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 As previously reported, Fall of 2009, MPICT conducted a pilot,
in which professors at Cabrillo College, Foothill College and
City College of San Francisco offered Cisco CCNP, EMC
Information Storage and Management and Juniper Networks
Operating Juniper Routers in the Enterprise courses in a
hybrid delivery format using Elluminate/CCC Confer.
The pilot was to test and further develop what we are now
calling MPICT’s Hybrid Course Delivery Model (MHCDM), in which
students attend:
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in person, when possible and desired
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in real time via the Internet (on any computer, with any
operating system, at any connection speed)
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asynchronously as needed via online experience archives,
streamed from the Internet anytime from anywhere or downloaded
to mobile devices
Assessments of the model and feedback from professors show
powerful impacts on class and student outcomes:
This hybrid delivery model could improve teaching and learning
for any ICT class. MPICT is encouraging and developing faculty
in the region to deliver courses this way. For example, a
dozen faculty members learned to do this at Faculty
Development Week in June, and MPICT has developed an MHCDM
Toolkit to teach teachers to do this, which will soon be
available on MPICT’s website under ICT Educator Resources.
There is more to the story. With enough faculty using the
MHCDM in the region, we have an opportunity to systematically
improve ICT education for the region.
Currently, it is difficult to justify more advanced and
specialized courses at any given school, because the lab
resources are expensive, faculty development investments are
high, and there are frequently not enough students at a single
school interested in the course (at least in any given
semester) to really justify offering it, at least on a regular
basis. As a result of these rational decisions, there is a lot
of demand for advanced and specialized courses that is not
met.
In this difficult economic climate it is these courses that
are most easily cut, stranding students who cannot get the
courses they need to complete their studies, obtain their
academic credential and get that job.
In MPICT’s Distributed ICT Education model, also under
development, faculty at a given school could opt in to
offering a course in the MHCDM model. Other colleges could opt
in to offering and promoting that course at their school. With
the larger student pool, it is easier to justify courses and
make them successful. We can expand the numbers of students
served and the breadth and depth of ICT course offerings that
way, while avoiding stranding students who can’t get the
courses they want when they want them.
MPICT’s Hybrid Course Delivery Model and Distributed ICT
Education Model are MPICT’s project for Synergy. The Synergy
project is sponsored by NSF to bring professional development
resources to 13 NSF Centers to improve their efforts to scale
successful efforts to improve STEM technical education in the
U.S.
MPICT assists the Synergy effort by hosting Synergy Innovation
Coach meetings virtually via Elluminate. MPICT Advisory Panel
member Microsoft hosted a June Synergy conference at its San
Francisco Westfield Center facility, where MPICT’s project
logic model was profiled. Industry and academic “thought
leaders” provided coaching, and MPICT’s MHCDM and Distributed
ICT Education thinking, plans and teams improved greatly.
It will take time to do this,
but it is going to be very cool!
If you are an ICT faculty
member interested in
learning more about this
project and how you might
participate in it, please email
us at info@mpict.org.
Back to Q2 2010
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