INTRODUCTION
After the presentation on the Dogwood
Project at the New Horizons Conference, Dr. Carole Schultz, Assistant Vice
Chancellor for Instructional Technology & Distance Education, requested
that we submit a proposal to create a statewide version of Dogwood that
could serve as a clearinghouse or organizational foundation for a faculty
resource and knowledge bank.
PROJECT DIRECTORS
Charles Evans, cevans@nvcc.edu
home page, novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/evans/default.htm
Agatha Taormina, ataormina@nvcc.edu
home page, www.nvcc.edu/home/nvtaora
Diane Thompson, dthompson@nvcc.edu
home page, novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/Troy/index.htm
BACKGROUND
In the spring of 1998, we directed a focus
grant, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, at Northern
Virginia Community College (www.nvcc.edu/grants/neh)
entitled Teaching the Humanities in a World Wide Web Environment (Dr. Arnold
Oliver, Chancellor of the VCCS, was one of our guest speakers). Our purpose
was to "undertake a thoughtful and critical exploration of instructional
technology to discover how it can be used to create an interdisciplinary
teaching and learning environment for humanities instruction."
As we continued to discuss the idea of
how to integrate the web and humanities instruction, we developed the idea
of creating a virtual, shared learning environment using the web and decided
that such a project was best pursued at the state level. In that way, we
could tap the entire scope of VCCS faculty and staff resources. To this
end, we submitted a FIPSE proposal in October 1998 (www.nvcc.edu/dogwood/proposal/FIPSE.html).
Unfortunately, Congress withdrew funding from the program, and FIPSE canceled
review of the proposals. Still, the preparation of the proposal enabled
us to more clearly formulate the rationale for and the objectives of our
project.
In the fall of 1998, Dr. Belle Wheelan,
President of NVCC, agreed to provide us with $15,000 for the spring semester
so that we could continue our discussions and efforts at NVCC and develop
a pilot web site. The result of our work this spring has been Dogwood (www.nvcc.edu/grants/Pilotproject/index.html).
In short, Dogwood is designed to be an
"interdisciplinary, web-based, virtual learning environment of teaching
and resource materials for the faculty, staff and students of the Virginia
Community College System. The project site will index web-based courses
(such as History of the Contemporary World) and include web resource sites
(such as The Roosevelts) and applicable support and skill-building materials."
As developed (web sites are never really completed), this site will use
the world wide web to:
- allow faculty to share their knowledge with
students and other faculty in an innovative educational environment,
- provide students with learning opportunities
beyond those of the traditional classroom,
-
support both classroom- and distance-based
learning throughout the VCCS.
In addition, faculty contributors to the Dogwood
Project will participate in mentoring and/or training sessions that will
provide them with opportunities to develop and refine their resource sites.
They will also attend workshops designed to introduce them to more advanced
web-based technology. Mentoring sessions will also include panel discussions
and roundtables that will showcase ways to use Dogwood resources in both
the web-based and the campus-based classroom.
We now seek VCCS funding to expand our
efforts on the state level in order to develop and publicize the Dogwood
site as a resource for the entire VCCS.
TIME-LINE
Summer 1999
-
NVCC pilot project web training workshop
(details below)
-
Meetings of project directors with VCCS staff
in Richmond (determine staff responsibilities)
Fall 1999
-
Locate a Web Technology Mentor (teaching
faculty) at each community college
-
Organize statewide Technology Leadership
Institute (details below)
-
Finalize a technology support staff and training
plans, set up the actual Dogwood site (server, software, etc) and begin
to create the actual site's supporting materials, such as tutorials, templates
and other resources.
Spring 2000
-
Technology mentors recruit faculty who would
get stipends to contribute to the Dogwood site
Since the faculty will create resource sites
that build on faculty's already existing subject expertise, they will be
able to more easily adapt to the use of technology (Instead of tackling
the far more complex job of developing an online course.).
Summer 2000
-
Organize a Dogwood institute for recruited
faculty and mentors.
Fall 2000
-
Faculty and mentors post finished resources
to Dogwood site.
ESTIMATED BUDGET
Summer 1999
Travel expenses
500
Fall 1999
Technology Leadership Institute
10,000
Spring 2000
Reassigned time for Technology mentors
38 @ $1,500 = 57,000
(one from each VCCS campus)
Faculty stipends to develop a site
38 @ $500 = 19,000
(one from each VCCS campus)
Summer 2000
Dogwood Institute (for mentors and faculty)
25,000
Fall 1999-Summer 2000
Administrative release time for project
directors 27,000
(One full time reassigned time for fall
and spring and stipend for summer; others at one course per fall and spring)
Total $138,500
INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS
Three servers (web, database, and audio-visual)
and staff administrator
Details of Scheduled NVCC pilot project
web training workshop
Thursday, 17 June
8:30 AM Coffee
9:00 AM Introduction
-
Purpose
-
Dogwood
-
Introductions and Project ideas of participants
10:00 AM Examples of web resource
sites
-
Jud Sage
-
Diane Thompson
-
Charlie Evans
11:00 AM Roundtable Conversation
-
Browser compatibility
-
HTML software choices
-
ADA Issues (Bonnie Cascio)
12:30 PM Lunch
1:30 PM Graphics Workshop using Adobe Photoshop
(Robert Brown)
Friday, 18 June
8:30 AM Coffee
9:00 AM Electronic communication
workshop using Allaire Forums (Cathy Simpson)
10:30 AM Tables and web resources
workshop using FrontPage 98 (Aggie Taormina)
12:30 PM Lunch
1:30 PM Recap and discussion
2:00 PM One-on-One mentoring
in lab
Details of Technology Leadership Institute
2-day (9 AM Friday to 12 PM Saturday,
early November 1999)
Attended by one teaching faculty from
each community college campus in the system; each participant will become
a Web Technology Mentor
Purpose
-
Orient Mentors to Dogwood concept
These faculty mentors, and the other faculty
involved in the project, will also hold workshops or make presentations
that show others how the resources that are on Dogwood can be shared by
a wide variety of faculty and students.
-
Expose mentors to necessary web conventions
-
Reach consensus on mentoring vehicle based
on a writers group model of thoughtful focused critical response to web
sites being developed
-
Reach consensus on contents of Faculty Resource
Bank and RFP for resource sites
-
Plan Training Institute for faculty participants
-
Develop the technical expertise and infrastructure
for a variety of electronic communications, including:
- Discussion forums
- Listservs
- Electronic Newsletter
Details of the Dogwood Institute
2-day (9 AM Friday to 5 PM Saturday, late
May 2000)
Attended by all of the faculty who received
stipends in the spring to develop web projects; all of the mentors
Purpose
-
Revise Dogwood as necessary
-
Offer further advanced web-authoring training
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