My presence here at thewholeclassroom.com is a portfolio of work I have created over the past 27 years as a teacher and as an instructional designer. The site includes articles I have written about teaching on the web, there are links to presentations I have given at conferences, and some other digital playthings. Those links are all in the site navigation above. Here is a more traditional resume.
Over the last seventeen years I have learned from colleagues across the country that instructional designers play a variety of roles and are used very differently depending on institutional vision and needs. I certainly have played many roles. I have worked frequently with faculty new to online learning and we have developed courses from the course objectives up. I have worked with seasoned online instructors who are trying to identify deficiencies in their courses and create content or design changes that will remedy the situation. There is always give and take between the faculty vision for the course, existing materials they intend on using, their digital capabilities to deliver the course, and the instructional strategies and tools I am able to provide for them.
The pieces of work below represent work I have done both working with faculty on individual courses and working with the college community at large to promote digital literacy and the sharing of best practices in teaching and learning.
“However, like some tech-savvy Johnny Appleseed, Todd knows that not every seed sown will bear fruit. Instead, he relies on casual tenacity and repetition. On Tuesday I am frightfully busy, but when he knocks on Thursday (and Todd is never afraid to knock), I’m sipping coffee and tossing around ideas for a new class. When The Instigator walks in at that moment, he’s just what I need; in fact, he’s just what every good teacher needs.”
Jason Whitesitt, faculty at Yavapai College
THE CHALLENGE: AS ALWAYS, MAKING FACULTY WORK VISIBLE
I have been fortunate to be a part of the Teaching & Learning on the Open Web learning community for six years. We wonder about open pedagogy, OER, and many things in between. We have met monthly for six years! Amazing! As a community we have shared some wonderful conversations and activities together and as part of our mission, we have shared those experiences with our colleagues locally, and with the world. Our most recent adventures, the “Epiphanies from the Field” has allowed me to connect my amazing network with the Bothell faculty I am fortunate to work with on a daily basis. Here is the website we use to share our work.
“I want to thank you for your accessibility and responsiveness which were unparalleled. Last, but my no means least, is that your love of your work and enthusiasm itself was immensely helpful to me.”
Walter Freytag, Faculty Emeritus at UW | Bothell
THE CHALLENGE: COLLABORATION BETWEEN FACULTY AND SHARING INFORMATION
While at Yavapai College, some of my work with faculty was simply advocating for their instructional needs and sharing their good work. To that end, the 9x9x25 Challenge represented the best example of finding a space to have them share thoughts around the work of teaching. The idea was simple: to get faculty to share the good work they do. We asked faculty to write 25 sentences about teaching and learning each week for nine consecutive weeks. The format of the 9x9x25 was adopted by several other colleges.
- Glendale Community College
- Northwestern Michigan College
- Two other colleges ran similar programs based on the idea I had shared at conference presentations. Both are available on the WayBack machine. Chadron State is here and Foothills College is here.
- Here is a site I used for conference presentations to share the story.
“And when our blogging developed outside interest from other institutions, excitement grew. We read blogs from other institutions of higher learning and gave these faculty members’ feedback on their blogs. When we received comments back, that was moving and delightful.”
Tina Luffman, faculty at Yavapai College
THE CHALLENGE: FINDING THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF TIME FOR TRAINING
As any instructional designer can tell you, time is a killer challenge to overcome where faculty development is concerned. We have all done one hour brown bag workshops to standing room only audiences. And, more recently, similar workshops have had far fewer participants. We have made countless websites with videos, pdfs, and images explaining almost everything. We have done day long symposiums and three day long events! We work with cohorts, schools, division meetings and many other ways to engage the faculty we work with.
Given those challenges, I figured the faculty could stand doing twenty minutes a day as a introductory way to open the door to other learning possibilities. I created several “20 minute a day” week long workouts. Iterations of them are linked below.
Original Five Day Workout | A Walk in the Open | The Canvas Carnival | Oh, 5 Places to Go!
“I liked the sparkling, welcoming personality of Todd “The Tipster.” Attending the first Conversation Cafe allowed me to have a personal connection with him right at the beginning of the course. His kind and empathetic response to my fears about online teaching gave me motivation to move beyond my past trauma and imagine being successful at online teaching.
Faculty member at University of Washington
THE CHALLENGE: MARCHING FOR VIDEO IN A VIDEO WORLD
Remember when it was really challenging to make videos for instructional purposes? Well, it is no longer that way. Be your tool of choice Panopto, tegrity, or YouTube, you can create and share videos in many locations. One day, I had this idea for a wall of videos that would represent the best practices in online courses. A guy named Curtis Bonk had actually created something like that, but I wanted ours to be full of videos our faculty created. So I made that happen. It was called the March for Best Practice. Quality Matters even tried to fit the idea into a Showcase of Best Practices.
“Todd is very professional but also makes people comfortable enough to ask questions. He has responded to questions big and small, both in the evenings and on weekends.”
