2008 Axio Conference

Pre-conference Workshop with Axio's Instructional Designers

Plan on attending the instructional designer pre-conference! This session begins with a "10-minute Instructional Design Primer: What ID has to offier you and your students in a few, simple, quick steps" by Ben Ward. Beginning around 9:15 a.m., there will be small group discussions and one-on-one instructional design consultations with Swasati Mukherjee, Shalin Hai-Jew, and Ben Ward. Participants are encouraged to bring their course ideas, draft syllabi and other materials from their own courses for shared discussions and one-on-one instructional designer support. Come meet other professionals like yourself in this pre-conference, and share some of your own insights, too. A light breakfast will be served. This instructional design pre-conference will wrap up around 10 a.m.

Keynote Presentation

Today's instructors and faculty are familiar with the use of a course management system, and most have some knowledge about instructional design (either from formal or on-the-job training). Some are aware of nationally recognized quality standards, and many are applying those standards to both fully online and hybrid courses. But is that enough? Is it okay for some to understand and embrace these issues but not all? Are the courses truly meeting the quality standards? Is the faculty using the various attributes available to them within the CMS? Is anyone checking? With the recent accountability reports and conversations out of Washington and beyond, higher education colleges and universities need to ensure that faculty and staff have appropriate training and support to develop and deliver the highest quality online courses possible. That will be the focus of this interactive session.

Dr. Darcy Walsh Hardy

Dr. Darcy W. Hardy is Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Executive Director of the UT TeleCampus, the unit within The University of Texas System that supports online delivery of System-wide collaborative academic programs from UT institutions. The UT TeleCampus (www.telecampus.utsystem.edu) serves as a portal for students and faculty to access courses, programs and virtually all services necessary for success when teaching and learning online. The TeleCampus offers over 17 fully online programs and sees approximately 12,000 enrollments annually.

Dr. Hardy received her PhD in Instructional Technology from The University of Texas at Austin in 1992. She was a founding member and is a past president of the Texas Distance Learning Association (TxDLA) and has served two separate terms on the TxDLA Board of Directors. Currently, she serves as Chair Emerita with the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA), where she has been a member of the Board of Directors since 1999, is a past president, and is responsible for founding the USDLA International Forum for Women in E-Learning (IFWE). She is a member of the Adobe Systems, Inc. Higher Education Advisory Board, and she is a past member and chair of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Distance Education Advisory Council. She is a member of the WCET Steering Committee, representing the Southern Caucus.

Recently, Dr. Hardy received the Mildred and Charles Wedemeyer Outstanding Distance Learning Practitioner Award in Madison, Wisconsin (2006), was inducted into the Texas Distance Learning Association Hall of Fame (2006) and received the WCET Richard Jonsen award (2005) for "long-standing willingness to nurture and assist others in the distance learning community, significant contribution to the field, and innovative service to distance learning students." Her most recent publication, Dancing on the Glass Ceiling: Women, Leadership and Technology, which she co-edited with Dr. Don Olcott, received the 2005 Charles Wedemeyer Publication Award from UCEA. In 2003, she received the Gayle B. Childs Award from UCEA for "exemplary long-term leadership, scholarship, and applied contributions to the field of continuing and distance learning." She is currently the Interviews Editor for The American Journal of Distance Education. Under her direction, the UT TeleCampus has been honored with over two dozen regional and national awards from such organizations as USDLA, UCEA, TxDLA, WCET and the International Association of Business Communicators for courses, programming, communications, and faculty excellence. The UT TeleCampus has been recognized nationally as a model and benchmark for multi-campus, collaborative online programming.

Dr. Hardy serves on several editorial and advisory boards and has delivered hundreds of presentations, keynotes and workshops on distance education. She has two daughters attending the University of Texas at Austin, and she and her husband reside in the Texas Hill Country city of San Marcos.

This session features two short presentations by two different speakers with a common theme.

Axio 4.0 New Features Overview

This session will provide an overview of the new features included in Axio 4.0 and will also provide time for questions about the updates and changes. This is a high-level overview session for users who want to know about the general changes to Axio.

Dave Young

Axio Hidden Tricks

This short session will focus on a few "hidden tricks" that many users may not be aware of. These tips and tricks will help power users get the most out of Axio's many tools and features, including some of the new features released with Axio 4.0.

