List of questions:

Staff / User Technical Abilities
1. Are they concerned about the technical capabilities of the T/TAC Staff?
2. Are they concerned about the technical capabilities of teachers?
3. What technology are they most familiar with in considering initial experience for buy-in in terms of teachers as well as T/TAC Staff?
4. Are there different levels of technical experience that relate to T/TAC staff (novice users)? What is the baseline technical level of T/TAC Staff / SME's?
5. Is there any administrative support and user support?

Answers:

Technical/Administrative Support - Lucinda and Shuangabo are basically it for tech support - we won't be doing content management - there will be team leaders (among all T/TAC staff) to manage the various specialties - they will be the people who monitor the content

TTAC staff Technical levels - levels vary - Assistive Technology people are much more sophisticated in their understanding of computers. Most of the other staff comes in at the low to intermediate level, with regards to technical ability. They are expert instructors, though. This would make a great webshop - beefing up their tech skills - teaching them how to make PDFs, create flash, audio and even video.

Access by teachers - There's no real concern about their abilities – “they have more skills than they used to” - high speed access is also much more prevalent - Mike feels that we have to be designing to reasonable state of the art instead of LCD. Designing for the Lowest Common Denominator could eliminate a lot of the material that could be delivered.

Demographics
Who is our target audience? Primary? Secondary?

Answers:

Who can access courses? - The same individuals will access TTAC online - the courses will carry some restrictions and may need to be per-paid or require that the individual a student or on a preapproved list.

WebShop and Course Content - Reengineering

1. Does the target Audience understand the pedagogical principals in transferring from one delivery method to online learning? (Paper based, PowerPoint, video, etc)
2. Has anyone ever tried to convert content to online format in T/TAC Online?
3. Have they thought of any other delivery methods historically? Audio Files, PDF's
4. Where are we today in development particularly in webshops and online courses?
5. Where do we want to go next? How do online courses and webshops intersect?

Answers:

"I think that people will understand Gagne - but we will need to do some translation of what makes good online training - they may know how to do it by those principals, but they will need a template or plan to show them how to utilize the existing templates - demonstrations on how this works."

Web Shop Content - "Assistive technology is still the primary focus, but we need to be sensitive to others who want to put up content - I think we should think about putting up webshops on how to build webshops, how to place information online - make it good online training"

Who will develop the content - "Mostly TTAC staff will be developing content; could be some State Department of Education people, but mostly TTAC staff are the ones who develop content."

The primary development of WebShops - TTAC Staff will produce almost all of the WebShops. Courses could be University Instructors, TTAC Staff, Independent Contractors - although, people other than T/Tac Staff, may not be WebShop developers. There will be a separate login or permission structure to request or login as an instructor or developer. We need to look at what BlackBoard does in this respect. The technology may already exist of how to give people permission (gate keeping).

So what are the 5 - 15 minute WebShops? - "How do we define and distinguish between the short and long ones? It's not clear to everybody as to what was there - it's hard to make the leap from 15-minute chunk to course, in their minds. As currently defined (from the previous semester's project) a web shop is a collection of chunks or "chapters" that can make up to, roughly, 3 hrs of instructional time - the 15 min presentation is a single chapter of a webshop."

What are Courses? - The blackboard link should be in the webshop somewhere - the login screen to a WebShop should ask person to verify their info (account creation occurs prior to their being able to take a web shop) then they are taken straight into the WebShop - Same deal with BlackBoard - Verify the demographic information already collected, then transition straight into the course. There will be NO custom BlackBoard login for testing - we will use the BlackBoard account we have, but we plan buy our own setup, which will allow us greater flexibility. This will only occur if things progress to the point where it makes sense to spend the money.

Courses are an extension of the webshops - we might need to teach people what should be a WebShop and What would be considered a course - A WebShop is small chunks of instruction, up to about 3 hrs of online learning - very much like a face to face workshop - a course would be stringing together many of these workshops to create 15 hrs of instruction to create a 1 credit type of course

The Demo BlackBoard Course that Mike built - His model was highly integrated - it used several webshops but also went out to other sites / material on the web, and even some software that was on the citrix server at the Kellar Institute. Webshops wouldn't be the only things that make up a course - it would also include documents and is more formalized - such as including a syllabus, etc. and possibly even a connection to an online community for discussion purposes.

Certification - This will be up to the institution offering the course - the state may want to provide credit or even non-credit courses for free - there probably will have to be some sort of gatekeeper to control the access. Mike sees 3 levels - First level -Free, second level - time sensitive, so that they would have to take the course at or within a specific time period, and third - you have to be enrolled, have paid for, or been given permission to gain access to the course. Mike is not sure where the gatekeeper resides. A question to answer is should they be able to get there by the regular login or do we send them a special password to get in? The answer may lie in BlackBoard in that they may be able to provide the necessary technology to do this. Some courses will be restricted, some open but all of them should be accessed through TTAC so we can track the data of who’s accessing the material.

Other delivery methods PDF, Audio - "We need to train people on how to do this - could be PCD style of instruction - context sensitive - inside the webshop development, the help could be a dropdown list of items - How do I make a PDF? Etc - could link to a specific WebShop on that topic - maybe a button to develop your own example - that you can toggle back and forth"

Technical Issues

1. Has anyone gone through the process of uploading content? What has been their experience? Can we get a contact list of who has gone through it?
2. What are some expected problems?

Answers:

"I don't know whether many people have put content up - we could build a course in how to upload content"

Expectations - Desired Outcomes

1. Who wants it? When do they want it? What exactly do they want? What is our plan of attack based on timelines and priorities? Prioritize task order?
2. With regard to T/TAC Online content, what are the priorities for development? Why is it a priority? Clear Outcome
3. What are areas other than content that are priorities? Functional capabilities and content management?
4. What kinds of usage data do we need to collect to support goals related to accountability / funding?
5. Are the stakeholders concerned about SCORM issues?

Answers:

Usage data - "They are supposed to be collecting data" - Mike was not sure of the details - account creation should be there when they enter the webshops to capture the demographic information. The goal is to have data pass through to BlackBoard and not make them go through a separate Login.

Other ideas for WebShops would be things like - how to develop a descriptive video clip - how to do audio files, extended description ALT tags for pictures, 508 type things, how to use technology to make the translation from standup to online - on templates we could be build on their accessibility workshop - would be good to build some content using this.

Other areas of concern: "No, there really aren't any. The real issues are usability in WebShops and Courses, creating and using."

SCORM issues - "I don't know enough to tell. It may make some sense to investigate this. It would be more relevant to WebShops - I'm not sure whether BlackBoard can support SCORM and we will be using BlackBoard - It makes more sense to have WebShops as SCORM compliant - reusable modules. We are not really tracking the results of the WebShops, but for Courses it's a different story. Competency quizzes - could be used as gatekeepers to other things or as feedback. They could be used to pre-qualify people, they could be used to print out Certification at the successful completion of a WebShop. However, testing represents extra work for developers and is not a big priority at the moment."

Deliverable content by December - "I would like to see some webshops and a sample course - I would also like to see you work with the TTAC Staff on usability and creating and uploading content. Primarily TTAC Staff at GMU, and the Assistive Technology people in other T/TACS around the state."