New staff have been hired to help redefine Ball State's education through online and blended courses.
The New Learning Technologies Resource Center and Integrated Learning Institute, also known as iLearn, are focusing on the use and instruction of emerging technologies.
"This is a partnership between academic affairs and information technology to bring together resources to help faculty move their courses online and also to offer blended courses," Yasemin Tunc, senior director of New Learning Technologies, said.
Philip Repp, vice president of Information Technology, said additional staff will also include four instructional designers, a learning and assessment consultant and two other positions that won't be ready until July 2012.
Repp, who co-chaired the Ball State Education for the Future Task Force, said his task force determined the university should have more technology support in classrooms.
Jennifer Bott, assistant provost for learning initiatives, said iLearn will primarily house instructional designers who will help faculty move teaching from face-to-face to an online or blended-setting and focus on how to move pedagogy from the classroom to a virtual environment.
Bott has been overseeing Ball State's School of Extended Education since Sept. 30. As part of a Growing Online Education Task Force, she said Ball State is now bringing the school of extended education under academic leadership and re-integrating it with main campus.
She said her task force identified the university having six educational barriers, and the task force worked to fix 47 recommendations.
Bott said some of the recommendations they corrected were related to faculty perceptions regarding online education, administrative structures and faculty issues such as academic integrity and academic rigor, training of how to teach in a digital environment and transfer materials online.
Repp said he doesn't have an exact figure of how much the Center and iLearn would cost to operate, but they would draw from a "realignment of existing funds" from the School of Extended Education, the Provost Office and the Information Technology department.
Repp said Ball State is working toward building an equivalent or a better-virtual experience versus face-to-face learning.
"We're doing a lot of things that other institutions are doing," Repp said. "But in some areas, we need to be more aggressive, such as with mobile technologies and applications and how they affect learning."
Repp said it is important for colleges and universities to keep up with changes being made throughout all levels of education.
"When you look at sixth-graders today and how 75 to 90 percent of them are doing online experiences in classrooms, they're going to expect a curriculum more modular, more adaptable and more flexible to their needs that is technology-driven and quality-driven," he said.
Although Bott said she speaks with faculty department chairs on a regular-basis about how they can best utilize new technologies in their classrooms, she also emphasized Ball State would not abandon its traditional in-classroom instruction.
Repp said effects of the New Learning Technologies Resource Center and iLearn are a work in progress.
"We're still assembling this whole thing," Repp said. "We're going around talking with administrators and faculty to get everyone involved and engaged."
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