Chapter Abstracts

(alphabetical by author)

Creating Custom Learning Assessment and Student Feedback Applications with Google Apps Script. Abram Anders.

The Google Apps for Education platform offers a wide range of tools and opportunities for pedagogical innovation. These services can be even further extended through the use of Google Apps Script to automate repetitive workflows across Google services. This chapter offers a case study and rationale for using apps scripts to facilitate assessment of student learning and to automate the creation of individualized student feedback reports.

Podcasting: Learning On-the-Go. David Arendale.

Podcasting technology allows students to learn on-the-go by downloading audio files to their iPods and smartphones and listening to them when they want. The audio podcasts were cocreated by the course instructor and the enrolled students. This chapter describes how podcasting and other Web 2.0 technologies have been used in an introductory history course during the past five years. Research indicates podcasting helped some students earn higher grades and was a positive factor with course satisfaction.

Reaching Out: Making Graduate Nursing Education Accessible. Melissa D. Avery. 

Access to graduate nursing programs can be difficult for practicing registered nurses who reside in communities geographically distant from traditional university programs. This chapter documents the redesign of face-to face graduate specialties in midwifery, public health nursing, women’s health and psych-mental health nurse practitioner, and systems leadership to a blended hybrid distance methodology as well as important scholarship resulting from this work. As educational technologies advance through the use of cloud computing and mobile technology, we continue our partnerships with educational and technology design professionals and library staff to continue finding the best ways to support students and faculty in online teaching and learning.

Digital Technology for Feminist Pedagogy: A Useful Method for Learning Key Concepts in a Changing Academic Landscape. Katie Bashore and Jigna Desai.

This project emerges from the intersection of feminist studies and technology education. We developed digital learning modules that both explain and expand concepts foundational to feminist thought, which then serve to supplement in-class learning. The modules provide students an out of the classroom opportunity to practice key concepts that increase their fluency in feminist theory, while allowing instructors to develop individual learning outcomes.

The ‘WRIT VID’ Project Incorporating Multimodal Components into Text-Only Online Writing Instruction. Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, Barbara Horvath, Shannon Klug, Dawn M. Armfield, Kim Thomas-Pollei, and Laura Pigozzi.

This chapter describes the development of instructional videos for use in an online writing course, WRIT 3562W: Technical and Professional Writing.  This project incorporates multimodal components to support student engagement in online courses.  Also, the project reinforces recent scholarship in writing studies towards multimodal writing. The team, supported by a Course Transformation Program (CTP) grant at University of Minnesota, developed storyboards and videos on topics such as writing instructions, analytical reports, peer review, plagiarism, visual rhetoric and document design, and choosing online courses.

The drive to digitize. Mauri S Brueggeman, Cheryl Swinehart, Janice Conway-Klaassen, and Stephen M Wiesner.

In response to programmatic expansion with limited physical assets, microscope slides were digitized and made available to students via the Internet.  Data demonstrate that students utilizing the digital slides outperformed traditional students.  A deliberate, thoughtful review of curricular components that can be delivered digitally will facilitate effective implementation of distance education strategies.  These strategies are most successful when the digital environment is designed for the content being delivered.  Cumbersome modifications made to adapt content to the digital environment often results in a less effective learning experience for the student.

Stimulating Strategic Thinking and Learning in a Strategic Planning Course. John M. Bryson. 

This chapter reports on the redesign of a popular Humphrey School of Public Affairs course called “Strategic Planning and Management.” The course was redesigned to more authentically replicate strategic planning and management in practice and make better and more constructive use of educational technology. The course redesign has addressed the challenges that prompted it, and student course evaluations are higher than ever.

The River in the Classroom: Digital Storytelling that Fosters Community, Deepens Engagement, and Cultivates Global Awareness. Linda Buturian. 

Digital storytelling, when done well, contains the mythic, primeval power of the story, which has been with us from the origins of civilization, and has evolved with us in caves, around fires, in the hearths of homes, and schools, and is now beamed throughout the globe. The story contains the silence of lost species, the sound of water coursing through its ancient cycle, the shuffle of environmental refugees, and the surging pulse of hope. The story includes the river of students that runs through our classes, and the river of technology that connects our lives with people and resources across the globe, and the story includes you.