Josh Works

Joshua Works is the Interface Designer for Axio Learning. He is responsible for planning how the user will interact with each of the Axio tools, focusing especially on usability, efficiency, leveraging modern web technologies and the complete user experience. He's passionate about the web, design, photography and travel.

Liberating the Prisoners of Time and Space: Colby College's Transcendental Experience in an Existential World

The existential world of Education has long labored under the notion that longer classes and extended academic years equal more learning. Imprisoned by the boundaries of clocks, calendars and classrooms the measurement of student and instructor performance continue in terms of time and space instead of the competencies that promote and enhance student learning. But with Dr. Lynn Kreider at the helm as the new College President, change was imminent.

Adopting the transcendental idea that the answer is not more class time - but less - wherein more engagement and learning occurs - liberates faculty and students from the constraints of time and space. At Colby College we altered the pace and character of instruction and blended the technology of the iStep/Axio learning management platform for more efficient use of time to promote effective learning while shortening the class calendar by 70% - or simply reducing traditional face-to-face seat time by 30%. But embracing learning technology and better management of time in the classroom was only the beginning. Continuation of the time and space debate deflects from the real issue of instructional quality.

When designing, structuring, and implementing a blended course, it isn't simply a matter of moving written material onto the class website. The media-enhanced instruction must be carefully choreographed and engaging. It must reflect the instructor's personality and the best of their delivery style regardless of the delivery platform. We will discuss how Colby College deconstructed instructional delivery and in collaboration with the Denver Center Theatre Academy rebuilt the model of the beast with a test group of faculty. Through efficient use of our technology, blending time, talent and material with dramatic presentation and active learning pedagogy, an instructional model evolved which improved student learning, academic performance, student engagement and course retention.

Check back for bio details.

Distance Learning and Copyright: Faculty as Creators, Consumers and Distributors

This session will focus on the rights, responsibilities, and tools of faculty as creators, consumers and distributors of information in the digital age. This will address digital rights management (DRM) with the backdrop of fair use of the US Copyright Act; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH Act). The Web 2.0 culture of sharing endeavors with open educational resources, open archives, Creative Commons' releases, GNU general public licenses, and digital freebies will be explored along with other hands-on strategies for faculty to protect their own work and to teach online while respecting intellectual property.

Shalin Hai-Jew

Shalin Hai-Jew has worked in academia for over 19 years as an instructor. She was a tenured professor of English / Communications at Shoreline Community College, where she worked before taking on a position as instructional designer at the Office of Mediated Education, K-State. She has published widely in journalism and academia. She has a book forthcoming from IGI Global on digital imagery in e-learning.

Tips and Tricks for using Flash Video in Axio

Flash video, a new feature of Axio 4.0, allows for automatic streaming of .flv, .mov, .mp3 and .mp4 formats uploaded and published within your Axio courses. This session will cover best practices when using the flash streaming service, tricks for leveraging flash video in your courses, and basic video creation tips.

Bryan Vandiviere

Bryan Vandiviere is Axio's Web Presentation Technology Coordinator. He is our resident podcast, Wimba, Tegrity, VoIP, and Apple computer expert. Bryan has won technical support awards from both UCEA and C2C and traveled to Paris in 2006 to train new Wimba users.

My Course is Online, So Why Aren't My Students Learning?

In recent years, our society has seen a proliferation of online courses, virtual universities, and open course initiatives. Although many online courses and instructors offer outstanding learning opportunities - sometimes even exceeding the potential of a face-to-face class, most of us would concede that not everything done in the name of online education is an improvement. Contemporary research suggests that this problem bears a direct correlation to retention in online courses and programs, and a proliferation of online courses which lack these essential qualities diminishes the quality of online education and potentially weakens the college's public image.

One major difference seems to center around the ability of the instructor and the delivery platform to effectively integrate active learning and provide an experiential context (i.e., just because my course is online does not necessarily mean that my students will learn). This presentation's authors, a technology maven and an innovative instructor, will discuss the pedagogical challenges inherent in providing these contexts while moving courses to an online format, highlight relevant educational psychology research, and survey the range of techniques available for ensuring that online courses effectively include active learning and an experiential context.

