EDUCAUSE | EDUCAUSE_SWRC08

3 cities 3 conference titles: 3 snapshots of where we are

nordengren — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:17:53 -0500

This is regional conference number 2 for me, and my third Educause event in as many months. I January, it was my good fortune to meet many of you during the ELI annual conference in San Antonio.

In February, I attended the Southwest Regional Educause conference in Houston, and today, we're wrapping up the Midwest Regional Conference in Chicago.

What I observe is the conference titles did much to set up the differences in the attendees and the conference experience -- and gloabaly, these differences really define where we are with education technology today. To attend all three gives the broader and more strategic view of our work together.

The conference titles were:

Connecting and Reflecting: Preparing Learners for Life 2.0
Empowering Community Through Technology
New Directions in Higher Ed IT: Navigating the Course While Still Drawing the Map

For those of us in education and technology - or technology and education - we each see one or more of the pieces represented by the titles: we see the abstract concepts and pedagogical tools used to prepare learners blend with the ideas of community and ultimately we require the hardware and software to keep up or lead the trail and we live this idea of navigating while drawing the map.

Two things from the Chicago conference jump out at me: First, in her opening address, Susan Metros shared an observation about goals, processes and tools. My takeaway is that having an outcome in mind, such as collaboration, can lead to a process (shared presentation developoment), which then makes the tool (Google documents) eaiser to select. Often, as innovators, we choose the tool first, then seek an outcome.

The other observation from Chicago came during the lunch round table conversation. I shared a table with an interesting and engaging mix of leaders from our region and we discussed emerging technologies. Two thoughts were shared about emerging technologies from two diffrerent perspectives: the user and the implementer. For example, we discussed Twitter.

One table mate made the observation that he was surprised no one was "twittering" the conference. (There were multiple twitter-ers at ELI and a few in Houston.)

Someone else at the table shared they didn't know what Twitter was.

It struck me that this kind of conversation has been repeated over and over during the last 20 years -- just substitute any product name for "twitter". (IE: Lotus 123, Mosaic, Netscape, OnSale, Craig's list, Skype)

Another table mate offered that these have become "almost the technology du jour".

Exactly.

With scarce resources, and the changing employment demographic (see did you know on YouTube ) picking the right tools to deliver on the outcomes and processes requires more strategic thinking because if it is the technology du jour, you can't compete or succeed relying only on the best tactical execution.

These conferences are a great place to get out of the office, out from behind the desk, and get a larger view of where we are.

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional General Session: Knowledge Sharing: Some Myths and Ideas, and a Little IT

llarsen — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:45:02 -0600

This is a summary of the EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Opening General Session, February 20, 2008

Knowledge Sharing: Some Myths and Ideas, and a Little IT

Jean E. Engle

Chief Knowledge Officer,

NASA/Johnson Space Center

MS. Engle was the NASA Johnson Space Center CIO until she recently accepted the challenge of becoming one of the few Chief Knowledge Officers in the government. She noted that there are many differences between the two roles.

She provided background information about NASA and JSC. Many do not realize that NASA has multiple centers around the country. These all began as competitors rather than partners but this has changed over the years. Engle described the passion in the community for their work.

JSC is the integrator of all things about manned space flight. It is the home of the Astronaut Corps and, as it is primarily known, “Houston, we have a problem” Mission Control. The actual workforce is about 3000 civilians and 14000 contractors. Ten thousand of these people are “inside the fence.” There is a lot of diversity between all the pieces which includes different HRs, different cultures, and more, that keep them from working as well together as they would like.

JSC owns the 3 largest programs: Shuttle, International Space Station, and Constellation – crew exploration. They plan a moon to Mars ship by 2015, and an Earth to Mars ship by 2030. The Shuttle program, with 130 successful missions and 2 catastrophic failures, will be retired in 2010 after 11 more launches. This means there will be 5 years with no US presence in space. The International Space Station will rely on the Russian space program with the exception of some things that can go up only with the larger Shuttle before it is retired. The ISS will soon be 6 person supportable and be able to do true science.