Repairing the Break — An Anatomical Saga. C. E. Clarkson and Kimerly J. Wilcox. 

Veterinary gross anatomy, a course taught early in the four-year veterinary program, is an interactive, technology-rich course primed for success. However, there is a critical problem: a deficiency in students’ anatomical knowledge retrieval when problem solving clinical cases during the fourth year clinical rotations. This chapter summarizes current technology within the course and describes the addition of Moodle-based clinical cases for anatomical problem-solving (teaching in context) as an important step toward healing this knowledge “break”.

Using Online Instruction and Virtual Laboratories to Teach Hemostasis in a Medical Laboratory Science Program. Janice M. Conway-Klaassen, Stephen M. Wiesner, Christopher Desens, Phyllis Trcka, Cheryl Swinehart.

Because of significant changes in clinical practice and the need to provide equitable instruction at a distant coordinate campus; our program had to develop a new method of delivery for the Hemostasis course. Working with an instructional design team versed in online education, we created five virtual Hemostasis laboratory exercises and web-based lecture modules.  Evaluation of these new course materials showed that students in the virtual delivery format performed significantly better on course exam questions compared to the traditional delivery method group, but there was no significant difference on their performance on the national Board of Certification exam.

Development of online conferencing and web-based in-service modules for clinical preceptor training. Janice M. Conway-Klaassen, Patricia J. Brennecke, Stephen M. Wiesner, and Donna J. Spannaus-Martin.

As our allied health program increased enrollment, we were faced with the need to drastically reshape our clinical instruction format to provide for the additional numbers of students and yet not interfere with the primary purpose of our clinical sites; patient care. After revising our clinical experience program we also needed to provide in-service training for all clinical affiliate preceptors throughout the region. We developed a combined delivery approach including web-based conferences and teleconferences, self-tutorial modules in Adobe Flash, and resource materials in our course management system. This has proven to be an efficient and effective method of communication with our clinical affiliates.

Video Podcasts (Vodcasts) Add Life to General Zoology!  Sehoya Cotner, Joseph Kleinschmidt, and Michael Kempnich.

In Spring 2011 and Spring 2012, 211 students in General Zoology at the University of Minnesota participated in a new project—small-group production of five-minute video podcasts (or “vodcasts”).  We introduce these vodcasts, discuss project assessment, and offer suggestions on how this activity could be incorporated into other classes.

iSEAL: An Integrated Curriculum in its Natural Habitat. Linda Dick, Andy Franqueira, and Jeremiah Oeltjen.

iSEAL (intelligent System for Education, Assessment, and Learning) is the unique curriculum management system and assessment tool developed for and used by the faculty at the University of Minnesota Rochester. The project has two main goals: to deliver the highly integrated curriculum for the Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences degree program and to facilitate the faculty’s collaborative research in teaching and learning.

Everyone’s a DJ: Defining the Instructional Remix. Joel Dickinson and Sara Hurley. 

In this modern age, everyone’s a DJ – whether they know it or not. DJs create new meaning by blending records, samples and other aural elements together, just as instructors and instructional designers blend content together in new ways to create learning experiences that are engaging and innovative. These include a combination of ideas, cultures, and areas of knowledge in interdisciplinary work and the mingling of identity between our academic, personal, and professional selves.

Chemistry, Creativity, and Curricular Experiments. Michelle D. Driessen. 

This chapter describes the transformation of large enrollment general chemistry laboratories from verification to project-based.  The critical role of technology in managing the large student population and TAs is described.

3D Simulation and the Apparel Design Curriculum. Lucy Dunne.

Although 3D simulation technologies in combination with CAD-based drawing tools are well-established and have generated important changes in working processes in many design fields, apparel design has resisted integration of such technologies both in education and industry. The advantages and challenges of adopting 3D simulation technologies to augment or replace components of the design and development process are not the same for academia and education as they are for industry. This article discusses experiences integrating 3D simulation technology into the apparel design curriculum and explores the benefits and challenges for apparel education.

Looking for Connections: Pulling Together Collegiate Initiatives to Create a Concept for High Impact Experiential Learning Experiences in Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management. Lenord C. Ferrington Jr. 

