Tri-University Conference
Developing a 12-Hour Women's Studies Program
Through Distance Learning

Notes from Monday, May 21
Erika Giesen

Online course templates; legal issues (Bernardi):
· Distance learning is useful because he can reach a diversity of student learning styles, a diversity of student populations, it's a portable classroom, and because he can be critical and creative
· The student we're most likely to lose in distance learning is the student who likes to debate and interact
· Distance students usually are more technologically capable than expected
· Providing students with a structure, "intrusive teaching" essential for retention - especially through employing technology preceptors. First week is the most important in keeping students in the class
· The distance medium calls for good designer sensibility (i.e. interesting graphics, no scrolling)
· To engage the interactive student, he's created a "play" assignment for each week. These are interactive learning activities, "learning modules"
· Office of Technology Transfer - the office that secures faculty ownership of course content
· He uses his course template to convert other courses to a web-based format
· Templates provide an opportunity to think through relationships and streamline a course; he thinks that as a course template WebCT is not useful to the kind of students he wants to teach because WebCT uses a page metaphor when conceptualizing the web, while he sees it as more cinematic; also, WebCT
is unstable - a lot of users
· Building a navigation system in Flash, such as he has done, may be very difficult or impossible for a disabled student to access in that it is dependent on the mouse; at the same time, Flash only needs around 3 files to house his homepage, while html coding needs hundreds of files
· The template is saved as an FLA file - he owns that, which is different from copyrighting the content - that had to go through the Office of Technology Transfer
· $25,000 for converting one course to his template - he provides a 3 year commitment for changing things; after that, it's a fee, and he could give faculty/departments access to the template for future use
· The office of technology transfer will decide who (them or the faculty) should market a course
· To support his site, students need fairly new hardware; it takes 2-3 minutes to load on a 56k, but once loaded, it comes up immediately
· In his "lecture", he puts up PowerPoint slides through Flash, then records himself so students can either read, listen, or watch to learn
· Summer school pays $5000 to convert a course
· Once administrators are educated (which desperately needs to be done), they should be willing to give a course release for on-line course development
· He insists on a TA for every 20 students
· In copyright issues, some of the copyrights must be to Women's Studies

Hands-on: using WebCT to create a syllabus (Giesen and Kreis): See Kreis/Gibbs'
handout. Drop out rates in distance courses decrease with increased interactivity between students. Providing help and opportunities for connection with other students is the most important during the first week.

Lunch discussion: the time involved with email; personal connections over email; the possibility of having the initial 4 credit course in the sequence focus on technology and building students' skills; the possibility of dividing the 12 units up into smaller chunks (i.e. 1 credit modules focused on varying
issues such as technology)

Hands-on: online and distance learning courses, units, and modules (McBride)

Community resources, interests, needs (Manning, Moreno, Andrade, Medina):

