

March 10, 2016 at University of Central Florida, Classroom Building 1
OLC went to Orlando to meet with online learning professionals, educators and administrators to address the opportunities and challenges we all face in online higher education today.
Join your fellow online learning professionals, educators and administrators to hear from the experts and collaborate on solving the challenges we all face in online higher education today. You’ll get the chance to hear from regional experts regarding current and emerging trends in online learning, collaborate and network with your regional peers during group discussions on top-of-mind challenges that may impact the future of online learning – and your career.
Why is Linda Futch so excited to be attending OLC Collaborate in Orlando? As the program chair representing Academic Sponsor University of Central Florida, we asked her to share with us what participants can expect from this event. This is what she told us:
1. Identify blended learning options and how they fit at your institution,
2. Learn about the current learning analytics landscape and how can it help your institution, and
3. Discover what is working with competency-based education in Florida and where we go from here.
*A $25 fee will be charged for all cancelled registrations. There will be no refunds within 1 week of event date. If you are not able to attend, a substitute may attend in your place. The name of the substitute must be emailed to the conference@onlinelearning-c.org.
Not yet a member?
Non-member fee is $175*. You will also receive a free, six-month OLC professional membership as a part of your registration so you can get to know OLC and our community better! Lunch is included in registration fee.
We will take a deep look at the challenges and impact of online learning in higher education today and work together to collaborate, define and help shape the changing university.
Presentations will be followed by facilitator-led discussions that will allow participants to delve into each topic in greater detail.
Dr. Kelvin Thompson
Associate Director, Center for Distributed Learning
University of Central Florida
Dr. Kelvin Thompson
Associate Director, Center for Distributed Learning
University of Central Florida
Part of the appeal of blended learning is the range of implementation options available both at the institutional and individual (faculty/designer) levels. With such options comes difficulty in finding a clear and replicable path forward. In this session an organizing framework will be presented that will allow participants to identify their current practices and desired individual/institutional outcomes. Takeaways will include guiding principles associated with each classification of blended implementation.
Dr. Kelvin Thompson serves as an associate director for the University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Center for Distributed Learning (http://cdl.ucf.edu) with a faculty appointment as a graduate faculty scholar in UCF’s College of Education & Human Performance, and he has collaborated on the design of hundreds of online and blended courses over the past sixteen years. Dr. Thompson oversees CDL’s strategic initiatives, including accessibility activities, and he developed the BlendKit Course open courseware (http://bit.ly/blendkit) as part of UCF’s Blended Learning Toolkit. His personal research interests center around how interaction affects learner engagement, and information on his Online Course Criticism qualitative evaluation model for facilitating the scholarship of teaching and learning in online and blended environments is available online (http://onlinecoursecriticism.com). Kelvin holds an EdD in curriculum and instruction and an MA in instructional systems technology from UCF and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Florida State University.
Linda Feng
Senior Product Manager, SIS Integration and Analytics
Instructure
Jared Stein
Vice President, Research and Education, Instructure
Linda Feng
Senior Product Manager, SIS Integration and Analytics
Instructure
Jared Stein
Vice President, Research and Education
Instructure
“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.”
― Claude Lévi-Strauss
Institutions today need data to gain insight in a variety of areas such as Accreditation, Improvements in Course Design, Assessing Student and Teacher engagement, typically for the end goal of enabling the right level of student intervention to improve retention. Questions range from “What departments, courses or teachers are fully adopting the LMS tool” to “What learning objects are actually used by students” and “how much time do successful students spend on the course?” Many solutions exist today, yet questions exist: when is the right time to surface an alert about a student who might be at risk? What factors should be used when evaluating a student’s engagement and performance? Once we see the patterns of learning activity for students on a course, useful insights will emerge that can help teachers know when to intervene with a student, as well as finding a personalized fit between a course and a particular student’s learning style.
We will review the current learning analytics landscape, and present recent developments in technology solutions using learning data in different ways.
Linda Feng is currently a Senior Product Manager with Instructure, focused on Student Information Systems Integration and Analytics. Linda comes to Instructure with over 20 years of experience in database server and applications product development at Oracle – most recently serving as Software Architect in Oracle’s Student Products Division. Early in her career at Oracle, Linda successfully managed the development of Oracle’s Spatial Data Option technology, integrating it into the Oracle 7 server architecture. Her work with this project earned her a patent for multidimensional indexing techniques present in Oracle’s Spatial Cartridge today. Linda has also guided numerous application development projects ranging from Oracle Public Sector Financials to Oracle Student Systems. In the last several years, she served as co-chair of the IMS Global Learning Initiative Learning Information Services Working Group, helping to bring a new Enterprise interoperability standard to market.
I’m Jared Stein, and I work for Instructure, creators of the Canvas learning platform, where I strive to help people help teachers do more with educational technology.