On-line social media will be used in a high impact Experiential Learning Experience for freshmen studying Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management. The concept integrates a freshmen seminar with a study abroad component and a service commitment (i.e., not for credit). We will use a technology enhanced classroom so every student will have access to the internet during each class period. Social media will facilitate real-time discussions with students studying similar issues in Environmental Sciences of target country, Iceland, before departure, and is expected to substantively enhance the learning abroad experience through internet-facilitated discussions of how differing national policies serve the conservation of similar resources in different countries.

Increasing Access to Mental Health Care. Heidi Flessert and Abigail Gewirtz.

In an effort to increase access to evidence-based treatments for high-risk families and children, Ambit Network partnered with community mental health agencies across the state to train mental health providers on Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). In this chapter, we address barriers to community implementation in the mental health field and discuss the low-cost innovative solutions employed that led to the successful implementation of TF-CBT across the state of Minnesota.

Transitioning Computer Courseware to Mobile Web Apps. Thomas F. Fletcher.

To exploit the learning potential of mobile devices, we are converting existing web based computer courseware into mobile web apps. The conversion necessitates screen redesign and the selection of a new development platform. Screen redesign is discussed in the context of particular courseware: Neurobiology Concepts Checker. An overview of the jQuery Mobile development platform is presented.

Weaving Reseach, Policy, Practice, and Technology: Building a Community of Practice across Early Childhood Partners Using CLASS™. Rosemary Frazel and Vicki Hawley.

The mission of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED) at the University of Minnesota is to improve developmental outcomes for children through research, training, and outreach. We are a gateway for community members to access the research resources at the University. This article describes CEED’s use of online tools to support practitioners in the field of early care and education.

Use of Screen Capture Techology to Record Student Presentations Promotes Active Learning in a Large Classroom. Kathryn Fryxell, Patricia Goodman-Mamula, Martin Wolf, and Rebecca Merica.

We have introduced student presentations into our curriculum using a screen capture technology, Camtasia Relay, in order to promote active learning in an undergraduate Microbiology class of 240 students.  The use of this software was a novel approach to record student presentations since the majority of our students reported never having used screen capture technology. We believe this led to a sense of ownership, which improved the quality of student projects.  Working in small groups, students engaged in active learning by using skills necessary for teamwork, communication, organization and technology.

R U Up 4 It? Collecting Data via Texting: Development and Testing of the Youth Ecological Momentary Assessment System (YEMAS). Carolyn Garcia, Gyu Kwon, Rachel Hardeman, Therese Genis, Sonja Brady, and Bonnie Klimes.

To address challenges associated with traditional ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods, we developed a University-based system, Youth Ecological Momentary Assessment System (YEMAS), to facilitate secure, automated, momentary data collection via SMS/text messaging. In this chapter we describe the system development process, the system features, and the benefits to researchers and professionals seeking to collect real-time data from individuals using text messaging or other e-health/mhealth tools.

The Survey Research Project: Technology and Research with Introductory Level Undergraduates. Tabitha Grier-Reed and Emily Karp.

Creative use of technology has made it possible to implement pedagogy in which students in 60 person introductory level psychology courses engage in the process of knowledge production through original research. As part of a research team, including a project manager, data collector, programmer, analyst, report writer, and editor, students work together to develop a research question of interest, hypothesis, and survey.They collect and analyze data, and then summarize their study in a scientific report. The technology is multi-faceted.

Writing, Speaking, and Digital Technologies: Multimodality in the Classroom. Laura J. Gurak.

Digital writing technologies are ubiquitous for today’s students. The challenge for university teaching, where writing undergirds almost every assignment, is how to engage these students so as to leverage their digital talents in ways that redefine traditional academic forms of production. This chapter describes the experience of having students research, write, produce, and publish podcasts as the major assignment in a class called “Writing with Digital Technologies.

Brave New World: M-learning and Beyond. Jim Hall. 

As students increasingly bring mobile devices onto campus, colleges and universities need to develop new strategies to support them. With the widespread adoption of these mobile devices, e-learning quickly shifts to learning on the go. With mobile learning, or m-learning, students continue to interact with e-learning systems throughout their university career, but they increasingly do so via mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. This radically changes the new model of e-learning and how students access e-learning systems. Jim Hall reviews the mobile trend, and discusses its impact at the Digital Frontlines of college campuses.

CEHD iPad Project: Learning Anywhere, Anytime. Amanda Hane.

