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Stan Skrabut: Thanks a lot for joining me once again. Thanks for listening to this podcast. It certainly means a lot, and I really appreciate you hanging out with me. This week we’re continuing on our review of the OSCQR rubric. If you remember, it’s an online quality review tool. This time we’re going to explore the second section, which focuses on technology and tools. This is going to be a shorter episode, as there’s only five standards in this particular section.
Let’s get started. Number 11, requisite skills for using technology tools, websites, software and hardware are clearly stated and supported with resources. Any software, hardware, any applications that you are introducing in your course that you want students to use, you also need to ramp them up on their use. You can’t just dump it on them and expect them to be able to use it effectively and efficiently.
That you need to also scaffold their learning through this. You need to really identify what skill levels they need to be at in order to fully participate in the course. They can be beginner, intermediate, advanced levels, as long as you’re clear on it. If they’re going to require an advanced level application of the tool to successfully pass your course, and they don’t have a clue what the tool is, they’re going to be in trouble. Now, maybe your course is talking about how to use those particular tools and that would be great.
That you are going to use that as part of scaffolding, and at the end of the course, that’s good. If they’re expected to have mastery level capability at the beginning of the course, but there was nothing, a prereq or something like that. That could make it a little more difficult. On your site, you would definitely want to have an overview of tools available on the site. Which specific features are going to be using in the course. This may also include any fees that they need to pay, that’s going to be important, right?
You can’t just have the sticker shock once they’re into their course, that’s rude. Make sure that you’re linking to the documentation and video tutorials, and other quick reference guides, so they have that access material. If you’re asking them to use that tool, make sure that you also include these so they know how to improve their skill level. Any screencast videos that you can use to show them how to use the tool. That’s important, right? Take time to show them how that you want to do it with screencast. Screencast’s really powerful tools, I would use them as much as you possibly can.
Make sure that you have detailed log on instructions. That very often something happens with the book, and I have found out on a number of occasions that the instructions in the book and what really has to happen are no where close. So make sure that you’ve tried these processes out, you document how to do it step-by-step. Make sure that your students can succeed. If not, it’s just going to be a lot of frustration on everybody’s part. Go on ahead and put in quick links to those technologies, that’s also going to be very useful.
Number 12, technical skills required for participation in the course learning activities scaffold in a timely manner. I alluded to this earlier, that you provide the opportunities for them to build on skills in a systematic way. Where this can be done through orientation and practice and application. You just don’t want to access something if they’re not capable of doing that particular skill.
Learners need to learn how to use that tool first before it’s going to be required in the course. Create some orientation model, or a module. Create this orientation module that shows how to videos, documentation, practice assignments. Have low stakes assignments, just to get them familiar with the tool. That is a great way to ramp them up. Still make it required, but really low stakes. All you want them to do is be able to use the tool effectively. Other ways to do this is you can set milestones in your course for mastery, and also support this maybe with digital badging. That they get to certain levels, and at the end of it they’re gurus on that particular tool.
Number 13, frequently use technology tools that are easily accessed. Any tools not being utilized are removed from the course menu. With a lot of management systems, that you can put all kinds of tools, have all these tools on your navigation bar. If you’re not using them, remove them from the navigation bar. Because students are just going to wonder, “Hey, what’s this tool? Do I need it?”.
Don’t give them any other reason to think about those things. Get rid of those tools, just use the things that are going to be required in your course. If it’s not required of your course, get rid of it. You want to make it as easy to find in your course as possible, and make the leaning management system very transparent so they can really focus on the content.
Like I said, it just makes it a lot more frustrating if you have all these things. Just take them off the navigation menu. It’s a good idea every once in a while to go into student mode and check to see what you’re students are seeing. Sometimes you think that you’ve turned things off, but you probably haven’t. It’s definitely noticeable by the students.
Number 14, the course includes links to privacy policies for technology tools. So a privacy policy is a statement or legal document that details what type of information is monitored, collected or distributed. Everybody in the course should have access to these privacy policies, and these third party companies, they have privacy policies. It’s a good thing to include these links in your particular course if you’re using some third-party tools.
Blackboard, for example, has a link, way down on the footer dealing with their privacy policy. You can bring it a little further up on the course and put that into just an area for the privacy policy. That would be a good thing. Basically, you just want to be upfront and transparent on everything that you’re doing.
This can be a place in your course information documents, which I talked about in the last episode. This course information document, that you can have a folder with these privacy policies, of different tools that you’re using. Make sure that you post those links. If you’re not sure about them, get with your instructional designer. I’m sure they’ll be happy to help you sift those things out.
Last one, number 15, any technology tool meets accessibility standards. First of all, there’s two federal laws that require this. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and then Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Also for those folks of New York, we’re also bound by the Accessibility Guidelines Pertaining to Technology. First of all, it’s a law, so that’s why we should be doing it. Two, it makes your material available to more people. We talked about this in the Universal Design for Learning episodes. This whole accessibility thing just makes your content better for everyone.
It’s not, “I’ve got to take care of this because this person’s disabled.” Don’t think of it that way, think of it that you are providing the best content for your learners to help them achieve their goals. This means that is accessible by more people than what you are currently creating. You may be creating great stuff, I don’t know. I’m just saying. Make sure the tools that you are including, do a test with them.
Talk to the folks in your disabilities department on your campus. Check with them. Say, “Hey, I want to use this tool. What do you think? Is it accessible.” They’ll let you know. Try the different features in your course. Take some classes on accessibility. These things are important. There’s all kinds of tools out there that allow you to check for accessibilities. You have, screen readers like JAWS, you also have wave accessibility tool. There are a number of other tools that will help you determine if your course is accessible. This is really, really important. Enough on that.
That was five of them. I promised this episode would be quite short. The ones that we talked about, number 11, requisites skills for using technology tools are clearly stated and supported with resources. Number 12, technical skills required for participation in course learning activities, scaffold in a timely manner through orientation practice and application where appropriate. Number 13, frequently used technology tools are easily accessed. Any tools not being utilized, remove from the course menu. Number 14, the course includes links to privacy policies for technology tools. Number 15, any technology tools meet accessibility standards. That takes care of the five technology and tool standards for the OSCQR rubric. That’s good stuff. Before I let you go I want to remind you about my book, Read to Succeed.