WCET Recognizes Outstanding Works In Higher Education
Contact: Cali Morrison
Manager of Communications, WCET
cmorrison@wiche.edu
303-541-0234
Boulder, Colorado – The WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2012 WCET Outstanding Work (WOW) award, a competition that recognizes innovative uses of educational technologies in higher education. Since 2004 the WOW award has been presented to colleges, universities, and organizations for exceptionally creative, technology-based solutions to a significant problem or need in higher education.
The 2012 WOW award recognizes these member organizations for their notable contributions to higher education:
- Monterey Institute for Technology and Education for its NROC Developmental Math—An Open Program, a free, open program designed to increase the number of financially disadvantaged students who pass developmental math as a bridge to a college education.
- NJEDge.Net (New Jersey Research and Education Network) for NJVID, a state-of-the-art digital video repository service for streaming and preservation of academic and research videos for higher education.
- Tennessee Board of Regents for the TBR Mobile App Education and Workforce Resource Center, a publicly accessible, growing repository of mobile apps for learning that have undergone peer review.
“The significance of the WOW Award is more than just some cool, new technology tools,” notes James Bowey, professor at Winona State University and chair of the WOW Awards Committee. “At the heart of the award and this year’s three honored projects is that each addresses a real and important need that is shared widely across higher education. It’s the innovative, often collaborative, way in which these projects were carried forward that merits the award, as well as the fact that each serves as a model for others to replicate.”
The winning projects will be honored at the WCET Annual Meeting on November 2 in San Antonio.
Monterey Institute for Technology and Education: NROC Developmental Math—An Open Program
Remediation in higher education is an epidemic. In the current economic climate, many are choosing to go back to school, yet more than half of students entering community college are required to take remedial math before they can begin credit-bearing courses. Most fail and drop out.
NROC Developmental Math—An Open Program was created specifically to lower financial hurdles and accelerate the students’ pathway to credit-bearing courses. The program uses diagnostic pre-assessments to identify knowledge gaps and personalize an efficient learning path, reducing “seat time” and scaffolding students to mastery just where they need it. The modular program allows teachers to adapt and “remix” the resources to serve students in new and redesigned curriculum. The multi-modal, rich media approach harnesses the power of digital media to engage today’s learners.
After three years of research and development, NROC Developmental Math —An Open Program is in use around the nation. Colleges, adult schools, high schools and middle schools have adopted the program for online, blended and traditional classroom students.
Efficacy is being tracked in a pilot research project designed to gather data on the manner in which instructors and students successfully use the new resources. The research is tracking student performance results, attitudes, and persistence in various scenarios (such as supplemental classroom instruction, blended/hybrid classroom use, online independent study with teacher assistance, and emporium/lab settings), and results are then compared to classes at the same institutions where students are not using the program.
Contact
Jonathan Lopez
Communications Manager
Monterey Institute for Technology and Education
(831) 238-3477
NJEDge.Net (New Jersey Research & Education Network): NJVID
NJVID is a state-of-the-art digital video repository service for streaming and preservation of academic and research videos for higher education. By providing cost effective video streaming and repository services, NJVID enables institutions to overcome the technical barriers in digitizing and making video available to users through a secure portal. This service is provided by NJEDge.Net – New Jersey Research and Education Network – and builds upon a strong, statewide collaboration among universities, libraries, museums and K-12 education.
The NJVID service enables faculty to implement visual media into their courses by allowing them to upload their own videos and share them with students to enhance the learning experience. Users can create their own virtual clips from full-length videos and add their own notes to it, as well as string videos and clips to create personalized playlists. By using a simplified user management system, metadata cataloging and search tools, any institutional user can discover, collaborate and share resources. These video resources can also be made available within learning management systems, on websites and blogs.
NJVID also hosts a huge collection of over 5000 cataloged commercial educational digital videos that relate to a diverse array of fields from reputed vendors such as Films Media Group, PBS, Ambrose, Intelecom and others, allowing institutions that have licensed this content to easily add these videos to their video collection for streaming.
In creating a unified portal for faculty uploaded, locally owned and commercial licensed videos, NJVID has today grown to fulfill a much greater need of educators and students alike: the use of video as a major tool in teaching and learning.
Contact:
Sujay Daniel
Project Director, NJVID
Information Systems Architect
NJEDge.Net – New Jersey Research and Education Network
973.596.5528
Tennessee Board of Regents: TBR Mobile App Education and Workforce Resource Center
The Tennessee Board of Regents was ahead of the curve when it supported the creation of the TBR Mobile App Education and Workforce Resource Center. Citing data on the explosive growth in mobile devices and apps and their more prominent use for non-educational activities such as entertainment, “Education On-Demand within Your Hands” was designed with the concept of free, 24/7 access to mobile apps for faculty, staff and students, with each app tagged according to subject area, level of education, and type of device. The goal of the center is be a major repository for educational and career training mobile apps serving students and faculty around the world at all levels – PreK-12, higher education, and adult workforce training. The Natural Science program at Walters State Community College provides an example of how faculty have incorporated mobile apps in biology and chemistry. (http://library.ws.edu/mNaturalScience)
Utilizing a peer review rubric originally developed by MERLOT, a series of quality standards are utilized in the review of all apps, such as compliance with ADA standards, device neutral, cost, privacy, student engagement and outcomes. Since the TBR Mobile App Resource was launched in 2010, the number of subject matter disciplines has grown to 125 and the total number of educational and workforce apps has reached 60,000+ with continuous daily uploads.
Future plans include “app alerts” to faculty and students of new uploaded apps by their selected subject area; “Apps of the Month Video Clips” used in teaching; and the identification of mobilization competencies.
Contact:
Robbie K. Melton
Associate Vice Chancellor for Mobilization & Emerging Technologies
System Wide Office of Mobilization
Tennessee Board of Regents
The WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) (www.wcet.wiche.edu) is a cooperative, membership-driven, non-profit provider of strategies and services that accelerate the adoption of effective practices and policies, advancing excellence in technology-enhanced teaching and learning in higher education. More information is available on WCET’s Website: wcet.wiche.edu
WCET, WOW, and institutional logos are available upon request.
Cali Morrison
Manager, Communications, WCET
(v) 303.541.0234
(m) 406.580.5894
(e) cmorrison@wiche.edu
(w) http://www.wcet.wiche.edu