The College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) within the University of Minnesota has the largest experiment for usefulness of the iPad by any college of education in the nation. Nearly 30 faculty members in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning (PsTL) received iPads and training to integrate them into the first-year classes. This chapter presents an overview of one faculty member’s motivation for using the iPad, implementation of the iPad in his courses, evaluation methodology, and key findings from the study. .

U-Spatial: Support for the Spatial Sciences and Creative Activities. Francis Harvey, Len Kne, Steve Manson, and Kris Johnson.

U-Spatial networks data, equipment, and expertise to benefit all researchers working with spatial science and creative activities at the University of Minnesota. U-Spatial advances the central mission of a 21st century land-grant research institution because it enables new modes of inquiry that are crucial to addressing complex problems and opportunities.

The Cloud Curriculum: Using web-based technology to diversify the conversation and build consensus toward curricular revision. Jude Higdon and Charles Taylor.

The administration in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota leveraged low activation energy, cloud-based tools to reach out to our faculty, engage them in discourse, diversify the conversation, and build consensus for our curricular revision effort, with heartening results.

Nimble Instructional Design: Using instructional assets for derivative works for more learner-centered instruction. Jude Higdon, Annette McNamara, and Mark McKay.

In an increasingly fast-paced, quick-changing technological landscape, it can be difficult to know what tools to develop in to meet learners’ needs. At the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, we have found that the investment in good instructional design can pay rich dividends by allowing us to quickly and easily create derivative works in new formats, such as online games and eBooks.

Creating and Incorporating an Online Simulation to Teach Antibody Identification in the Clinical Laboratory Science Curriculum. Jason Hill and Joanna George. 

Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS) program expansion to a second site at UMN necessitated the development of an interactive computer program for teaching antibody identification via distance. This program was implemented in CLSP 4501 in March 2012. This module was demonstrated at the Clinical Laboratory Educator’s Conference in February 2012, and 36 CLS programs from around the country have expressed interest in the product as a continuing education and cross training tool.

Web-based problem-solving coaches for physics students. Leon Hsu, Ken Heller, Qing Xu, and Bijaya Aryal.

Using technology to create presence in the online classroom is an ongoing project that is designed to contest pedagogical theory while testing it. Two different instances of presence creation are described. The first creates a presence that students know is fading. The second is attempting to automate presence.

STREET: Where simulation meets reality. Arthur Huang and David Levinson.

Simulations and games are receiving increasing attention in teaching in higher education. In this context, we developed a series of simulation modules (STREET) in transportation engineering education and applied them in teaching undergraduate and graduate transportation courses at the University of Minnesota. After several years, we contend that they represent an effective pedagogical tool in transportation education. In this chapter we describe our motivation for this work, the program’s development process, dissemination and impacts, and our future work.

Mobile Technology Training for a Public Health Response to Disasters. Sara Hurley, Amy Scheller, and Debra K Olson.

The Centers for Public Health Education and Outreach at the School of Public Health have been working with public health emergency responders for many years. As mobile technologies and social media usage have proliferated, it has become necessary for public health emergency response training to adapt integrate these concepts and tools into their culture so that they are ready to address emergencies and crises. We discuss our path to finding out what opportunities and barriers exist with this population, how to act as advocates for education and organizational change, and all of the intersections that encompass building networks, empowering users, and creating mobile trainings.

Technology across borders: Online resources to support multilingual writers. Kirsten Jamsen, Debra A. Hartley, Kimberley A. Strain, Zachary Pierson, Daniel Balm, Johanna Mueller, Katie Levin, Maija Brown, Huy Hoang, Farha Ahmed, Linda Clemens, and Mitch Ogden.

This project was designed to strengthen the Center for Writing’s support for multilingual student writers by developing online tools that targeted their needs and showcased their skills, strategies, and experiences with learning American academic writing conventions. Our “Technology Across Borders” team (1) created two “class visit videos” to replace our popular in-person informational class visits; (2) interviewed multilingual writers and instructors from around the globe and across the disciplines to learn about their experiences developing fluency in American academic English; and (3) developed an instructional module to support the teaching and learning of when to use articles (a/an, the, or no article) in English.

University Digital Conservancy: A platform to publish, share, and preserve the university’s scholarship. Lisa Johnston, Erik Moore, and Beth Petsan.

