Sabbatical Leave Report - Cover Page

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

Sabbatical Leave Report - Cover Page (to be completed upon return from sabbatical leave and submitted with your report)

Attached is my comprehensive Sabbatical Leave Report. I certify that I have fulfilled the objectives of my sabbatical leave and will render the amount of service required by District Policy – Administrative Procedure 7341. NAME: John Phillips DATE SUBMITTED : 2/21/2012 ACADEMIC SCHOOL YEAR IN WHICH LEAVE WAS TAKEN: 2011-2012 SEMESTER IN WHICH LEAVE WAS TAKEN: Fall 2011 (NOTE: If this was a full-year leave or a variable leave, please indicate this. Do not include any unbanking as part of a sabbatical leave) CHECK (X) TYPE OF SABBATICAL LEAVE: _____ Advanced Academic Studies, or __X__NonTraditional Activities SIGNATURE :John Phillips ______________________________________________________ (hard copy must include your actual signature on line above) Applicant should not write below this line. APPROVALS Title

Approved? (Y/N)

Signature

Date

SLC Chair Academic Senate President Superintendent/ President

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

Part II: Restatement of Sabbatical Leave Proposal Abstract

The purpose of my sabbatical leave was to learn the skills and tools necessary to create the first online course for MiraCosta’s Political Science 102: American Institutions and History (this 4-unit course has never been taught online before by any faculty). According to Joanne Benschop, Director of Transfer and Articulation Programs at MCC, this course has the most unmet student demand of any course at MCC. PLSC 102 is very popular with students because it meets a CSU graduation requirement with only one 4unit course. Every other community college in California requires students to take two 3-unit classes to meet the same requirement. As such, PLSC 102 represents over 75% of our annual offerings in PLSC, every section generally fills to capacity, and we have continually added new sections of PLSC 102 ever since I came to MCC in fall of 2004. Furthermore, this course is going to become even more useful and popular for students because it was just approved by the CSU to double-count both as an American Institutions course, and a General Education Area D course. In order to meet exploding student demand for PLSC 102, I requested a sabbatical to acquire the knowledge and technological competency necessary to create an exemplary online version of this course.

Part III. Completion of Objectives, Description of Activities and Documentation

Objective #1: a. Learn how to use advanced presentation tools to create engaging and interactive PowerPoint lecture material, including transcriptions that are both downloadable and compatible with screen reading software. b. As described in my Sabbatical Leave Application, Objective #1 also included learning how to revise my curriculum to be more engaging for online teaching. I accomplished this objective by studying the following faculty tutorials on MiraCosta’s Program for Online Teaching website (MCC POT): “The Zen of PowerPoint,” by Sam Arenivar. “Basic Online Pedagogy” by Jill Malone. “Beginning Online Teaching,” “The Unconference Panel on Pedagogy and Technology,” “Teaching Well Online: A Checklist,” “Adventures in Online Pedagogy,” “Cybercosta and Online Teaching,” and “Instructor Presence Online” by Lisa Lane. “Brain Friendly Pedagogy,” “Teaching and Social Networking,” “Redesigning Your Class,” and “Social Justice and Online Learning” by Jim Sullivan. “Web 2.0 for Teaching and Student Projects” by Kristi Reyes. “Building Community Online” and “Interactive Syllabi” by Pilar Hernandez. “Teaching with Tablets” by Julie Harland.

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

“Time-Saving Tips for Online Teaching” by Louisa Moon. “Yavapai College Faculty Showcase” by Marissa Wolfe. Several workshops accessible through the @One Online Training and Teaching Certificate Program were also helpful (www.onefortraining.org): “Creating Engaging Presentations” and “Rethinking Your Course for an Online Audience,” by Catherine Nameth. Afterwards, I revised my curriculum and created seven online lecture modules; one for each week of lecture in my 4-unit PLSC 102 class, American Institutions and History. These modules were created using PowerPoint for lecture outlines, visual aids and a whiteboard, and Google Chrome for webpages and video clips. I used Camtasia Studio to capture all these elements into one video file for each lecture segment. By far, the most time-consuming part of my sabbatical was editing these videos in Camtasia.

I learned how to use advanced presentation tools such as timed zooming and panning, artistic and picture effects for images, animation triggers, in-presentation white/blackboards, transparency fades, and embedding/animating videos by studying tutorials at the Microsoft Office website, and the user guides for PowerPoint, Camtasia, and Windows Magnifier (pre-loaded in Windows 7). The following videos also provided helpful information: “Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs,” by Carmine Gallo on YouTube, and “Creating a PowerPoint Presentation, Parts 2-4” on TeacherTube.

