Whose Voices are you Elevating in Online Environments?

Whose voices are you elevating in the online learning environments you design? Not sure? Let’s take a look together. I’ll wait. 😁

First, review and assess the content and sources that are being shared with your learners.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Are there a variety of perspectives and experiences represented?
  • What was your criteria when selecting these resources?
  • How might your learners see themselves reflected in the content you curate?

Next, search for more diverse authors, contributors (like guest speakers), and entrepreneurial creators on the topic. This is hard sometimes. We’ve gotten so used to perpetuating the majority voices, it’s difficult to actively create a new system. Overtime, it gets easier if we all work to adjust our habits.

Emergency Remote Student Experiences are Not Quality Online Engagements

I’ve taken a small hiatus from writing personal blogs, but I’ve been working with the ACPA Online Engagement & Experiences Task Force (soon-to-be Commission) to create a blog, submission pipeline, reviewer rubric, and invitation sequence to open dialogue on higher education online engagement and experiences.

To kick off the ACPA OEE blog, I’ve written/co-written a couple of blogs. I’m sharing one that I wrote solo on here because I believe there are people in my network who would like to read it:

Emergency Remote Student Experiences are Not Quality Online Engagements

The blog post linked above was written to shed light on the parallels to the faculty experience of struggling to move higher education student/academic affairs work to online spaces at the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic. I wrote this blog citing the other well-known and passed-around work from InsideHigherEd OpEd article, Remote Instruction and Online Learning Aren’t the Same Thing. It seems that most of the practitioner literature focuses on faculty and teaching courses. Where this is truly important work, I felt like the work of Student and Academic Affairs professionals who also pivoted to a fully online version of their programs, meetings, and learning during a pandemic was being overlooked.

Take a read, and sign-up for the OEE Task Force Newsletter if you’re wanting more updates on the news from the Task Force. We’ll be putting out a call for blog submissions in the upcoming months to review, edit, and post on the ACPA OEE blog. If you’re interested in this blog post, then please do consider writing a blog for the Task Force!

In the meantime, let me know what you think about this topic. Have you considered what you’ve moved online for the pandemic could be upgraded by learning more about online learning? How might we all work towards more quality online engagements and experiences for our students and colleagues in higher ed? I’m here to listen and provide feedback! After all, this is part of my current research.

e-Portfolio Website

This website displays my work in various forms of media to be integrated into a learning environment. In this particular project, showcasing my knowledge, skills and abilities in instructional design and technology. Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and other instructional design software packages were used in the development of this project.

Design template Pure Mix modified from Tooplate. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Web development portfolio project developed with Dreamweaver and Cyberduck.

Multimedia Curriculum Example

The website incorporates various forms of media in the learning environment. In this particular project, college students learn how to be successful by learning about and implementing different study and organizational techniques. Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and other instructional design software packages were used in the development of this project.

Web development, curriculum, and technology integration project developed with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, CyberDuck, Garageband, Microsoft Powerpoint and other Web 2/3.0 products.