required syllabus statements aren't in Susan's syllabus/form; she puts them on her orientation page in her Laulima site, instead (tip: still a good idea to keep a traditional syllabus--including the required statements--for students to reference throughout the semester).
Several Degree, Concentration, and Certificate Pathways Go Fully Online in Fall 2020!
A note from Interim VCAA Maria Bautista:
We are so excited to share with you the amazing news that as of Fall 2020, we expect the following Degree, Concentration, and Certificate pathways to be available to students entirely online!
Associate of Arts (AA) in Hawaiian Studies
Associate of Arts (AA) in Liberal Arts
AA in Liberal Arts with a Concentration in Business Administration
AA in Liberal Arts with a Concentration in Family Resources
AA in Liberal Arts with a Concentration in Secondary Education
AA in Liberal Arts with a Concentration in Social Work
Associate of Science (AS) in Information Technology
Certificate of Achievement - Accounting
Certificate of Achievement - Information Technology
Certificate of Achievement - Information Security and Assurance
Certificate of Competence - Entrepreneurship
Certificate of Competence - Help Desk Services
Certificate of Competence - Information Security and Assurance
Certificate of Competence - Management
Certificate of Competence - Payroll Preparer
Certificate of Competence - Programming
Certificate of Competence - Tax Preparer
Because of this exciting proliferation of online pathways for our students, we’re expecting more students who do not live in Hawai‘i will join our classes.
So now is a good time to remind everyone who teaches online that it must be possible for non-resident students to succeed in your online class. This means that:
If you require proctored exams, you must either be willing to work with students to set up a remote proctoring site OR you must offer a ProctorU online proctoring option.
If you require any on-campus activity, fieldwork, or participation in community events, you must be willing to allow students to conduct the activity or fieldwork at a remote site or participate in remote community events.
If you have questions, please contact the Interim DE Coordinator, Leigh Dooley (ldooley@hawaii.edu). If you need assistance developing exams in Laulima or setting up ProctorU for your online class, please contact one of our outstanding Instructional Designers (IDs): Helen Torigoe (htorigoe@hawaii.edu), Jamie Sickel (jsickel@hawaii.edu), or Youxin (Yoyo) Zhang (youxin@hawaii.edu).
Workshop: 8 Essentials of Accessibility
Friday, January 31 at 1:00 - 2:30 pm in Lama 116
Accessibility is vital for getting your story to the widest possible audience, but sometimes, it can be overwhelming. We’d like to introduce some of the fundamental principles of accessibility and prepare you for making digital content accessible for all participants. Come and join us to make your learning journey of accessibility a fun experience. Reminders will be posted through Kapiʻolani News and Events. If you have any questions or would like to suggest a topic for our future workshops, please reach us at celtt@hawaii.edu.Workshop: Online Proctoring with ProctorU
Have you considered offering an online proctoring option for your students instead of classroom exams or non-proctored online tests? Now it’s your opportunity to learn more about ProctorU, a leading online proctoring service used by a number of higher education institutions. Reminders will be posted through Kapiʻolani News and Events. If you have any questions or would like to suggest a topic for our future workshops, please reach us at celtt@hawaii.edu.
Refresh 2020 Was a Success!
A big mahalo to everyone who came out to kick off the new semester with food, fellowship and fun professional development sessions, including Chancellor Louise Pagotto, who funded breakfast and lunch, our wonderful students, who shared their tech insights at lunch and massage skills by appointment, and our talented and engaging staff and faculty workshop facilitators! We had a fantastic turnout and a ton of fun teaching, tech-ing, designing and connecting! Here's a look at Refresh 2020 by the numbers...
Advanced Laulima Tip
Did you know that you can display mathematical equations in Laulima using LaTeX or AsciiMath equations? First, enable MathJax in your site (do this for each site):
Go to Site Info > Manage Tools
On the right-hand side, check “Enable MathJax for automatic rendering of LaTeX and AsciiMath in this site”
Continue and Finish
Then simply write LaTeX in the rich text editor and the resulting equation will display in mathematical format.
