 Hello everyone and good afternoon and welcome to this session Trying to catch a wave in choppy waters, which is a feeling. I think we all know quite well at the moment I'm really pleased to introduce Susan Bonham and Diane Thompson who will be presenting at this session And I'm not going to hang on too long. I'm going to share Susan's screen here and hand over to Susan and Diane. Thank you Well, good afternoon everyone, it's a good morning from where we are, but thank you very much for coming to our presentation We just want to acknowledge that we are presenting from our campus today Which is on the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam First Nation Langara was honored to receive the name Snowy Athlelem from the Musqueam and that means House of Teachings in their language So our agenda for today is to present action research focused on our reflections of the implementation of any portfolio pilot to date And as such we'll share what we understand of what's happened The what makes sense of the facts and implications the so what and Identify how this experience will inform future implementations of technology at our college that now what? So starting with the what? Langara College, Snowy Athlelem is one of BC's leading undergraduate institutions providing university studies, career studies and Continuing studies programs and courses to more than 23,000 students annually. There is a range of certificates, diplomas and degrees granted So the e-portfolio pilot Pilots generally at our institution are Pretty grassroots focused usually a catalyst is an instructor or department requests a technology And if we are receiving multiple requests or we've identified a large tech gap A committee of stakeholders is formed to explore program needs and tech options And then once the technology is chosen, we recruit early adopters and innovators and attract a late majority of users in the end the need for An e-portfolio was identified prior to the pandemic Specifically a traditional portfolio application. So for learning and showcase portfolios with Connected reflection activities and this was sought largely in programs where students would be collating their work and reflecting on it Such as our creative programs and experiential learning programs And again, it's specifically just that learning and showcase portfolio and reflection piece We weren't really looking at The skills and capabilities functionality of the platform as we launched into the pilot Several digital platforms were explored in 28 2019 and pebble pad was chosen for the pilot It was set to launch in the summer semester of 2020 And the long-term goal of the pilot is to get out of pilot and into a full license So a successful success in this particular pilot was will lead to full implementation So as you may have guessed from our title This choppy waters Experience has not exactly been a calm journey on glassy seas. So there were a few things that happened One is that we lost Important team members right before we launched. We had two advisors who'd been involved in the pre pilot phase Including researching and selecting the e-portfolio Obtaining budget enhancement contacting departments instructors to recruit the pilot participants and working with the consultants to prepare for launch And one of them went on leave and one of them transferred to another department within two months of our june 2021 pilot launch Um, we also had not really fully explored the platform functionality So no one in the department really knew how the platform worked at launch We had not fully explored its affordances to support teaching and learning beyond that basic e-port functionality of the learning and showcase portfolios of reflection and then the third thing that Happened was the timing turned out to be you know a bit challenging as I'm sure everyone can relate to Although by last September a lot of our programs and students were back on campus And faculty, you know that we're still doing some online or hybrid delivery. We're very familiar with the technology needed for for remote delivery We found that when we started asking even those who initially wanted an e-portfolio They decided they didn't have capacity to learn new technology at this point. So We had some challenges The first year if we talk about you know the surfing term of dropping in and trying to stay up um Here's what happened. So we quickly had to put together a new team So, uh, I was hired as a new advisor. I was working in the department had been working in the department for about seven months in another capacity and uh, I had never led a pilot let alone one with you know, quite high stakes in a large budget um, and uh, so I had to quickly develop strong relationships with our consultants and then they realized within a few months We were going to need you know more depth on the team. So my colleague Diane who we'll be talking to in a minute She was brought on to um, at least, you know, kind of be some backup and And part-time support for it and then we had to get some of our support specialists involved who are more on the techie side um We also with the training that didn't go very smoothly at first because we um, Basically, I was learning the platform with our pilot participant list This training was very condensed So we did five sessions over two weeks at the end of august before trying to get people to start using it september Um, and this ended up scaring a lot of our early participants off and you know We were feeling kind of rudderless going with that as c image And uh, you know, this was this was a high stakes pilot and we really wanted it to be successful And we realized oh my goodness We have to find more people who are you know, willing to um to use this technology or we're not going to be successful so one of the pivots that we did was really looking at the training we needed to do and uh Decided that probably the best way to go is to chunk it into manageable