Faculty at Empire State College / SUNY share ways they use innovative technologies to build community and they share how they have worked to support each other's efforts.
2. Purpose of today’s Meeting
Online courses can be isolating experiences (Vesely, Bloom &
Sherlock, 2007).
Presenters encouraging community among students using various
e-tools to support a social networks.
Efforts facilitated by sharing of experiences and varying
perspectives across programs.
Presenters will share struggles and victories that allowed them to
move beyond isolation in course-development.
Some of the ideas explored: virtual-reality meetings, discussion
boards, student-created video, virtual forensic lab
Vesely, P., Bloom, L., Sherlock, J. (2007). Key Elements of Building Online
Community: Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions. Journal of Online
Learning and Teaching. 3(3).
3. Agenda
Introductions – to topic and to speakers
Virtual platform – shared space, student training, research
Used for knowledge development with high-stakes ePortfolio
Used for synchronous student discussion on literacy in K12
Student-created, video sharing
Active desktop / virtual lab space
Shared procurement of graphic server (in progress)
Lab space, under development
Collaborative faculty support for new learning environments
Victories & challenges
4. Virtual Reality Environments at ESC
■ Second Life - 2006; cost became prohibitive (up to $600 for 2 islands)
■ Since 2013, open source islands:
– $20 per month for 4 island; less stable (perhaps)
– Islands can be preconfigure and/or custom developed
– Island rental includes the server space
■ Students / visitors
– Download a viewer
– Get a free avatar
– Follow directions for speech and text
5. Community / Context
•Presence & collaboration
•Simulates reality & known
communication needs
Integrating / Scheduling
•Extend a course or activity
•Thread with meetings
•Info and items can remain
Assessment / Evaluation
•Similar to classroom or a
conference review; examine the
content and the process
The “experience”/
motivation
•Predesign location,
“curriculum” or meeting plan
•Secure immersive buy-in
•What makes this interaction
important?
Place /
location
Instructor creates a learning
experience – from meetings to
role playing to shared activities
– as in any learning environment
Designing for learning
6. Developing knowledge of high-stakes ePortfolio –
launched w/ instructor presentation
Publication in press on outcome of class
Eileen O’Connor eileen.oconnor@esc.edu
13. • Empire State College, Information Technology Services will provide
MSIT students a virtual access to the ESC Academic Resource Network
Virtual Machine (ARN/VM). The program also uses the college’s state
of the art virtual desktop for course activities, such as forensic
investigation.
• The lab will provide technology tools accessible to students.
• There will be no requirement from students to install software related
to particular operating system that students might have.
• ARN/VM for both instructor and students provide a mechanism that
enables anyone to bring their own device and sign in the virtual lab,
whether Max or PC, with Internet connectivitity.
14. Digital Forensic Investigation Tools
• Difficulty to be in any centralized physical labs
• Download Tools to the students’ computers
17. The college provides
students a web browser
link to access
the college
Virtual Machines or
Virtual Desktop, with pre-installed digital forensics
tools
https://escarn-web.esc.edu An Instance of Virtual
Desktop
22. For Further Discussion or Consultation
Hope Sun – Hope.Sun@esc.edu
Jelia Domingo – Jelia.Domingo@esc.edu
Eileen O’Connor – Eileen.Oconnor@esc.edu
Joe Angiello – Joe.Angiello@esc.edu
Editor's Notes
Highlight the design and context of virtual-reality environments and review ESC’s history with these spaces. Give overview of how they are acquired and how they work
Indicate that the instructional design around using an immersive virtual-reality environment addresses the same issues as when you design any learning environment, face-to-face, online or blended
Explain my use of VR to prepare students for edTPA – publication coming from this; here is the preparing students in a more lecture oriented approach
Here is the breakout sessions that happened – the students then reported back their virtual discussions within the Moodle discussion board area
Empire State College, Information Technology Services will provide MSIT students a virtual access to the ESC Academic Resource Network Virtual Machine (ARN/VM). The program also uses the college’s state of the art virtual desktop for course activities, such as forensic investigation.
Empire State College, Information Technology Services will provide MSIT students a virtual access to the ESC Academic Resource Network Virtual Machine (ARN/VM). The program also uses the college’s state of the art virtual desktop for course activities, such as forensic investigation.
The proposed v-lab will provide technology tools accessible to students. There will be no requirement from students to install software related to particular operating system that students might have. ARN/VM for both instructor and students provide a mechanism that enables anyone to bring their own device and sign in the virtual lab, whether Max or PC, with Internet connectivity.
The instructional content delivery will happen through the college’s course management system and technology infrastructure.
For example, for the computer forensics course, we will build a virtual forensics investigation station. Instead of asking students to install about 6 forensic tools, we provide them a web browser link to access the college Virtual Machines or Virtual Desktop, with pre-installed digital forensics tools. We will provide them with a unified virtual desktop interface, so they can use the virtual lab to complete forensic investigation activities (see. Figure 1 in Appendix B Virtual Lab Forensics Work Station).
In addition to the college technical support, the current project will use Online Learning Evaluation Tool for MSIT Curriculum Development. Rubric for Online Instruction (ROI) developed by California State University, Chico and it is one of their strategic priority to develop and improve high quality learning environment. The ROI tool try to answer what should a quality online course look like and offers a rubric as a framework for an instructor to perform self-assessment.
The Rubric for Online Instruction includes six domains. Each of them has several criteria associated with three ranks: basic or baseline, effective, and exemplary. The rubric can be used as a bi-directional process: course self-evaluation and road map to design new course. The current V-Lab project will use this road map to design and develop high quality of the new courses at the exemplary level of domains.
In the Computer Forensic course, there will be a lot of hands on activities to perform digital forensic investigation, and several forensic tools are required for the course activities. However, graduate students in the online program have had difficulty to be in any centralized physical labs. So many forensic tools need either to be installed or downloaded to the students’ computers, even they are in distance online courses.
For example, for the computer forensics course, we will build a virtual forensics investigation station. Instead of asking students to install about 6 forensic tools, we provide them a web browser link to access the college Virtual Machines or Virtual Desktop, with pre-installed digital forensics tools. We will provide them with a unified virtual desktop interface, so they can use the virtual lab to complete forensic investigation activities
The program also uses the college’s state of the art virtual desktop for course activities
The proposed v-lab will provide technology tools accessible to students. There will be no requirement from students to install software related to particular operating system that students might have. ARN/VM for both instructor and students provide a mechanism that enables anyone to bring their own device and sign in the virtual lab, whether Max or PC, with Internet connectivity.