eLearning Frenzy

July 13, 2016 8:30 – 10:15am
Venetian E & F

Rapid panel with AWS and IBM talking about to hosting partnership:
Peter George SVO Product Development and Support Cloud Services
Mark Ryland Chief Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services
Brenda Harvey General Manager Global Tech Services IBM

What does partnership mean and who does it affect?
2 major goals. Continue to improve service by bringing in experts and raise our game.  Picking premier cloud platform.  It means nothing will change immediately.  Partners coming into help us operate what we have today.  Overtime leveraging more and more of the amazon cloud.

Security & Privacy – How partnership enhances this?
Security is highest priority with Amazon.  It is safe, is it secure?  Yes. Enhance security posture by using high scale, automation and built in capabilities.  Ratio between security engineers and servers under mgmt is good. Operate under wide range of compliance regimes…Continuous 3rd party auditing (credit card industry, federal government) Good customer track record.

With IBM security, privacy and data compliance are the highest priority.  IBM brings security solutions and expertise.

What does Transition look like?

Transition has started and is well underway.  Datacenter consolidation and process operations is underway.  Phase 1 is IBM is operating what we have currently.  Phase 2 – SaaS applications move into amazon cloud.

Student Success: Knowing your Learner (Panel)

Dr. Darcy Hardy – Assoc. Vice President Blackboard
Dr. Michael Moore – VP of Academic Affairs University of Arkansas system
Col. Steven Delvaux – Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Army University
Julie Young – CEO Global Personalized Academics Founder of Florida Virtual School

What did we used to do before we got here?
(Moore: eVersity – adult leaner centric building university from ground up.)
Talk to your students (old school 😉
Delvaux: Army – ASVAB  (how army used to do it) also battery of medical tests.
Young: current – Global Personalized learning – how we used to do it: Dial-up..Data on a spreadsheet and best friend was a telephone.  Knowing leaner’s voice/parents. All about the relationships.

How do you use data now/plan to use data to know your learners?

Young – Lots of data – data can be noise (data literacy-how do you use it) use for Teacher evaluation/teacher support – to see how students are doing.
Moore – Leveraging data appropriately so as not to encouraging “opt out” by students.
Dalvaux: Focus on cognitive data to see if courses are contributing to competency skills etc. Have to be better and more efficient.  Using data to be individualized, adapted and accelerated in training.

How can we use data as we develop programs for students in a disadvantaged situation? (lower socio-economics)

Yes – identify students early on and catch them before they slip through the cracks.  Looking at admission data (ability to pay etc). Data can also level the playing field so that education is not determined on your zip code. Virtual Education.

 What innovations are you seeing around the use of data?

Getting data from where students stop focusing so that we can determine how to better engage. Transformation Learning (using gaming principles) tapping into analytics of when folks dropout.  You can predict success of students before class starts (1st week/zero week strategies) Helping identify if certain objects are supporting learning outcomes of course.  learning pathways – how do we need to present knowledge to encourage success.  Does that vary from student to student.   How do your blackboard login activities compare to your classmates?

What do we know about learners based on data?

Kids will reinvent themselves online (flourish).  Kids have the capability to do more than we give them credit for given the right engagement.  They will go much deeper online if they are engaged.  If we create models that give learners the opportunity to bring what they do outside of school into the classroom and give them credit for that it makes school more relevant.

If you unleash and empower the learners, then the sky is the limit.  Don’t limit your students.

Data has confirmed that time on task matters and that early intervention matters.  Helps in combatting faculty assumptions about student/adult leaners. Some students just want to get through…the a is not the goal.

How do you merge necessity of extracurricular experience with the competency sought in the classroom?  how do you blend it?

Venn diagram (training/education/experience). Importance of career competencies.  Diversity training, team leader.

How do you change the culture of faculty and instructors to accept the use of data in their courses to improve student success?

Training/Development – show them the value of the data and how it can help them. Answer depends on institution.  How can the learning in classroom be improved?