SoTL Academy by Linda Crockett

By Linda Crockett

What is the significance of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)  approach?  I found out in May when I attended the SoTL Academy in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  This three-day conference is directed toward increasing scholarly practices in teaching.   Much information about the practices of the most accomplished teachers remains private, isolated in a particular classroom or with a particular teacher.  Through public dialogue, and through formulating appropriate questions, this knowledge can be examined and shared publicly for a wider audience of teachers and students.

One example of a SoTL project was demonstrated in a presentation called the “Close-up Classroom.”   The theatre department collaborated with other departments to demonstrate teaching styles as short dramas.  They enacted scenarios in a classroom, using real-life examples from inexperienced teachers. These mini-dramas showed the audience the teaching style and thoughts of the teacher, plus illustrated student thoughts and reactions.  It depicted what it is like to be a new faculty, along with some common pitfalls—all treated with some humor.  This viewing would be a great learning experience for new teachers.

Another presentation described an annual dialogue process at Western Washington University.  Each year, participating faculty and students develop a study question.   The group meets twice per month for discussion.  Sessions are open to all students, faculty, and staff.  Students have the option to register and earn credit by attending all sessions.   The discussion findings are shared at local, national, and international events.   Sample questions that have been formulated include: 

1. What do we mean by reflective learning and how might we strengthen reflective learning practices at WWU? 
2. What if we envisioned the most creative WWU we could imagine?  What would it look like?   
3. How can we engage and connect multiple voices to strengthen WWU as a 21^st-centry liberal arts university? 

An example of SoTL activity at another college included an experiential learning project.  Faculty developed a guidebook to help students to establish group-based service learning projects in the community.   These guidelines gave students  a tool for setting up their projects in a way that would make them valuable contributors in a project .    As service learning opportunities are increasing with the bachelor’s programs, this type of document could serve as a useful tool.

These few examples illustrate the power of SoTL, and the possibilities are open.  SoTL practices would fit nicely with Colorado Mountain College’s community of teachers and learners.  It gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we do best, and expand learning opportunities for the future.

Note: I just found on the web that if you type "ijsotl" into a search engine, you will find a variety of articles from SoTL’s international journal.

Technology Time: An Interview about Promoting independence and Self-Sufficiency for Those with Brain Injuries and Memory Issues

Reposted with permission from CMC-er Alice Bedard-Voorhees. View this posting and others in her blog http://constantlearningorg.blogspot.com Exploring the 21st Century Learning Continuum in Order to Learn, Apply, and Thrive

Blogger's Note About This Collaboratively-Written Post by Alice Bedard-Voorhees and Alice Brouhard: Many thanks to you, Alice Brouhard, for generously sharing your time to talk about work that demonstrates such potential for people with brain injuries and conditions affecting memory, for the review of the technical facts, and additions to this text.

Alice Brouhard, RN and Trainer researches applications and devices and teaches others to use technology to support their independence and self-management. That support comes in the form of IPad, Ipod Touch, smartphones and apps.

While key to learning, self-management is a major component for personal independence. But what happens when a brain injury or other condition impairs memory or other functions related to self-management and communication?

Alice’s expertise evolved from a very personal level. It began about twenty-five years ago when her fully normal five year old daughter was run into by an out-of-control skier on a Colorado ski slope, suffering diffuse brain injury that required multiple brain surgeries, a "cranioplasty" to repair her skull, and left her in a two month-long coma. These injuries rendered her legally blind, with left-side paralysis, and significant cognitive challenges.

As her daughter approached adulthood, Alice started to look to help her daughter be independent based on her expressed desire for independence and the wish to live on her own. In 2005, Alice learned about a customized computer and software, "Visions for Independent Living" with voice prompts delivered in "a terrible voice."

Alice recalled: "We had to buy the totally customized software with timed voice reminders, and picture and audio based task prompting to guide her through her day.  This software required a dedicated computer ('Lucille') just for it and an $800.00 touch screen monitor.  The total cost for all of this was around $5000.00., plus the cost of assistance with some of the initial setup.

"The next software we bought (after we figured out how to use Kara's own voice to record prompts on 'Lucille') was from a company called Ablelink Technologies.  Their system was called 'Voyager.'  It provided the same sort of voice prompts and task prompting that 'Visions' provided.   The cost for 'Voyager' software was greater than $500.00.

"We bought the 'Voyager' software from Ablelink after Kara's initial computer died in 2008.  'Visions' would not run on the Windows 7 computer we had to buy. 'Voyager'/Ablelink was difficult to use initially but I had to learn it out of necessity as Kara was in her own house by then and LIVED by her computer to be successful and self-sufficient."

Over time, Alice worked to design the strategy for a person affected by a brain tumor. AbleLink was loaded on a PDA, a 2008 purchase. They adapted the PDA for that person with reminders. Then the iPod touch came out. They added an external mic to add the voice prompts, and also utilized Notes and Calendar a difference for this person who could read.