Moving back into her talk on knowledge management and its challenges, she described Knowledge Management (KM) as the ability to capture the right information and pass it on to a person who needs it. KM is critical in this era as we face a major workforce transition and changing skill set needs, i.e., Shuttle skills are different than will be needed in the new programs. The average age at JSC is 45. As with other organizations, many are approaching retirement and knowledge they have has gone uncollected.

From planning conversations with the CKO from Goddard Space Flight Center, Engle shared the Top Ten Myths about Knowledge Management which is adapted from several sources

10. Culture change can be mandated from the top down (what should managers do)

9. Collaboration effort can be “purchased” or “sharing be rewarded” (these are not sustainable and quality is not good. Reward from personal satisfaction is best)

8. KM can be outsourced

7. Anybody (who isn’t busy) can do KM

6. KM can be solved by buying the right software

5. KM can be independent of the business process

4. Communities of practice can be established from the top

3. KM is about centralizing knowledge content to use it more efficiently

2. KM is really about databases

1. KM is an IT function and should be given to the CIO

Actions that Engle took to implement KM were

1. Benchmarking

Studied approach looking at various entities (Rolls Royce and others – these were companies that had pressing need) inside/outside government and the aerospace industry.
Consortium studies with the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC)
Working with her Goddard SFC counterpart

2. Assessment

Center-wide knowledge management maturity assessment which provided insight into how much knowledge sharing was occurring and where
Identified strengths and gaps/barriers – the identified fractured organization was a big barrier

Engle noted that many people who hoard information are still among us and indicated the need to convince this generation to actively work on KM. Some of the methods used are:

Leadership – modeled behavior
Local learning – which needs to be encouraged/fostered. She indicated that there are only 5-7 types of info and we need to know how/when to share each of these) Lessons learned at the local level are applicable across multiple organizations. However, you must ask the question: Is this something that others need?
Codify when appropriate –Goddard SFC tried to film 40 retirees to retrieve the critical knowledge they had. It was expensive, no one watches it, so “why do that to your friends.” Tacit knowledge is not something you suck out of someone and put on the web.
Change management takes time. She indicated that most companies successful at KM have been doing it for 7-8 or more years.

Notable:

Generational differences are a part of the equation. NASA has 4 generations working side-by-side (GenX, GenY, Boomers, Traditionals) as does higher education. The average age is 45.

What is on incoming undergraduates’ minds?

Learning curve for new employees/younger generations, it is hard to come up to speed in the organization. New hires say it takes 5 years to know the culture and how to get things done
Technology gap; the technology is not what they are used to and not user friendly
More engagement of younger employees is needed – “don’t just give me a phone, computer, and leave”

Engle believes if NASA doesn’t change they won’t be able to recruit in 5 years.

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For thoughts from GenYers who now work for NASA watch the GenY created slide set available at http://www.educause.edu/SWRC08/Program/13571?PRODUCT_CODE=SWRC08/GS01 (watch a second time for how this might relate to IT in higher education)

They don’t understand why NASA doesn’t have wireless or why the NASA Web doesn’t say what NASA does
They (the next generation) will pay $124 billon to get to the Moon/Mars by 1030
They say NASA should forget the top-down way they are doing things – it’s already dead
They say NASA needs to better understand the audience – because the audience does not see the point, understand the facts, and aren’t currently in a position to participate.
Instead of NASA telling the audience what they want to share, GenY wants NASA to spark conversations with compelling stories that touch the GenYs– but please be timely and utilize social media.
They want NASA to reclaim its image as a leader of innovation

The slide set also considers what this would look like via headlines such as “Astronaut Twitters from Space during EVA,” Two Million Digg Votes for the Latest NASA Press Release,” and “NASA Switches Back to MACs”

The slide set went on to discuss the good things that NASA is doing but said

“There isn’t one ultimate communications strategy to solve NASA’s problems once and for all.” GenY wants to be a part of the solution.

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More KM ideas

Google – installed but the story is much more complex.

Led to identifying repositories, beginning with websites

Which is leading towards identifying usage of websites
Which will lead towards document and content management strategies
Supported by stronger taxonomies and metadata structures

Engle offered lots of healthy ideas for improvement

Process:

Social networking
Pause and learn – informal learning sessions (30 minutes)
Integrate risk management with knowledge management – crucial to decision-making – good (not perfect) makes managers better decision-makers
Information lifecycle management – scan and make it available for future generations – but with connection to get context of the info
Tacit knowledge capture – interviewing retirees

Add in People and Technology

Web-enabled high performance teams
Knowledge sharing forums
Case studies – teaching by providing context to a story
Web 2.0 technologies- enabler for infusion, collaboration, and sharing (everybody has a wiki but no one uses them

She suggested that they may bring people back to talk/teach/record (7 original astronauts are still living)

And she reiterated that they want to be tool independent.