bits So we've offered over seven eight weeks 30 minute sessions both synchronously and asynchronously um And that training was was really under time pressure in terms of development I was often only finishing, you know the next weeks materials like half a day ahead of my my synchronous workshop time So it was very much just in time developed But we managed to you know, put that into a package that people You know seemed to be willing to sign up for And then in terms of uh our participants So that was quite interesting as I mentioned kind of the way we started and the pandemic timing and everything else We did lose almost everyone off our initial list that we thought was going to be on board but uh, what happened was um, we we really stayed flexible and we became much more knowledgeable about the platform's functions and features And we realized through a combination of developing the training resources and working with the consultants both they seminars they offered and one-on-one support and just you know doing some experiment and using it that Pebble pad was actually a really good platform for experiential learning programs So it could support not only reflection, but evidencing of skills and capabilities and those sorts of things And we realized we were going to be able to use it in practicum's work placements clinical courses and things like that so that was Really what kind of light bulb went off when we realized that and uh, so now we have used it in um library tech Program which diane's going to tell you more details about in a minute It's also been used so far in supply chain management practicum in uh, we're looking at Going live in january 2023 and rec studies and co-op work internships And uh, we actually have our nursing program We have a bachelorette nursing program here and they've started uh using it this week So that's been like a nine month process of getting them onto the platform developing their materials getting their faculty trained etc But they are actually uh live on the platform right now So we didn't end up with anyone in on our original pilot list on board But we did end up with a whole Another set of departments that we kind of hadn't anticipated The other thing that we uh did was we realized that we really this is uh Going to be a significant budget enhancement to get the full license And we sort of realized that well, you know, we need some allies and we're going to definitely need to have college leadership on board and uh, so one of the things that we did was uh, really look at How this technology aligned with our strategic and academic plans And when we looked at that closely, we realized that it actually aligned with pretty much every pillar on both of those plans so we really kind of Identified those areas of alignment and started really communicating with the the channels up to leadership to get them supporting this technology So i'm going to hand it over to because we're still in the what section i'm going to hand it over to diane And she's going to talk about how she has used this technology platform with the library technology students Yeah, thanks susan So i'm going to talk as susan said a little bit more about the specifics of how we've used pebble pad in some of our programs So i'm i'm an ed tech advisor with susan, but i'm also an instructor in the library and information technology program And susan had invited me to use pebble pad and I really jumped at the opportunity I knew that the platform had a lot of uh flexibility and I could potentially Use it to solve a lot of the technical issues Issues and some even pedagogical issues that you know, we all have with some of our courses So the first course I used it for was uh, I had a specifics assignment in mind with that had a lot of reflection pieces built in And it went quite well, uh susan Created a video that helped my students log in and so it was really seamless. There was very few technical issues You know, I was quite surprised actually, but um It was great One thing that I did learn was that when we had set up the assessment piece in a pebble pad We had set it up as a live Link so the assignment was a live link which meant that I could go in at any time And provide feedback even before the due date and students were getting a little bit confused because they were looking for that Submit button and there wasn't one and so I should have been a little bit more clear On well, this is kind of more of a formative assessment. I can sort of provide you some guidance Especially for those students who are struggling a little bit Providing them guidance before the due date that they could revise, you know, that kind of thing So that that was a bit of a learning lesson there. Um, the for the second Time that I used pebble pad was for a practicum course and I was really looking forward to exploring that um One of the things one of the challenges we had with our practicum courses is that they run from January to the end of april the actual course But of course the practicums go beyond that into may and sometimes june And our learning management system shuts down or just, you know finishes at the end of april with bright space and so we The the instructors end up having to manage all the documents coming in with the practicum reports the the time logs the evaluations By email or excel spreadsheet and you know, it's a bit of a challenge Things get missed lost all that kind of thing pebble pad was able to sort of I was able to manage everything, you know In a whole view I was able to see who had done what and all the documents were there and then also the students Could the portability of pebble pad is is great So when students have finished the program they can still access their e-portfolio You know indefinitely as I understand and Also, they could share their portfolio with prospective employers. So that was a real Selling feature if you will for students to actually use And and complete