In order to learn about lecture transcriptions, I spoke with POT facilitator Lisa Lane, MCC Faculty Technology Specialist, Karen Korstad, and Robert Erichsen, who is the Disabled Students Programs and Services Access Specialist. I also used in-program tutorials and user guides to learn the following software tools: Dragon Naturally Speaking, Windows 7 Speech Recognition, Google Voice and YouTube transcription service. While I found Dragon to be the most accurate and feature-rich transcription tool, I decided to use it primarily for writing comments on discussion boards and officehour instant messaging, instead of transcribing lectures. This is because Robert Erichsen was able to secure a grant from the Chancellor’s Office of the California Community College, which uses Automatic Sync Technologies (AST) to transcribe lecture videos. To accomplish full transcription, I created mp3 audio files for each of my 57 lecture videos. After some trial and error, I found that the encoding option which best balanced sound quality/volume against file size was 44.1kHz, mono, 64kBits/sec. AST took these mp3 files and sent back captions in a variety of formats (ex. .SRT, .SMI, .TXT, etc). Although the transcriptions were fairly accurate, I still had to go through each SRT file and correct errors. For example, they often transcribed “precedent” as “President,” and “party eras” as “party errors.” Next, I imported the edited SRT files into each video file in Camtasia. I soon discovered that even the newest version of Camtasia 7 would crash if you tried to import captions into a video longer than 20 minutes. This led to a number of techsupport calls with Camtasia representatives, and the installation of some software patches. In the end, Camtasia couldn’t fix the problem and promised they would have it fixed by the release of their next version, 8.0. So, I had to learn how to manually import captions, word by word, into my first batch of long videos. Afterwards, I was careful not to produce a lecture video longer than 20 minutes (around 15 minutes is ideal).

Robert Erichsen and Dr. Jim Julius, MCC Faculty Director of Online Education, sent me various web links about universal design and making online courses ADA compliant. MiraCosta’s DSPS website also has a Faculty Resources, Accessibility Training Resources page with a lot of useful information Page 3 of 12

John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

and links. These links include tutorials on Accessibility Checkers that are built into the 2010 versions of PowerPoint and Word. Robert Erichsen also helped me install Read & Write Gold software on my computer so I could test how students would use its screen-reading and dictionary tools on my lecture captions and other materials.

Documentation of objective #1 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and 7 close-captioned lecture modules (57 videos, 10-30 minutes each) available on www.screencast.com . These modules highlight the skills and tools mentioned above. Please enter the following web address to view the videos: http://www.screencast.com/t/GEQjSkjfb The password is politics, and a table of contents for these videos can be found on that webpage, as well as below:

Table of Contents for Screencast Videos Week 1 Lecture Videos: The Political Philosophy of the Framers & the Revolution Week 2 Lecture Videos: The U.S. and CA Constitutions Week 3 Lecture Videos: Federalism; and Turn of the Century history Week 4 Lecture Videos: The Ideological Spectrum; and the Progressive Era Week 5 Lecture Videos: Interest Groups; and World War One Week 6 Lecture Videos: Political Parties Week 7 Lecture Videos: Political Parties cont., Media in Politics; and the 1920s

c.

The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #1 was 235.

Objective #2: a. Learn how to create original image files such as .jpgs, and screencast videos to replace in-class chalkboard diagrams and animations. b. I learned how to create original image and video files by studying the user guides and tutorials of, as well as practicing with, the following software packages: Bamboo Pen/Tablet, Microsoft Paint, PowerPoint ink/markup tools, and especially, Camtasia Studio. Dr. Shafin Ali, MCC’s Professor and Director of the Economics Program, also added me to his Blackboard course so that I could explore his Camtasia videos; and he let me interview him at length about many different aspects of production, file transfer/storage, and student use of these videos. Lastly, the following workshops on alternative screencast tools were also helpful: MCC Psychology instructor Dr. Robert Kelley hosted a

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

workshop on the MCC POT website about Jing video messaging; and Dan Barnett hosted a workshop on video feedback for grading on the @One website. As described in my Sabbatical Leave Application, Objective #2 also included learning how to insert and format these audio-visual files in a course management system. Initially, I learned how to upload and embed YouTube videos through an MCC POT 3rd Thursday workshop (originally held on 2/18/2009). Karen Korstad and Dr. Ali also taught me how to accomplish this work using Blackboard. I then experimented with different production settings until the videos streamed optimally for students with different connection speeds and browsers. Through a lot of trial and error, I found the ideal Blackboard settings to be 640x480 resolution, 22khz audio, FLV format (as opposed to the larger size MP4 and SWF settings) and system audio turned off during recording.