Engle left us with Astronaut Eugene Cernan’s quote from the final Apollo mission: “We leave as we came, and god willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”

Engle requested that we visit the NASA website(s) and give them feed back.

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Q&A

Q – Were there only the 4 students who did the slide set involved?

A - There were 4 who did the slide set but many more who participated in focus groups. (At least 44) Engle also discussed a mentoring program for engineers. The have 61 mentors for 900 engineers.

Q – What does NASA do to partner with universities? And question about interns.

A - Talk to NASA HR – and they have a good program for interns which has doubled to 300. These are made to have 24X7 availability rather than work hours.

Q - Mentoring program?

A – The mentoring program is via the HR program. It has been opened up to retirees and many have come back to mentor.

Q – Collecting knowledge from retirees?

A - Retirees are asked to “drop things off” and many are providing resources (one individual gave them 150 boxes that the archivist is going thru)

Q - Does having retirees mentor mean that current employees will be encouraged to do so as well?

A – While current employees are always encouraged to mentor, there is now more work to do but no more budget. Resources are an issue. Time is an issue.

Further comments:

Not having so many layers between engineers and upper levels is better. It used to be that you had to follow the chain of command – but after the Columbia incident people could come forward at any level. Engle noted that GenYs are not concerned about organizational charts and hierarchies don’t mean anything to them. (Boomers like hierarchy)

Change must occur / we must move on / preferably as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. She noted that Discovery (shuttle) is their baby and whether sending off to college, or to Smithsonian, it is a change that must happen.

Engle talked about issues around engaging kids, Second Life, etc, considered, but not all kids think alike. They do their best to hear the younger generations but they don’t always reciprocate. NASA interns do reciprocate but sometimes that reciprocation needs to be facilitated.

Other tidbits:

NASA offers competitions thru educational programs.

NASA has a watchdog site which get information faster than employees do.

The intern program has been expanded to include sophomores (Engle began as a coop student with NASA when she was 19.)

Engles’s presentation materials are available at http://www.educause.edu/SWRC08/Program/13571?PRODUCT_CODE=SWRC08/GS01

An interview with Engle is available via podcast at

http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/educausepodcastanintervie/46264

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #1

llarsen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:37:43 -0600

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #1

Question: What do we need to do to recruit, retain & develop our IT professionals?

Responses:

How do infrastructure support staff survive in a development group?
It doesn't matter what organization you are recruiting for you need to find people who 'fit.'
Be clear about needs & impact you're striving to have; communicate that clearly & widely.
Once you get the right people on the bus you need to procure the resources to keep them! If they are "right" others will notice reasonably quickly how "right" and under resourced you are!!
People "buy in" to what they help build - involve everyone in "planning for success."
Pay incentives for single employees & value (in $) benefits for married/family employees as compared to local (competitors) employers.
Develop program initiatives your staff can relate to and feel good about. Employees want to feel like they are part of the community.
Please offer workshops/seminars by ITIL consultants as general sessions or as tracks in the business aspect of IT.
Hurry up and retire already.
Pay competitively.
Recognize their accomplishments. Give them the freedom to do their jobs.
Talk with them, find out what they want, what they think they can contribute. Tie that into the org goals/missions.

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #2

llarsen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:50:00 -0600

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #2

Question: How do we move from working in reactive mode and into proactive mode?

Responses:

Moving from reactive to proactive requires a cultural shift that needs to be deliberately planned and executed over time - change management is critical.
Proactive behaviors are rewarded - reactive behaviors are discouraged.
By planning?!
Step back...to see the bigger picture & talk.
Encourage reflection with periodic retreats, whether departmental or by workgroup.
Try to involve people who are open minded and forward thinking in your planning/decision making process.
Focus on what's good about what's not and then strive to make it better.
Allow well intentioned mistakes to occur w/o punishment.
Schedule time for planning & execution - work on important but not urgent things.

