Author: Lawrence Lippke

New Learner and Course Analytics Service

Post author By Lawrence Lippke
Post date June 30, 2016

eXtension is glad to announce that it has implemented a new service for its premium members that provides detailed course and learner analytics for any courses delivered through Moodle. This service is being provided by Intelliboard, a company specializing in online learning analytics. Through Intelliboard, course teachers can view the performance and progress of those enrolled in their respective courses as well as analyze what elements of their courses appear to be most popular, or with which elements the participants are having most difficulty. Organizational representatives can view the participation in various courses by their employees and monitor their progress in accomplishing their learning objectives. Other interested parties can view overall site-wide metrics as well as drill down to individual course or learner statistics.

In all, Intelliboard comes to us with 43 different reports, each of which can be scheduled and delivered via email to interested persons. Descriptions of those reports are available at https://intelliboard.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/200558989-Reports. Even with this existing inventory of reports, though, there is always need for more or different ways to analyze courses and learners. Intelliboard recognizes this, and actively invites its customers to request other reports it might provide to its users. eXtension fully intends to accept that invitation as we hear from our users, and has already identified one it will submit.

Although we currently have this service connected to campus.extension.org, our subscription allows us to connect to as many as 100 different Moodle sites. So, if any of our premium member institutions has another Moodle instance from which it would like to draw similar analytics, we can accommodate that need and provide access to those reports.

Anyone wishing to use Intelliboard, or even just to give it a trial run, can get started by dropping an email to campushelp@extension.org, and we will set you up.

Campus Design Tools and Services

When Is A Course Not A Course?

Post author By Lawrence Lippke
Post date January 27, 2016

Mention the word “course” in an educational environment, and what is it that normally comes to peoples’ minds? In all likelihood, it involves reading documents, watching videos, submitting homework assignments, completing projects, taking tests, responding to surveys, and maybe somewhere down the line, gaining a certificate or diploma—something to formally acknowledge satisfactory completion of those weeks of work. The Extension Foundation’s online course system, campus.extension.org–a Moodle learning management system–does a remarkable job of delivering such packages of resources and activities. And in Moodle or any other learning management system, this is called a “course.”

But what if all you need for your Extension program is the delivery of just one or two of these resources and activities? Is that a “course?” Well, if you use Moodle to deliver them, yes it is. Take any combination of any number of learning resources and activities and package them for organized delivery, and it is still called a course—in Moodle.

I bring this up because Extension educators are finding many creative ways to deliver courses through Campus, where those courses are very limited in scope. For example, one course on Campus is comprised of a collection of videos about judging horses. There are no tests, no course requirements; just this collection of videos for people to view as few or as many as they want. Why use Moodle to present them? Because Moodle provides a way to track participation, control access to the course, charge a fee, and even gather feedback through customer satisfaction evaluations or surveys.

What about a webinar or recording of a webinar? Might you want to collect demographic information from the participants? How about offering a certificate or a badge for having successfully passed a test on the content of the webinar? Might you want to open a chat room or online forum to discuss the webinar after it is over? Could there possibly be other resources or activities you’d like to make available to participants? And, did I mention that maybe you want to charge a fee for participation—or not?

The point is that Campus is a tool available for any Extension Educator who works for an Extension Foundation member institution (https://archive.extension.org/current/) You do not need a whole “typical” course to offer a course on Campus—just some learning resources or activities that you would like to make available to your audiences. Campus allows you make your courses as complex or as simple as needed. Check out https://archive.extension.org/tools-for-extension-professionals/campus-getting-started/ for more information on getting started.

Information

Launching the New eXtension Ship

Post author By Lawrence Lippke
Post date October 19, 2015

In a recent blog post, Terry Meisenbach talked about the “Summer Sprint,” and the current “Fast and Furious Fall.” And now we have news about presentations at NEDA, four new things to expect from eXtension, and the i-Three Issue Corps efforts in addressing climate change and food systems. WHEW!!

Having been involved in this flurry of activity, I continue to be reminded of an exercise during my first week in the National Extension Leadership Development (NELD) program in December 1992—an exercise both Jane Schuchardt and Scott Reed were involved with as well. Jerry Apps asked us to draw a metaphor for leadership–not words, but a picture. I cannot recall what I drew, but someone in the class drew a large sailing ship that was a fairly good distance from shore. The problem was that it was missing the whole rear section—yet it was sailing. The idea was that you are able to launch the ship without the ship being complete, or even knowing what the whole ship would look like. The point was that an effective leader is comfortable building the ship after it is launched. I feel very much like that is where we are. We have some idea where we are going. We have some of the pieces assembled, but we know that as we sail, conditions may cause us to take apart some of what we’ve already assembled in order to respond to those conditions. And, as we sail, we may never have a complete ship; it will always be under some state of reassembly.

