Any college or university, large or small, faces challenges with assisting faculty in their use of educational technology. Faculty often prefer one-on-one sessions with professionals in teaching and learning centers, but doing so often poses significant scheduling challenges and strains available resources. Accordingly, professional staff in the educational technology field often find themselves trying to balance the preferences and needs of faculty against what can be reasonably provided without detracting from other areas of staff responsibility. This session will address these challenges from the perspectives of both a large public institution and a small private institution. Regardless of size, the challenges remain quite similar for both contexts, and incorporating needs assessment and technology usage analytics can go a long way in making decisions. After this session, attendees will leave with new ideas for faculty development along with innovative strategies for incorporating needs assessment and data analytics.

1. Developing Educational Technology
Resources for Faculty
Daniel Facchinetti, University of Connecticut
Kaitlin Walsh, University of Saint Joseph

2. Who We Are
University of Connecticut
- Public institution, high research
- Fall 2018 enrollment: 32,257
- 23,978 UG, 8,279 GR
- Over 2,000 FT Faculty
- Based on main campus in Storrs, but also responsible
for LMS faculty support (teaching & learning) for four
regional campuses and UCHC
University of Saint Joseph
- Private Catholic institution, just went co-ed this year
- Fall 2018 enrollment: 2,463
- 901 UG, 1,314 GR, 248 Professional
- About 140 FT Faculty
- Based on main campus in West Hartford, but also
responsible for faculty support at School of Pharmacy
in Hartford.

3. Something we have in common...

4. What We Came Into
Dan - UConn
- Educational Technology Office (dept. w/in
CETL)
- Separate from UConn central IT, but work very
closely with LMS Admin team
- Two professional full-time staff - teaching and
learning w/ technology
- 3-5 student workers (usually one scheduled at
main desk 9am-4pm)
- Answer routine questions, assist with
standard faculty support
- Previous LMS specialist had retired; role was
re-written with slightly different
responsibilities, and more emphasis on faculty
development and workshops.
Kaitlin - USJ
- Teaching and Learning Center
- Formerly a division of IT, now under Provost
- Work with IT to support ed tech
- Department of one, sometimes with a student
worker or GA
- Role rewritten before I started, so people were
expecting something different
- Wearing many hats - Because of this, people
ask for everything

5. Our Responsibilities
Dan - LMS Faculty Development Specialist
- Manage day-to-day faculty support for HuskyCT
(Blackboard LMS)
- Other educational technology issues
handled by colleague
- Conduct faculty workshops throughout the
semester on using LMS as part of teaching
- Topic-focused
- Regular sessions
- Shorter-term course design and course
management projects
- Develop and maintain online support resources
(websites, documentation, etc.)
- Evaluate new products, software, applications,
etc. - new technologies in general
Kaitlin - Instructional Designer, USJ
● Train faculty on educational technologies
(Blackboard, lecture capture, etc.)
● Work with IT to run Blackboard, Echo360
● Course design
● Emphasis on online learning
○ Quality Matters
○ Oversee Online Taskforce
● Support faculty on research and service
● Other types of faculty development (preparing
for P&T, diversity and inclusion, etc.)

6. “I just have a quick question...”

7. Ed Tech by the
numbers...
Workshops
~140 workshops per year
~500 attendees (faculty, staff,
graduate/teaching assistants)
One-on-one consultations
~80 (just Dan)
~150 others w/ Ed Tech staff
Day-to-day support (“Help!” or “How do I…?”)
~5000 phone calls per year
~3000 emails per year
- Average call time is ~20 mins., but longer
calls are not unusual.
- Time spent on any help request can range
from 5 minutes to all day.

8. Ed Tech Student
Staff
Training
- Learning the LMS (and other ed tech platforms), and
then learning how to listen, apply knowledge,
evaluate/troubleshoot, and explain resolutions.
- Setting out specific topics to learn
- Shadowing experienced staff
- Sitting down to explain, then review, particular
topics or aspects of LMS and ed tech generally
- Defining training outcomes, i.e., how do I know they’ve
learned what they need to know?
- Challenge questions
- Evaluation scenarios
General Duties
- Day-to-day support (phones & email)
- Some one-on-one meetings (routine assistance and
issues)
- Basic workshops

9. Sample Scenario “I am a professor from Speech, Language, and
Hearing Sciences teaching a 160 student class. I will
be using BlockDown browser for all my exams (I am
very familiar with it), but I am not familiar in building
exams where blackboard randomly selects a set of
questions from a test bank.
I have attached a power point that described exactly
what I need.
I would very much appreciate if I can have a
conversation with you or a video conference to learn
how to do this.”

11. Student Staff
Training
Sample Questions
Requesting courses/copying courses/combining
courses:
- Where do instructors request courses?
- How does an instructor get content copied from
a past course?
- How far back can an instructor get content
copied from?
- How does an instructor get sections combined?
- Who can request courses? Copies?
Combinations?

12. Student Staff
Training
Sample Scenario
An instructor is teaching a course and wants to use
content from another instructor’s course? How does
that work and what do you tell them?

13. Student Staff
Training
Sample Questions
Uploading final grades
- Where would you find detailed instructions to
send them on how to upload final grades?
- Can instructors upload all grades at once? How
do they do that?
- What happens when an instructor needs to give
a student an incomplete?

14. Managing Online
Support Resources
Educational Technologies and HuskyCT Websites
“Instructor Help” and “Student Help” w/in LMS

15. UConn Online Resources

16. Workshops LMS Sessions
- HuskyCT Basics - Intro and Overview for New
Instructors
- Assessments & Assignments in HuskyCT
- Fostering Collaboration Online with HuskyCT
- HuskyCT Grade Center Basics
- Developing and Building Tests, Surveys, and
Pools in HuskyCT
- Keep It Simple: Organizing Course Materials in
HuskyCT
Other Ed Tech Sessions
- Pedagogy and Effective Use of Technology
- Create Videos for Your Class
- Using iClickers (Student Response Systems)
- DIY Intro to Closed Captioning

17. Workshop Scheduling & Tracking

18. Needs Assessment

19. Analytics & Usage
Data

20. Challenges - We have good workshop attendance, but
UConn has a lot of faculty and grad students,
and many people do not come to workshops.
- Tenured/tenure-track (full professor, assoc. prof.,
asst. prof.)
- Non-tenure track
- Asst./Assoc. Prof.-in-Residence
- Instructor-in-Residence
- Visiting
- Clinical
- Adjuncts
- Graduate/Teaching Assistants
- Some people still do the same thing they did 5-
10 years ago.
- We can’t always fix Blackboard issues right
away. Often need to wait for patches or
updates.

21. Our Strategies Tracking it the old-fashioned way…

22. Try it first ● Wait!
● Helping faculty to solve independently first
● Send written instructions
● Connect with colleagues who are using the tool
● Focus on the benefits - “Teach a man to fish”

23. Training the Front
Lines
PowerPoint: Supporting Blackboard Help Requests

25. Going to Where
They Are
● Department meetings - 15-20 minute
tips/reminders
● Special department-specific workshops
○ Regular topics: Grade Center, Collaborate
○ Specific topics: Making up class time, managing
file sizes
● Deans’ Meetings
● Reaching out to chairs
● Posting tips in the Campus Update
● Digital Signage

26. Paper works!

27. “Your Time, Your
Training”

28. Module 0 for students

29. Putting It All Together

30. Questions?
Thank you!