For example, enter the following into the text editor:
$$x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2z}$$
and you will end up with:
Want to add color to emphasize portions of an equation? Here’s an example:
$$x = {-b \pm \color{red}{\sqrt{b^2-4ac}} \over 2z}$$
that will display:
In other words, type \color{colorname} preceding the expression that you want to color, and add curly brackets around the expression. Try red, blue, green, yellow, magenta, etc. -- the same colors that are available in LaTex.
Featured DE Faculty
Name: Jaclyn (Jackie) Lindo
Department: Social Sciences
What courses do you teach online? ECON 120
How long have you been teaching online and what made you decide to teach online?
About 6 semesters in total, usually one section per semester.
I actually only started teaching online because I was required to by my department. As a learner, I personally prefer the F2F environment. However, after engaging with my online students, I realize that college would not be possible or would be even more challenging for some without the DE option. These online courses are vital for many of our students who are committed to make school fit around their many other commitments and responsibilities.
However, although my initial dive into online teaching was not my choice, I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and discoveries of creating an online course equivalent in rigor to my F2F course.
What is your favorite part about online teaching?
Learning new tools to help simulate the level of engagement in my F2F course but in an asynchronous online environment. I very much enjoy working with our talented Instructional Designers who have a wealth of knowledge in this area. They have created an amazing community of DE faculty that spans the CC system who have also helped me develop my DE toolkit and continue to inspire improvements to my online class.
What is the most challenging part of teaching online?
Not being able to engage in person with students - trying to replicate that same degree of interaction online in a meaningful way is incredibly challenging for me. I am constantly trying to improve my strategies for regular and substantive interaction with students, while at the same time ensuring the design and tasks suit the learning needs and technological expectations of our 2020 learners. Our students spend significant time exploring digital content daily, and in the past, I felt that it was a major downshift for them to leave their regular online routine filled with the latest apps and sleek interfaces to engage in my class on Laulima. With unwavering support and guidance from Helen, Jamie, and Jessica when she was with the ID team, I continue to work toward my goal to create an environment that makes students as excited to engage with our online class environment as they are any other digital content.
What surprised you about teaching online?
How much learning I had to do in order to do it effectively! Even after completing TOPP, it took quite some time to meaningfully integrate new tools and implement a new course layout to facilitate learning my discipline online. I use a lot of videos in my F2F, as I have a flipped classroom, and I used to think that this same learning suite was sufficient for content delivery and absorption in a DE course. But I continue to learn new techniques and approaches to regular and productive DE engagement for students and myself.
What is your favorite web tool/technology?
Although they are not new to anyone teaching online, I have a few current favorites I'm incorporating this semester: Padlet for weekly online forums (shoutout to Donovan Preza for taking the time to share his Padlet experience and knowledge with me), and 3 synchronous classes with breakout groups using Zoom. I need to practice a few times for the latter to minimize the chance of any technical issues - anyone interested in doing a demo with me to test this?!
Special thanks to the DE Committee for all of your accomplishments in the past few years, not just improving our campus DE infrastructure, but for providing so many resources, such as this newsletter I look forward to in my inbox for the helpful content and links. Even though I haven't been able to make many of them (thank you for making recordings available when you can!), I love the DE Spotlight features and workshops - this really helps to build a community of resources and support.
Congratulations, Spring ‘20 TOPP Cohort!
TOPP will launch again on January 21, 2019 and touch down after 8 weeks of intense fun, collaborative learning, and the creation of new/revised online classes. Please join us in welcoming the new TOPP cohort!
Amanda Candens, REL 211
Brian Deis, BIOL 172
Porscha Dela Fuente, ENG 272M
Eva Hubbard, HOSP 8225
Carl Jennings, IS 161
Lisa Kanae, ENG 272B
Dayna Kitsuwa, MATH 111
Christina Malenya, ICS 101
Nāwaʻa Napoleon, Huliamahi (Title III Project)
Vern Ogata, Huliamahi (Title III Project)
Donovan Preza, HWST 255
Reid Sunahara, ENG 100
If you're interested in joining a future TOPP cohort, watch this space for information or contact a member of our DE team!