everything in their portfolio. So that that's been wonderful And now this fall I'm going to be using it for A collaborative online international learning module within a course and so I'm paired with A tangent university in china and so I'm going to have susan enroll Her students my partner in china her students into pebble pad with my students. We're going to Create some groups and then they're going to work on assignments collaboratively So in our regular learning management system, we were just never able to do that and there's technically there's China doesn't have access or has restricted access to google and google docs and things like that So we were always looking for a platform that we could share that we could both use to have You know collaboration going on. So this this is going to be great. I think So those are some of the examples of how we've used pebble pad and what we've learned along the way And each time, you know, I'm I'm finding different ways of managing and of Exploring new functions within pebble pad and solving problems. Um, so it's been it's been a really great experience Thanks, diane So so what? What does this all mean? So reflecting on how things have gone so far At the beginning we didn't have enough depth of knowledge on the team And we weren't really able to guide those who approached us or we approached I mean, I'm really talking within the first few months But it's really hard to believe you're not an expert. So we've identified that as a an issue that we experienced Um, and again the training we didn't start off with the right initial training program Trainers are doing the training with the first group of pilot participants And again, this led to more confusion I feel like it scared people off that it wouldn't necessarily have if we had managed That participant training better, etc um Not understanding all of the functionality of the program, uh, also kind of Made us miss months of getting people on board and put real more pressure on the pilot success I mean the goal has always been to get out of pilot and into a full license But this will start put a lot of pressure on us to make it successful both for those invested in it During the pilot those who have come on board and those of us, you know On the support team who realized what a powerful tool this was and how much our college really Um could benefit from it so The other thing is in terms of the strategic and academic plans as I mentioned like really early on and and you know Kind of exploring getting any portfolio that had been looked at but it wasn't really top of mind as we launched this pilot Um, which partially, you know down to me because I was uh new to running pilots myself And I that was something that I missed but you know, we've certainly made up for that now and uh really understand and Are communicating how pebble pad aligns with our strategic and academic plans to support teaching and learning um I think the one thing that we Has worked in our favor and obviously we will keep from this experience is the fact that we were able to adapt so quickly and Keep highly flexible. So when our original people weren't uh coming on board that, you know, we were able to um Still pivot and you know find other people who it would be a good fit for And you know, hopefully we will eventually get those original people back when they feel that they have the capacity to do so So, uh, again going forward taking a step back in terms of this was a specific pilot. How how is this going to? Help us transform learning at the college and our approach to future pilots, etc I mean, certainly we're going to keep the grassroots approach at uh, Langara it doesn't work very well for us to come in top down and say you have to use something or you have to Use certainly something in a certain way. I mean, we really want to have buy-in from our faculty and go from there So that will that will definitely remain but in terms of Exploring the functionality next time we we totally understand that we're going to need, you know months To really do a deep dive ourselves into the technology tool before we try and you know lead other people into using it um that kind of relates to the training obviously um the designing the training well is um something that We've we have got to but you know, we didn't really start off with And we really feel that this is not even only for future pilots, but for how we're approaching everything now One thing that worked incredibly well for um, uh, the pebble pad training that we did run Was offering it both synchronously and asynchronously having those asynchronous materials that were multimodal They had text images videos. They you know, we were thinking of universal design when we put them together That allowed for all kinds of different learning styles and you know, some people prefer to do it on their own Some people prefer to do it, you know in person So we were actually meeting all those needs And the other thing is having those asynchronous well designed asynchronous materials allows people to have a reference later And we're actually now applying that to other we're re-examining like all our bright space training and seeing if we can get that Have have really well designed asynchronous materials for all of that functionality as well So this pilot has had to actually a when it comes to training a quite a profound Influence on our department's approach to training um In terms of our depth in team knowledge and skills. We're now consciously planning to have enough resources human resources with the right range of skills when we are Approaching any kind of a new project uh to provide the optimal leadership and support right from the beginning So now we're really looking at you know, when we're actually, you know figuring out the budget like do we have to have extra people attached to this that we Don't currently have on staff and then how much do we need to um budget for that that kind of