Just in time Faculty Development-ITC 11/3/2009

Webinar from ITC
Speakers Debbie Kell, Assistant Dean, Mercer County Community College

B.A.T = Better Approaches to Teaching.

BAT is their brand name, like ours is TRC, but they can play off it (The Virtual BAT Cave)

Debate about whether the look-feel of college site should be duplicated, they opted no, theirs is very different since they had very different desires and goals.  Humor helps faculty/staff enjoy the site and respond.

BatCast Central:

• Constantly changing content within structure but maintain structure to keep it easy to locate info
• serves 120 FT and 400 adjunct faculty   primary audience is faculty.   Bat cave staffed by 2 analysts (PT), one coordinator, 2 pt admin assistants, and one Assistant Dean.
• Appeal to Collegial Egos.  
• Nicely done spotlight on faculty members that changes focus a few times a year.   People come to check that out and then stay and look at other stuff.  Spotlighted faculty nominate other faculty but cannot nominate those within their particular division.   Kept grassroots.
• Using students didn't work, no media developer either.  A faculty member who teaches media helps with the video/editing for web delivery
• Virtual College staff keep the initiative going
• They link to StarLink and they have links that help them go straight there.
• They track hits.  They use Google-Analytics to produce the site. 
• Newsletters, emails etc.  encourage people to check the video of the faculty member spotlighted.  They have fun with it.
• The text below the video is not a transcript, it is additional info to encourage both viewing and reading.  Sometimes they add audio, as in an instructor playing an instrument.
• Library maintains the reading room portion.
• Has required certification of faculty  9 hours of hands-on and 12 hours of online
• The Cheatability Factor
• Not having luck with wiki either.    did have a flurry during an implementation but then slowed down to a crawl again.