Facilitating Convergence: Supporting Community Engagement Through Learning Technologies

TitleFacilitating Convergence: Supporting Community Engagement Through Learning Technologies
Faculty/College/UnitVP Academic
StatusCompleted
Duration3 Years
Initiation04/01/2003
Completion03/31/2006
Funding Details
Year 1: Project TitleBuilding, Strengthening and Extending UBC’s Learning Technology Community of Practice
Year 1: Project YearYear 1
Year 1: Funding Year2003/2004
Year 1: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 1: Principal InvestigatorMichelle Lamberson
Year 1: Funded Amount100,000
Year 1: Team Members

Michelle Lamberson, Office of Learning Technology
Cathryn Jackson, Faculty of Applied Science
Brian Lamb, Office of Learning Technology

Year 1: Summary

This TLEF application focuses on building, sustaining and extending the capabilities of the UBC Learning Technology Community in its efforts to promote a learning-centred learning environment through effective and appropriate use of technology. It puts forward a coordinated program that will improve communication, showcase innovative and effective technology use, create online resources for students and faculty, provide face-to-face learning opportunities and create opportunities for community interaction. A portion of the funding requested in this project is directed towards personnel who will function as facilitators and community coordinators. This speaks to the diverse and distributed nature of the UBC Learning Technology community; its members comprise professional staff, students and faculty in every Faculty and Institute, and in many administrative units (e.g., Distance Education, IT Services, TAG). With the increasing use of the web to deliver what were traditionally face-to-face services (advising and other student services, library, registration, payment, etc.), this community serves a vital interface role in communicating the needs of learners and instructors ensuring that there is one UBC experience, not a mosaic of disconnected interactions. Learning Technology professional staff members serve as front-line trainers for faculty and students, and develop a significant amount of the content used in online course sites.

Direct benefits to all UBC students will be seen though the availability of better help resources, opportunities for peer support and interactions with the professional community Indirect benefits will be seen through the creation of a more robust network for faculty and staff professionals to access help when and where they need it by the creation of an integrated set of online, face-to-­face and hybrid learning opportunities.
Concrete products of this initiative include an a-Learning Portal, 9-15 newsletters, 36 hours of video, six hours of digitized video stored as web-accessible learning objects, a minimum of 24 discrete “Just-in-Time” learning resources (from the seminars series) and a software development toolkit for campus developers. This effort will be managed out of the Office of Learning Technology, but performed in partnership with allied Faculty and Administrative units. This proposal aligns strongly with initiatives within a variety of Faculty Units, TAG, the Library and lT Services, drawing upon their expertise for implementation.

Year 2: Project TitleBuilding an Integrated, Community-Based Strategy for the Creative Use of Learning Technologies
Year 2: Project YearYear 2
Year 2: Funding Year2004/2005
Year 2: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 2: Principal InvestigatorMichelle Lamberson
Year 2: Funded Amount225,000
Year 2: Team Members

Michelle Lamberson, Office of Learning Technology

Year 2: Summary

The Office of Learning Technology (OLT) was established in August 2002 with a mandate to provide centralized facilitation and coordination for the creative and effective use of learning technology (LT). The OLT partners with a diverse group of professionals in faculty-based and centralized academic and administrative units (e.g., TAG, Library, DE&T, ITServices, Enrolment Services). These mutual efforts focus on helping faculty understand why and how to use learning technologies and removing barriers to their use, with the end goal of improving and enhancing the student learning experience.

With its 2003-04 TLEF, “Building, Strengthening, and Extending UBC’s Learning Technology Community of Practice”, the OLT worked with its partners to develop and deliver LT workshops and seminars, create LT resources, and implement a baseline electronic infrastructure that supports collaboration and LT best practice exchange amongst faculty, staff and students. The 2004-04 TLEF, “Building an Integrated, Community-Based Strategy for the Creative Use of Learning Technologies”, will build upon these efforts, and concentrate on establishing a systemic framework for responding to learning technology changes, and supporting faculty, staff and students as they use learning technology in support of their instructional goals.

The primary objectives of the TLEF are:

  • To help improve faculty understanding of both why and how to use learning technologies through workshops and seminars that promote experience sharing, scholarly dialogue and skills acquisition.
  • To develop and collate web-accessible resources, including UBC case studies (re-use cases for learning objects), best practice resource sites, and research compilations, that supply concrete evidence that learning technology does positively influence the teaching and learning environment.
  • To explore the benefits of new and emerging technologies (social software) and methods (Integrated Lab Network), and provide ongoing support for encouraging faculty to build, share and re-use digital resources (learning objects).
  • To scaffold and improve UBC’s LT staff’s capacity to support faculty through professional workshops, a staff e-portfolio program (described in a related TLEF) and community tools.
  • To strengthen community of practice development by improving the e-Community tools framework established in 2003-04, focusing on selecting and making available tools that encourage and streamline communications and collaboration.
Year 3: Project YearYear 3
Year 3: Funding Year2005/2006
Year 3: Project TypeSmall TLEF
Year 3: Principal InvestigatorMichelle Lamberson
Year 3: Funded Amount199,973
Year 3: Team Members

Michelle Lamberson, Office of Learning Technology

Year 3: Summary

The Office of Learning Technology (OLT) provides centralized facilitation and coordination for the creative and effective use of learning technology (LT). By partnering with professionals in Faculty-based and centralized academic and administrative units (e.g., TAG, Library, DE&T, IT Services, Enrolment Services, Career Services), the OLT sponsors programs that enable faculty, staff and students to better understand why, when and how to use technology in support of an improved student learning experience.

In 2005-06, UBC's faculty and staff will need to respond to changes induced by a provincially mandated increase in student numbers, the startup of UBC Okanagan, the mainstreaming of Distance Education and Technology into Faculties, and planning for a new enterprise version of WebCT. These infrastructure shifts are taking place within the context of a changing student and faculty population who bring with them accelerating expectations of the technology environment, and to whom the Internet is an integral part of their social, educational and work lives.

This TLEF leverages the resources and systemic LT framework established in previous TLEF-funded work, to address expansion-related issues, to support new members of UBC's community, to explore new technologies, and to strengthen UBC's ability to support robust communities of practice, interest and expertise in support of improved student learning and professional growth. While maintaining our mission to support staff and faculty, we are bringing a new emphasis to the learner experience through partnerships with student-oriented administrative units (VP Student). The objectives of this TLEF proposal are:

  1. To help improve faculty, student and staff understanding of both why and how to use learning technologies by conducting workshops and seminars that promote experience sharing, scholarly dialogue, skills acquisition and professional growth.
  2. To continue developing and collating web-accessible resources, including UBC case studies, best practice examples, and research compilations, in order to provide concrete evidence that learning technology supports the teaching and learning environment.
  3. To construct a teaching with technology resource kit (effective practices, guides, and select software) from resources previously developed by OLT (see objective #2) and partners for faculty new to UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan.
  4. explore the benefits of new and emerging technologies (mobile learning, audio) and to facilitate the creation of Communities of Practice around initiatives that have transitioned from emerging to pilot status (weblogs, wikis, learning objects, and ILN).
  5. To further strengthen existing Communities of Practice and support TAG's community initiatives by ongoing improvement to e-community tools framework and online infrastructure.
  6. To place a new focus on the learner by supporting the creation of new programs that enhance support for fully online learners, instructors and campus-based students by partnering with students, VP Students, and instructional support units.

Direct benefits to all UBC students will be seen though the availability of improved help resources, opportunities for peer support and interactions with the professional community. A number of students will work in project assistant roles, as well as participate in seminars and workshops. Indirect benefits will be seen through better prepared, more reflective and knowledgeable instructors and support staff. This effort will be managed out of OLT, but performed in partnership with allied Faculty and Administrative units. This proposal aligns strongly with initiatives within a variety of Faculty Units, TAG, VP Students, the Library and IT Services, drawing upon their expertise for implementation.