UW-Parkside
March 2018
Innovations in Learning
 
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The 2018 LTDC Virtual Showcase is happening in April!
Attend a System-wide conference without the travel or expenses! Changes: Moving Forward, the 2018 UW System Learning Technology Development Council Virtual Showcase is a FREE education technology conference that you can attend from anywhere there's internet.

On Tuesday, April 3, at 8:45 AM, keynote speaker Leah Chuchran-Davis will give her talk  On Your Mark, Get Set, Go! How Digital Learning Skills are Shaping the 21st-Century .

On Wednesday, April 4th, Jamie Seger and Paul Hill will present on Change…The Spark of Innovation.

In addition, there are 30 sessions presented by instructors, instructional designers, and instructional technologists from all over the state of Wisconsin on a wide variety of topics.

Visit the LTDC Virtual Showcase website to register for the event!
Eric Ludwig leaving UW-Parkside
The Innovations in Learning team is sad to announce that Instructional Design Manager, Eric Ludwig, will be leaving Parkside this month.

Eric is thankful for the time he spent at Parkside and is proud of the progress and great work of the Innovations in Learning team.

Please direct any future emails or inquiries to the Innovations in Learning account.
Comparing student momentum and dropout rates in online courses
Online course enrollment continues to grow globally. However, rates of online student retention are dropping: online courses show 10% to 20% higher dropout rates than their in-person equivalents. 
There is no shortage of research into the underlying causes for this, but a recent study by Christensen & Spackman have developed a useful indicator in the process, which they refer to as “momentum”. In their study, the authors looked at nearly 200 online courses and tracked not why dropouts happened, but rather when .  

For every unit of the course, what percent of students who completed the unit would go on to complete the course overall? Looking at courses in this way revealed that dropouts are often clumped at particular times across a semester. The researchers hypothesize that these spikes in dropouts indicate particular challenges in the course materials that may discourage students who are already struggling. 
What does your course momentum look like? If you’re seeing spikes, you may want to take a closer look at how your course is structured. 

Learning Tool of the Month: Piktochart
Piktochart is a free, browser-based graphic design platform with an emphasis on infographics and presentations.

Their templates are easy to use, attractive, and printer-friendly. Piktochart can import data from spreadsheets and generate clean, theme-consistent charts and maps of your data, too.

Use Piktocharts to design posters, presentations, and more! Visit the Piktochart website to learn more and to sign up for a free account!
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