David Swisher

David Swisher is an instructional technology specialist for Kansas State University and serves as the classroom technology coordinator for the Salina campus, K-State's College of Technology and Aviation. As such he oversees, installs, and maintains all classrom technology equipment on the Salina campus and trains faculty in their use and applications. He also serves as a consultant/trainer to faculty who are preparing online courses and works closely with the Continuing Education office in the development and promotion of targeted course offerings. Swisher is also a graduate student finishing his Master of Science degree in "Instructional Design & Technology" from Emporia State University, a wholly online program, and his professional research interests include cognitive and educational psychology as well as the integration of multimedia learning into online courses. Swisher has been working with Axio Learning for about 5 years.

Dr. Leslie Hannah

Dr. Leslie D. Hannah is the Assistant Dean of Academics for Kansas State University at Salina. He is also an assistant professor of English, and it is in his English classes that he utilizes multiple teaching technologies. Dr. Hannah has been audio podcasting his courses for several semesters, is now video podcasting his classes, and is currently utilizing Axio Learning and Horizon Wimba to deliver course content when he is unable to be physically present in the classroom. In another application of technology, he is using Axio Learning and Wimba in a collaborative project with Iowa State University where he co-teaches an ISU section of English Composition while in his classroom at K-State at Salina. The ISU professor returns the favor and between the two they co-teach and co-assess during live, real time interactions between the two classes which are hundreds of miles apart.

Investigating ways to assess Axio Learning Management Systems as blended courses at Colby Community College

Through the development and progression of information technologies, traditional education has moved increasingly into new realms of pedagogical dispersion. At Colby Community College, the introduction of AXIO Learning Management Systems, used as blended courses, allows students to choose how, when, and where to learn. But, in spite of the technologically focused advancements in learning, the process of assessment and evaluation is still bound in tradition and is a topic that does not generate consistent results or protocol. Therefore, this study investigates ways to assess blended courses, with consideration to both formative and summative assessment protocol.

Dr. Angie Rivenshield

Dr. Angie Rivenshield is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Math and Science and Director of Agronomy at Colby Community College. She is also a Beta tester for the AXIO/iStep Learning Management System. She received her Bachelor of Science in wildlife bilogy and horticultural science from Virginia Tech University, and both her Master of Science and Ph.D. in Edaphology and curriculum analysis and development from Cornell University. She has been a two-year recipient of the National Science Foundation's Environmental Inquiry Research Fellowship, has presented several seminars on soil degradation and environmental remediation, including a paper to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control on Carbon Sequestration. Dr. Rivenshield has been working with distance education and e-learning platforms since 2001 when she helped develop a distance education course in grafting for the Department of Environmental Horticulture at Cornell University. She has also been involved in various post-doctoral projects in e-learning and student centered learning through University of Florida, Purdue University, and private industry. Currently, she is in the process of picking up a second master of science in forensic toxicology and certifications in environmental forensics and drug chemistry.

Using a course message board to promote active learning and practical application of content in a veterinary anatomy course.

This presentation will focus on the use of the message board to increase participation and higher-level thinking in a veterinary comparative anatomy course, through posting of clinical case questions and application questions to which students can respond for extra credit. Results include high participation rate, evidence of students doing research to respond, generation of follow-up questions by the students, and opportunity for the instructor to identify student misconceptions.

Dr. Judy Klimek

Dr. Judy Klimek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Physiology at Kansas State University. She is interested in the relationship between spatial ability and performance in gross anatomy, and teaches courses in canine gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, veterinary embryology and comparative gross anatomy. She is also a member and former coordinator of the planning committee for the Faculty Exchange for Teaching Excellence, a group that hosts teaching and learning-related programs and workshops for K-State faculty and staff.

Dr. Klimek has given presentations at the Purdue University Department of Basic Medical Sciences, the annual meetings of the American Association of Veterinary Anatomists and the American Association of Anatomists, the KSU annual teaching retreats, and the Texas A&M University Department of Anatomy and Public Health. She has also received an award for excellence in teaching from the veterinary class of 1997 at Purdue University and an award for outstanding teaching by a non-faculty member from the veterinary student classes at Purdue University.