F-LIGHT

E-Newsletter for the Flashlight Program

• Evaluation of Handheld and PDA Use in Zoology Courses at North Carolina State University
• Upcoming Assessment-related Online Workshops and Conferences - seven principles; dealing with tight budgets, Flashlight Online)
• Note from the Editor ("Ehrmann's Travels")  
• New subscribing institutions
• Learning More About Flashlight( free demo accounts), The TLT Group and F-LIGHT

Evaluation of Handheld and PDA Use in Zoology Courses at North Carolina State University

Betty Black and Marianne Niedzlek-Feaver needed to know whether it was a good idea to continue using handheld computers (including PDAs) in zoology courses they teach at NCSU to support more active forms of learning in the classroom.  As you'll see, their study was worth doing: it's influenced both the acquisition of new equipment and their own thinking about teaching.

They write, "As a result of our 3-year assessment of handheld computing, we have made the decision to continue placing course materials in the Visor PDAs, but to extend Visor usage to the types of classroom exercises that have proved successful with Jornadas (handheld computers). Based on positive results from active learning exercises, we will continue this approach in both Developmental Anatomy and Evolution.

"However, enhanced student performance may need to be balanced with student satisfaction regarding teaching style. Our questionnaires have revealed the interesting phenomena that while Evolution students performed best when the entire course was taught actively, they were less satisfied than when 40% of the course remained in lecture format.

"Similarly, when Developmental Anatomy students were asked which format they preferred, 54% chose 2 lectures with 1 "active learning" exercise per week, 21% chose 1 lecture with 2 exercises per week, and 25% preferred all lecture. No students wanted an exclusive active learning format. Follow up questions or focus groups will be added for our next evaluation to determine the reason for these attitudes.

Upcoming Assessment-Related Online Workshops and Conferences

Online Workshop: Using the Seven Principles to Assess and Improve Educational Uses of Technology

The seven principles of good practice in undergraduate education, originally formulated by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson in 1986, have become a powerful tool in guiding the use of, and the assessment of, technology in education.  Starting in fall 2003 (late October?), The TLT Group will offer an online workshop exploring the seven principles and their applications to assessing and improving educational uses of technology. Workshop users, all of whom will have Flashlight Online accounts, will explore two major types of studies - program effectiveness studies (e.g., using the seven principles to evaluate teaching-learning effectiveness of distance learning and campus programs) and diagnostic studies (e.g., using data to improve online interaction among students).

This online workshop will feature a series of webcasts and chat sessions, as well as the opportunity to get feedback from workshop leaders on project designs. Staff from TLT/Flashlight subscribing institutions will receive a discount. If you'd like to be notified when registration opens for this important online opportunity, send e-mail to ehrmann@tltgroup.org 

A second workshop in this series is likely, probably later in 2003 or early in 2004, focusing on applications of the seven principles to helping faculty use technology to improve teaching and learning.

In the meantime, to learn more about the topic, see our resource page on the seven principles. There are also special material linked to that page available only for faculty, staff and students from subscribing institutions.

Webcasts on How TLT Group Materials Can Help Institutions Make the Most of Tight Budgets - Subscribers Only!

Starting in late September, The TLT Group will offer a series of free webcasts open only to subscribing institutions. The topic: how they and their staff can use subscriber materials to make the most of scarce resources when using technology to improve teaching and learning. Among the topics for the series: efficient, effective strategies for mass faculty support; governance and planning; cost analysis as a way of easing stress on people's time as well as on budgets.

Flashlight Online training - Subscribers Only!

We'll continue to webcast periodic training sessions for Flashlight Online users, administrators, and trainers. E-mail will be sent to subscribing institutions about times and how to log on.

For details on this and other Flashlight and TLT Group events, both face to face and online, keep an eye on The TLT Group calendar. 

TLT/Flashlight Subscription Programs and New Materials

• The TLT/Flashlight Basic Collection includes site licenses to dozens of program development and assessment tools and resources, while the 
• The Comprehensive Collection also includes unlimited institutional use of Flashlight Online, our powerful, web-based survey system that includes validated items and peer-reviewed templates for typical educational studies. 
• Network membership includes both the Comprehensive Collection as well as benefits with two free days of consulting and sharply reduced rates for additional days: useful for training, grant-funded studies, accreditation self-studies, and a variety of other purposes. 

All three subscription levels include the option to submit assessment materials for peer review and publication, discounts to TLT Group events, invitations to regular online briefing sessions, and other benefits. There are now approximately 330 institutional subscribers. Is yours one of them? Check our list of participating institutions.