DE Student Survey: “KCC has the best online instructors”
Our students have candidly shared what they thought of their online learning experience at Kapi‘olani CC. In the DE Student Survey from Spring 2018, the majority of the responding online learners agreed that
The class site was easy to navigate and well-organized (84% agreed).
Class was challenging in a way that motivated me to learn (76.5%).
Instructor’s feedback was helpful (79.5%).
Instructor sent out regular announcements and reminders to help me stay on track (82.9%).
Online interactions with classmates and instructor helped me to learn (69.7%).
Let’s Talk DE!
Did you know we have a(n awesome) podcast produced by our own Sheldon Tawata and Alfie Gonzales? Well we do (and it IS awesome), and you should DEFINITELY check it out! Why not start with a recent installment of Kuilei Courageous Conversations (KCC) featuring DE champions Nadine Wolff, Kristie Malterre and Leigh Dooley? In this faculty highlight, listeners hear about what it means to teach and learn online and about the many supports we have available at KCC.
Listen Now (audio)
NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grants
Digital Humanities Advancement Grants (DHAG) (website) support innovative, experimental, and/or computationally challenging projects at different stages throughout their lifecycles, from early start-up phases through implementation and sustainability. Experimentation, reuse, and extensibility are hallmarks of this program, leading to innovative work that can scale to enhance scholarly research, teaching, and public programming in the humanities. This program is offered twice per year. Proposals are welcome for digital initiatives in any area of the humanities.
In support of its efforts to advance digital infrastructures and initiatives in libraries and archives, and subject to the availability of funds and IMLS discretion, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) anticipates providing funding through this program. These funds may support some DHAG projects that further the IMLS mission to advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations. IMLS funding will encourage innovative collaborations between library and archives professionals, humanities professionals, and relevant public communities that advance preservation of, access to, and public engagement with digital collections and services to empower community learning, foster civic cohesion, and strengthen knowledge networks. This could include collaborations with community-based archives, community-driven efforts, and institutions or initiatives representing the traditionally underserved. Interested applicants should also refer to the current IMLS Strategic Plan for additional context.
Grant Snapshot
Maximum award amount
Level I: $50,000
Level II: $100,000
Level III: $325,000 in outright funds, with an additional $50,000 in matching funds
Open to Organizations
Expected output
Article;
Digital Material and Publications;
Workshop;
Report;
Teaching Resources;
Digital Infrastructure;
Software
Period of performance: Up to thirty-six months
Application available: October 31, 2019
Optional Draft due: December 4, 2019
Application due: January 15, 2020
Expected notification date: August 31, 2020
Project start date: September 1, 2020
What we are reading, listening to, or watching now
Sakai Virtual Conference ʻ19:
What's New in Sakai 20? (video)
Both sessions discuss Sakai (Laulima)’s new features that we can expect in 2020 and further down the road. We can look forward to automagically changing all dates in a course!
5 Proven Ways to Make Your Good Online Course Great Campus Technology (article)
Student Perceptions of Engagement in Online Courses: An Exploratory Study, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (article)
- Mixing in Online Courses Boosts Outcomes for CC Students, Campus Technology (article)
Inside Higher Ed shares how the attitudes on teaching online, technology in the classroom, OER, etc. have changed since 2013. For example, 46% of faculty across the US have taught online in 2019, compared to 30% in 2013.
How 4 Ed Tech Execs See the Future of Postsecondary Learning Education Drive (article)
Colleges respond to increasing pressure from industry to align learning with workplace needs. Some of these approaches include short-form credentials, “nexus” degrees, and embedding industry certifications into degree pathways.
The Friendly Faces of Your DE Implementation Team
Helen Torigoe
htorigoe@hawaii.edu, x9855
Jamie Sickel
jsickel@hawaii.edu, x9849
Melissa Nakamura
mchar@hawaii.edu, x9152
Youxin (Yoyo) Zhang
youxin@hawaii.edu, x9822
Kristie Malterre
kristies@hawaii.edu, x9344
Nadine Wolff
nwolff@hawaii.edu, x9787
Kelli Nakamura
kellinak@hawaii.edu, x9420
Leigh Dooley
ldooley@hawaii.edu, x9703