The University Digital Conservancy (UDC) is a web-based tool that provides free, worldwide access to research and scholarship contributed by faculty and staff at the University of Minnesota. The UDC software provides searchable, full-text access to deposited work that will rank highly in web search engines (like Google) and also ensures long-term access to content with permanent urls (no more broken links). This library-run repository began in 2007 and now contains (as of May, 2012) over 23,000 digital works that have been downloaded over 1.5 million times.

Opportunity knocks: Dataverse as a solution for a small economics data archive. Julia Kelly and Amy West.

Preservation and reuse of data are topics of growing interest among many disciplines. The AgEcon Search repository is experimenting with using Dataverse, the free software developed at Harvard for hosting social science data, as a solution for a small professional society that is seeking an inexpensive option to offer its members and the authors submitting to its journal who would like to make their data publically available.

Using technology to highlight children’s experiences of domestic violence. Ericka Kimball, Hoa T. Nguyen, and Jeffrey L. Edleson.

The Honor Our Voices online training module presents children’s perspectives of domestic violence using an online diary format. The use of technology assisted in bringing these experiences to life using visual and audio technology. Much of the success of the project is related to the working relationship between the funder, research content, and web design teams. The project has been well received nationally prompting MINCAVA to develop other online learning modules.

Costa Rica Digital Exploration. Connie Magnuson.

Students created digital stories that depict particular topics related to our travel to Costa Rica. These brief videos are informative and incorporate first hand accounts using research, expert interviews and actual photos and footage shot during our travel. Their projects are posted on our website and on YouTube to share with the public.

Supporting the technical requirements of the teacher performance assessment protocol. Pete McCauley and Elizabeth Finsness.

The Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) is a nationally available assessment of teacher candidates’ readiness to teach, focusing on the impact the teacher has on student engagement and learning. How could we provide resources, support, and instruction in order to help facilitate the teacher candidates’ recording and submission of videos for the TPA without asking them to become video production experts? We found our answer with Apple’s iPad 2 product.

Avenue: Innovation and transformation in world language, reading, and writing e-assessment. Charles Miller, Lucas Lecheler, and Susan Rose.

The Avenue platform, designed and developed by faculty in Learning Technologies, Educational Psychology, and the LT Media Lab at the University of Minnesota, is an innovative e-assessment system for learner performance evaluation, specifically in the contexts of language performance, reading, and writing development.

How Moodle, “ladders”, “flipped classrooms” and “change-up” created value-added redesign in the Medical School. Anne G. Minenko.

This chapter is a ‘can do’ story of how Rheumatology, a small medical school division, used education technology to operationalize ‘ladders’, ‘flipped classrooms’ and ‘change-up’ models to deliver integrated, interactive and independent learning activities, as part of a major curricular revision, without compromising the patient care mission.

Adventures with Clickers in Veterinary Medical Education. Laura Molgaard, Deb Wingert, Al Beitz, and Dave Brown.

The University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine has been on a 10 year journey with the use of “clickers” (wireless response systems) in a professional curriculum. Early experiences were frustrating with limited adoption but more recent experiences with a radiofrequency WRS have proven to be rewarding for faculty and engaging for students.

Synchronous online teaching as a component of a fully online course. Helen Mongan-Rallis.

This chapter describes the evolution of an instructor’s teaching using a variety of emerging educational technology tools, experimenting with different flipped classroom approaches to maximize student learning time both in an outside of class. The author shares how her choices of technologies and pedagogical approaches have been shaped by the changing needs and skills both of her students and herself. She describes how she has developed an approach to teaching a fully online course with a synchronous component using Adobe Connect and Moodle, and reflects on lessons learned and hopes for the future.

Pedometers and paragraphs and social online writing networks. Joe Moses.

This chapter asks how social online writing network (SOWN) designs that include project-management tools to compensate for lapses in traditional classroom instruction can improve the timely completion and quality of students’ writing projects. I share three stories that overlap in time during spring semester of 2012 and conclude with directions for research on the impacts of SOWN designs on teaching and learning.

From academic analytics to individualized education. Claudia Neuhauser.

Academic analytics is an approach that benefits from the same methods that are currently being developed in bioinformatics to advance individualized medicine. Academic analytics holds the promise to turn the deluge of educational data into actionable knowledge to guide resources to where they have the biggest impact on student success. It also provides the methodologies to develop individualized education where students can take control of their education, and advisers can base their advice on evidence extracted from a large and growing data set.

