1a. An understanding of the constraints and benefits of different technology.
Description
When the Covid-19 pandemic required moving our campus to remote online delivery in a very short window of time, our small team had to make decisions about our offerings in order to streamline the support, which forced me to reflect on the different tools we support and our ability to support them at scale. While I enjoy supporting use of WordPress and other open-web tools, as well as communications options like Mattermost, for course delivery for committed and enthusiastic instructors, our team had to rationally review the scale of the problem we were facing: on a campus with a faculty complement of approximately 500, approximately half had never extensively used the supported digital tools, and a third had never logged in to any of these services at all.
As a result, we scaled back our offerings dramatically, moving all courses into the Learning Management System (we use Moodle) and focusing our training on getting faculty up-to-speed with this one tool. The LMS has no shortage of limitations, particularly when it comes to an open pedagogy approach to teaching and learning, but it also is a scalable tool: its limitations became an advantage for us as we scaled up to a full-campus online experience with only one week prep time.
This was very much a case of recognizing the different strengths across our technology offerings and framing the most effective, scalable suite of tools we could in a very short space of time.
We also learned to make quick changes on the fly. In the initial Moodle support shell, we downplayed the use of the Quiz tool, for example. Our system administrator was not sure that our server would hold up to a lot of simultaneous Quiz traffic, and our team had a range of pedagogical objections to its use given the stress levels of students and the anxiety among faculty about academic integrity. However, as we determined the server could handle the load and reckoned with faculty demand, I developed support sessions about how to use the Quiz tool responsibly, given the constraints we were under (eg. all exams are effectively open book and collaborative in this context, give a large window within which students can choose their best time to write, etc.).
Evidence
Brian Lamb and I discuss the limitations of Moodle and our decision to lean heavily on it in the transition in our “So You Hate Moodle” workshop. The audio and slides, as well as additional resources, for that session are archived here.
[Screenshots and samples from the Moodle pivot materials TK.]
Reflection
Of all the challenges that came with the pandemic, choosing the lean heavily on the LMS resulted in the greatest learning and professional growth for me. I have long been an uncompromising advocate of learning on the open web — even my initial job talk at TRU centred such open and accessible tools — and it was hard for me to acknowledge scale and support over pedagogy in our decision-making process. The benefit has been that my mastery of Moodle has
While I think we made the right — and probably only — decision we could have made at the time, and I remain proud of the robust suite of supports we built in a short period of time, I’m very aware that our reliance on Moodle was difficult on our math and science faculty, who don’t like the tools built into Moodle for teaching math, particularly for demonstrating and working through problem sets. Part of this oversight comes from the limitation in my own background (I am much more comfortable supporting discussions, creative work, and practicums), but I’m learning to fold more conceptions of teaching into my thinking. I have devoted a significant amount of my professional development time this summer to learning about available open tools for math and science teachers so that I have a more robust suite of suggestions for fall term.
1b. Technical knowledge and ability in the use of Learning Technology.
Description
I had never supported any Learning Management System before arriving at TRU, and I had never used Moodle as a teacher before arriving, either (my previous institution used Blackboard, and I avoided it). One of my most significant accomplishments in my first year in this role has been mastering Moodle to the point that I can offer quick and efficient faculty support, but also that I have informed opinions about changes, improvements, and features, and can advocate for the needs of faculty with our system administrator.
In addition to working with the LMS, I am comfortable working in WordPress; my experience began with building course blogs for my own teaching, and now I create persistent resources for our workshop offerings and templates for some of our programs to use in their teaching. I like working with WordPress because, philosophically, I appreciate open tools, and I appreciate the opportunity to be flexible and play with aesthetics. I’m also interested in ways to co-opt the vernacular of the internet — memes and GIFs — for educational purposes, particularly as a means of allowing students to provide feedback.
I am developing facility with PressBooks and H5P, and am currently the project lead for a grant from BCCampus to improve and enhance an existing OER textbook with H5P activities as part of BC’s Open Homework System project. I have also co-developed and co-facilitated workshops on H5P, and H5P integration with PressBooks, on my campus.
Evidence
From my 2020 Annual Professional Activities Report:
According to the data logged by the Web Help Desk software, I was the responding tech on 863 tickets between 21 August (my first day on the desk) and 27 June (the day I am compiling this data). For reference, in this period we received 2064 tickets total, so I resolved 42% of the support tickets filed since my first day in the role.
[After the onset of Covid-19] I took the lead in defining the campus support response and also have done the lionshare of the hands-on support and programming (for example, we received 1155 tickets between 15 March and 27 June 2020, and I was the responding tech on 545 of them, or 47%; the next most active tech answered 155, or 12%).
Some of my favourite resources I have developed for workshops include our Podcasting resource (with video production by Jon Fulton) and the Memes and GIFs workshop I gave to third-year Publishing student at Simon Fraser University. I also built the BC Academic Integrity Network website, and I maintain their email listserv as well.
I’ve recently begun building portfolio sites in WordPress for use in our Teaching English as a Second Language program and in some of our single-credit credential programs in Global Competency and Environmental Sustainability. I particularly enjoy these projects because they give me a chance to run workshops with students about how to make the best use of WordPress.
Before arriving at TRU, I built many WordPress course blogs for hybrid-delivery courses; this is one surviving example. I also played with tools like Tumblr to encourage students to review the course in memes and GIFS; two examples remain on the open web under the handles FanCultSab and LegsSoHottUFryAnEgg.
This is a link to the press release from BCCampus about our grant project. I have also co-developed H5P resources with Jamie Drozda, like this PressBook.
Reflection
I came to my role as Coordinator, Educational Technology with a very limited technological background: I could build a website and was comfortable problem-solving and playing with new tools, but there’s much more I don’t know than that I do. I was anxious moving into a role requiring so much day-to-day technical support, because I have really never been in such a position before.
In many ways, the most significant achievement of my first year in this role is learning Moodle. It’s an achievement I often lose sight of, because it has become such a quotidian part of my workflow, but I had never logged into Moodle before my first day at TRU, and I quickly – thanks to the excellent training of Jamie Drozda and hours of self-study – became proficient at faculty support. Through Covid, I have led our support response, and I rarely encounter an issue I cannot quickly resolve. Having never supported a Learning Management System before, I am pleased with how much I enjoy the day-to-day engagement with faculty and the problem-solving that this work entails.
As I gain competency in the technical components of this role, I am becoming a more useful colleague — I am better able to communicate faculty needs to our Learning Technology Group as I better understand the contexts in which we work. As a small example, I recently raised the need for a toll-free call-in number (rathe than one local to campus) for our videoconferencing audio bridge for remote learners; we have since secured a 1-800 number and will be implementing this feature in our next server update for Big Blue Button. I look forward to more opportunities to help improve the suite of offerings for faculty and students.
1c. Supporting the deployment of Learning Technology.
Description
When I arrived at TRU, we were in the process of implementing Kaltura, and I was particularly excited about captioning. I am a passionate advocate for accessible video, and I was eager to develop workshops for faculty that would help them to see captioning as a necessary component of their workflow, rather than a nice-to-have extra.
However, our initial installation of Kaltura had nearly unusable machine captioning.
Evidence
[I don’t know what to use here! Emails between me and Troy? The screenshots I took when testing it?]
Reflection
This was my first opportunity to test and then advocate for improvement to a service.