The last part of this objective included learning how to create captions and digital tags to make my images and videos accessible for students with visual impairments and screen-reading software. I accomplished this task by studying the following resources:   

WebAIM.org (Web Accessibility in Mind) has a set of training materials on “Creating Access: Images;” The MCC POT website has a tutorial on annotating images by Lisa Lane; I also received valuable advice from Dr. Ali at MiraCosta College.

Documentation of objective #2 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and at least 5 original images/diagrams inserted into my 57 original screencast videos. Please enter the following web address to view the videos: http://www.screencast.com/t/GEQjSkjfb . The password is politics.

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #2 was 58. Objective #3: a. Research different image/video archives for use in my online course (such as the Library of Congress Photograph Catalog), and learn about copyright laws that impact all aspects of online learning (e.x. fair use laws about images and videos, student papers submitted to TurnItIn.com, the TEACH Act of 2002, etc). b. I accomplished the first part of this objective by researching the following archives for copyrightfriendly (“copyleft”) materials for use in my course: Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org), Google Images (google.com/imghp), Flickr.com, Fotopedia.com, Open Clip Art Library (openclipart.org), and the Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (loc.gov/pictures) and American Memory site (memory.loc.gov). History Professor and guru of online instruction, Lisa Lane, also provided valuable advice for this objective; as did the following MCC POT 3rd Thursday workshop: Creative Commons licensing and image searching (originally held on 12/18/2008).

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

In order to learn about copyright issues that impact online teaching and learning, I reviewed online information: 



 

The American Library Association has a website dedicated to Distance Education and the TEACH Act (Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act), where they discuss its legislative history and importance for pedagogy. More importantly, they review practical steps that teachers can take to ensure compliance, including a list of “Best Practices using Blackboard.” American University’s Center for Social Media also maintains a website entitled “The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education.” I found their review of relent case law very informative, as well as their five principles and myths of fair use. Georgia Harper, former manager of the Intellectual Property Section of the University of Texas General Counsel, hosts a comprehensive “Copyright Crash Course” at copyright.lib.utexas.edu/index.html The Stanford University Library system also offers an informative website on “Copyright and Fair Use,” which helped me learn about recent federal case law, getting permissions, and public domain. Finally, plagiarism detection service TurnItIn.com hosts materials that helped me learn about the legal implications of submitting student work to them, including recent federal case law involving students who sued TurnItIn for privacy violations.

As described in my Sabbatical Leave Application, Objective #3 also included learning how to format and advanced transition-animate visual aids in online presentations. I accomplished this work by studying user guides and tutorials for PowerPoint and Camtasia, as well as several online tutorials on YouTube. For example, the “Ken Burns zoom/pan” video, uploaded to YouTube by 2WebVideo, taught me how to use the Fade, Zoom and Reveal transition animations together to create the illusion of smooth panning. Videos by ZealousFX taught me how to prevent pixelation during zooming by first enlarging images, and then using the shrink and reverse motion path animations; or copying the image onto itself, cropping it while keeping the same aspect ratio, aligning both images to middle/center, and then using the fade animation. Documentation of objective #3 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and at least 20 audiovisual aids from the archives above that have been properly formatted and animated within the online videos created for objective #1. Please enter the following address to view the videos: http://www.screencast.com/t/GEQjSkjfb The password is politics.

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #3 was 62.

Objective #4: a. Learn how to create and manage online discussion forums for student-student and studentinstructor asynchronous interaction using Blackboard 9, Moodle or other appropriate software.