Then the iPad 1 came out in 2010, the year she bought an iPod touch. Then the iPad 2 in 2011. With built-in mic and picture capabilities and I was hooked!!!  I bought my iPad that year!  That is when I would go into an Apple store and ask “how do you do this, how do you do that….?" 

Most recently, Alice customized the My Talk app to help a young man communicate the range of feelings he is feeling as the result of loss of eyesight and voice from a long-board accident. She has considered how this application could assist patients who are recovering from strokes and having language issues.

My Talk had the capacity to provide categories of feelings with deeper menus for expressing gradations of those feelings. It allowed both visual and auditory responses.

My Talk also allowed the user to indicate  desired activities.

"I started looking at voice recorders for the person who had had the brain tumor….the iPad had a built in one, but I found easier ones to use. I started Googling Apps with Brain Injuries and started finding apps that 'blew me out of the water.' Then I found a ninety-nine cent app that replaced the original timed-voice prompts. Then AbleLink came up with a fifty dollar app that replaced video/picture/audio prompts. Since then I've been exploring another that may replace it at little or now cost." 

During this ongoing conversation, she mentions a stream of apps, including one called "It's Done"—an app which notifies a caregiver when the supported individual has completed a task.She researches apps for auditory notifications and text notifications, since user capacities vary.

The Touch and Learn—Emotions app can to help a person distinguish and communicate various emotions. For example, a person listens to the word "unhappy" and chooses the picture best showing that emotion. 

She focuses on scheduling/memory, home safety, daily living skills and leisure skills in the apps that she identifies, demos, and uses. Her criteria are for apps that are low cost as possible, ease of set-up, and the ability to individualize it for the needs of the users. She says that in the last seven years, the cost of technologies and apps has decreased from that earlier $5000 price tag to as little as $500.

Aida Reminder allows the individual to create the audio reminders with his or her own voice.

Visual Impact Pro provides voice and text sequences to support accomplishment of day-to-day tasks.

Throughout this process, Alice has communicated with app developers and shares that developers have been very responsive and timely to such input. She also has learned to read the details before updating to understand capability of an app in an upgrade. (Aida Reminder with Voice is an example with the IOS6 upgrade.)

Now Alice is providing workshops to Individuals with disabilities, agencies serving those with disabilities and the aging, OT’s, PT’s and caretakers. Sessions are hands-on to teach others to research the apps and put them on Apple products –iPhone, iPad, iTouch.

A key message she brings to her work is that “we all have to “take time for technology” as it is ubiquitous. To learn to use it is will allow us to utilize it to our advantage, including the elderly and disabled who are often characterized as “too old or not capable of utilizing technology.”

Postscripts:

Alice’s daughter now lives in her own house with webcam technology and her memory supports on an iPad she purchased herself from her own small business endeavors. Alice’s observation is that her daughter has internalized some of the prompts, as evidenced by her starting tasks before the reminders activate.

This discussion has relevance given the number of war veterans returning from duty with signature brain-injuries: Stats for War-Related Brain Injury can be viewed athttps://www.braintrauma.org/tbi-faqs/military-tbi/. It also has great relevance to statistical projections for the development of Alzheimers  and dementia in aging populations. Add to that potential for support for support of Asbergers, and the development of self-management of young adults in various educational situations.

For those of you who wish to contact Alice Brouhard more directly on this topic, she can be reached at taketimefortechnology@gmail.com

My iPad experience with my Paramedic class

My iPad experience with my Paramedic class

by Liz Owen B.S., RN, CCEMT-P 

The Good
I only scratched the surface of what this piece of technology can do.  This year was the first year we tried a hybrid class and I did not get to use the iPad until the last month of the didactic portion.  However, I now believe it is a valuable and much needed piece of equipment to enhance the learning experience. 

First:  I would be able to get rid of the microphone and video camera in the classroom.  This thing does it all and does it much better.  The voice quality is better and the picture quality is better than what we were using.

Second: The new  iPad 3 – You can write on it and share in real time.  Awesome!  If all of my students had an  iPad, we could trade information back and forth and I could see how they were figuring out some of the drip-rate calculations and infusion problems.

Third:  Much easier to do 20 minute tutorials and have students respond and write about what was just presented.  Could do these from home with ease and not even have to be in the classroom.

Fourth:  Easy to use.  I’m a PC user, not a Mac user.  The iPad was easy to use and, like I said, I only scratched the surface. I would love to be able to increase student fees just a bit, load all of their books onto the  iPad  and hand them that piece of technology when they come into the program.  It interfaces well with FISDAP (their clinical, skills, and FI tracking software). 

Fifth:  We took it out of the classroom and went into lab for a demonstration, filmed it with the iPad, and shared it with the folks who were unable to be in class that day.  The video and sound were great and we were all able to communicate quite effectively.

