Empowering Faculty to Broaden Learning Boundaries Making the

“Empowering Faculty to Broaden Learning Boundaries: Making the Technology Transparent" John Arpino: Manager Audio-Visual Design and Engineering Yordanos Baharu: Director, Instructional Technologies Lab Eric Alvarado: Director of Academic Technologies

George Washington University • Main campus – Foggy Bottom – – Located in Washington, DC Approximately 100 buildings on a 5 x 5 grid Less than 4 blocks from the White House Next door to IMF/World Bank and State Department • 27, 000 FTE – 20, 000 students (50% undergraduate and 50% graduate and professional students) – 3, 000 faculty – Of the 20, 000 students, 8, 000 are residents • Major medical center • Many other smaller campuses in the region

Technology @ GW • Decentralized IT infrastructure – Information Systems and Services • Primarily networking backbone, enterprise applications – Academic Technologies • Primarily classroom and lab technology – Other localized technology support for colleges with university

Academic Technologies @ GW • Approximately 50 FTE across three campuses • Over 100 classrooms equipped with technology • Over 20 computer classrooms/labs • Multiple Virtual LANs within each classroom and computer lab – 1 dedicated for IT; 1 dedicated for AV

Academic Technologies @ GW • • Hosts a virtualized server environment Centralized Help Desk – Solutions Center Tiered support for both AV and IT Internal design and install groups for both AV and IT • Certified AV and IT staff

Academic Technologies @ GW • In-house application developers and multimedia designers • Dedicated instructional design team • Independent instructional development lab • In-house media development suites • ISP Hosted CMS – Blackboard – In-house development of multiple applications

Academic Technologies @ GW • Initiates the Faculty workstation refresh program • Initiates the Student workstation initiative program • i. Tunes U school • Campus-wide deployment of: – Course response system – Turning Point – Lecture capture system – Colonial. Cast

DRILLDOWN OF BLACKBOARD@ GW

• ASP Hosted • 6 App Servers RAC Db Server. • Tier 2 BC setup at a different datacenter. (RTO 24 hrs RPO 12 hrs)

Bb Usage Metrics

Blackboard Login Metrics Fall 2008 Unique Logins*/day Average 9743 MAX 13118 MIN** 2992 Dec-08 106, 584 Nov-08 262, 791 Oct-08 324, 433 Sep-08 293, 969

Academic Technologies Goal • Empowering faculty • Create an environment that users can readily master without the need to learn new software or interfaces for each task. • Is not about learning to use technology. It’s about using technology to learn. • Minimal disruptions to teaching and learning

Academic Technologies Solution • Create Networked Learning Environment using a courses management system (Blackboard) as the HUB for all course related activities. • Create a common user experience that seamlessly incorporates other learning applications.

Networked Learning Environment

Why Blackboard? • That is where the users are – over 10, 000 Unique Logins/day – 65% of all courses use Blackboard. – Over 19, 000 student have an active course in Bb • Maximize the Learning Environment by making use of available API’s

Academic Technologies Implementation • Four Major Components – Blackboard – i. Tunes U – Colonial Cast – Classroom Technology infrastructure • “State of the art” equipment • Dedicated AV network • Centrally hosted server environment

The Blackboard Piece • Two Pieces – Single sign-on for users – i. Tunes U course site creation and management (the management component is still in development)

Single Sign-On

The i. Tunes U Piece (What Makes GW Different) • • • Single Sign-On via Blackboard Course creation and scheduling via Blackboard In-house administration application Top 20 authenticated i. Tunes U site 27 classrooms able to automatically capture vodcasts using Echo 360

History of i. Tunes U at GW Year 1

History of i. Tunes U Year 2

History of i. Tunes U Current

i. Tunes U Growth

i. Tunes U Administration App • Easy to govern a user’s access • One stop shop for help desk and support • Course management and creation

i. Tunes U Admin App Add Faculty

i. Tunes U Admin App Edit Site Content

i. Tunes U Admin App A Deeper Look

Automated Course Capture (Colonial Cast) • Apreso System (Fall 2006) – Audio only – In-house development of file upload to i. Tunes U • Apreso System (Spring 2007) – Enhanced Podcast (audio and VGA) • Echo 360 (Fall 2008) – Appliance based model – Vodcast (audio with full motion VGA)

Echo System Architecture

Vodcast Example

Distance Learning Classroom Capture • Built 2 classrooms for Project Management Spring 2007 (video, VGA, and audio) • Moved to streaming and i. Tunes U delivery Fall 2007 • Expanded to 5 classrooms and two other Business School Programs Fall 2008 (more advance cameras, and mic solution)

Full Rich Media Classroom Capture • See video

Our Future Plans Fall 2009 • • • Soft quotas for i. Tunes U More expanded user roles Course management tools Auto-scheduling of captures i. Tunes U site redesign Expand to other campuses More user feedback Additional in-house developed Bb tools And much more…

Conclusions • As you eliminate barriers and make technology transparent, adoption rates go up. • i. Tunes U downloads – Increase of 658. 59% from Spring 07 to Fall 07 – Increase of 36. 31% from Spring 08 to Fall 08 • Growth (Total Students enrolled in i. Tunes U courses) – Increase of 380. 95% from Spring 07 to Fall 07 – Increase of 106. 65% from Spring 08 to Fall 08 • Student driven requests • Faculty driven requests • ECAR Report data – 62% of respondents stated they do not skip classes when materials from course lectures are available online

Faculty Quote It is abundantly clear that i. Tunes U represents one of the best possible ways for us to augment and enhance the sometimes all-too-familiar classroom experience in the future. In a world in which knowledge in nearly all subjects is expanding at an astounding pace, participation in i. Tunes U will provide instructors with an innovative means for including more information and employing better ways to convey it in the future. Richard P. Tollo Associate Professor of Geology 1997 Trachtenberg Teaching Price Recipient

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