New and upgraded materials are added frequently to the Collection. Now available, or to be added soon, are:

• Sample surveys for collecting student feedback to improve faculty use of PowerPoint. This has been available for some time as a Word document; the sample surveys are now available as templates in Flashlight Online.
• The second edition of the Flashlight Cost Analysis Handbook,  
• The second edition of the Student Technology Assistant Program Workbook, 
• A survey for collecting easy-to-share teaching ideas from faculty (using the "Seven Principles of Good Practice") and a resource page on the Seven Principles; 
• A diagnostic survey that faculty can use to improve student interaction online and another diagnostic survey faculty can use to get helpful feedback on classroom use of PowerPoint;
• A guide to gathering data about a college's e-portfolio initiative (asking the right questions in order to increase the program's influence on teaching-learning practices while controlling costs, risk, and stress), and 
• A new, peer-reviewed survey for studying Course Management System use developed by Cheryl Bielema and her colleagues at the University of Missouri St. Louis (see article earlier in this issue).  

Each subscribing institution gets free access to all of these materials, along with the rest of the Collection, for its entire faculty, staff and student body.

The TLT Group subscription program has been growing.  About 180 institutions, systems, boards of regents, and multi-institution projects now subscribe. Among institutions subscribing, or resubscribing, so far this summer are Alverno College; Brigham Young University; California State University, Monterey Bay; Colby-Sawyer College; Des Moines Community College; Emmanuel College; Florida International University; George Washington University; Houston Community College; Indiana University System (7 institutions)  Linn-Benton Community College; Louisiana Board of Regents; Maryville College; Middle Tennessee State University; Mount Royal College; Nicolet Area Technical College; Ohio State University - College of Nursing; Ohio University; Old Dominion University;  Philadelphia University; Presbyterian College; Regis College; Saint Vincent College; SUNY Stony Brook University, Tougaloo College; Tulane University; University of Minnesota, Crookston; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of North Dakota; University of South Carolina System (5 institutions); University of Tennessee, Knoxville; University of the District of Columbia; Valencia Community College; Vanderbilt University; and Washington and Lee University..

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Ehrmann's Travels

People often ask me how much I travel and what I do on trips.  This summer's travel was mostly to conferences, but institutional visits are stepping up as fall approaches Here are a few my recent and upcoming stops:

• University of South Florida - Steve Gilbert and I were asked to develop and lead a faculty institute for this Research I institution.  We've designed a mix of face-to-face work (a full-time week that we spent with the core group of over 20 selected faculty members) and monthly online events throughout the coming academic year. The goals of the work are to help the individual faculty make major steps in their uses of technology to improve teaching, and their use of assessment to guide that process, while also creating a growing learning community of faculty. We're really excited about how things are going so far; let us or the Center for 21st Century Teaching and Learning (Diane Williams or Bill Patterson) know if you'd like to hear more about it.

• Steve and I did a workshop "together" at the MERLOT conference in Vancouver BC.  "Together" is in quotes because he was in Vancouver and I was back at my desk in Maryland. We're doing more and more of these hybrid events using a mix of settings, activities, and technologies, testing just what you can do with relatively inexpensive media. I was able to guide participants as they used Flashlight Online to create their own surveys.

• At the Syllabus Conference at Stanford University, I participated in an invited panel on innovative physical settings for learning. My role: how do you evaluate such facilities and use data to do a better, cheaper job of educating students in them?

• I'm going to Tougaloo College in Mississippi later this month to participate in a conference on service learning and community engagement. My particular interest is in helping the College use Flashlight Online to study the impact of these experiences on education.

• On a personal note, the most special trip of the summer was to see my son, Chris, who's working as a bartender and karaoke MC in Brooklyn. Seven hours, seven beers, and seven songs from yours truly on the night of my visit, most of the songs duets with Chris.  What a special evening!

Upcoming trips include Washington and Lee University (assessment workshop) and Hong Kong (I'm advising on a study of technology use in the city's schools).  Virtual travel will include monthly workshops for faculty at the University of South Florida in Tampa (see above).

The Flashlight Program for the Study and Improvement of Educational Uses of Technology is part of the non-profit TLT Group, Inc. Flashlight was created by Annenberg/CPB in 1993. The TLT Group is headquartered in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside Washington DC, with additional staff in Texas, Richmond VA, and Pittsburgh; and Senior Associates around the world. Our thanks to Washington State University for their many ways of supporting Flashlight, including developing and administering Flashlight Online and providing the listproc for distribution of F-LIGHT notices.  We are also grateful to St. Edward's University for extensive support for Flashlight; to the corporate sponsors of The TLT Group; and to funders whose dedication to higher education has aided the TLT Group's work, including Annenberg/CPB,  Atlantic Philanthropic Service, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), and the National Science Foundation.

If your institution needs to get a better look at Flashlight Online, the best way is for someone at your institution to request a temporary, free demonstration account.  Send e-mail to Flashlight@tltgroup.org with the header "Free Demo Account" to ask for details. One account per institution, please.

If you know someone else who would like to be alerted to new issues of F-LIGHT, please suggest that they send e-mail to LISTPROC@LISTPROC.WSU.EDU with the one line message
   SUBSCRIBE F-LIGHT (the subscriber's first and last name)

Do the same for yourself if you have changed e-mail addresses.

To stop receiving the bulletin about F-LIGHT, please send e-mail to LISTPROC@LISTPROC.WSU.EDU with the one line message
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