Technology Policies in the UIUC Education Programs

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Technology Policies in the UIUC Education Programs

• Cathy Thurston
• Director, Office of Ed. Tech., College of
  Education
• January 29, 1999

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Overview of Ed-Online

• HRE and CTER online masters programs
• Students
• Faculty
• Programs

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Overview of Ed-Online

• College of Ed.emphasis
• Cross departmental cooperation
• Support for faculty and online students
• Ongoing evaluation
• Emphasis on teaming
• OET
• CTER
• HRE

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Online masters degree studentsClass picture,
June 98, CTER
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Office of Educational Technology

• Network administration
• Troubleshooting
• Instructional Computing Lab
• TV Studio
• Faculty Development Center
• Grant facilitation

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Unique aspects of Ed-Online

• Diverse student body
• K-12
• Corporate sector
• Community college
• Dual platform
• Focus on program evaluation
• Crosses five departments

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Goals of Ed-Online

• College wide synergy
• Sharing of development, tools, programs
• Economy of scale
• Ongoing evaluation
• Common tools and cutting edge experimentation
• Increase College capacity for delivery

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Role of OET

• Facilitation (regular meetings)
• Communication (reflectors, articles, memos, point
  of contact)
• Public relations (press releases, brochures,
  presentations)
• Special events (Open House, Moveable Feast)
• Leveraging (Microsoft, Faculty Center)

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Technology prerequisites for students

• Internet access
• Hardware
• Software tools
• Web sites that provide this information
• http//www.extramural.uiuc.edu/hre/techreqs.html
• http//www.ed.uiuc.edu/ed-online/cter/CTER-info-sh
  eet.html

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Partners

• WebTech Group from Academic Outreach
• Development
• Server

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Tools used in both HRE and CTER

• Email (Eudora)
• Web browser (Netscape)
• WebBoard, both synchronous and asynchronous
• Real Player

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Tools (Cont.)

• Data base management (Cold Fusion, Access, and
  FileMaker Pro)
• Microsoft Office 97 (PC)and Office 98 (Mac)
  Word, PowerPoint, Excel

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Experimental technologies

• Streaming audio and video
• Tapped In (Moo)

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Student Feedback on Tools

• C I 490 (Eval. Of Ed. Tech.,Fall 98)
• Tools that worked
• 100 of students surveyed were very satisfied
  or satisfied with
• CTERBase
• Email reflector
• Personal email
• 95 of students surveyed were very satisfied
  or satisfied with
• asynchronous WebBoard

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Student feedback

• C I 490 (cont.)
• Tools with problems
• 52 of students surveyed were dissatisfied or
  very dissatisfied with
• audio streaming
• 33 of students surveyed were dissatisfied or
  very dissatisfied with
• telephone conferencing

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Student feedback (cont.)

• HRE study
• 50 of students used tech. support in first
  class, 61 in second class
• 90 of tech. support used in first half of the
  courses
• common problems include firewalls at work, lack
  of skills, severe weather problems affecting
  server

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Means of Tech. Support

• Call-in hours, 800
• Formal face to face sessions
• Informal ad hoc group meetings
• Online tutorials (scanning, recording audio into
  PowerPoint, converting PowerPoint with Real Audio
  to web format)(http//www/ed.uiuc.edu/courses/EdPs
  y387/Su98/resources.html)

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Tech. Support (cont.)

• WebBoard chat
• Email
• Flexible timing of office hours (8-5 vs. p.m.
  hours)
• Pager
• Personal contact
• FAQs

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Tech. Support (cont.)

• Instant Messenger (AOL)
• Virtual Help Desk (Academic Outreach)
• Synchronous office hours
• Online tech. assistance tips (http//www.outreach.
  uiuc.edu/hre/public/techtip.html)

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Tech. Support (cont.)

• CD ROM provided for students with bundled
  software
• Online research paper on technical support
  (http//www/outreach.uiuc.edu/hre/public/online-re
  search.html)

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Innovative tools developed in-house

• Data base management tools
• Cold Fusion (HRE)
• CTERBase using FileMaker Pro (CTER)
• CD ROM with common tools

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Tools Factors to consider

• Student/faculty platform issues
• Inexpensive or free tools when possible, when
  they can be used without sacrificing function
• Emphasis on web rather than on third party
• Standardization when possible

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Live Demo

• Michael Williams, Ph.D. Candidate in Education,
  Grad. Assistant with Office of Educational
  Technology
• Ed-Online websitehttp//www.ed.uiuc.edu/ed-online
  
• WebBoard

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Q and A
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