Dr Nada Dabbagh opened with a review of the GMU Immersion Program and introduced the faculty and their area of research. The GMU Immersion team presented their briefing report and then opened for discussion.

Decisions

•  Use cases will be needed to develop around the roles
• Roles will be developed independent of organizational structure
• Need area #1 will be addressed: the technology integration process utilized by GLTC with LCIC, however, the process used with the regions and leadership may collapse into need area #1
• Need area #4 will not be addressed: a course integration technology testing environment
• ALT research will focus on mobile, immersive/virtual (sans MMORG and croquet), and social media
• ALT research will be conducted through the lens of the dynamics the technology affords

Organizational

• DAU has a formal organizational structure and an informal structure to support organizational roles
• GLTC and LCIC have a formal relationship while GLTC and the Regional Deans have an informal relationship
• Course Managers work closely with LCIC, they have an informal relationship
• GLTC is a diverse group
• DAU makes business decisions, and learning happens around that
• Business decisions are currently made without the “why use this technology”
• Bloom’s taxonomy is a deliberate application
• DAU is waiting on funding to set up a lab environment to practice with new learning technologies

Roles

• The PLD decides if it’s a course or a knowledge sharing asset
• The primary decision makers are the CDs/PLDs
• Course Managers are matrixed to the PLD so do not have to talk to them; don’t need to talk to instructors
• Course Managers should be using technology
• Instructors do not make curriculum development decisions
• LCIC hands content to the regions
• Deans and faculty deliver based on the lesson plan
• Instructors rarely make the kinds of decisions we’re talking about [technology usage]
• Some instructors are forward thinking and may take advantage of new technology
• Need to keep the faculty in mind as they ultimately make decide whether to use it or not
• ISD does not make budgetary decisions and their role varies by project
• Feedback is captured to make course changes (may be 18 months later)

Decision Support Tool

• End users

The tool might prove useful to decision makers outside DAU as well as supporting internal decisions

Good to create a persona that cuts across tasks, not job titles

• Purposes

Support a person’s role

Develop use cases

Formalize the process

Match requirements to the right type of learning asset

Provide a means to rapidly analyze a new technology

Provide another piece of data that decision makers can use in their evaluations

Map tools/technologies to pedagogical models

Provide valid information on why to use a technology and why take the time to use it

Communicate the value of ALT

Assess if tool XYZ can replace low attendance courses (this is not part of our purview)

If it will be database driven, capture and store decisions for later reflection and best practices

• Look and Feel

Must be easy to use

Customize to DAU context for meaningful decision making

Develop use cases to base the tool on

ALT Research

• Don’t focus on the technology per se but rather on the dynamics, instead of twitter, its “rapidly iterative communication”
• DAU needs to know technologies’ pedagogical value; provide a means for a user to select based on what they want to do or engineer
• Technology assessment should include why use, benefits, pedagogical value

Miscellaneous

• Formal courses are adhered to in their field implementation but some instructors will do things differently
• An acquisition team in San Diego has a certain customer and a customer unique acquisition problem; a DAU team could go solve that problem
• See the New York State budget game which allows a person to change decisions on a sliding scale that then provides some kind of results output; this might be a way to communicate; it’s very simplistic (Flash slides)
• Check out Forio Broadcast (https://forio.com/broadcast/)
• Potential interviewees: Judith Hall Bayliss (morning, Nov 12), Marty Falk- Faculty Development; Miriam Choe- Faculty Development, Tim Shannon, Bill Kobren, George Prosnik, Pam Gouldsberry, and Louis Ramirez

1. requested DAU read the BR, comment, and email comments by next Friday
2. requested DAU provide access to people