The U of M Learning Technology Platform: Integrating Online Tools to Support Hybrid Education
The learning platform is the University of Minnesota's strategy to integrate many different technology applications into a unified system to support learning. It is the scaffolding that supports all the tools students use to learn, faculty members use to teach, and the University uses to administer all learning programs. Academic technologies are integrated into one system, the primary access point of which is the myU portal. In this seminar, panelists will discuss projects that illustrate how the learning platform has served as a springboard for the creation of custom learning and collaboration environments targeted to the needs of specific audiences.
Seminar
November 7, 2007
12:00-1:30 p.m.
155 Peters Hall
St. Paul, Twin Cities (TC) campus
Access a UMConnect recording of the seminar, or subscribe to the podcast and vodcast.
Moderator:
Billie Wahlstrom
Distributed Education & Instructional Technology, Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost (SVPP), TC
Panelists:
Janet Shanedling
Education, Academic Health Center (AHC), TC
Vicki Field
Graduate School, TC
Shane Nackerud
University Libraries, TC
Heather Aagesen-Huebner
Distributed Education & Instructional Technology, SVPP, TC
John Butler
University Libraries, TC
Tayne DeNeui
Epidemiology & Community Health, School of Public Health, AHC, TC
Preliminary Readings
Davis, Hugh C., and Karen Fill. "Embedding Blended Learning in a University's Teaching Culture: Experiences and Reflections." British Journal of Educational Technology 38, no. 5 (2007): 817–828.
In this brief evaluation of a collaboration among four higher education institutions in the United States and United Kingdom in the field of geography, Davis and Fill pay particular attention to the development of a learning platform to facilitate the collaboration. Among their key findings were:
- the importance of not starting with particular technologies, but of matching solutions with faculty members' pedagogical needs, preferred approaches to teaching, and institutional contexts (p. 819);
- the need for strategic partnerships among faculty members; departmental, collegiate, and institutional leaders; and technologists to create, evaluate, and sustain a learning platform (ibid.);
- the need to focus on interoperability—not only facilitating the smooth interoperation of technologies but also the development of complementary technologies and practices (such as shared tools, templates, and learning goals/objectives for creating, delivering, and assessing learning content, and the necessity of agreeing upon common metadata standards for cataloguing and evaluating those shared materials) (ibid.);
The solution adopted by Davis, Fill, and their colleagues was to develop a learning platform, the DialogPLUS Toolkit, which incorporated:
- research-based step-by-step guides for developing effective learning modules;
- online aids to choosing "appropriate tools and resources" (pp. 820–821);
- a repository of ready-made learning modules developed by project participants;
- a user-created knowledgebase of best practices in blended and online teaching and learning; and
- specialized software tools created by project participants for discrete learning applications—for example, the Penn State team developed a mind-mapping application that was shared with partner institutions (p. 822).
The success of the collaboration described by Davis and Fill stemmed largely from the resources devoted to supporting participating faculty members—from the release time necessary to facilitate the development and revision of learning materials (p. 822), to the availability of support staff and facilities to support media acquisition and content authoring, to the vital political support and encouragement provided by senior decision makers at the collegiate and institutional levels (p. 825).
For additional information on the DialogPLUS Toolkit, see:
Conole, Gráinne, and Karen Fill. "A Learning Design Toolkit to Create Pedagogically Effective Learning Activities." Journal of Interactive Media in Education 08 (2005). http://jime.open.ac.uk/2005/08/conole-2005-08.pdf.
Oblinger, Diana G., ed. Learning Spaces. Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE, 2006. http://www.educause.edu/learningspaces/.
In this study of real and metaphoric learning spaces, Diana Oblinger and contributors consider aspects of context that affect teaching and learning, including formal vs. informal environments; dimensions of community and their relationship to—and reflection in—'space'; and the psychological and cultural effects of space (and how to assess them). Although virtually all of this collection's 30 case studies deal with the design of physical classrooms and informal learning spaces, the psychological, social, pedagogical, and administrative lessons learned are broadly applicable to the design of any learning environment. The lessons learned also speak directly to the ideal of the University's Learning Platform—the blending of learning goals with appropriate technologies to create flexible, customizable, and personalizable spaces appropriate to the community practices and types of knowledge demanded of practitioners in any given disciplinary context.
Wambach, Karen, Diane Boyle, Julia Hagemaster, Cynthia Teel, Barbara Langner, Patricia Fazzone, Helen Connors, Carol Smith, and Sarah Forbes. "Beyond Correspondence, Video Conferencing, and Voice Mail: Internet-Based Master's Degree Courses in Nursing." Journal of Nursing Education 38, no. 6 (1999): 267–271.
Although published some years ago, Karen Wambach and collaborators speak to two concerns that retain their currency. First, they describe in some detail the necessity of orienting students to online learning environments and providing them with the fullest possible support as they make enrollment and study decisions (e.g., comprehensively describing the teaching modalities and expectations related to online offerings in course guide databases and other information sources). Second, in describing the development of several sample courses, they illustrate the value of matching instructors' course goals and objectives to appropriate technologies, instructional techniques, and iterative design strategies.
Both practices highlight the nature of the Learning Platform as not only a collection of software tools but also a theoretically and experientially informed knowledgebase for gathering and disseminating guides to best practices. The Learning Platform also can house systems for gathering information about students' learning preferences, experiences, and behaviors as a means for providing targeted guidance and adaptive feedback. It also can promote policies and procedures that support and reward the development, evaluation, and dissemination of teaching content and instructor experiences.
