The North American Network of Science Labs Online (NANSLO) is an international collaboration of institutions in the United States and Canada. We currently have three operational labs: North Island College in Canada, the Colorado Community College System and Great Falls College-Montana State University in the United States. NANSLO uses open source licensing to construct a network of internet controllable, real-time, teaching laboratories to make use and replication as simple as possible. NANSLO’s overall goal is to provide access to challenging inquiry-based laboratory procedures run on high-quality scientific instrumentation to students both outside and inside traditional laboratory environments.

A real-time online teaching laboratories require two components. Those components are the internet mediated interface that allows control of the scientific instrumentation and the procedures that guide the laboratory exercises. The NANSLO project has designed an interface that allows students to control and observe the instrumentation in real-time while still focusing on the science they are learning. Our laboratory interface can be accessed using any computer or tablet platform through the Citrix plug-in. Development of online procedures for student lab activities is ongoing and NANSLO’s procedures can be freely modified by faculty to suit any science course. Presently we offer more than 30 experiments in first year biology, chemistry, and physics courses. In this workshop we will present data showing feedback from students and faculty that have used the NANSLO facility in their course. We will also engage the audience in a discussion of online science education by allowing audience member real-time access to our laboratory equipment for exploration.

Today’s online and distance education programs are rooted in long-established practices created for individuals unable to relocate to centers of learning. Early distance education offerings included shorthand instruction and home studies, developed in the late nineteenth century (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2000). As new technologies became available, early programs evolved into radio and televised programs. Access to computers and the Internet moved distance education from the periphery of higher education to the mainstream (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada & Freeman, 2014).

The U.S. Department of Education (2014) reports that, in 2012, 5.4 million students who received federal financial aid were enrolled in distance education courses and that number is expected to grow. Today, students can choose from massive open online courses (MOOCs), competency-based programs, hybrid offerings, correspondence study in multiple formats (print, online, CD-ROM, etc.), subscription models, and typical asynchronous online offerings.

The future of distance education will be shaped by new models. The reshaping of distance education will include the blending of new technologies with pedagogical approaches resulting in lower costs and greater access for students. In this presentation, we will briefly review the history of distance education, examine today’s distance learning offerings, and propose three models for future distance education offerings including a new version of independent study, a community learning model, and an adaptive learning model.

In an era of tightening institutional budgets, ever increasing online enrollments, and greater calls for accountability from multiple directions, the need for online program administrators to continually assess the quality of their overall operations has never been greater. Measuring and quantifying elements of “quality” in online programs has been rather elusive especially as more learners are completing online courses and new Web 2.0 tools are transforming the teaching/learning landscape. This 45 minute general session will focus on implementing the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Quality Scorecard.

The presenters will provide a brief overview of the OLC Quality Scorecard highlighting the nine categories (institutional support, technology support, course development and instructional design, course structure, teaching and learning, social land student engagement, faculty support, student support as well as evaluation and assessment) for any workshop participant unfamiliar with the instrument. Through interactive pairing activities, session participants will learn how the 75-indicator Online Learning Consortium Quality Scorecard can provide online program administrators with key performance indicators serving as a quality assessment and/or benchmarking tool.

The future is now! Today, institutions are using the OLC Quality Scorecard to produce actionable continuous improvement outcomes impacting on learning effectiveness and program improvement as well as informing accreditation efforts. This session will provide participants with hands-on takeaways and insights about how to implement the scorecard in their own organization.

Designing and developing blended and online courses and teaching teachers online since 1997 I’ve presented at twenty-three related conferences since 2001, nine of them for TCC. At the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, my doctoral studies focused on “Holistic Approaches to Information Technology” resulting in the development of the graduate online course that I have now successfully delivered to masters and doctoral students fifteen times (2002-2014). The course information site complete with subject outline, readings, testimonials and a gallery of students team and individual educational website projects is online: http://astralsite.com/1799. This will be referenced in the session.

1. I plan to share highlights, tips and strategies related to making the transition from teaching face to face to teaching in computer labs and online with post-secondary students and with teachers and administrators.

2. The emphasis is on simple strategies for staying focused on priorities in the realm of teaching with technology, especially with ever-evolving media and a complex education landscape.

3. In this concentrated session, I aim to inspire meaningful fresh ideas for keeping on track with all ages and subjects as we lead all constituencies towards being successful role models and lifelong learners in the realm of teaching and learning with technology.

In this brief forum session, the presenter will introduce three tenacious challenges repeatedly encountered in an online YouTube course that has been offered as an elective in an educational technology program since 2008.
The three tenacious challenges include:

1. misunderstandings about copyright and fair use for educational media. Issues observed in class mirror what Hobbs has written on the subject. This is further complicated by the Content ID system on YouTube, which automatically scans videos for copyrighted content (YouTube Help, 2014).
2. issues related to YouTube being blocked at schools, institutions, and even some countries. Teachers who create educational materials on YouTube may not be able to use those materials at their schools and solutions are still emerging.
3. variable interpretations of what constitutes a “good” educational video. The defining attributes of “good” with respect to educational video can include content, aesthetics, pace, and production quality.

The presenter will introduce each challenge and explain the steps taken to address them. Members of the audience will be encouraged to engage in the discussion to share their own stories and offer their own suggestions for teaching with YouTube or other Web 2.0 services.