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

b. I used the following resources to learn about the pedagogical issues of online discussion: o “Vibrant Online Discussions,” by Julie Vignato, posted on MCC POT. o Lisa Lane’s summary of “Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators,” by Collison et al., 2000, posted on MCC POT. o Louisa Moon’s Model Rubric for online discussion, posted on MCC POT. o MCC POT 3rd Thursday workshop about using the signup feature for smaller study groups in Blackboard (originally held on 11/20/2008). o The Dartmouth College library hosts a series of materials on Tools for Engaging Students, including online discussion: researchguides.dartmouth.edu/studentEngagement o “Teaching them to Fly: Strategies for Encouraging Active Online Learning” by Karen Hardin from Cameron University, posted on MCC POT. o “Promoting Durable Knowledge Construction through Online Discussion,” by Dr. Dave Knowlton from Crichton College, posted on MCC POT. This objective also required learning about the pedagogical utility and technical application of the following discussion options: allowing users to create new threads, anonymous posting, including attachments, tracking users, rating post quality for participation and grading, restricting accessibility (i.e. future forums may be hidden until lecture week, then published, locked afterward but still readable for exam preparation), moderation strategies (i.e. editing/deleting inappropriate comments/users, student-flagged comments that automatically notify the instructor, and follow-up), and tools for reading posts (skipping to unread posts, searching posts by student/date, etc). In order to accomplish this task, I studied user guides and tutorials (ondemand.blackboard.com), and practiced using the Discussion Board feature in Blackboard 9. The following resources were also very helpful:   

Duke University Blackboard training site: blackboard.duke.edu/tools/discussion_board/index.html ; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill support page for Blackboard Discussion Board: help.unc.edu/5473#P473_27138 ; MCC POT Blackboard 9 Learning Modules: mccpot.org/wp/blackboard-9-modules.

Documentation of objective #4 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and four discussion forums created on my “Phillips Sabbatical” Blackboard page. Members of the Sabbatical Leave Committee, Academic Senate Council, and College President Rodriguez have been added as users on this page, where they can peruse the four discussion forums (the first forum has been tested with training accounts – i.e. fake students). Please log on to blackboard.miracosta.edu to view the forums.

These discussion forums have also been linked to the learning modules created for objective #1 (i.e. lecture weeks 1-4). Please enter the following address to view these videos: http://www.screencast.com/t/GEQjSkjfb . The password is politics.

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #4 was 86.

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

Objective #5. a. Learn how to use Lec Share Pro or similar software to convert PowerPoint presentations into accessible formats on Macs and PCs, and incorporate accessibility checkers into course management systems. b. I learned how to convert PowerPoint presentations into accessible formats on Macs and PCs by studying the user guides and tutorials for, as well as practicing with, the following software packages and web services: LecShare Pro (including a presentation on this by Robert Erichsen on MCC’s Teaching/Technology Innovation Center website), Articulate Presenter (articulate.com), Microsoft OneNote, SlideBoom.com, AuthorStream.com, SlideServe.com, Edustream.org, Screencast.com, and Camtasia Studio. Moreover, Dr. Kelley provided a helpful workshop on converting PowerPoints to PDFs in a 3rd Thursday workshop (MCC POT, originally posted on 10/16/2008). Dr. Ali, Karen Korstad, and Osman Parada, Edustream’s liason to MCC, also helped me learn Edustream and Screencast. Ultimately, I chose to convert my PowerPoint files into accessible, close captioned, streaming video files (MP4). Aside from converting files, I also troubleshot my lecture presentations and other materials on Windows and Macintosh operating systems, and the following web browsers: MS Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome.

Documentation of objective #5 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and seven lecture modules, which have been converted into MP4 files and accessibility-checked on different web browsers. Please enter the following web address to view these modules: http://www.screencast.com/t/GEQjSkjfb . The password is politics.

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #5 was 30.

Objective #6: a. Learn how to create and manage an office hours chat-room for student-instructor synchronous interaction using Blackboard, Moodle, AOL or Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk/Gchat or other appropriate software. b. In addition to researching the comparative advantages/drawbacks of the tools mentioned above, I also learned how to format day/time availability, alternate between private and group conversations, include add-ons for viewing attachments during chats, and use speech-recognition software for online office hours.

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

I accomplished this objective by studying the user guides and tutorials for, as well as practicing with, the following software packages: Google Chat (plus Video Chat plug-in), Google Talkback Badge, Yahoo Instant Messenger, Skype.com, Stinto.net, Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate Live and Wimba Voice), Dragon NaturallySpeaking and MS Windows Speak Recognition. Lisa Lane provided invaluable support by helping me troubleshoot my Google chat-room, and the MCC POT website also offered informative workshops and learning modules on Elluminate, Wimba and the Google Talkback Badge.

Documentation of objective #6 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and the following link to a chat-room created for my online office hours: https://sites.google.com/site/jpsabbatical2011/

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #6 was 35.

Objective #7: a. Learn how to assess and track student learning online using tools built into Blackboard 9 and Moodle, and third-party add-ons such as Respondus, TurnItIn and Grademark. b.

