Educational Technology Leadership Group Discusses Collaboration

Collaboration across UC is more and more essential as technology changes how we approach teaching and learning. Each of our campuses faces similar challenges when it comes to delivering the right technology. By discussing these challenges we can share ideas and come up with comparable solutions.

I attended the Educational Technology Leadership Group’s (ETLG) annual face-to-face meeting earlier this week (July 20-21) at UCLA. The ETLG has representatives from each UC campus and is a standing committee of the Information Technology Leadership Council. The group’s mission is to review, discuss, and comment on issues relating to the effective use of technology in teaching and learning.

Members act as liaisons between technology and their campus, and strive to integrate technology to provide the best experiences for students and faculty across UC. In the meeting, the group discussed how to implement educational analytics, bridge the gap between teaching and research, and improve how we organize data and share information.

Israel Fletes, Chair of ETLG and Director of Educational Technology and Computing Services at UCR said, “It was a very engaging and collaborative meeting. Our members are very passionate about teaching and learning, and take a student and faculty centered approach when working on solutions for their respective campuses.”

Gail Persily, Director of Education and Technology Initiatives at UCSF said, “At UCSF we are focused on using technology to increase the ability for students to engage more in research and lab settings. It’s great to see technology that we’re addressing is converging with other campuses too.”

To recognize the group for its collaborative spirit, I brought a variety of PEZ dispensers for each member to choose from. The PEZ dispenser is sort of symbolic – even though each dispenser is different, it dispenses the same kind of candy, comparable to different UC campuses implementing the same technology. If we know we’re all trying to achieve the same thing, such as providing technologies to advance education, we have an opportunity to merge our ideas and achieve shared solutions together.

As Shohreh Bozorgmehri, Director of Student & Academic Services at UCI said, “It’s an exciting time at UC. Technology is an integral part of the teaching and learning experience and is rapidly changing; we can collaborate together to improve students’ learning experience.”

Please tell me how you, your department, or group is collaborating!

Image credit: Leah Burns, IT Communications Coordinator, UCOP

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