WAOL Blog

Here at WAOL we have been working on a plan to provide some limited classroom pilots of WAOL ANGEL during Fall 08.  We think these pilots will be valuable to all users as we move forward with ANGEL; however, we don’t want to jeopardize any student work nor do we want to distract WAOL staff from the larger jobs of the existing Blackboard operation and the migration to and automation of ANGEL.

 So here’s the deal for colleges:

·         WAOL will support up to two classrooms per college on WAOL ANGEL during Fall 08.  (Volunteers only!)

·         All pilots will be managed through existing WAOL processes (WAOL ID number and Intent to Teach form, etc.)  This will allow us to keep track of the pilots and enrollments through a WAOL ID number and will have the added benefit of creating shadow Blackboard classrooms and accounts as back up.

·         The college elearning director must identify pilot instructors and classrooms through an email to Monique Kovalenko mkovalenko@sbctc.edu by September 5^th.   

WAOL will need to get the instructor names and classrooms from college elearning directors, not from individual instructors.  

Here are the requirements for pilot instructors:

·         Instructors should plan for the possibility of technical issues; hybrid courses might be the best choice.

·         Instructors should not expect full training in ANGEL from WAOL and should plan to do some self-study on ANGEL (an ANGEL sandbox or other experience).  

·         Student-level information on ANGEL will not be posted on waol.org or on college sites, so the pilot instructors will be responsible to give their students any information needed to access and use ANGEL.  Presidium and the WAOL Instruction Office will be available for technical support; it will help if users identify themselves as WAOL ANGEL users.

·         Instructors must post a message in the shadow Blackboard classroom that tells students how to log into their ANGEL classroom.

·         Pilot instructors will have access to whatever ANGEL training and documentation WAOL has available, but they must know that it will not be finished before the quarter begins.  We are hoping instructors will give us valuable feedback on ANGEL during the quarter.

And before you send me a message asking how the pilots will work during Winter quarter—still under discussion.  However, I will tell you that we are steadily moving forward with no serious issues so far.  Yippee.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Connie