Speaking of which, I’ve worked in the field of technology-enhanced education for about 15 years, spending much of my career at UVU as Director of the Innovation Center and Director of Instructional Design Services.
I also co-founded and directed the TTIX conference for five years.
There’s much more about me on my LinkedIn profile.
Pam Northrup
CEO Innovation Institute and
Senior Associate Provost
University of West Florida
Pam Northrup
CEO Innovation Institute and
Senior Associate Provost
University of West Florida
Complete Florida was funded by the Florida legislature as a model to support adults with some college and no degree through a collaborative Florida partnership of institutions. The model directly supports instructional delivery through accelerated, self-paced and coached instructional methods with students given the opportunity to prove what they already know and accelerate more quickly to completion. Florida-based institutional partners have implemented multiple approaches to achieve student completion with pockets of excellence existing around course design, program implementation and federal and accreditation requirements. Many questions remain unanswered when building for scale to share across a state system. This session will highlight ‘what works’ with competency-based education to highlight model institutions and systems and a deep dive into “what next” when planning for implementation to scale.
Dr. Pam Northrup is Senior Associate Provost of Academic Innovation and the inaugural CEO of the University of West Florida’s Innovation Institute. Dr. Northrup has spent her career engaged in transformative educational projects with the goal of solving some of education’s toughest challenges. Most recently, Dr. Northrup leads the Florida Virtual Campus as well as Florida’s legislatively funded degree completion initiative, Complete Florida where policy and best practice will emerge regarding competency-based education, prior learning assessment and reducing the cost of education. Dr. Northrup recently served on the Florida Board of Governors Task Force for developing the Online Education Strategic Plan 2025. Dr. Northrup also has engaged in many other transformative projects including the development of the National Flight Academy, a fully immersive game-based environment. Dr. Northrup publishes and speaks extensively with her most recent efforts focused on the development of systems that support transformational change. Dr. Northrup served as the Dean of the College of Educational Professional Studies for many years and prior to that, developed and led the University of West Florida’s distance learning model that now serves over 30% of the university’s student population.
Linda Futch, Ed.D.
Department Head, Center for Distributed Learning
University of Central Florida
Karen Pedersen
Chief Knowledge Officer, OLC
Linda Futch, Ed.D.
Department Head, Center for Distributed Learning
University of Central Florida
Karen Pedersen, Ph.D.
Chief Knowledge Officer
OLC
Significant changes are coming to higher education. From balancing the need for educational innovation against regulatory realities, to using data driven approaches to better understand and manage change, to a new model of the university built around competency-based assessments, these are just a few of the factors driving change. The day’s final session brings together the thoughts and conclusions generated from the OLC Collaborate – Orlando discussions to formulate a regional response to the changing educational environment. Topics gathered by OLC facilitators and session archivists during breakout sessions along with those posted online by participants during the day will be used to guide this interactive final session. Led by Linda Futch of UCF and Karen Pedersen from the OLC, each of the day’s keynote speakers will have the opportunity to address the collectively generated questions and topics and place them in the context of the broader changes occurring in higher education. The OLC Collaborate – Orlando response will become the second contribution to a national discussion as the OLC Collaborate sessions continue across the country.
Dr. Linda S. Futch is the Department Head for the Center of Distributed Learning (CDL) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). Her duties cover instructional design, technical support for online courses and management of the course management system. Linda has been instrumental in guiding faculty development for online courses and developing systems to support faculty and students. She has developed curriculum and delivered instruction in business, high school, community college, and higher education. For her doctoral dissertation, Linda studied blended learning at a large metropolitan university and is currently studying the design of successful blended courses.
Dr. Karen Pedersen was recently selected as the Chief Knowledge Officer for the Online Learning Consortium. In this role, she has responsibility to gather, curate and leverage the intellectual capital created by and disseminated through the organization to create and enhance services and resources provided to constituents. She will lead work in five key areas including product development leadership, learning innovation, quality enhancement, community engagement and development as well as publications, research, and policy.
Prior to joining the Online Learning Consortium, Pedersen served as the Associate Vice President for Extended Campuses at Northern Arizona University. In this role she was responsible for leading a system-wide enrollment management transformation as well as managing marketing, technology, and academic operations. She led a network of over 35 campuses in Arizona, developing new business and market opportunities, actively collaborating with and growing community college partners and concurrent admission (2NAU) learners, as well as developing scalable, integrated and lean business processes/workflows. The scope of her responsibilities included coaching and mentoring 140+ full-time staff members, 40 part-time staff members, including a growing number of student workers. In addition she was responsible for supporting over 750 full and part-time faculty members. In Fall 2014, Extended Campuses realized a 5% year-over-year increase in overall headcount across its statewide operations and a 16% increase in its online headcount (with a 27% increase in online credit hours generated).