The Bad
Didn’t have it long enough to really experience a downside.  It would have been nice to have the software that worked with Microsoft Word.  I think there were a few applications missing, that could have been purchased, but were not part of the loaner.

The Ugly
The biggest drawback was the lack of CMC support for the iPad.  Their security would not let me interface with Smartboard from CMC’s net.  Guestnet at our facility is down a few times a day on most days.  Not acceptable and definitely frustrating for instructor and students alike. I would think that the technology would be there to fix this issue, but it is not, to date.

iPads can interface with Smartboard with the program doceri.  That worked well.  What didn’t work well was the Guestnet dropping in the middle of a presentation.

The iPad is a useful tool and I’m excited to do more with it in the future.  I believe it to be a tool to enhance learning and participation from our in-class and distance learners, alike. 

As a side note: One of my students used his iPad for taking notes and recording (while in class).  Great study tool and his grades shot up with its use.

Liz Owen B.S., RN, CCEMT-P
Faculty, Paramedic Program
Colorado Mountain College at Edwards

Using an iPad for Biology Courses

Using an iPad for Biology Courses

Thanks, Office of Innovations, for the opportunity to try out an iPad!

It was an excellent experience for me and my students. It was extremely useful for office work as well as classroom explorations and presentations. It was also a highly useful production tool. I was able to use my iPad to make posters, to send letters, to do emails, and write documents.

One of my favorite tools was News360, an app that is free to download. With this tool I was able to share daily news breakthroughs and releases in the popular science arena, as well as get direct links to peer reviewed articles in nature conservation biology. It was easy to use and fun for the students to follow along with me and easily links to our classroom technologies. Here are a few screenshots...

Along with all this I was also able to use iPad to make PowerPoint presentations. To do this I downloaded an app called Keynote, that is part of a suite of apps including Numbers and Pages. These three apps are the equivalent of PowerPoint, Excel, and Word, and I would highly recommend purchasing and downloading these as soon as possible. They are extremely powerful. Here is an example of a poster that I made using iPad for a scientific presentation that I gave at the Denver Botanic Garden for the Society of Ethnobiology Annual Conference:

These iPads would greatly benefit every professor, and I hope we can all get them someday.

Thanks again Office of Innovations and CMC!
 
Shawn Sigstedt
Associate Professor of Biology
Alpine Campus

Nursing Program Faculty Meets the iPad

Office of Innovations graciously offered for me to explore the iPad2 to see if it is a device that would be useful to the CMC Nursing Program.  One of my co-workers had tried to incorporate the device into a hospital clinical setting, and now it was my turn to see what I could do with the device in the classroom setting.

My experience with Apple devices is minimal to none, and likewise, I have little to no experience with tablets.  It took me quite a while to get acquainted with the touch screen and the buttons.  I adapted by watching some youtube videos, which quickly oriented me.  This leads to my first two points (one good and one bad).  The iPad is sleek, beautiful, and easy to navigate.  On the other hand, because of the previous user had different log-in names and because the Innovative Teaching also had a separate log-in, I was unable to access many of the apps.

As I continued to play with the iPad2, I found that surfing the net was fun and exciting.  However, my job was not to play with the iPad, but it was to try to incorporate the device into my classroom.  Again, I googled and searched YouTube for creative ways to implement the iPad into the classroom with few helpful tips.  I also called  the textbook companies that we purchase from, and they only helped me to download the textbook onto the iPad.  I sent out emails to fellow nursing faculty across the country, and I received no helpful tips.

Eventually, I stumbled on a few useful apps for nursing.  One is called Clinical Skills ($4.99) that has short videos about different clinical skills.  This app is for the first year students, and after watching the videos, I found that I could view similar videos on YouTube for free.  Another app that I found cool is called the BP Experience ($0.99) in which the student can learn how to take a manual BP. It is very rudimentary and simple, but it would get the point across for the beginning students.  I like this app because it is hands on and interactive. Here is a snap shot of the screen:



Finally, I found a nice app for free that I enjoyed using called Educreations.  This app allows the instructor to create a presentation using pictures, writing in different colors, and audio.  I created a presentation for my students on the topic of Psychotherapeutic Drugs, only to find out when I was done that I could not export the presentation.  Suzanne had given me an adapter. so that I could plug the iPad into the SmartBoard in the classroom.  When I attempted to present my creation in class, I found out the cord did not transmit the audio portion.  I later found out that there is a separate cable for this.

In summary, I was very impressed with the iPad2 for personal use.  It is very pretty and fun to use to surf the web, check email, participate in Blackboard discussion, etc. At this time, I could not find any apps or programs that make the iPad different then using a laptop or a SmartBoard in class.  The Nursing Program advocates for students to use iPads for personal use, but our program at this time does not see any reason for using them in the classroom.