Digital Accessibility: The Partnership between Vendors and Institutions

March 1, 2019.Reading time 16 minutes.

For the past year, OLC and WCET have been partnering to better inform our memberships on better meeting student and faculty needs for accessibility. Kelly Hermann, University of Phoenix, and Cyndi Rowland, WebAIM, have provided us with tremendous guidance, including posts and webinars on the topic. Today, Kelly provides the latest in our joint accessibility […]

ED Negotiated Rulemaking: First Reactions and a Preview

January 14, 2019.Reading time 27 minutes.

Set of guiding princples in a list: Fairness to all students. Incentivize, don’t punish, institutions for being innovative. Transform quality assurance standards to rely on educational outcomes. Simplify regulations around financial aid program eligibility requirements. Protect student and federal financial aid investments.

A fond welcome and thank you to Van Davis, Foghlam Consulting, for his analysis of what will be discussed in the U.S. Department of Education’s rulemaking process, which begins this week. As you will see, there sure is a lot on their plate! With WCET’s Russ Poulin on one of the subcommittee’s, we will be […]

Developing Effective Courses Using Adaptive Learning Begins with Proper Alignment

September 13, 2017.Reading time 14 minutes.

Similar to the birth of eLearning in the 1990s, the rush to implement adaptive learning has led to the development of poorly designed courses that are not properly aligned and fail to effectively implement the principles of multimedia learning. As a result, many institutions often proclaim their use of adaptive learning as a failure. Much […]

Oh, What’s in a Name? – Definitions of Distance Ed

May 11, 2017.Reading time 12 minutes.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) And by name, I mean definition. And by definition, I mean the definition of distance education. There are a myriad of definitions for “distance education,” “distance education course,” and” distance education […]

The Purdue Acquisition of Kaplan – Background, Opinion, and Questions

April 28, 2017.Reading time 9 minutes.

There was quite a bit of surprise in the higher education world yesterday when Purdue University (a large land-grant university in Indiana) announced that it was essentially acquiring Kaplan University (a large for-profit institution). Lots of questions arise. This blog post includes some facts, opinion, and questions to keep the discussion rolling. Purdue “Purchases” a […]

Lessons Learned as a WCET’er

October 13, 2016.Reading time 6 minutes.

For the last 7.5 years I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best people in technology-enhanced higher education – the WCET staff and members. I am a better person, a better learner, and a better educator because of the experiences I’ve had and the relationships I’ve built through WCET. Since 2008, […]

Lights, Camera, Action! – Developing Faculty in 20 Minutes

September 22, 2016.Reading time 10 minutes.

Change begins with an idea, and in the Instructional Design department at Walters State Community College, we are not afraid of change. We realize that technology is changing our world minute by minute, and by embracing that movement, Walters State continues to be on the cutting edge of the current technology allowing us to offer […]

A Conversation About Today’s Classroom (Three Students, Three Modalities)

May 5, 2016.Reading time 1 minute.

We called for help in getting the voice of students into our blog posts. I want to thank Holly Jean Greene (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) for preparing this video for us with real, live students sharing their experiences. Thank you! Russ Poulin I was curious: How would students describe the classroom of today? As an […]

What I Learned About Adapting Content – Working with Vendors & Publishers

April 13, 2016.Reading time 10 minutes.

So you have decided you want to adapt a course and you are just beginning to learn more about the process and work involved. In this blog post, I will share my personal experience of working through the adaptive process, focusing in on the content issues of working with vendors (adaptive learning platform providers) and […]

Instructional Designers: Instead of Saying “No” to Faculty, Let’s Say “Yes”

March 24, 2016.Reading time 8 minutes.

Instructional design has a problem. I noticed it last summer when I was doing the conference circuit. We have run out of things to say. Keynotes, which are supposed to rally the troops and get us fired up for the day, offer only platitudes. Sessions are dull, lifeless. Birds of a Feather sessions never take flight. Instructional design […]