“Flipping” the Classroom in a Sensation and Perception Course. Cheryl Olman, Stephen Engel, and Thomas Brothen.

Traditionally, a Psychology department’s Introduction to Sensation and Perception is a survey course presented in a large lecture hall. However, the course teaches about a such wide variety of sensory experiences that it is bristling with opportunities for active learning. The large class size makes this a challenge, but flipping the classroom enables this goal. Basic lecture material is provided in the form of online video segments with integrated slides; students watch this basic material on their own time and come to small discussion sessions once a week prepared to learn about new scientific developments and participate in a wide variety of perceptual experiments with their classmates.

Online Emergency Risk Communication Simulation. Jeanne Pfeiffer and Nima Salehi.

This chapter describes the development of an emergency risk communication simulation activity from an in class to a fully online activity. The challenge was in how to make this activity effective online, and determining what technologies would be the most efficient in facilitating each step of the activity in a user friendly manner. Pre and post survey results indicate that the activity raised students confidence levels for emergency communication.

“But I’m Giving Up Lecture Time!” Alternative Teaching Methods for Pathology. Rob Porter, Erik Olson, and Deb Wingert.

We created an interactive cooperative learning poetry wiki project in an attempt to enhance engagement and understanding of selected gastrointestinal pathology topics in second year veterinary students.  Veterinary students were given a pre-test on pathology and then randomly placed in one of 23 wiki groups, each corresponding to a specific pathology topic. Students used their wiki sites and followed a rubric to research and build a list of key words and phrases. From this list they created an online poem on the specific topic, with the understanding that this poem would be used to educate their peers. Poems were collated with brief notes on alternative pathology topics and shared with the entire class. Students studied both poems and notes before taking a post-test. Results indicated that all students scored significantly higher on post-test (p < 0.01) than pre-test; however, scores on post-test questions were higher regardless of whether the topic was taught by reading poems or notes. An online survey of student opinions indicated that the cooperative learning poetry project engaged most students and enhanced learning through the required research to satisfy the construction rubric.

Finding NILMO: Integrating curricular development, technology, and educational research. Amy J. Prunuske and Jacob P. Prunuske.

The amount of information delivered in medical education curricula has expanded rapidly in recent years. New and innovative curricula must cover advances in scientific knowledge, technology, and expanded core competencies in medical education, and must do so with the same or even less curricular time than in the past. When the course director for Neurological Medicine asked us to develop a series of online modules for the course, we were intrigued by the opportunity and challenge. We believed restructuring this part of the curriculum from in-class lectures to independent learning could foster lifelong learning skills in our students. We developed seven modules that we called NILMOs (Neurology Independent Learning Modules Online).

Technology in the Field. Andrew Scobbie.

Technology in the field of agricultural nutrient management has made rapid advances due in part to the availability of global positioning system (GPS) services. As a team of five, with responsibilities for approximately 25 unique studies including 50 experimental sites over 30 locations across the state of Minnesota, we use iPads to communicate specific information necessary to carry out tasks in the field, and to a lesser extent to collect information.  The apps chosen have been successful in replacing the trusty three ring binder approach and have done so without loss of information or integrity.

From Synchronous to Asynchronous: Researching Online Focus Groups Platforms. Alfonso Sintjago and Alison Link.

After conducting focus group for over 30 years, Dr. Richard Krueger, with the help of Dr. David Ernst, CE+HD Director of Academic Technologies, organized a course around the idea of testing various online platforms’ strengths and weaknesses for hosting focus groups. The project involved 10 other co-investigators at the University of Minnesota, all with a strong background in conducting focus groups and using technologies in innovative ways. The group analyzed potential platforms for online focus groups in terms of their cost, information privacy, administrative requirements, ease of navigation, hardware requirements, data capturing process, and other criteria. Our goal was to come up with cost-effective solutions for translating the anatomy and the essence of a face to face focus group to an online environment.

Creating Productive Presence: A Narrative. Bill West.

Using technology to create presence in the online classroom is an ongoing project that is designed to contest pedagogical theory while testing it. Two different instances of presence creation are described. The first creates a presence that students know is fading. The second is attempting to automate presence.