Session 1: Year of the Pandemic: COVID-19 and the Future of Higher Education
Colleges and universities have been forced to embrace technology and online/digital learning like never before. While the impact of COVID-19 on student enrolment, revenue and financial sustainability, cannot be over-stated; our collective “new reality” offers tremendous opportunity for institutional innovation and differentiation in preparing and upskilling citizens for a new world of work.
Session 2: Northern College Fast Forward >> Evolving Towards the Future
Colleges are confronted with rapid change on all sides, and intensifying fiscal, political, economic and demographic pressures.In response, higher education is evolving in multiple, sometimes paradoxical ways: seeking non-traditional markets and economies of scale, new revenues and partnerships, while enhancing pedagogy and student supports, offering new credentials,and promoting health and wellness on campus. New technologies like adaptive textbooks, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence are transforming the student experience, academically and socially.
Session 3: Microsoft Teams & Blackboard Collaborate
Blackboard Collaborate is a web conferencing/webinar platform that allows faculty to create virtual classroom andonline meeting spaces to share presentation material and communicate with students via synchronous audio, video and chat tools. Webinar and breakout rooms include a collaborative whiteboard tool that allows students to interact with peers and the instructor in real time.
Session 4: Northern College Course Quality – LMS Checklist / “Best Practices” Delivery Experience
Our recently released Academic Plan provides clear direction that we will employ Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles in course delivery and make use of a systematic approach to assure a high standard of quality in our course design, delivery and reviews. The intention is to create (with faculty help) a guidance document for faculty reference when creating courses and evaluating course quality. The Quality Matters framework is the best known industry course quality standard, providing a scoring checklist to help evaluate the degree to which the course incorporates best practice elements.
Northern College Course Quality Review ChecklistCourse Quality Design & Delivery Framework
Quality Course Standards andDelivery
Session 5: Open Educational Resources (OER): Where to Start and How to Get There
In this presentation, the eCampusOntario team will provide attendees with a high-level overview of the principles and philosophyof open education before diving into the mechanics of finding OER, open licensing, and adoption of OER. Participants will leave the session with a foundational understanding of open and free digital resources, an introductionto tools to get started with finding and adopting OER, and a contact at eCampusOntario for province-wide support.
The Open Library – Ecampus Ontario