I accomplished this objective by studying the user guides and tutorials for the following software packages: Blackboard, Respondus, TurnItIn, CutePDF, iAnnotatePDF and PDF-Xchange Viewer. The last two software packages allow instructors to mark-up student papers with a pen/tablet device. The following workshops also helped me accomplish this objective: “Online Assessment (Quiz) Strategies” by English Professor Jim Sullivan (MCC POT). “How Do You Know Who Your Students Are? Facing Authentication Questions,” by Pat James Hanz for @One. 3rd Thursday Workshop on using surveys in Blackboard for anonymous feedback, and the advantages of using Moodle for grading written assessments, originally held on 12/18/2008 (MCC POT).

As described in my Sabbatical Leave Application, Objective #7 also included learning how to make arrangements for the administration of my exams at Testing/Proctoring centers at MCC and other participating colleges (e.g. time windows, makeup options, etc). In addition to getting materials from MCC’s Academic Proctoring Center, Dr. Kelley and Dr. Ali also served as resources for this objective.

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

Documentation of objective #7 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, written policies for proctored exams and a sample online quiz. The last two items are posted on my “Phillips Sabbatical” Blackboard site. Members of the Sabbatical Leave Committee, Academic Senate Council, and College President Rodriguez have been added to my “Phillips Sabbatical” Blackboard page – please log on at blackboard.miracosta.edu

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #7 was 38.

Objective #8: a. Learn the comparative advantages of personal class websites and course management systems such as Blackboard, Moodle and Etudes, and select a system for use in my online course. b. I accomplished this objective by studying the user guides and tutorials for Blackboard, Moodle and Google Sites. Lisa Lane and Karen Korstad, MCC’s Faculty Technology Specialist, generously offered their time to help me contrast Blackboard with Moodle. Lastly, Spanish Professor Pilar Hernandez hosted a useful POT workshop on creating a welcome site with Google. Documentation of objective #8 consists of the resources listed above, the attached weekly hour log, and the following basic class website I created on Google: https://sites.google.com/site/jpsabbatical2011/

c. The total number of hours I dedicated to accomplishing Objective #8 was 38.

The Grand Total of hours I dedicated to accomplishing all sabbatical objectives was 582.

Part IV: Contribution to District

a. How did the project contribute to the professional development of the applicant? Completing this sabbatical allowed me to improve my technological skills and incorporate innovative delivery modes into my teaching, enabling me to reach more students and learning styles. I also became more attuned to the needs of disabled students in an online environment. As this project required refining my lecture material and pedagogy for greater scrutiny online, it also improved my knowledge of the discipline. (While small mistakes of content or delivery often go unnoticed in an on-ground course, they are magnified in an online environment where mistakes can be rewound, replayed and shared ad infinitum.)

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

b. Explain the short- and/or long-term impact of your project on students, your department, your college and your community. 1) Students: The benefit of this project for students is significant since currently no online courses in political science exist, and the demand for online learning, let alone more sections of PLSC 102, is exploding. I hope to launch the first online sections of PLSC 102 in Spring 2013, which will give me the rest of 2012 to produce the remaining 9 lecture modules. Online courses, including the online PLSC 102 this sabbatical helped create, allow students to learn at a more flexible pace, and with different learning tools than are available in on-ground environments; such as self-paced, captioned lecture videos, and asynchronous discussions that foster more thoughtful and research-based dialogue about controversial political issues. Online courses also save students money that they would otherwise spend on commuting and parking fees. 2) Department: This project benefits my department because I can now serve as a resource for other faculty who want to learn how to create online courses. In particular, along with Dr. Ali in Economics, I am now one of the few faculty members at MCC who uses the increasingly popular Camtasia software to capture all of my lecture content for students. I look forward to sharing this budding expertise with other faculty and building a support network for these sorts of online courses. 3) College: I can now serve as a resource for faculty outside my department at the college who want to learn about online teaching. Furthermore, this project also helps the college by reducing its facilities costs and overhead (i.e. classroom availability, ceiling projector bulbs, etc). 4) Community: Any project that benefits students and the college also benefits our local communities who house and employ our students, and provide a great deal of our funding. Moreover, the online course that this project helped to create will offer greater convenience and cost savings to members of our community who wish to study Political Science at home or on the go. Speaking of support, I am very grateful to all the instructors and staff mentioned in this report that helped me to accomplish my sabbatical goals. I also want to thank members of the Sabbatical Leave Committee, Academic Senate Council and the Board of Trustees for offering me this tremendous opportunity.

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John Phillips, MiraCosta College Fall 2011 Sabbatical Leave Report

Part V: Documentation

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