· Manning: sees technology as augmenting community building rather than being a community itself. The technology itself is not necessarily a problem, it's the structure of technological systems. Interrogating the way people access the courses should be considered (i.e. alone, multi-generational, etc.). Community places where people will congregate for courses and who we should collaborate with: day care centers, nursing homes, rehab centers, prisons, detention centers, half-way houses, church halls, temples, synagogues, classrooms in off hours, rotating hosts' homes, mobile RV.
· Andrade: facilitation between University and community area is important. Against what the reading said, computers are not the social world, the communities are first, and then technology augments. For example, the University is not incarcerated or previously incarcerated women's community for the most part, but the desire is there if facilitated properly. Another site where people will congregate for courses are adult education facilities (El Rio, El Pueblo, etc.). The stand-alone certificate itself would be useful. Facilitation entails sharing all the unspoken rules about how to interact, how to negotiate the system (i.e. transportation), child care, economic issues. Making women part of University communities is really key. For example we could create smaller discussion groups that relate to personal lives/issues.
· Medina: Started out extremely skeptical about the possibilities for such a program, but ended up being very excited and enthusiastic about distance learning. Essential to use community resources that already exist. There are computer labs already available in "friendly" neighborhoods and community organizations. There are partnership opportunities available, which would really be key. For example, Chicanos Por la Causa have two computer labs for teaching. Finds that one facilitator in the labs is really useful. As far as community needs, these include: physical and mental health, how to get in touch with and how to get back to one's community, politics, and family (health, child development). Community interests include: a historical perspective on women's movements and the cultural traditions that go along with that; educational and career opportunities; art; media; and time management. The young women she works with have the goal of college, although they are intimidated. Her goal is promote and facilitate college graduation so that they can come back and help younger people
· Moreno: Her info is specific to Chicanas 17-23 and 15-18. Community building needs to be foregrounded. In building community, we have a responsibility to assess existing community resources and structure. Her organization has a goal of reclaiming indigenous traditions and promoting "cultural competency," which includes an inherent suspicion of the structure of the University, in part because the University advocates the "I'm my own island" philosophy. First and foremost for her community is the goal of graduating high school. Further into one's education is further from a place of security and safety. Fostering an awareness of education at the middle school, high school age can be a way to change this. Finds that Chicano Studies, placing things in a cultural context that is familiar, is essential. As far as community interests, there is a strong desire for students to learn more about themselves, i.e., accurate history, identity, culture, also having a say in their education. Her organization has done needs assessment surveys on various topics. Half of the teen pregnancy rate in Tucson is Chicana/Latinas, which is not
necessarily a bad thing, as motherhood is prized in Chicano culture. Young Chicanas learn through a diffusion process - one girl passes her knowledge onto others (but the important point is that the knowledge is accurate). Identity is crucial - in a recent identity survey, no youth identified as Hispanic, only Chicano/a, Latino/a - reclaiming a sense of self as an indigenous woman is key. Strategies/content that have been useful - looking at systems in place and how they can be transformed to be not linear. It's very important that that the certificate program is designed of, by, and for the specific community we're targeting. Her community is reconsidering traditional gender roles where the machismo, marianismo roles are not so common for young Chicano/as, Latino/as.

Overall issues:
· Not only is it access to computers in the homes that is the problem, but it's ISP access, access to computers at the public library (which are slow and there are long lines for use)
· NAU has sites out in the community where distance students can access computers, which may be sites for us to hook up with, offer through
· Community center computer labs could be a place for people to learn skills, as well as function as a community gathering place · In conceiving of "Women's Studies," the field may be seen both as empowering, but also as impractical for careers. There is a huge thirst for self (cultural)-identity knowledge, while at the same time students will be concerned with, is there a job at the end of the tunnel?
· If we build our program to their interests, people will go the extra mile to come
· How can we serve the interests of people from mixed backgrounds? Who are not strictly Chicano?
· One of our courses might be a history of Arizona or of the South West
· Multimedia delivery might be important - not just web-based
· Might be difficult, time-wise, to develop more than 4 courses to have choices; we could also develop modules on themes
· Chicano studies needs to be conceptualized as not just for Chicanos - we could make one course on Chicano Studies a requirement for all to facilitate this. Possibly a broader course on race, or both, could be taught
· This project should be a way to facilitate partnership. University should buy computers and give them to community centers who would be facilitating already in organizations that the community already trusts
· It's very important to draw on the resources already there - no colonizing
· Community input is essential when we are making decisions about certain formats for the program. Perhaps a small pilot course could be developed and student input could transform the course
· While video seems most like sitting in a classroom, in ways it's very silencing and very costly and it requires bringing people to campus
· Possible mentoring on the web course?
· Having students help build the curriculum makes it not so institution-based
· A course on the history of activism would be an interesting link between community and the University
· Beyond the conference we may need to develop some kind of board or advisory council in order to assess needs and resources
· We may need to look at a mix of students in order to create a broad base, which doesn't preclude leaving out our target population
· Why not partner with Chicanos por la Causa to pilot a course?
· Why pilot? We could just do needs assessment at various centers throughout Arizona
· Maybe start with one course before a 4 course curriculum is built
· Doing this work in community centers and existing structures may assuage the resistance within the Women's Studies community itself to distance learning
· We can't pilot it without offering credit - do your homework up front. We could pilot pieces of it. Project evaluation (by the people using it, not the experts) built in early on makes projects successful. Paying people for pilot courses. There's also the tension between using people for guinea pigs in the pilot course. The pilot could be more about design rather than content. A collaborative pilot - during the first year credit could be given, while at the same time students can collaborate on how the course is built
· Present the community groups with a rough structure and ask for advice, plus develop options

From Amy Metcalfe:

Here are the thoughts from listening to this afternoon's presentations on student outreach/attraction:
While the ideal student type that was discussed should be pursued, there can be a simultaneous effort to attract students who, although closer to the traditionally served populations, may be able to sustain the program with enrollment. Such students may be: