This environmental scan assignment is based upon my knowledge of teaching at Selkirk College, as a marketing manager, who proposes to be an Online Marketing Instructor for Fall 2014, teaching 100/200/300 level courses in an online capacity only.

1.    Environmental Scan

Selkirk College is a regional community college with over 550 employees and instructors, eight campuses and learning centres and approximately 2,000+ full-time students and over 10,000 continuing education students.

Modality of Learning & Nature of Interactions: The education is delivered through apprenticeships, some online courses (blended and distance), work terms, co-op education, practicums and hands-on face-to-face classroom training. Our programs are typically held in a synchronous manner as they will ladder in requirements.

My Role: My ‘proposed’ on-line marketing courses that I would instruct would be some 100, 200 and 300 level courses which would require the pre-requisites to advance. They would be delivered on-line both to distance students and on-campus students. I would have online support only for these courses.

Hardware:

• Laptops / Ipads
• Iphones
• Scanners
• Cameras/video cameras

Note: This hardware is college provided but would be required for the students to have access to through their own resources.

Software:

• Presentation Tools: Skype, Teleconference phone line (teacher only), Prezi and Wordle.
• Collaboration Tools: Zoho docs, Google Drive, Dropbox, Zoho Projects. Missing:
• Communication Tools: Prezi, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Missing: Video editing tools and formal training on Social Media.

Technical Assistance: Selkirk has support from its ITS Department for both students and staff through a help ticketing system that are available M-F 8:30 – 4:00 pm. www.Helpdesk.selkirk.ca  This can be limiting when there are students that need access to their work through Moodle and it is down over a weekend etc so that would be a risk to consider.

Pedagogical/instructional Design Assistance: Some as we have an ecampus.selkirk.ca already in operation. We offer some of our courses within our programs online. I would look to expand my network in this regard, as we are not leaders in this area and other schools like TRU are more advanced. As a consumer of online education, I have seen a fairly high standard in design and would want to at least emulate that…high hopes.

Tutorial Assistance: I propose to provide at least 60 min per week of chat time and spending at least 60 – 90 minutes in Discussion Forum Support.

Technical Assistance For Students: During the first class and few days surrounding that, I propose to provide a few extra hours of assistance to ensure everyone is ‘on’, logged in, able to ‘hear’ if required etc.

Funding Available Annually: Should more video or photo editing be required, I could see Adobe Creative Suite licensing be a request for myself but students would be responsible for their own licenses. Obviously, they get an education discount but that is the extent of the support. For extra funding I would turn to the annual Learning Resource Fund, which is to provide funding for projects that align with our strategic directions and specifically enhance the student’s learning experience. Applications for funding are received from April 1 – May 15 of each year and the approval and funding allocation process follows shortly after. It helps cover Purchase or upgrading of technology equipment, short term staffing requirements to support initiatives undertaken by the fund (lab monitors, etc.), acquisition of learning and instructional materials which are deemed to be extraordinary and have not been included in the budget development process and activities and resources that support the removal of learning barriers.

Professional Development Resources: There is typically around $1,500 per staff member for PD available. This can go into online training or conference attendance.

 2. Technology-Enhanced Learning Opportunities

I have been very interested in understanding the online world more and last fiscal year, I attended a conference on web design, An Event Apart http://archive.aneventapart.com/2012/seattle/?/2012/seattle/.

It has been excellent for understanding the importance of organizing your content, how it is distributed/perceived, as well as the W3C Standards of Accessibility http://www.w3.org/WAI/.

Our department has purchased a www.Lynda.com membership that has many helpful starter tutorials on many areas relevant to online teaching from all skills around video, web, Microsoft Office to classes like Teaching with the iPad: Creating a Classroom Research Project.

Further, our Teaching & Learning Department puts on various workshops like http://selkirk.ca/news/selkirk-college-embraces-vodcasting-technology-teaching.

3.  Technology-Enhanced Goal

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn1l333nuvU[/youtube]

I have summarized my answer below, in a little video testimonial of sorts. I will definitely set as part of my training goals, to learn how to hold the camera at a better angle, and choose a more appealing thumbnail to save the video with as well.

As I intend to teach marketing, communications, online marketing and social media courses, I will constantly need to keep up to date on the latest changes in these fields. This will serve a dual purpose of keeping me on my ‘technology’ game as well. This includes being able to create videos, photo editing, presentations and run online meetings.

Social Media: I intend to take advantage of online tutorials Lynda.com membership mainly but will be considering social media updates as I feel it is a very engaging tool with students, even outside of a social media class.  The Lynda.com membership is provided by Selkirk College at this time and I will allot several hours weekly to upgrading my skills in various areas.

Privacy & Cloud Based Educational Technology: In BC, there are two main information privacy laws that set out the minimum standards that employers, employees and service providers must follow to prevent unreasonable, unnecessary or unsafe sharing of personal information belonging to staff, clients, customers and the general public.

• FIPPA – Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA)
• PIPA – Personal Information Protection Act.

For public sector employers, employees and service providers in BC, which includes staff of publicly-funded educational institutions, the governing law is FIPPA.

Since obtaining consent is a key part of protecting privacy and exercising due diligence, I would need to establish a privacy protocol for ensuring student notice, knowledge and consent whenever using social media or other cloud based tools as a teaching aid, as required to meet FIPPA standards. This would require collaborating with other faculty teaching in this area, across the province, on their protocols and adapting something to fit Selkirk’s standards, as at this time, Selkirk does not have a Social Media Policy.

Video Filming & Editing: In the next year I intend to upgrade my competence in video editing which will allow me to officially request the most appropriate tool for the job (e.g. IMovie may be enough or do I need to ask for something more complicated like Adobe Premiere (http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/) which I have found too complicated in the past.

WordPress Design: I also intend to increase my design skills in WordPress with responsive templates as a tool for teaching that will allow students to access the lectures via IPhone.