thing? So that's been that's been an important lesson Um, and I've mentioned quite a bit about our strategic and academic plans But obviously being consciously aligned with those and communicating about that right from the beginning And obviously we're going to keep our flexible approach to any of our future projects and pilots So, uh, that brings us to the end of our presentation. We want to have time for questions So i'm going to stop sharing so that we can bring it back here Thank you so much susan and diane. Um, it um, it's been pretty quiet in the chat It tends to do that in the afternoon sessions. People are just enjoying and you know Soaking it all up. Um, but it sounds like a really interesting project and I I just wondered personally In my own work life we're dealing with A project where The personnel involved are changing and there's been multiple changes and I wonder You know, what would you how would you recommend coping with that or but also actually getting The benefit out of that because you're actually getting loads of Expertise and different perspectives as well. So there's absolutely I mean, I think I think diane and I both believe that communication is is huge, right? And so does our chair like she's really trying to bring people together to communicate more That was obviously a challenge. I think for most of us during the pandemic when we were all You know not seeing each other and just meeting over zoom and things Uh, it is easier when we're having more direct contact and having those like casual conversations in the hallway Like that, you know, I don't think any of us realized how beneficial that was until the pandemic hit and we weren't having those anymore um, but uh, you know, I I think one thing that we have realized and I've sort of become really conscious of it It's something that sort of a work in progress is that so much of our pimple pad pilot is actually currently in my head, right? Like I don't Uh I think like having more than one person be expert in case you lose someone because when we lost those two people Right before our pilot, you know, that put us into You know kind of a panic mode and it was certainly not the optimal way to launch a new technology tool Especially a big one like this. So, you know, trying to, you know Get things documented I try to document some of the you know, quite a few of the things that I've been doing All of my asynchronous training materials are there for anyone else who would have to come on the project now Right? Those are all documenting all the different features. Um, and and being conscious that we need more We need more depth, right? Like we need to bring more of our support specialists on board to to understand in depth how this Works so that they can do the direct support of the faculty And having Diane like that's what we realized a few months in when Diane was interested in teaching with this Then she officially within ed tech also got added to the team because it doesn't make sense to have one person, right? But but there's no I mean, there's no easy answers There's things like we who could have predicted that we would have lost To keep people within two months of our pilot launch, right? Like they've been involved in it for years And uh, you know life happens So, you know, we coped but that's again, that's where kind of the You know Trying to communicate as much as possible We didn't always we haven't always in the course of this done the best job of that But I feel like that's something that's just gotten better and better over time And who highly recommend people, you know, think about that You know as you're if you are have something in process that hasn't launched yet You know, do you need to sort of bring more people on to the team or at least, you know Have someone who's sort of more or less filled in or you know, you document the knowledge in some other way Um, so that it's available to people. I don't know if that's helpful or answers the question But absolutely and and something it's sort of making me think about you know What you're saying about the asynchronous training materials and often I think we do like we do the deep dive into the Technology and there's a stage where you do all the training materials Or maybe that's just me but actually doing the deep dive and starting to create those materials right from the start I think would be really helpful Yeah, well it was Yeah, because I ask if I was going to be able to create those materials and Teach the workshop that I did both right so I had that the asynchronous materials had to be good enough That someone who wasn't coming to my workshop would get it so they had to be pretty good quality, right? But me putting those together meant that I had to learn it really well, right? So it was actually super super helpful to me to have to do that. Um, we were you know, we were kind of doing I was doing it in panic mode Working working like at 1.7 days a week for about a month just to try and get all this stuff created But it ended up being really good because I then I was finally able to I mean within you know A couple months I was all of a sudden like catapulted up to being able to lead people that approached us and being able to Support them in a way that I was I calmly knew what I was doing, right? So yeah, so the building those asynchronous materials was fantastic and we built them in pebble pad So when people were going and doing the training materials they were also experiencing the platform Because it lent itself so well to that I mean you can put lots of multimodal content in there and then you can do you know I was able to embed h5p activities and I was saying Oh, you know this this kind of vocabulary is kind of key You need to know this and I was able to build an h5p for them to like test their knowledge and stuff like that So able to make them interactive, which was really cool And also made h5p training videos where it was literally okay do