 It's the top of the hour. So let's begin. Let me welcome everybody. Let me welcome you to this week's Future Trends Forum My name is Brian Alexander. I'm the host and the creator and the cat herder of the Future Trends Forum I'm delighted to see you all here today We have a great topic with a pair of excellent guests. I'm really looking forward to connecting all of you now What I really like to do is introduce this week's guests. I'd like to begin with Michael Cato Michael is a Bowdoin College. So if you ever want to talk about winter, he knows exactly what that is He's a senior vice president and chief information officer there And he has been leading an extraordinary effort that combines hardware and network connectivity To bring remote students together. I find this to be an absolutely fascinating project I'm just grateful that he has the time to join us right now. So we bring him up on stage Michael hello Good afternoon, Brian. It's great to see you I'm really glad to see you. Thank you for making the time for us and thank you for being here And also, thank you for continuing a long Future Trends Forum tradition. That is we're biased towards guests and beards Well, I apparently have some work to do so I'll get on it. Oh, yeah Keep going you have support here Michael, you know, I guess I have a whole series of questions to ask you and and I just We got one quick one which is looking ahead for the rest of the academic year into spring 2021 What are the big topics and the big ideas the biggest projects that uppermost in your mind? You know, I appreciate the question. I think the way I would answer it is Trying to learn as much as we can from the fall experiences So that we can iterate in ways that better support our faculty and our students for the spring Right. We are actually kicking off a formal assessment of the fall online learning out learning and teaching efforts And we are doing it early because we would like to learn those lessons in time to make whatever changes We can to respond to the feedback that we get Because we don't believe we've solved everything for the fall and we think as our model flexes a bit for the spring We're going to have more students on campus as an example and faculty will have More flexibility to choose to teach some classes on campus with some considerations that I'm happy to talk about as we go through this But that means that we can't be content with the model with you know Thinking that the model that we have for the fall will serve us exactly the way That we will need it in the spring. So that's what's top of mind for me right now. I Appreciate that. I appreciate that very much and that it's really impressive to be a formal assessment this early That's very smart Before before I bring up our other guest. I just want to ask you and see if I understand your project correctly What you've done is you have managed to arrange to send an iPad to every student Echo every undergraduate student home and in that iPad kit. You also have a couple of things you have the Stylist so they don't call it a stylus things a pencil A bunch of software and you also have a paid up Cell phone network subscription so that it's a burden student It does not have Wi-Fi or ethernet my capability at speed They can nevertheless get online as long as they have cell phone access and join their classes. How am I doing so far? Pretty close couple things I offer as as modification. So first yes Apple doesn't call anything simply so there's not a stylus It's an Apple pencil to and the keyboard's not just a keyboard. It's a magic keyboard every time I have to write magic keyboard I pause and yes, this is Apple. I have to call it what it actually is But it's a I'm happy to talk about why that's why we think that keyboard the choice around that keyboard was one of the things It was also really helpful But the cellular internet is was one of the big reasons we chose the iPad pros That's specifically the model that we picked for students and so what we've done We told students if you have a cell phone account And your family's in a position that you can afford to enable it just go ahead enable it We don't need to be involved at all but if cost is an issue that there's a simple form you fill out let us know and My team is actually I'm really impressed with the work. They've done They're going to the level of confirming the address where the student will spend most of their time and then checking Which provider has the best coverage in that area and then we'll activate the device for that area for that carrier And so then the college will be paying for the service that way and as of this week Just over 260 students have taken us up on it and we're paying for their coverage But it's not that we've enabled them all before we sent them out We wanted to make sure that for those students who can afford it. Please go for it But for those who were much cost would be an issue just reach out to us and we'll be happy to enable it 260 students what what portion is that of the of the lot? We're 1800 students. So it's just under one six of our student population And we I have every expectation that that number will change somewhat if we bring more students to campus next semester and Say our first year is now go back home or we were working off campus because most of our first years have been on campus So they haven't needed the service. So we do expect that there'll be some changes as we go from one semester to the other Excellent. Excellent. This is a fascinating fascinating project and Friends you will all have questions about this. I'm sure everything from how did he manage to do this? To questions about software or is it really called the magic keyboard? But in order to kick us off with that, I'd like to bring up our other guest this week This is Jill Yashikawa, who is a founding partner at the creative marbles consultancy And she's coming to us from the West Coast. Is that right Jill? I am Sacramento, California Fantastic. I'm really grateful that you've come to us this morning. Thank you for having me It's nice to meet everyone Well, it's great to be with you. You're you're a great tweeter and you use the hashtag very well And I'm also just grateful to connect with you Because I admire your consultancy, but also I like the way you asked questions Let me ask you one question and then I'll unleash your question asking capability And that is free the same one that I just put to Michael looking ahead to the next year What are the big topics and the big projects that are up the most in your mind? Well, that's a great question for me. It's been about community I think that we have talked a lot in the press and I think universities have done a lot of work to really look at Pedagogy and how you deliver content to students But my concern listening to the students that we we know in colleges all over the United States is really they're missing that Socialization, you know one of my students is living in Santa Barbara, but attending classes at Berkeley And so he's really extended some of my students are here in Sacramento Some of my students have taken a year off They're deferred and there's really not a connection to their to their university at the moment So how how do we build that plus the the loss of those informal spaces? Where students would just sort of walk out of class together and strike up a conversation or ask for clarification about something the professor said then end up at coffee and have some Existential Conversation about the meaning of life or see their professor wandering across campus and just you know Hale them down and have some conversation about the fall leaves or something like that. That's really been my concern also in the residence halls When you don't have the interaction between First-year students and older students. There's a loss of that kind of mentorship into the college So our students are really thinking about that loss of coming of age of being on their own One of my second-year students who's here in Sacramento, but attend school in San Diego She called it. She said it's like being a 30-year-old and continuing to go to high school parties So that that's really foremost on my mind is when we all get back together Are those bonds gonna just snap back into place or or how are we gonna remake those in the meantime? Well, that's that's a that's really well-trained and That's a it's a great problem to think about We have all kinds of I have all kinds of questions for the two of you, but if I could Why don't you lead off John? What are what kind of questions do you have to Michael about this? Well that is Going back to community is I know that this is a primary tool for teaching and learning How else has your staff the student affairs staff or other even Faculty work to use this to build community because in many cases faculty are The public face of the university to the interfacing with students right now So how is that continuing to happen and what kind of feedback have you heard from students and faculty about those new roles? Yeah, I think that's a really great question And I appreciated that that was your top of the mind answer for next semester Because I realized that that's that's very a close second or third for me right community and burnout are the other two for me They have nothing to do with technology The places I look to as examples of the work that's already happening is That our faculty and our students frankly among themselves have been using many of the platforms to extend beyond the places They were initially intended so it's not just about classes and in class session Right. We as an example. We've been a microsoft shop for a long time So we've had microsoft teams available But when we did the emergency switch in in march A lot of faculty started asking for zoom because they were hearing about it from other colleagues So they were you know connecting to zoom sessions at other in other programs that they did extended more more More broadly and instead of ending up in the you know that well We use teams instead of instead of having that argument We decided to enable both platforms more broadly so that everyone has access to it And I've been intrigued to watch the utilization numbers over the last few months because one for the type of institution We are we never really use them that extensively before But now everyone's using them everywhere and our zoom utilization numbers a number of sessions are higher on the weekends And they are during the week It's really interesting for me to see right We are not teaching classes on saturday and sunday that often right so this is these aren't in class sessions And the first time I had a student group reach out and say we are an improv group And we would like to hold a zoom webinar. Would you be able to work with us? You know my first response was sure we're happy to do it my second is I have no idea how this is going to go You know But it went so well for them that the other groups started raising their hand and saying the same thing In addition to being able to use their own accounts to be able to connect with small groups They wanted to be able to use the much larger platform to allow them to engage and a lot of that is really happening And I think happening in a lot of ways well But we're now seven eight months in Right and I think that that transition this is where to your point about community and my concern about burnout How we flex to be more creative is the challenge that we have now and I tip my hat to my colleagues and student affairs And to the work that the faculty is doing the faculty are doing excuse me to try to help our students Find these novel reaches the novel ways of reaching them Because the you know, I think many of our teams were doing zoom happy hours when this all started And it felt novel for the first couple of months Right We did my team did a virtual cooking show with a chef who a friend of mine actually who I hadn't seen in 20 years Mind you but this is just kind of intriguing She's a now a chef for america's test kitchen And so she was willing to do a virtual cooking show for us. We picked the recipe She guided us through talked to us about a career returned to this really great conversation Around issues of diversity and inclusion because she's a woman. She happens to be a black woman So there's some ways that we're using the tools but Because you know our model our teaching and learning model is not really built around Distance it is much more about proximity. It is much more about that intimate relationship between faculty and students We know that this is not the model that we want to maintain in in its in its entirety But there are things from this I suspect that we'll want to learn and carry for it It's all right long way of answering your question, but I hope I got a little bit to what you're asking about Can I ask a follow-up question too? So Do you believe that because you had those existing relationships just the culture of Bowden to begin with Was more intimate and seminar based and that kind of discussion oriented that that helped in the transition So then the the the technology just became another tool where maybe Public universities that are larger and don't have as much of that You know ready made in their culture for especially in lower division classes That that transition might be more difficult Yeah, I think that's a great way of framing it. I suspect that there's some some of that has definitely happened I think we've been served especially for our returning students or the students who would have been coming back to campus And in fact, I should back up and be clear our fall model was that we invited all first years to come to campus and A few groups of other students were included as well. So if we had if you had Situations in your home environment that just wasn't going to be conducive to you being successful academically If there were classes that you had to take because you needed to be able to connect to labs things like that So we ended up with about 40 of our student population on campus. I think I hope I got that number right So it's it's it's a much smaller group than we're going to have in the spring We anticipate having a much larger segment of the student population here And that choice was supported by the very thing you're talking about that our first years didn't know us Didn't already have those connections. So we thought it was in Especially important for them to be able to come to campus and be able to have that experience Even as we would then pivot into the spring to have more of them at home and bring more of the returning Students back to campus. So yes, I think that was part of it But for our colleagues at larger institutions that already have established online programs and experience teaching online I think they may have had that as an advantage that they were working from that we didn't have We just didn't have the background with it. So I don't know how much I would trade one off with the other I think both of those were true Well, if if I can um, that's that's a great Here was a great questions and like I'm really really impressed with the definitely answers. Um, I think this is Part of it is that this is this is a technology initiative But it plugs into so many parts of the campus environment as well higher education in general We have a few questions that just come in And I wanted to share these really well because they're typically great questions don't flash them on the screen So we have one from uh, Dean Raj That uh, soon the old whispery What do the experts feel about privacy concerns and camera during class sessions? What's the impact of allowing students to turn their cameras off? Which one of you want? I have thoughts on that but well, I'm really curious to hear Jill's thoughts on that too I'm happy to give an initial answer from my own vantage point in our conversations with faculty We've encouraged them to um be mindful That a student having their camera off may not just be because they're disconnected and because they are not engaging Right. Um, I tell you I when we first started using zoom wholesale the virtual backgrounds was something that to me seemed like a nice add-on I didn't quite understand why they made such a big deal out of it Until my then four-year-old son walked naked through one of my meetings, right? And I became a convert to zoom backgrounds after that, right? And and it became interesting for us to have conversations with our wider community Because someone may have the background on because when they're on campus It's really hard to tell the differences between my socioeconomic status and yours Maybe what i'm wearing maybe the brand name's that kind of thing But if you get to see the background of the room that i'm connecting from or the fact that my Younger sister is at the underside of the table It can feel very different than i'm connecting to a colleague who is at their, you know, the family's second home It just could feel very very different So it's requiring that for your students to turn it on as opposed to building an environment in which they're welcome to And they might want to And maybe asking them to turn it on when they're going to ask the question or finding some way to give them agency Have been the kind of conversation we've been having here But I would love to hear your thoughts on this across the industry jail sure So for us listening to students, they really appreciate having the flexibility to turn their cameras on and off Some of our students were here on the west coast. They attend school on the east coast So then rolling out of bed for a nine o'clock class at five thirty in the morning They really appreciate not having to be on camera and they can be in their pajamas and listen in anyway So that's one issue. The other is security on testing We've heard a lot of feedback from our students that they believe Without much evidence, you know, these are students they that um that the testing has been harder And that there is more monitoring because of uh concerns about security and cheating And so in some ways, they're a little bit dismayed that they're not being trusted Um, they they also know their own experience too. They're they're not they're not uh, they don't mince words They definitely readily confess to being able to use google Um, you know as needed they try, you know, not to do it on testing But they really appreciate the flexibility during a class that they can just sort of look something up really quickly If they don't understand, um, and the teacher's still moving on with the lecture So those are a couple of issues I think for us as a consultancy then we worked one on one with students So when we're in their bedrooms and they don't mind sharing that with us, it really helps us to get to know them more So I think for faculty if students are willing to share that with them, you know, just even picking out something in the background Oh, what's that teddy bear behind you or what's that picture mean? It can start those those connections that we don't get access to when they're just sitting in front of you in a lecture hall Or would be harder to to get to so that might be a way for faculty or staff to start making some of those personal connections Which are necessary for any sort of learning Um and and and building that trust But I think the other the other issue is that Students feel like if they're not cheating they believe that their colleagues might be Um, and so this is really affecting the grading Where they feel like the curves are being affected by students taking advantage of the idea that they're at home and can cheat and there aren't as many I guess protocols in place or backs back stops to really sciming that But my question always is about cheating is why do students feel that pressure? Why do they feel the pressure to perform? And and how are we going to address those issues more so than while we just need to stop it and tell them It's bad because that that doesn't get to the heart of the problem For some reason those kids feel the need to have to compromise their own morals and their own integrity Which you know has larger consequences than then um the idea of a disciplinary infraction Well, those are great answers for a terrific question roge and uh, jill afterwards I can I can share a science fiction story That's just about them remote proctoring. All right, perfect My students are fascinated about it Thank you. And again, if you're if you're new to the forum, uh, what we just did with roge's question is typical So if you just want to type in a question, please feel free. We already have a stack of these coming up and Including we have one from uh, sally. I'm going to try and pronounce your last name. Please forgive me if it's if it's Brutalized sally moody amu from portland state university Has a question about uh, what happens next? What will stay post covet in relation to virtual collaboration? Great question sally Jill you want to go first this time? Sure. Um, I think in some ways, um students are learning different resources They're learning different ways and having to advocate for themselves There's a lot of self direction. I think college Takes that step up anyway from high school. You know, I work with high school students and college students So they always talk about that they have to be more self directed in college, but distance learning has really Intensified that ability for them. So I think they're more resourceful I think they take a lot more initiative and they're less They're having to learn how to ask for help Which is, you know, just a skill that we all struggle with at times because it makes us a little bit vulnerable But I think also having the backstop of being at home. They're a little more comfortable to to do that And they find that professors are a little more willing to talk to them after hours or outside of office hours So that that's been a place that I think will stay is that kind of More active learning and engagement in their own learning and the ownership of their own their own education More so than faculty or staff having to carry the carry some more water for them That's a great answer. I really appreciate that And I think the piece that comes to mind for me is an observation. I'm watching play out among our faculty And whether it will stick or not. I think it's an open question. I so I I won't venture to say for sure that I know this will it will hang around But this is after 20 years of doing this type of work in higher ed This has been the first time I have observed at scale That that the more technically Adept and technically minded faculty who would have been doing a lot of these initiatives anyway Are now collaborating across disciplines with colleagues who have normally been much more hesitant Right because what I'm used to having is this collection of really technically minded faculty who come up with all these great ideas Of things they want to pursue and then everybody else Right and that there's you always have to be careful not to build solutions that they ask for that doesn't necessarily work for everyone But now we're getting these really shared Conversations just just because so many opportunities have opened even as we've faced challenges That now that I can engage a guest speaker virtually For 20 minutes in a lecture Suddenly, you know the world's my oyster I can bring in from all over the place for these really short segments As long as I consider time zones and the other pieces right But that that's just showing up in so many different disciplines And one of the reasons I was excited to see That the some of the videos that our faculty were kind enough to record to show for their their colleagues Here's how I'm using iPads and my my work in my with my classes and with my students And we've had submissions from faculty and math to English to romance languages But we never had those types of examples at that kind of level before and I'm really intrigued to see How much of that will carry forward whether it's around iPads or not But just that I think we've demonstrated the Really really demonstrated the scale of what's possible in ways that we've only been able to talk about before And I think just to add a little bit to that from students from the student perspective They really appreciate when when teachers or professors are really open about what they're doing And that they're learning this as well It sort of humbles and you know humanizes this whole process in a way that that It's no longer about well my professor doesn't know and they're an authority So I'm gonna discount them it actually builds the trust when a when a professor is open and Humble in that way to say well, I'm I'm working on this too. And what what's your feedback? It really engages students and and builds that trust even further Yes well said I really sadly appreciate that look ahead and by the way I was just speaking with another portland state university faculty member your Corsi who is an expert in indoor air quality will be very much in demand over the next few months And thank you both of course for the great great answers We have a question that popped up in the chat box and actually we have a series of questions Michael directed right at you And so Jill you're the one of pounds as you can see these applying more generally The first one is can you give some insight? This is from amanda rossins fight Who asks can you give some insight about scaling this program for a college with 15 thousand students? Is it practical or would it only be available for students and me? Uh, so short answer is yes, it's doable practical is a different question But um, so let me start with is it doable when we began this conversations Back up first. We had at least we had identified an area of opportunity that had been announced as part of our Um capital campaign actually that kicked off in january Um right before kovac kicked in right so in january We had announced capital campaign and part of it was a mobile computing program But that one was intended we had designed it to have macbook pros That's what we were going for because we we realized that ipad would be really useful But we had concerns I had concerns that we would have to spend years kind of re Reconfiguring the background infrastructure to work well on ipad because not everything is designed to work well in an ipad interface And I had a lot of conversations with colleagues at ohio state Because they launched the largest ipad initiative in the country two years ago This is ohio state right so the first year class was 14 000 students And they're doing it right so to do it at that scale kind of means that anyone can actually pull it off If it's all about finances and logistics, and i'm not trying to minimize the amount of work that it takes to do um, but as we engage with them It really helped us start to clarify here are some of the opportunities and so when kovac happened We ended up switching from the macbook direction to ipads One because we had more students who were going to be at home two it would allow us to address the the Internet access question that I mentioned before in ways that we couldn't do as reliably with macbooks Unless we sent out hotspots as well and we had done some of it But they were shortages and it just got really really complicated And also we felt strongly that the apple pencil Apple pencil two if I have to be specific would give us these um all these opportunities That a standard laptop wouldn't be able to do and we were getting that from feedback from one of our faculty led groups The the continuity of teaching and learning group that was convened in april to help us build the model for What would effective teaching look like in the fall? And it was recommendations from them frankly that helped us to step back and question Well, maybe we should morph the plans for the mobile computing program to focus on ipads to allow us to move in that direction So that's that's the larger answer. I do think it's possible. It is expensive And there's one of the things I love about what a higher state's done is they're funding it by doing things Like moving intentionally to open educational resources Right so driving some of the savings from textbooks and publishing and all the all the things that are normally wrapped up in there driving those savings into Providing for the offsetting the costs for providing ipads to all of their students So we knew that model existed and I just don't know many institutions of that size that have been able to do it But can you do it? It's kind of hard to argue that it's not possible if a higher state can pull it off at those numbers Amanda that's a great question. Oh, please. Please go ahead Your audio is being garbled. Is your connection okay? It's still it's pretty good. Um, can you just uh, Reload the page the web page I'll bring you back up. Um We'll bring her right back Thank you, uh, Michael for that incredibly rich answer. Amanda Very grateful for your question taking us right to the point of scale Jill are you back? No, no, you're you're you sound robotic and your your video is stuttering um, it may be that uh Your bandwidth here dropped or maybe that's something else is competing with you Okay Is it possible to pause or video and keep the audio? Not really. It's it's it's okay In the meantime, I think we can keep going Okay, and if you'd like if you'd like If you You can type in the chat box and I can I can read stuff out We had a another question again aimed at uh, Bowdoin They shared a couple more one from Ray Garcelon. We'll just put this on the screen And Ray asks what did students who use iPads to complete and submit assignments contribute and collaborate online learning activities? Find more or less challenging or easier with mobile Yeah, I appreciate the question. I don't know if I have a specific answer from the student perspective as yet I think that the because completing and completing and submitting assignments Many of our faculty keep in mind that we didn't have an extensive online learning Platform before that's not what we were really doing before So the faculty are using blackboard now much more than they ever have in the past But my impression and this is where the assessment is going to help us flesh a lot of this out My impression so far is that a lot of the assignments are not necessarily being submitted through blackboard And I think it what I had seen examples of faculty asking students to you know, they might complete something and then upload it later on So one of the challenges that I have seen is that the blackboard and I say this with all due respect to blackboard We were a blackboard customer and have been for a long time Blackboard wasn't really designed with the mobile computing in mind, especially on an ipad platform So some of the things that you think would be straightforward or not quite as easy as I Because I believe they should be And so it's one of the things that we are taking feedback on you don't switch learning management systems in the middle of the academic year So I'm not proposing one But you know just realizing that picking a tool that the underlying Infrastructure was not necessarily tied for that's where we had some hesitation As we were designing the mobile computing program in the first place And I think that's one of the places that's showing up But assignments in in japanese or non non roman character languages Are much easier to complete with the digital pen if I can write it out digitally and send it to you digitally As opposed to having to write it and then scan it and then upload it right Which is all the steps that would normally be required if you're doing this remotely without having that interface So those are the places that i'm seeing but that's more for my observation And i'm cautious to offer that as a definitive since we are still in the early stages and we're only beginning the assessment now But I hope that helps to Maybe answer to offer answers to the question Understood that makes sense And thank you again ray for the really great question. Let's give you an audio test. How do you sound? Is that better? Oh, it's perfect. Oh, all right wonderful Well, just to add to that question and and also from the earlier is Is I think you really want to take a look at the learning process and that students aren't used to learning on technology This is you know gen z obviously is the most digitalized generation. We've had ever in humankind But they use technology very differently And I think the more that faculty can really understand how this generation Access is technology and how they think and and navigate through that then they'll be able to really Keep transforming the pedagogy No matter what you do. So if you're going to distribute 15,000 or a thousand You know computers or iPads then I think we really need to think about the learning process and transforming it For this generation and teaching them literally how to learn using technology because that's been a big Challenge for our students. They'll turn something in but because of the security protocol it goes blank So now they have a zero or they they don't know how to use the the Testing what interface so then they don't answer all the questions. It's just creating a lot of additional challenges for them Jill if I can I really really Appreciate you making that point because I have been really frustrated and this goes back 10 years at least At how sometimes have dismissively we speak about our students ability to use technology And we assume that no matter how complicated the tech is that we put in place that oh, they're super technical So they'll figure it out when most of these systems are not designed by them Or with them actually as the lead customer. They're designed for the institutions All right, and so we run into these situations where the the youth interface clearly was not built With them in mind and you run it and I keep running into these places where that shows up And that's why we're trying to be super mindful of that as we begin the process But I really appreciate that point I'm curious just you know offhand to think about what the most the tablet friendly LMS is Or most tablet friendly BLE, but that's not the question I want to ask the question I want to ask is Another one that's from one of our one of our Participants and this is from David Alma at Harvard Business School and David asks Faculty staff students always want to use different tools or apps How do you balance experimenting and being flexible with not supporting everything? Yeah, that's probably my favorite question right now and I again I'm really curious to get Jill's thoughts on that Right because as a technology leader as a cio The instinct is to make sure that whatever we do is supportable Right and I think that that's a healthy instinct, but it's an instinct I resist Especially in the spring that the the fantasy stance we took was we want to enable the faculty and students to be successful And we would worry about consistency a little bit less as we went through the emergency version But as we started to prepare for the fall We were trying to flip that back and say let's center the user experience to center the student experience Let's center the faculty experience So why should you have to learn for different video conferencing systems? Because you know two of your faculty members who are teaching or two of your classes Have just found this one particular tool that they prefer and it's not the one that everybody else is using So we've been we've been trying to encourage more in that direction We haven't drawn hard lines because this is so unique for us And so I think we've had a lot of opportunity to learn But we have said to the faculty is if you're going to pick something that's completely off script We won't be able to support you in the way that you're used to of you know You call or email us and we'll solve everything that's going on for all of your students And that just appreciate if you're going to go off on your own You really will be on your own in some regards And that might not work as well for you and for your students and trying to balance that a little bit at the same time Appreciating and so we're going through a conversation now as an example of faculty members in the languages are identifying That the visual layout for teams and for zoom neither one of them was kind of built for the type of small group Conversational work that they do all the time And so they've been looking for solutions that are more responsive to that kind of design And the first one that they've let the couple of the faculty found was out of a company that just started in russia It was less than a year old We did a security assessment and the security assessment didn't really go well They just found a new one that just came out that the company literally started in august The tool looks phenomenal, but the company's two months old And so there's this caution of well how do we experiment with that and create room for that? But just appreciate that you know We got we have to keep in mind that students now have to learn yet another tool And we we have to find a way to support that as well So it's it's not a simple answer unfortunately, but I think it's that that interplay between the two of them And i'll add to this I think that liberal arts institutions Are in a unique position to be more experimental in my my opinion from my own experiences of much larger larger institutions When I had 24,000 students I was supporting there's no way we could experiment at scale the way we can here because we have 1800 Um, so there there are trade-offs that I think we're in a position to take advantage of and we're trying to do more of that I mean it's one of the great affordances of small colleges that can turn on a dime um And we can but we normally don't want to The question can I think students appreciate when there's a standardization of of the the kinds of tools that are being used because then they can adjust Um, you know in this uncertainty I think any places where they have a little ledge of of some sort of stability is giving them You know a place and an anchor anchor to hold on to But what they also are appreciating from professors is a flexibility to account for that uncertainty and that life Sort of keeps happening and they don't have as much control of the circumstances when they're at home Um as they do possibly when they're focusing and and living on campus or living near campus Um, so I think in some ways having a standard tool is really useful for them rather than them feeling like it's inflexible But I think also when students What they've appreciated is when they bring up a new tool to a professor And it's brought up enough times that then they can utilize that to either turn in their work or engage But again, I think it still comes back to the human component The breakout rooms in zoom are wonderful and designed for that kind of small group chat But if you don't know anybody in the classroom Then they're going to sit in awkward silence until they're called back Into the larger lecture and it's sort of a waste of time for everyone So it's really about you know, I just to keep reiterating my point again But that community I think is really important and the and the piece that students really are talking the most about at least to me Well, that's again, that's a pedagogical issue too Um, uh for the instructor and students to work with We have we have more questions coming in friends and don't forget if you want to press the video button You can join us on the top We have one a library question. It's coming to us from, uh, Colorado Let me bring this up. It's from Annie Epperson at northern, Colorado She says have there been any particular technological challenges as students and faculty make use of library resources Such as e-reserves or a stated basis or e-books to support classes or projects I think first this time Yeah Well, some of our students have just stopped using the library Honestly, because it's it's such a pain to be able to access resources or they're not even near campus So I think that's been difficult. Also students have told me that They used to go and check out textbooks or use the reserves at the library So they didn't have to purchase additional materials that were required for the class So they've taken on the additional expenses this semester You know and many of our students can afford it, but it it has been an additional expense to not have the library I think in some ways some students are really dismayed because their campuses are closed So they can't access them to the same degree, but they're still paying the same fees So I I know that this has been in the national media about the value But students are really questioning that because their just resources not available to them Well said well said michael have you have you had any time based on the bogey experience Yeah, the piece I would add is that our library colleagues have been The key partners for all of our planning around the online learning effort In fact, I see a couple of them are on with us tonight today So that they were helping us account for those issues early on And some of the examples I've seen is I'm partnering with faculty so that the Resources can be made available through clicking through to them as opposed to having to clearly since we only had first years on campus Checking it out from the library physically cannot be the only way they can get access to it So making sure that we're thinking those pieces through at the outset And I'm seeing more and more faculty really planning for that Since they know the classes are going to be online You want to lower the barrier for students to get to that get access to those resources But the librarians have clearly been key partners in all of this work for us to figure that out We had a quick question just popped up from melanie hogue at southwestern university in texas and she asked One challenge particular those where the provider specifies the students have to be on the campus network to sign out So Yeah, that was one of my most frustrating conversations as we went through this emergency pivot in the spring and to the fall That in the spring a number of companies Really stepped up to the plate and acknowledged that this was emergency everybody was switching and going home And so they started to loosen a lot of those restrictions in ways that I thought were really really helpful Um, but then a lot of them seemed to think that the emergency ended in the in august That couldn't quite figure out that you know, suddenly they said, oh No, you should thank us for allowing you to have this access and that's going to change comes September 1st In ways that were really frustrating. So some of that we had to navigate but for the most part I think we've been successful It's just been a moneymaker for a lot of companies and it's been really hard for them to extend the model they were used to No, thank you for for that and my good luck. That's um, that's that's always a real fear Um, we have another question that's come to us from uh, sherry, uh, restory I'm gonna show you. I hope I didn't mispress it too horribly Uh, just michael, can you share more about the space in which you collected those faculty stories? We just rolled out a thousand ipads to fact that you would love to hear more acquiring this broadly That's from postal caroline university Sure, I will put a link in the chat and I will share it with brian later so that we can send it out. There's a There this one is to a link of a collection of faculty I think it's only eight videos, but it shares some of the good examples of how what how they're using it And are the college's communications department is now publishing stories of how examples of classes that are teaching online So it's not just about the ipads, but how they're doing visual art or Or japanese or all these different languages. It's giving all these different classes As examples of how here's some of the work that's going on because keep in mind bodin's 220 plus years old This is the first time we've ever taught on online classes Not even just at scale at all right was in the spring and in the fall So there's a lot of um new learning for us as an institution And so those conversations about what we will retain as we move forward have been really interesting I'll make sure the other I don't have the other link to the news articles, but I'll make sure we pass those on as well Okay, there was a there was a great one from a japanese professor, which I was really impressed by Just working through a whole series of modalities I just one of my favorite ones Yeah, I just shared this with the uh in the chat. I'm going to put this out on on twitter in a second um, but we had a another question that uh came up or rather an observation um, and this was from Liz evans, uh from uh, lake hall And she was really struck by what you two said about collaboration And how faculty collaboration is something that you think will Go way beyond the pandemic era and I was struck by that and as was Liz I wanted to return to that because we're the we're coming close to the end of our session I'm just wondering if we look ahead say five years thinking about what What you're learning michael from your faculty as well as from your students and staff About this and and jill what you're seeing about these Experiences with mobile technologies and connected devices Where do you think they're they're taking us in the next 75 years? It's a great question. If I could start I think in some ways there's a fatigue at the moment That I think people are going to have to kind of work through But I think that they're also learning to be very creative about how they're staying in touch with each other and collaborating using technology You know, they were used to using things like google documents and and sharing Ideas in that way, but I think people are are having to learn other ways to to reconnect In terms of using technology Yeah, and I would definitely Definitely agree with that point about fatigue and burnout right that I've been really careful about having those conversations about What's going to stay and what's going to stick while we're still in the midst of so much So many challenges that we're navigating and even as things are going well just being mindful that it's it's really intense right now That said Liz is actually leading an organization called lake hall It's a liberal arts consortium for all on the online learning and my former institution was really active with them And and actually Bowdoin is considering on being a member because I think that those types of cross institutional partnerships This is the type of experience that shows you why these are so powerful and how powerful they can be We've benefited because of our location We've had a long history of partnering with Colby and Bates colleges because they're both within half an hour for us of us So the three institutions have done a lot of work together as we plan for the fall as we went through the spring experience Um, and there's a lot of learning that we've benefited from being able to share from three institutions But if you're able to expand that out to a larger group of peer institutions who are struggling with many of the same questions I think there's even more opportunities And if anything that this experience is teaching us that that location matters a lot less For some of these pieces and we have thought historically I would um encourage you as you're collaborating with other institutions and other faculty members Is really to take into account the students That many of them choose college because it's a coming of age experience as much as it's an education And so that is the part that they're most dismayed by and I think that's going to have a lasting effect Into the next five years that there's this whole generation and cohort of young people Who are going to either delay that or it's just going to they're going to come to age in a way that that We haven't in many generations through college. And so their maturing process is fundamentally different I'm not sure how that's exactly going to play out in the workforce But I think that there's some brewing resentment and frustration that they're not being able to access That kind of social activity and the networking and being more self-sufficient on their own There's frustration that they're living in their childhood bedrooms and going to college at the same time So I think any Any conversation about the pedagogy and the education is going to have to account for that Because you're going to have you know high school students that are behind these guys who are in that same situation Who are going to mature into college? That's what we're hearing from our seniors Is they're having a really hard time imagining Right now as they're applying to college what college is going to look like next year They're so uncertain and very and very dismayed about the process. So for them to start envisioning the future is really difficult we know from data released last week from the national student clearinghouse that Total enrollment in u.s. Education went down about four points But the first year student enrollment dropped by something like 11 to 16 depending on which Which sector which is really really huge I mean even if we get some kind of magic vaccine and people all take it big big gaps right in half year That gap is still going to be with us for three years to come Both as institutions, but also those individuals And brian to that point. I mean i'll frame this as a question. Jill Your your point about seniors is the one that i'm really nervous about right because first year this year Had one semester in their senior year that was unusual and then they went into the fall But the seniors now have had a year of their high school experience And whether their high school experience virtual high school experience will be anything like what their virtual college experience is like It's really hard for most of us to not project it into the future and I could I I have a suspicion and i'm just curious how you think about this that the number of leaves and leaf and Gap years is just going to increase next year versus this year across the industry, but i'm curious how you're thinking about Well, I think that's definitely a conversation that more students are having every year You know more students talk about gap years But I think that they are talking about that because they're just going to see if they can wait this out But I think um the other part of that conversation is They're starting to acclimate to the idea that this is just going to sustain itself that this pandemic is You know the vaccine and everything else we're just going to sort of have to adjust So they're looking at college a little bit differently Um and and starting to think through and and this is just what we do because in 20 years of our practice We find that it's most practical is for kids to really think about who they are and return back to what's your core aptitude So that then they can define their life's purpose and then they match Backwards into the university they match the university to them rather than chasing a bunch of Statistics or I need to get to this you know most prestigious school or whatever it is But you know is bad in the right fit for me This is what I know of myself And I think if what if more students in high school and even in college currently take that time to do that self reflection Then they're going to really be able to take advantage of the resources that are being offered at Bowden and any other university Going forward and and so their enrollment It may drop but it'll be a different kind of placement where kids are understanding why they're there Not just because since kindergarten the in the academic meritocracy They've expected to go and I think that's going to fundamentally shift The work that you all do at the university level in higher education We I don't appreciate but we have time for one last question and and by the way Thank you both. Those are those are great forward-looking answers and jill I love the way that you're looking so closely at the student experience psychologically and sociologically This this takes us this question takes us back inside the institution. This is from dora frisbee a long time member of our community and dora asks How well is the central technology organization aligned with the teaching and learning group to support funding requests supporting faculty and students In other words, who makes the final decision? I guess that's a question for you about Bowden Michael and then jill if if you want to add anything from what you see in the institutions or So here This is one of the first times that I can say with confidence that we are joined at the hip Right, we made the decision around the ipad program as a partnership between it and the academic affairs department Right, so it was it was the the dean of academic affairs and myself When the idea first came up to modify the existing mobile computing program that we had developed with partnership with them And so it was a it was a joint conversation And the online learning and teaching program that we set up to support all of the work was done in partnership between the two offices So because i'm a senior officer because I work at that level We've been able to have those conversations and and make those decisions together Even the funding for everything we've done have been set up in such a way that I have the funds to support the the faculty development and those pieces around it But we do that in partnership with academic affairs It's really wonderful to hear that cross collaboration between departments too I think that that's really useful in a in a culture for students to really understand That that their university is is a united front not competing interests between departments Nicely said very officially said and and it's actually very nicely said because this is the end of our program We've been going Great guns for an entire hour and I have to with all regret I'll put a pause in this. Um, thank you both, uh, Michael Cato This this has been terrific. Um, Michael my hat's off to Bowdoin for this great great project I hope everybody can learn from this and and apply it as they can Joe again, I'm I'm so so impressed By your deep deep commitment to the student experience throughout this difficult time Um, so uh, just quick question. How can we best keep up with you both in your respective work? Michael is uh, is twitter your your best play right now? Uh, I have t's that I'm on twitter. I've been there a long time, but I don't say much But yes, it's one of the places that you can find me Um, and I'm trying to be better about sharing where the work we're doing Okay, well, we look forward to seeing you there and uh, jill. You're a you're a twitter fiend I am yeah, so twitter is great or our our website our blog creative marbles.com and I'd love to hear Individually from anyone as well. I'm happy to answer any individual questions Beyond this this session great, and that's a mg kato at twitter and That's also jill yashikawa at twitter Thank you both very very much. We look forward to hearing has as Bowdoin progressives and as your work progresses to Thank you But don't go away friends Let me just point you to where things are going for the next few weeks Again, we have a whole series of topics ahead ranging from technology to accreditation to work life balance Uh, we also have uh, if you'd like to keep talking about this a whole series of platforms We're talking about it everything from twitter to facebook and linkedin as well as a slack channel Um, and if you'd like to go into the past some people have asked about this How do you access previous recordings? We have a huge suite of recordings going back. Like I said nearly five years Just go to tiny or l.com slash ftf archive It's about 230 recordings right now all there for you And if you want to um learn more about us or about shindig, of course Those are the two links, but in the meantime, thank you all for thinking with us about this really interesting project Thank you all for your concerns about the integration of technology and learning And above all take care of yourselves and stay safe during this extraordinary year Looking forward to seeing you soon online next time Bye. Bye