2020 Learning Impact Leadership Institute

The chairs of the CASE, Common Cartridge, and LTI Resource Search working groups will share the current state of each specification and how each specification works with the others.

In this presentation we will discuss the work and ongoing success of Adaptive Learning courses at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. These courses introduce the innovative use of adaptive and active learning. Implemented through the use of appropriate LTI producer and consumer integrations between Realizeit and the Canvas LMS as well as Active Learning components such as ZyBooks, CodeWorkout, and MatLab.Through the use of these integrated components students in Computer Science and Engineering have been offered a new pedagogical approach to learning complex STEM courses. These courses now offer fully interactive and supported learning. Students can now blend online, in person as well as real time online feedback on complex practical work. Finally, the presentation will conclude with some of the insights on the development and refinement of these courses which will enable other universities and colleges to create their own adaptive and active learning courses.

Curriki’s mission and vision is to make the new incarnation of OER (Open Educational Resources) highly interactive and intelligent, free and open in both content and technology, and extremely easy-to-use and remixable for both content builders consumers. IMS standards are crucial to both the democratization and technical success of such an ambitious open project.

We will spend the first 15 minutes demonstrating Curriki’s use of LTI Advantage, and how we plan to use Lesson Level Interoperability, and the Thin Common Cartridge to index and deliver these advanced learning experiences. We will also do a quick demo of how we are using xAPI/Caliper Analytics to build the student portfolio, and as the primary source for the student dashboard and individual progress monitoring.

The last 10 minutes of the session are open for input from the audience on other ways that we could leverage and implement other standards within IMS' arsenal.

Implementing an adaptive learning program can seem daunting but this session will provide on how institution’s can leverage existing expertise to start. Leveraging IMS standards can provide you access to the data you need to run a successful adaptive learning program. This data can be used by faculty and instructional designers to build quality adaptive learning experiences for students. Communication and collaboration between academics, IT, and suppliers will be required to create alignment to continue the advancements in this area. This  interactive panel will feature members of our Adaptive Learning Innovation Leadership Network sharing their experiences implementing adaptive learning using existing standards and their work in developing new standards.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are transforming the way educational materials are delivered to students, by offering free and openly licensed alternatives to commercial textbooks. The most obvious impact of OER is on cost to students — OER is free — but the promise of OER is more radical than just cost. OER gives us all a growing ecosystem of high-quality educational materials that are not just free, but also easily editable and adaptable to meet the instructional needs of educators and students. OER offers educators and educational institutions more control over the materials they deliver to their students, improves access, and ultimately should improve the experience of learners everywhere. But building a truly viable OER ecosystem that delivers on this vision depends on more than just open licenses on content: we also need open platforms, open tools, and above all open standards. In this talk, Hugh McGuire, founder of Pressbooks and the Rebus Foundation, will discuss how open platforms using open, interoperable, standards can unlock the power of OER and describe recent work related to IMS Global standards undertaken by the Pressbooks project.   

LTI Resource search provides a powerful tool to allow suppliers a path to a turn-key content release model. It also provides organizations and teachers a streamlined methodology to design, consolidate, and deploy course work. With the addition of CASE and the CASE Registry, the opportunity for streamlined, and responsive interoperability becomes that much more compelling. However, while these specifications can facilitate all these things, there are few real-world examples of the full ecosystem in action. Join this presentation to gain insights as to the advantages, disadvantages and pitfalls HMH, GA Virtual, and other Georgia school districts experienced in actualizing this ecosystem in K12.

Understanding the accessibility of learning tools in the digital ecosystem is a critical part of ensuring equal opportunity for learners of all abilities. But the task of reviewing and vetting accessibility claims by tool providers can be overwhelming, especially considering the proliferation of tools in the education technology market. IMS, through its Accessibility Innovation Leadership Network, has begun the work of attempting to define a common rubric that can be used to vet solutions and share that assessment with the K-20 community, similar to the IMS Privacy App Vetting initiative. Members of the ILN will provide an update on the work of the group and the path forward as part of an interactive panel with lots of opportunity for feedback and input!

Community colleges play a critical role in enabling learners and workers to advance their education and employment opportunities. They also face unique challenges because of the demographics they serve and the ways in which they are expected to serve them. With the increased focused on student success and transition to workforce, institutional priorities are requiring a greater reliance on technology, but most institutions are not getting additional resources to support these initiatives leaving you to do more with less.

This session is intended as a “birds of a feather” gathering, an open forum to share information, ask questions and hold a frank and open discussion about the role and the opportunity for edtech and standards in supporting community colleges.