Legend:
- Assignment: bold indicates assignment
- Recommendations: italics
Attendance:
- Lorraine Beaudin, Beth Cormier, Ken Heidebrect, Scott Powell, Sandra Dixon
- Regrets: Craig Loewen, Lance Grigg, Jeffery MacCormack, Jeff Meadows (Teaching Centre)
Review of Terms of Reference
- The committee reviewed the Terms of Reference
Reports
Chair (Lorraine):
- Beth and Lorraine met with the Edwin rep to discuss the potential of the Faculty engaging in a pilot project. Nelson Canada has developed an ‘ecosystem’ for teachers/students to access. They are presently looking for Faculties of Education to engage in their pilot study.The list of AB schools participating is listed below (email from Andrea Philips). The pilot study includes free use of the Edwin ecosystem and hardware for students (laptops). No financial commitment after the pilot study. Lorraine and Beth both support engaging in a pilot study. Please see the email below.
- Action: Lorraine to meet with ED3508 instructors to discuss.
- Marlo met with Jesse Sadlowski from District 51 to discuss the technology that the district is using and how our student teachers can use that technology. It was a positive meeting and for the most part, student-teacher access is already in place with the exception of Powerschool for grading (the Streaming services are being explored). An important outcome of the visit was to encourage the IT district leader to keep the needs of student teachers in mind going forward. Marlo is planning to meet with other local districts.
- Rob Horlacher reached out to the Faculty. (Instructional Design Specialist at the University Library and the main point of contact for the Project Sandbox initiative at the Library). He wanted to know the following:
- What would the ideal number of Makey Makeys be to support your classes? (They currently have 4, and they were used in 3508 this year as part of a Maker Space activity).
- In addition, are there any other pieces of technology that would support your classroom environments, for example, Ozobots, Google Cardboard, or others?
- The committee discussed the challenge with Faculty members signing out equipment from the Sandbox project (limited loan periods). However, there was a consensus that having a place to store and keep track of tech tools is an important and challenging consideration for the Faculty. The committee agreed that both Faculty members and students need to have access to the tech tools, but it is not reasonable for Faculty members to be keeping track of the materials. Historically, Kevin Orr and Scott Powell would be keeping track of these resources. The committee discussed possibilities for using either the Sandbox project and/or the Curriculum Lab as a logical place to store materials.
Technology Support Report (Scott):
- Scott gave an overview of the Faculties computer rotation.
- Discussion on current computer rotation and the potential for changing the current process of laptops going to student laptop carts.
- Lorraine suggested we survey faculty members who use the laptop cart to identify how often students are using the technology.
- Action: Lorraine asked Scott to talk with Carol and Craig to ask about if there is currently a policy for replacing Faculty members’ laptops/computers
- Action: Lorraine and Scott to create a short survey to gather info regarding use of laptop carts.
Teaching Centre (Jeff):
- The Agility Zone is now open (on a limited basis) for student use. We have hosted each section of Educ 3508 this fall in the space, so the students in PS I are familiar with space and how to access it. We are hoping to have full student access online in January.
- Those of you making use of Moodle this Fall have probably noticed a higher than usual number of outages/incidents. Unfortunately, IT has had some infrastructure problems that have been plaguing them this fall and this has impacted Moodle the most significantly. They are aware of the issues and working on a solution to the problems. As of yet we have no solid ETA on a complete solution to the problems though.
- We have recently hired a Blended and Online Learning Coordinator (on a 2 year term contract). This position has been created in order to help identify the blended and online learning that is currently being offered on campus and to help chart a course forward for the Institution. Kristi Thomas has reached out to a number of people around campus to interview them and find out what they are doing in their respective blended and online course offerings. We are hoping to work directly with a faculty member to assist in building out a supported online course for the Fall to see what this might look like. We will be presenting our findings and recommendations back to the University once we have them.
Items for Information
- NA
Items for Action
Adjudication of Technology Innovation Fund Proposal
- Two proposals were reviewed. Both approved, then ranked. Marlo’s proposal for a 360 camera and equipment was approved.
Action: Lorraine was assigned to inform Marlo of the committee's decision and cc Scott and Carol.
Next Meeting: Via Zoom at 10 am
- February 13
- April 28