Completed Virtual Workshop - steps

Creating the VIRTUAL Workshop

Needs Assessment, Support, and Budget:

Many adjunct faculty members cannot attend a face-to-face workshop due to other commitments on their time, or their location (many live out of town and teach only online).  Access is a strategic goal of the Provost and so it was charged by her office to provide workshops and training opportunities to all adjuncts both face-to-face and virtually. 

It was determined that additional fiscal resources were not necessary, but human resources were.  To that end, other Vice Presidents had to agree to allocate human resources to this project.  The project is determined to begin in January with a launch date of summer 2014 in time for the new hiring swell for fall classes.  The President supports the project.  Here is a sample of a planning tool, or flow chart for this initiative:

Training Objectives

At the conclusion of this online orientation the newly hired adjunct faculty member will be able to:

1.     Sign onto the computer and utilize the College’s intranet, email system, ANGEL, and WebAccess to navigate the colleges systems, policies, and procedures.

2.     Operate the technology equipment in the classroom.

3.     Respond to students in need of accommodations, students in distress, and classroom management issues.

4.     Apply acquired knowledge of the subject by predicting responses to scenarios typical of the college.

5.     Address emergency situations appropriately.

Planning Process Steps:   

      Step One (this step is complete):  Outline of the Virtual Adjunct Orientation Workshop

An outline of the workshop needs to be determined.  Using the face-to-face workshop as a guide the elements of the training should include the same training activities (see blog portion “Completed One-hour Workshop”).  In order to deliver the same experience only virtually the following modifications would need to be made:

·       Instead of the face-to-face instruction in the computer lab to accomplish Training Objective 1, a self-directed interactive guide to logging onto the email and the other online resources at the college would need to be constructed.  After the participant successfully logs on, they could explore the various areas of the intranet. 

One idea would be to have a scavenger hunt that takes them to the areas otherwise demonstrated by the Academic Technologist during the lab portion of the face-to-face workshop.  There would be no time limit for this portion, as the participant should explore as long as he/she wishes.

·       Instead of the face-to-face faculty and administration lecture/discussion/demonstration portion, the participants should be able to achieve Training Objectives 2 – 5 in various virtual ways leading us to our next step.

Step Two (estimate 1 month to complete): Deciding Appropriate Virtual Formats

Meet with the Academic Technologist to decide which appropriate virtual formats would best fulfill the training objectives outlined above. Some of the elements that need further discussion and/or determination are:

a.     How to facilitate an online Q&A session

b.     How to facilitate a discussion of typical classroom scenarios.

c.     Creating videos or “talking head” pods (such as a meet the faculty video).

d.     Which portions of the orientation should be delivered as lectures.

e.     How to demonstrate use of typical classroom technology equipment?

e.     Should we/how do we create interactive tests?

f.     How to create a feedback form for evaluation

There are many types of formats the college uses to create presentations such as Power Point, Prezi, Snagit, and Camtasia. Additionally, there are video formats that can be used.  A game might be included such as Jeopardy instead of a “test”.  The workshop can be full of “bells and whistles” or just an enhanced power point.  I have a head start because I can use my Power Point presentation as a base and I included a text version in the notes section that can be used as the script for closed captioning. 

The student scenarios were assessed as one of the most helpful parts of the face2face workshop.  Even though the faculty video was not popular in the face-to-face workshop, it is the only way to include the faculty in the virtual workshop.  We can do one or both (multiple modes for universal design) of the following:

1.    Text (with optional audio caption) followed by a multiple-choice answer to the “What do you do?” question.

2.    Talking head pod (with optional text caption) followed by multiple-choice answer and explanation from the “head”.

3.    One long video with “test” at the conclusion.  If the participant doesn’t score a certain number of questions correctly, he/she is sent back to the area he/she missed.

Step Three (estimate 1 month): Considering Universal Design

Next we need to meet with the Instructional Design and Delivery (IDD) administrators to determine Universal Design Standards.  Guaranteeing Universal Design is an important step and one that is often forgotten.  Consider the embarrassment if one of the new faculty members is deaf or blind and you have not made the necessary accommodations to the virtual workshop!   Our college intranet offers links to other sites to assist with including universal design in the instructional environment (face-to-face and virtual).  One of the links I found most helpful, and would use when designing the online version of my workshop, was University of Washington Do-IT: http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Academics/equal_access_tlc.html 

While looking around on this website, I “linked” to another one that is also packed with resources.  I found two to be most helpful.

http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility gives examples of how to make your web-based module accessible to all.  Some of the examples listed that we will employ are:

-        Use alternate text for images

-        Include transcripts of podcasts and/or videos

           -        Keep the web content simple and not to “busy”

“The Web is fundamentally designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, culture, location, or physical or mental ability. When the Web meets this goal, it is accessible to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability.” (World Wide Web Consortium, 2011).

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Technology/distance.learn.html explains the types of “access barriers” to different types of instruction that a person with disabilities might encounter.  Burgstahler (2012) discusses accommodation approaches to each area of instruction. 

“Today, the lines are blurred between different types of distance learning courses as multiple modes of delivery are employed in a single course. For example, a class "library" could be a website; class discussions could take place using email; some course content could be delivered using printed materials and television; and the final activity could be a place-bound proctored exam.” (Burgstahler, 2012)

An example of universal design in a podcast/video is demonstrated on this YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3sdR53ho2g&feature=youtu.be 

Notice you can click on “cc” and the video includes closed captioning.

Step Four (estimate 3 months to complete):  Course Design and Creating the Virtual Components

Once the virtual environment has been decided, and Universal Design has been considered, a storyboard can be used as an outline to map out the virtual workshop elements.  The Academic Technologist will assist in creating this useful tool (pictured below) that lays out all the pieces of the workshop.  I am told to think of the pieces as pictures.  After the “pictures” are scrap-booked onto the storyboard, the course design begins to emerge.  Universal Design accommodations are also included on the storyboard. 

Finally, we are ready to create each component of the workshop in each decided virtual delivery mode.  This takes the most time, and is done collaboratively.  Once the individual components are created determining the location of its virtual home, and how we market it to the new adjunct, are the next steps. 

Step Five (estimate 1 month):  Marketing - Where is Home?  How is it made available?

To be determined…Questions need to be answered by our experts in Public Relations.  Some of the initial questions I have thought of are:

·      Should the workshop be accessible to anyone on the internet or available only internally on the intranet?

·      If it is housed on the intranet, how will the new faculty gain access? 

·      Can it be given as a link through ANGEL?

·      Could the link be emailed to personal email?

·      Are there any college policies we need to follow in order to create an online workshop?

Works Cited

Burgstahler, P. S. (2012). Program Practices to Ensure Access to Students with Disabilities. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from University of Washington - Real Connections: Making Distance Learning Accessible to Everyone: http://www.washington.edu/doit/Brochures/Technology/distance.learn.html

World Wide Web Consortium. (2011). Accessibility. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from W3C: http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility