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Press Release - September 14, 2005
Penn State Outreach Promotes Access and Engagement through Technology
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Evolving technology and the relocation of several Outreach units into the new Outreach Building are creating exciting opportunities for collaboration and innovation across the University, Vice President for Outreach Craig Weidemann reported to the Board of Trustees on Sept. 9. By highlighting initiatives to expand access and engagement through new technology, some of which were illustrated in video segments, Weidemann emphasized how Outreach will be able to expand Penn State's reach across the Commonwealth and beyond.
The Outreach Building, located in Innovation Park on the University Park campus, is home to Continuing Education, Public Broadcasting and the World Campus ‹ units once housed in various locations on and off campus. "The rapid evolution of technologies and the challenge of educational content delivery across multiple platforms, such as online or broadcast, suggests that the physical integration of the Outreach units is very timely," said Weidemann.
Penn State's World Campus, which is entering its eighth year of operation, continues to evolve as the educational landscape changes and online access becomes more robust. Last year, the World Campus had 1,366 enrollments in print-based distance education courses and 10,448 enrollments in 317 online courses. Currently, the World Campus offers more than 45 degree and certificate programs through distance and online education programs from 12 Penn State colleges.
One of those programs is the Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Leadership, developed by the College of the Liberal Arts. While the complete degree is delivered through the World Campus, it is also offered as a "blended" program at 11 Penn State campuses around the state. "This is a new model that allows students to mix online and on-campus courses for a very flexible learning experience," said Gary Miller, associate vice president for outreach and executive director, continuing and distance education. "This initiative capitalizes on Penn State's national leadership in online learning and on our 24 campus locations around the Commonwealth."
Additionally, Integrative Art 115, developed by the College of Arts and Architecture, is a fully online course which allows three streams of enrollment: resident instruction at University Park, all Penn State campuses, and as a World Campus course to non-resident students. Said Bill Kelly, head of the Department of Integrative Arts in a video segment, "We can reach at least twice as many students for about the same cost as we could in the past in terms of regular classroom instruction and, our sense is, that the quality of the course improves dramatically."
In addition to managing the World Campus, Penn State Outreach was recently charged by the Board of Trustees to lead the development of Penn State Online, which will bring all of the different threads of online learning at Penn State into closer coordination. "We are about to enter a new phase in the evolution of online learning at the University," said Miller. "With Penn State Online, we will begin to purposefully blur the old distinctions between distance education and resident instruction to create a new community of practice within the University that will help us be more effective in opening access to adult students and to enriching the learning community on all of our campuses."
Penn State Public Broadcasting (PSPB) is also using technology to increase access and engagement, according to Ted Krichels, associate vice president for outreach and general manager, PSPB. "The conversion to digital technology is opening up vistas in the educational landscape that take us well beyond traditional broadcast," he said. According to Krichels, the new studios in the Outreach Building position PSPB as one of the best technologically-equipped university-licensed broadcasters in the country. "Our new, shared location brings us physically closer to our Continuing Education and World Campus colleagues. And, with our increased studio capacity, we are working with Cooperative Extension to share our studio space for Extension productions. This situation greatly enhances our capacity both to create compelling content and to deliver it in different formats and learning venues."
It is through collaborative efforts that PSPB has been able to expand its audience beyond its traditional 29 county broadcast. For example, Penn State President Graham Spanier's program To The Best of My Knowledge, which is produced by PSPB, is now carried statewide through a relationship it developed with the Pennsylvania Cable Network. PSPB's radio production is also expanding beyond its nine county area thanks to digital technology. "Now that we are on the Web, our signal can now be heard all over the world at any computer desktop," he said. "As technology increases our reach, geography is no longer a defining factor for us."
And, as online capability becomes more robust ‹ allowing for video ‹ PSPB will extend its production to support online education in a more meaningful way. "We now think 'beyond broadcast', intentionally designing and archiving everything we develop for multiple use," said Krichels.
For example, for a current NASA project on the SWIFT satellite, PSPB produced a broadcast documentary Swift: Eyes Through Time. The video became the basis for "reusable learning objects", video segments ‹ distributed online and on DVD that are coupled with a teacher's guide and tied to state classroom standards ‹ which provide middle school teachers materials for science and mathematics.
PSPB's Engaging Faculty Initiative, a national initiative that brings together public broadcasting and faculty to create compelling content, underscores this idea of the multiple use of video assets. Produced properly, Krichels said "reusable learning objects" can be created once and used many times in different contexts, such as a video segment to enhance classroom teaching, or as an element in an online course or informal educational program. "From our perspective, it's about the learning experience that we can create and deliver with technology and about making learning more accessible, more timely, and more relevant," said Krichels.
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