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #3

llarsen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:52:17 -0600

EDUCAUSE Southwest Regional Conference Think Stop #3

Question: Green initiatives: Who's doing what to move towards sustainability?

Responses:

Turning equipment OFF when not in use!
But we use it for heat!
Duplexers on printers in stu.labs - default to print both sides.
Copy machines that only output to .PDF & e-mail the .PDF.
Require all institutional computers to power-off after hours.
Large (administrative mainframe) jobs "printed" to disk storage (we use Xythos webdav).
Go green campaign.

EDUCAUSE Podcast: An Interview with Jean Engle, Chief Knowledge Officer, NASA/Johnson Space Center

gbayne — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:27:19 -0600

This 12 minute podcast features an interview with Jean Engle, Chief Knowledge Officer for NASA at the Johnson Space Center. She delivered the opening keynote speech at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Southwest Regional Conference entitled, "Knowledge Sharing: Some Myths and Ideas, and a Little IT".

Ms. Engle joined the Johnson Space Center as a cooperative education student in 1984. She earned a B.A. in Mathematics in 1987, and an M.B.A in 1993 from the University of Houston, Clear Lake. She has served in a variety of increasingly responsible division and directorate staff positions and has been a member of the CIO Office since its inception in 1994. Over the last several years, she has led JSC’s involvement in a number of Agencywide and Centerwide Information Technology standards and security efforts.

In September, 2006, Ms. Engle was named the Chief Knowledge Officer for the Johnson Space Center. In this capacity, Ms. Engle is responsible for the development of an integrated knowledge management plan across the entire center, conduct studies of current and past knowledge management activities, evaluate current policies and processes, as well as collaborate with other NASA Centers and industry to identify and utilize best practices.

EDUCAUSE Podcast: Washington Update with EDUCAUSE Vice President Mark Luker

gbayne — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:39:31 -0600

In this 50 minute podcast we feature a keynote speech by Mark Luker, Vice President of EDUCAUSE. The speech was delivered at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Southwest Regional Conference in Houston, Texas, and is entitled, "Washington Update: We're from the Government, and We're Here to Help You!"

Mark A. Luker is vice president of EDUCAUSE, where he heads Net@EDU, a 'thought-leadership' coalition of university CIOs and state network directors who work to advance national networking for both research and education through joint projects and federal policy. Net@EDU was the spawning ground of Internet2, and is now expanding its focus to include advanced connections between campuses and their customers in surrounding communities and regions. He also leads the EDUCAUSE office of government relations and policy analysis in Washington, D.C., which works with partner associations to help shape the emerging policy and legal framework of the Internet, intellectual property, and other issues of importance to higher education.

Luker served two years as program director for advanced networking at the National Science Foundation and the federal Next Generation Internet project. Prior to that he was CIO at the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus, where he was active in national projects including the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative and the Coalition for Networked Information.

Luker received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and served as a faculty member and then a dean at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, before moving into information technology management.

Reaching Students Through Facebook, YouTube, Digital Storytelling and Second Life (Discussion Session)

happyharriet — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:06:43 -0600

Rice University has undertaken an initiative to start using the things that their students are already using. Students indicated that they don't use email (email is for old people). They use their social networking tools. Watch this video.

Comments from the audience:

Students do want you (the instructor) to use these tools.
We must decide what the scholarly model is for the use of these tools. How do we do it, where do we fit in?
As an instructional designer and instructional technologist we are willing to use the tools, but we need to find out where our graduates are fitting in by using these tools. Are these tools actually used in the corporate sector? What about their security issues? What about computer information literacy? Are we graduating students who can go into society and function? Are we preparing them for the work environment or a social environment?
Do the students understand the difference between just using wikipedia and actually knowing whats factual and whats not.
Can't we add information literacy into the curriculum?
Employers do go out and google students to see their myspace and/or facebook page
Technology should not be driving our thought process but the marriage between technology and theory.
When it comes to assessing material it depends on how the students are using the technology in the class. For instance blogging - some students like it, some students hate it.
Texas State Univ., are using Second Life for Engineering.
One participant uses facebook to keep in touch with the students. Mainly for keeping in touch with the students. He says that facebook has allowed even the teachers to network with each other, and because of the scaffolding effect of facebook, other people are linking in because of groups/friends relationships.
Use myspace as a helpdesk to assist students. Since they are already in there anyway.
Do we go to what the students want or use? Or should the students be made to go to what we want to use? We spend so much money for Blackboard and WebCT why should we go outside of these technologies?
Someone else uses secondlife, flickr and blogspot. Students are interested, they particpate more. It's their medium.
Academic advisor uses Myspace to talk to all of his advisees. The students were willing to sign waivers (privacy) in order to participate. They like it.
Some participants wonder if older adult students are interested in these social networking tools? How do we bridge the gap between the younger student and the older student?
The average age of second life users are in their 30's. So it's not so much the younger 20-somethings.
There are some senior citizens who are embracing these technologies. Grandparents who have myspace pages.
World of Warcraft is played by 50 and 60 year olds... so don't count the older student out as uninterested, uninformed or out of the loop.
Some people are using facebook to push out information and resources to their students.

Great discussion ... which I feel should be continued (anyone want to continue on Facebook or Myspace?) :)

Space Defines Destiny: Assessment of a Learning Studio

happyharriet — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:35:34 -0600

This presentation was given by Chris Scheetz, Jim S.C. Tom, and Kenneth L. Voss all from University of MIssouri - St. Louis. They created the first flexible technology enhanced classroom (learning studio). They describe it as provocative and experimental. They wanted to do this project to increase enrollment and maintain retention.

They conducted a systematic upgrade of classrooms on campus. They did a survey of how faculty members taught their classes. Most of them used the lecture based methods. Most of the classrooms were very immobile. Computers locked down, tables/desks and seats immobile. They included faculty, staff and students, facilities & planning in the design of this classroom. It started with a working paper for planning this classroom. He emphasized the fact that it was not just an IT project. It required everyone's participation campus/department wide. 4 million dollar project.

Flexible, social, comfortable ambiance and accessible... these are the terms they used in the design of the room. They used two rooms and demolished the wall between them to create a large flexible classroom. He showed photos of the cdlassroom. Use of mounted flat panel TV's, couches, lightweight seating that's moveable, instructors using the classrooom found that the furniture makes them much more flexible and mobile. Touch panel controls (remotes) for lighting system (you can adjust lighting to set mood/theme), audio/visual controls, etc. Instructor podium, has smart board, overhead projector, etc., but due to the mobility of the controls, the instructor is not tied to the podium and can move around. All furniture can be reconfigured at will -- however the instructor wants.

Assessment Mechanisms:

They employed a number of factors to determine the viability of this flexible classroom, such as faculty observations, blogs about the classroom, video recordings, surveys of faculty and students, and a debriefing meeting with faculty. Funny responses from students, however overall the preliminary results were fairly positive. 100% of those surveyed said that the use of technology in the room enhanced their learning experience in the class. There was no obvious "back of the class" area and there was no "front of the room" area. They found that a comfortable space is less threatening and students are more wiling take risks.

Who uses the classroom? Dept. of Foreign Languages, math, english are taught in this classroom. Foreign language department has decided to build the use of this room into their curriculum.

They weren't pushing people to use these technologies, faculty were taking it upon themselves to adopt this type of classroom. Faculty said upon using this room, the university needs to improve the dismal physical condition of many of their existing classrooms. This project made it clear that the environment really does affect learning. They felt that this was a success and are building another one using lessons learned from this first classroom.

This would be a very cool thing to do at UTA ... (smile)

Successful Mediated Classrooms

happyharriet — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:09:58 -0600

Presented by Rebecca Gould, Director of Information Technology Assistance Center, Kansas State University. She started out by showing us a pictorial of the extreme makeover of a classroom. A large screen (almost movie size) installed on wall, use of clickers, lecture hall style seating, The goals of the project were empowerment and ownership.

They started by looking at the total inventory of classrooms, developing a team to come up with strategic ways to acquire technology (S.W.A.T.), common core (courses with the greatest need), budget estimates, etc. Some of the issues were capacity, ADA compliance, acquiring appropriate approvals, security, maintenance, etc. Need 2.4 million dollars for some of their classroom makeovers.