This is scary, yet exciting. But, it also means that the way we survive and thrive is through teamwork, trust, faith, and a lot of hope.

Campus Information

eXtension Campus (Moodle) Continues Strong Growth

Post author By Lawrence Lippke
Post date August 11, 2014

eXtension’s online course system, campus.extension.org, continues to grow in both course numbers and participation. There are currently 306 courses available for enrollment, with another 327 either being developed or used for training or testing. These courses are being taught by 489 Extension faculty representing 47 states or agencies. Since January 1, 2014, some 11,470 new users have registered on the site, and 17,850 certificates of completion have been issued.

Aside from the overall statistics, there appears to be interest by faculty from many institutions in offering courses related to some of Extension’s traditional subjects. Faculty from 17 institutions are offering courses related to 4H & youth development, faculty from 11 institutions are addressing some aspect of human nutrition, and 9 institutions are using Campus for master gardener education. Horses, however, is the topic with the highest number of courses, with 22 courses currently available for enrollment, and another 27 being developed. Most of these horse courses are sponsored by the eXtension Horse Community of Practice.

Over the past year, the following “top ten list” of courses generated the greatest amount of activity. While “activity” in Moodle is akin to “hits” on a website, it is also very reflective of the amount of engagement people have with the course and the depth of the course experience. Clicking on these course titles displays the course description and teachers of each course, along with a link to enroll in the courses if desired. Congratulations to the teachers of these “top ten” courses.

While the Moodle technology used at Campus continues to evolve and improve, it is more exciting to see the ways Extension faculty are finding to use an online course system like Moodle. Some of these courses above have been described in past issues of the eXtension Update. However, one of the courses, Roscoe Collegiate ISD Veterinary Science, will be part of a future eXtension Update article describing an effort by Dr. Floron Faries, Extension Veterinarian with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, to prepare students for possible careers as veterinary assistants using a train-the-trainer approach. This approach greatly leverages Extension’s limited resources, such as Extension veterinarians, to reach a much broader audience, while equipping the external trainers with the same tools used by Extension.

University of Georgia Extension is now planning to use Campus for much of its foundation trainings. Under the leadership of prior eXtension Be, Grow, Create award winner Dr. Todd Hurt, it has opened up three such courses on Weeds of the Southeast, Insects of the Southeast, and Plant Diseases and Disorders of the Southeast. Targeted to the professional development of county Extension faculty, these courses feature picture galleries of various specimens, and then a flash card game for individuals to test their knowledge. This is followed by a quiz, and depending on satisfactory performance on the quiz, a certificate of achievement. Those completing these courses will be able to submit them to their professional development tracking system. Georgia Extension plans to expand these offerings significantly as other topics are identified and content developed.

There are many more similar examples that could be shared, but simply browsing through the available courses at Campus should give one a good overview of the topics and approaches being used by Extension educators. Finally, to learn more about Campus and how it can be used, please check out the quick reference guides at http://create.extension.org/node/94857, particularly the Campus Fact Sheet located there. And, as we always end our various communications, if you have any questions or requests, please address them to campushelp@extension.org.

Campus Information

Judging Horses Online Provides Experience

Post author By Lawrence Lippke
Post date September 5, 2013

Judging horses competitively provides youth and college students with the opportunity to gain life skills such as decision making, organizing thoughts, objective evaluation and public speaking. Developing the ability to judge horses well requires practice before the competitions. Although it is ideal to practice judging live animals, opportunities to judge quality horses in person can be difficult to secure, depending on location, cost and availability. Judging horses via video is a great alternative to help supplement the learning experience of youth and adults.

To help horse judging team coaches and judging team members, Teri Antilley turned to eXtension in 2011 for assistance in distributing the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Online Horse Judging videos and handouts. They are now available through a monthly and a yearly subscription on campus.extension.org. Since then, the videos have served as a valuable resource for 4-H, FFA and collegiate horse judging teams in Texas and many other states. More than 320 teams have purchased access to these courses.

The courses contain more than 100 horse judging videos and presentations. New videos are added as they become available. Background information, score sheets/placing cards and practice videos are included in the course. There are introductory videos, 2-horse videos (for less experienced judgers), and 4-horse videos (for more experienced judgers). Official placings and cuts are included, as are critiques of the class and/or reasons. Some classes also include penalty videos (e.g., reining). Classes in the course include halter, western pleasure, western horsemanship, hunter under saddle, hunt seat equitation, reining, western riding and trail.

For more information about these online courses, contact Teri Antilley at tjantilley@ag.tamu.edu. For information about how Moodle might contribute to your educational efforts, contact the eXtension Campus help desk at campushelp@extension.org.