MEETING MINUTES

Committee on Educational Technology

10:00-11:00 AM, Tuesday, September 18, 2012

MEETING MINUTES

Present: Eric Loehr, Thomas Laughner, Marnie Anderson, Fraser Stables, Joe O’Rourke and Susannah Howe

In accordance with the new CET code, there will be co-chairs of the committee. They will be an elected faculty member and the Director of Educational Technology, Tom Laughner. Marnie Anderson agreed to co-chair and the voting members elected her and thanked her for offering her time.

Aisha Gabriel, ETS staff member who supports faculty outreach, spoke to the committee about the increase in requests for 1 : 1 assistance as well as collaborative work with staff from E.T.S. This fall ETS has planned seminars in positive interactivity and mobile devices in the classroom. Lisa Young, instructional designer, will speak at this seminar which will take place on Tuesday, October 30^th from 4:00 – 5:30 PM in the Paradise Room of the Conference Center. The spring seminar will focus on the concept of the flipped classroom with Barbara Walvoord as the keynote speaker. This concept is one where the lecture is done outside classroom time and class time is used for interactivity. This seminar will be Thursday, February 21^st from 4:00 - 5:30 PM in the Paradise Room of the Conference Center.

Aisha also told the committee that there are currently five learning communities going on: three of them looking at iPads in teaching, one on etextbooks and elearning, and one on collaborative tools.

Joe asked for clarification on the relationship between ETS and Sherrerd Center and Susannah explained that the two areas were working closely and collaboratively.

Tom said that he has been working with IBM on SPSS pricing because the Psychology department is adamant about their continued need to use this specific software. The CET worked with all campus users a couple years ago and agreed to assist in funding SPSS for two years for Psychology. Those two years are now up. ETS would be willing to support SPSS one more year only at $18,000; the Provost’s office would match the $18,000 and Psychology would pay the balance. Joe said that he and Tom would be meeting with the department this week to explain the position that CET & the Provost’s office are taking. Open source software is available for free that are capable of ingesting current data and perhaps the department should consider other options.

Tom said that ETS had done a pilot program of supplying a couple seminar rooms with mini Macs with wireless keyboards and using a display for projection. Faculty feedback and faculty on CET agree that they need time to set up and that is valuable class time used for set up of equipment. It works better to be able to bring in their laptops ready to go and be able to plug in and project in the seminar rooms. Tom thanked them for their input.

Tom had provided the committee with electronic copies of the IT strategic plan, the interactions report, and a status update on the interactions report prior to this meeting. Joe said that Marilyn Schuster had asked him to head an ad hoc committee, a subset of CAP, to take a high view of the interactions report. This committee will be made up of Joe O’Rourke, Tom Laughner, David Gregory, Fraser Stables, Michael Barresi, Bob Buchelle, and Dana Leibsohn.

One issue that they will be looking at is the possibility of giving credit for on-line course study.

Tom said that he currently has six good candidates for the position of instructional designer. They will be speaking with members of the search committee in the next couple weeks.

Future CET meetings: 10/16/12, 11/20/12, and 12/18/12. Meetings are 10-11 AM in Seelye Hall B4.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 AM; the next meeting is October 16^th at 10:00 AM in Seelye B4