this in pebble pad Okay, stop the video and then plus play when you've done this whatever So those kind of things you know making it really hopefully engaging and interactive Um was really helpful Yeah, and they're in the environment that they're learning about which is really key as well We've had some lovely comments. I don't know if Vicki is still with us, but um We've had some lovely comments from Vicki about your presentation And she liked the scaffolded approach where you implemented Pebble pad gradually. I'm sure others would really benefit from a reflective kind of how you approach this I think she's hoping that you'll do maybe a blow Or share yeah do your part too Yeah, well, we can certainly we can certainly uh consider that I'm not sure exactly what like we we've done several scaffolded approaches I would need to know if Vicki's still with us. Uh, can you can you give us a little bit more? Like did you want to know how we like how we supported nursing to get on board or those kind of things Okay, well we how we generally got people on board Yeah, well, why don't you talk us um in general? Um, we'll see if Vicki Can add um the aspect of that that she's interested but feel free to talk us through and sure So what happened nursing was they they got in touch with us and they were losing the software They were using for their uh their main clinical document, which is a licensing document so it's like a super high stakes one and uh, they weren't looking they didn't purchase them a pebble pad But I realized oh pebble that would be perfect for them, right? So we it was a multi like I'm honestly it was months So I you know presented to their leadership one of the pebble pads, you know Nursing specialists came and presented and then we went back and you know Was presented to the entire faculty and then I set up a demo and I created all of their materials for one of their terms in pebble pad And then we you know, we set up we had all these student submissions Showed them exactly how this would work for the students and for them as assessors And they they said yep good. Let's go So, uh, then I spent months building all of their materials for two of their terms that have gone live in september and you know building the training again with the nurses like they weren't able all able to come so I had a combination of uh asynchronous and synchronous training um and the uh the asynchronous training I did again I did a in h5p where I was asking them to do certain activities and then come back and watch the rest of video etc um And then now that they're live one of the things that's been really important is actually as dian mentioned I did for uh the library tech program as well is making support videos for the students so that the students know exactly what to expect They know what they're going to see. I think you know, I mean we usually give them, you know, both kind of whenever possible You know written with screenshots hand out, but also a video I feel like if they can see what they're exactly what they're going to see It just cuts way down on their stress And it also cuts down on the amount of stress on the instructor and the kind of questions they're getting So they went live like the students were added to the platform last week And so far I've heard of only one very simple question that was able to be answered easily So the student and that's 160 students went on it this week That's not to say that I couldn't end up getting a whole bunch more questions later, you know next week or something But so far so good, right? Um, I think it's very the the platform is very easy For the students to use for the most part as long as they kind of know what to expect Or where to find their resources, which is what like I say we documented in a video for them But so far it's been very smooth and that the nursing staff have been very very positive I very the great thing about in terms of scaffolding a department coming on is that um I was able to really limit the functionality. I was teaching them So in the beginning I really learned that lesson of oh my gosh, you know, if they're learning at the same time as I am They're probably being scared off by all these things. They don't need to know So now when I'm approaching this if I am training a specific department And I know their materials because I actually helped to build them or in this case built all their materials I know exactly what the nursing instructors need to know in order to assess So I was able to really laser focus their training and not overwhelm them And that's the feedback that they've given us is like great. It was clear I I know what I need to know and know what to expect And I'm expecting they're going to come back to me over the term as they actually are live assessing and ask Some more questions, but they their comfort zone right now is far higher than I expected So I really did learn that lesson of you know, really really carefully designing the training Um, and I think the more that you can make it specific to the user and how the user will be using the platform The better when you're talking about a huge platform like this. It's like bright space too, right? Like we wouldn't ever you know, say, oh, here's just one one hour workshop on bright space I mean we have bright space workshops for all the different functions in our other lms, right You know, you can't you can't teach people all the functionality and like, you know, a few hours So you have to be focused on what you're teaching them Yeah, absolutely And just a final comment there from Vicki, but as we are fast approaching the end of our time I just want to say thank you both to Diane and Susan It's a fascinating project if you decide as Vicki is suggesting to do a paper on this or a blog Alt members want to hear about it. So let us know keep us informed and good luck with the rest of the project Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much Bye everyone. Bye