Digital Competencies for Education - Doug Johnson at OTAEM 2013

Digital Competencies for Education

Doug writes at the Blue Skunk Blog and is @blueskunkblog on Twitter.

Doug's presentation is aimed at administrators, but I'm thinking about it in the context of staff/faculty development.

Guiding Ideas

For too long we've used a YOYO (You're On Your Own)  as far as staff/faculty development goes. So why is it so hard to get higher education faculty to learn how to use technology?

• Because they have "people," i.e. graduate students, who will do it for them.
• They are tremendously busy. 
• It doesn't fit their teaching philosophy.

So, do they really need those skills? If so, which skills? How are they best acquired?

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (related to technology, from bottom to top)

1. Established Infrastructure
2. Effective Administration
3. Extenstive Resources
4. Effective Teaching
5. Empowered Students

What are the established Educational Technology Standards for Teachers? 

NETS for teachers from ISTE

**Think carefully about where to go from here in Online Professional Development.**

Look for (and outline) the benchmarks of what you should know and be able to do.

Personal Productivity

• Use some kind of calendar (Google Calendar!!) Integrates nicely with email (also consider Google Plus and how it integrates). Creates an attendee list.

Information Systems Use

• This one is up in the air for us with the transition to Ellucian. However, know what YOU need to know about it. 
• If you aren't using it, then the admin can't connect the data points (across campus).
• This should be web-based (I doubt Ellucian is, is it?)

Record Keeping

• All of your records should be current and transparent.

Data Warehousing and Data Keeping 

• This is done for us through Moodle. 
• A must for retention interventions. (use gradebook and attendance)
• For leaders to be able to make EFFECTIVE DECISIONS, they MUST have access to data, which means it's out job to collect the data. 

Content for Students

• Students need to access information on their time, at their point of need. 

The SAMR Model of Technology Integration:

jennyluca.wikispaces.com

Where are you? Where do you want to be? Where does your administration want you to be? For me, I think the ideal would be for everyone to be fluent enough with technology to be able to at least augment their face to face courses. However, many will go on and move into modification and redefinition.