For eleven years Pedersen served as the Vice President for Professional Studies at Southwestern College (Kansas). In that role she was responsible for envisioning and building an online program from the ground up (including seeking regional accreditation approval) and launching over 25 innovative online programs. Additionally, Pedersen had responsibility for expanding military partnerships, engaging in strategic infrastructure projects, as well as positioning the institution in an enrollment growth trajectory. Southwestern College participated in the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) through its regional accreditor (The Higher Learning Commission) and Pedersen participated in two strategy forums during her tenure. In addition, she served as an evaluator with the Kansas Award for Excellence and utilized the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence in her operations. She was responsible for managing a $3.9 million operating budget and an $11.8 million revenue stream, growing the revenue generated by nearly 500% during her tenure.
Pedersen also held the academic associate and dean roles at Upper Iowa University’s Extended University for four years. In these roles she was responsible for curriculum development, supporting academic issues, learner success, as well as faculty hiring, training, and evaluation. She also built the foundations for an online operation and traveled internationally to develop partnerships in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
Prior to starting her administrative career, Pedersen served as a faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Pedersen holds bachelor of science and master of science degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a doctor of philosophy degree from Oklahoma State University. She currently serves as an associate consultant for DemandEngine supporting enrollment management consulting projects. In the past two years, she has also worked collaboratively with the Indonesian National Police and the US Department of Justice to provide professional expertise for a major distance education initiative.
What will teaching, learning, and working in the Digital Age of Higher Education actually be like in 2026? How much should today’s faculty and administrators do to prepare for this future? There is no question that extraordinary change is coming. The question is, how much of that change is within our powers of prediction, and how should we proactively prepare for the future?
Participate in the regional OLC Collaborate discussion on the “Changing University” and share in an open dialogue with other colleagues from around the region.
Keynote speakers will offer insightful views of the changing university through short, focused presentations. This will bring together how the use of technologies, the dictate of economic realities, increasing regulatory oversight, the need for constant innovation, and new societal expectations of what colleges can and should be are bringing change to higher education.
Presentations will be followed by facilitator-led discussions to allow participants to delve into each topic in greater detail. OLC Collaborate session archivists will document the discussions throughout the day, culminating in a collaborate regional response to the changing university.
General Sessions are 30 minutes long, followed by a 45 minute Breakout Session.
Attendees will select one of four Breakout Sessions to attend following each general session.
All sessions are considered BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). There are 15 minute breaks between concurrent sessions.
All sessions are in the UCF- Classroom Building 1. All Sessions are in Eastern Time (ET).
Joining us for the day? Come directly to UCF – Classroom Building 1.
University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816
Staying the night or making a weekend of it?
Make your own reservation at one of the UCF area hotels.
Most of the hotels on the list provide a UCF discount. Please be sure to mention that you are attending a UCF program when contacting the hotel to make your reservation.
The University of Central Florida and its 13 colleges provide opportunities to 60,000 students from all 50 states and 140 countries. Located in Orlando, Florida, UCF is the nation’s second-largest university with 210 degree programs to choose from. UCF is ranked as one of the “Most Innovative” universities by U.S. News & World Report, a best-value university by The Princeton Review and Kiplinger’s, and one of the nation’s most affordable colleges by Forbes.
To find out more, visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
SmarterServices.com provides a collection of the following services designed by educators to make distance learning programs stronger: (1) SmarterMeasure.com – an online assessment that quantifies a learner’s level of readiness for studying online, (2) SmarterProctoring.com – a complete Proctoring Process Management System that manages multi-modal proctoring such as testing centers, approved proctoring professionals, instructor as proctor, live virtual proctoring and automated virtual proctoring, (3) SmarterFaculty.com – a searchable database of online faculty. It takes the right services to build a strong eLearning program. Our tools have been used by over three million students from over 500 educational institutions.
http://www.SmarterProctoring.com
To find out more, visit our website and follow us on Twitter.
Through open, usable, cloud-based technologies, Canvas enables easy integration of the content, tools, and services that teachers need and students want. As the most usable, customizable, adaptable, and reliable learning platform (think 99% uptime), Canvas is adopted faster and deeper (or, is used in more ways by more users) than any other LMS. So, in the end, investing in 21st century technology for higher ed actually makes teaching and learning easier (like it’s supposed to). Learn more about Canvas at www.CanvasLMS.com.
To find out more, visit our website and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
If you are an education technology or distance learning company, this intimate one-day session will give you the chance to collaborate with educators, administrators, and online learning professionals – your potential clients in discussion forums, at lunch and in our small exhibitor showcase.
To learn more, contact our Manager, Sponsorship Sales, Brenda Weiss-Pesta by email, brenda.pesta@onlinelearning-c.org or by phone, 617.716.1417. Or simply download our prospectus below.