ICT Educator Resources - Synchronous Online Collaboration Tools to Improve ICT Education

Synchronous Online Course Delivery:

Did you know you can improve recruitment, retention and student outcomes in your courses by simultaneously teaching students who are physically in the classroom, students who are interacting with you and them in real time remotely through the Internet, and students who review classroom lectures and experiences asynchronously through recorded course archives?

This is an extremely powerful way to use ICT tools to improve ICT education. It is FREE to community college ICT educators in California via CCC Confer. ICT educators anywhere can do this - using platforms like Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect and Cisco Webex.

Using these platforms, you can enable students to:

• Attend an instructor led class in person,

• Participate interactively in real time via the Internet,

• Participate in real time on the phone,

• View archived classes any time via the Internet,

• Review archived written class transcripts,

• Download classes to computers or mobile devices as audio or video podcasts

• Work on lab exercises in person or via collaborative remote access to real equipment.

• Confer with teachers interactively during in-person and online office hours

These lead to better student, faculty and department outcomes, including:

• Improved Student Recruitment

• Improved Student Retention

• Improved Student Completions

• Better Student Performance

• Improved Student Relationships

• More Engaging Classroom Experiences

Learn how with our Free Distributed ICT Education Toolkit or through one of our professional development events!

Contact us at info@mpict.org if you would like to know more!

Distributed ICT Education:

Even in the best of times, it is difficult for community colleges to be able to justify more specialized and advanced ICT courses. These frequently require large investments in faculty development and laboratory equipment that dont match up with the numbers of students demanding those courses at one time at one college. In difficult economic times it is almost impossible to make these courses run, and specialized and advanced courses are often among the first cut, stranding students who need these courses to get the academic credentials that will allow them to advance in their careers.

MPICT is leading an effort to improve regional ICT education by offering specialized and advanced ICT courses from one college to students at many colleges, using the synchronous online course delivery model described above.

As more and more teachers master synchronous online course delivery, they can better fill their classes, and justify new classes, by serving broader audiences. Departments and instructors benefit by filling more classes and from better student outcomes. (Students are better able to attend and successfully complete courses with multiple ways of accessing instruction.) Students benefit through greater, deeper and more consistent course availability. Businesses and economies benefit from more valuable knowledge and skills available in the workforce.

Please click on a link below for a list of ICT courses offered in a synchronous online format, available to anyone:

• Spring 2012 Synchronous Online Courses

Previous:

• Fall 2011 Hybrid Courses

• Spring 2011 Hybrid Courses

• Fall 2010 Hybrid Courses

Other Remote Collaboration Platform Uses to Improve ICT Education:

Even if you are not ready to offer an entire course in a synchronous online format, there are many other great opportunities to use these platforms to improve ICT education, for example:

• Department Meetings

  • Setting up online collaboration sessions for department meetings allows faculty to attend, participate and interact with anything on any computer remotely, reducing travel time and costs for those who cannot attend in person, and providing recorded archives for later review and documentation.

• Other Meetings

  • In the same way, you can set up remote meetings with anyone. Allowing remote attendance at advisory meetings increases the possibility of participation by busy professionals, for example.

• Content Capture

  • Faculty or others can use these platforms to record presentations and demonstrations for a variety of purposes, including video and learning module creation and sharing.

• Teaching Remotely

  • It isnt just students who can benefit from attending remotely. On occasions where the teacher is ill or out of town, it is possible to deliver a class remotely from anywhere using these platforms, without having to physically be in the classroom.

• Online Office Hours

  • Using these platforms during office hours allows students to easily attend who would otherwise have trouble attending (because they work?). Faculty can get into real lab equipment with remote students together and help them get unstuck, improving completions.

• Remote Guest Lectures

  • It may be difficult to get an industry or business representative to physically travel to your classroom to address your students with valuable real-world perspectives, but it is relatively easy to have them talk to students from any computer anywhere.

• Mobile Device Content Creation

  • It is possible to convert material recorded via these platforms for viewing on mobile devices, which can be viewed or heard anywhere.

• Expanding the Impact of Events

  • It is relatively easy to make conference sessions and other presentations available to remote participants in real time or asynchronously using these platforms, greatly expanding the impact of those events beyond the relatively few who can physically be in the room. For example, check out archives from MPICT Winter Conferences.

• Serving the Disabled

  • Using these platforms for classes, events and meetings can enable participation by people with hearing, visual and other disabilities, making it possible for them to attend your classes and events when it is difficult for them to travel, for example.

• Serve High School Students in High Schools

  • To create a pipeline of students for your program, you can serve students in high school (many with limited access to ICT courses), stimulating and encouraging their interest in ICT.

MPICT is interested in any use of these platforms to improve ICT education and workforce development. If you would like to learn more, or have a story to share about how these platforms have been used successfully in ICT education, please contact us at info@mpict.org.

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