Faculty at UW | Bothell
THE CHALLENGE: A TRAVEL THEMED WORLD LITERATURE COURSE
Sometimes faculty arrive with a clear vision of how they want a course to look. I worked with this faculty in Blackboard to create a World Literature course with a “theme” of travel. In transitioning to Canvas, we redesigned some elements of the course.
I had already introduced the instructor to VoiceThread, YouTube, some basic html tricks, and in Canvas I assisted with the design of the new homepage. He had some image ideas, but I helped make the home page responsive so all the images “responded” to device size. We created a consistent theme in most images and in image placement, and we had fun working on the language used in the descriptions of class activities. To meet QM standards, we added elements he was missing to the course syllabus. He chose pages rather than modules, and in the end, I think it worked well with the “magazine” feel to the course.
You can access this Canvas course and the one below by using the following credentials:
* There are some Panopto videos you will not be able to see. They are commercial films used in the class and are under copyright.
Username: conawayportfolio@gmail.com
Password: portfolio1234
Using those credentials, you can login to the class here.
“Since Todd’s arrival on this campus, he has creatively engaged the campus community to examine strategies that connect us, as humans, to each other and to the broader world. From leading engaging Digital Summer Symposia, to offering 5-Day Canvas challenges, to supporting individuals and unit teams to create online courses and global learning experiences.”
Letter of Recommendation for UW | Bothell Staff Award
THE CHALLENGE: A FACULTY EMERITUS WHO HAD NEVER TAUGHT ONLINE
In 2019 I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Alan Wood, a founding faculty at the University of Washington, Bothell campus. He had never taught online or hybrid courses before, but he was very excited to continue teaching and provide access to students.
It was fun to help him create his vision of the podcasts and how they might work. He went from keeping everything private to keeping everything open on the web. That I think was my greatest accomplishment. We began at the beginning and he met me me every Monday for a couple months. After that, it was more sporadic, but we kept in touch. The course was delivered in the Spring of 2020 and he loved it. His students enjoyed the course as well. He still teaches it and a sister course we created twice every year.
Username: conawayportfolio@gmail.com
Password: portfolio1234
Using those credentials, you can login to the class here.
“If the course has any merit, it is largely due to the Digital Learning team’s amazing knowledge of the design possibilities that they have gained from their own years of experience, and to their genuine passion and enthusiasm for figuring out ways of encouraging student learning. In short, they are a gift to faculty (and especially to students) who never stop giving.”
Alan Wood, UW | Bothell Faculty Emeritus
THE CHALLENGE: DEVELOPING A MEANINGFUL WEB PRESENCE
I have been able to craft two webspaces over the past fifteen years for the two groups I have been associated with. In both cases, we purchased a domain and installed WordPress to move away from the rigid framework of the university supported CMS. Twelve years ago, as the web 2.0 was just beginning, it was important to me to represent our work the best light possible and use the most capable tools available.
On May 2nd, 2020, the UW Bothell site we used was parked and is going to be moved. Here is Wayback Machine snapshot from January 2020.
This is the Yavapai Community College site that I no longer maintain.
“Nevertheless, we occasionally need someone to get us off our well-worn seats and make us tour the factory, to show us what happens at station X, to examine the finished product, to share what’s going on at the Dearborn plant. This is what Todd does.”
A faculty at Yavapai College
THE CHALLENGE: A MORE PROACTIVE APPROACH TO LEARNING THE LMS
In addition to traditional “brown bag” workshop style training and multi-day institutes, I have created a lot of web based content. These videos, partly based on Jonathan Finkelstein’s “Learning Minute” are for faculty to help them learn how to use Blackboard and expose them to some best practices in online learning. For several months I made one a week and emailed them to faculty each Monday. They loved them. They were bite size and consistent. With a similar goal and design, I have some “Canvas Cookies” in the works.
I feel good about the 43 and they really were very popular. They are still out there on YouTube. You can see them here.
“Most impressive, however, is Todd’s love for “helping faculty learn new things.” He is one of the first people we introduce our new faculty to because we know they have an ally in him. He has been a literal lifeline to so many faculty who are seeking added support with their digital pedagogy.”
Jody Early, faculty UW | Bothell
THE CHALLENGE: DISPLAYING THE GREAT DIGITAL WORK FACULTY CREATE
I instigated some change at the college when I began questioning the usefulness of the 3-ring binder portfolios faculty were asked to complete after a three-year probationary period. I work with faculty who do great online work and much of it is not able to be displayed in a 3-ring binder. I started helping faculty create digital portfolios that could better represent their work as instructors. Some purchased their own domains, others used free WordPress sites. Here are two examples I helped create.
In addition to faculty using the web for portfolios, over the years I have assisted several faculty and staff to create sites that share the work they do on the web. Below are two examples.
- An Anatomy Class (work in progress)
- I have also helped college staff create sites like this one for the Veterans Upward Bound.
- This is a Google site I created for a day long training that I did in 2013. I ran the session with a colleague and it focused on using Google sites and other tools for local K12 educators.
“Dear Todd, I commend your exemplary work ethic. Since I am not aware of who your technical supervisor is I am sending this note of appreciation to those who should know. I applaud your making yourself available to reduce the friction to make the student – faculty relationship paramount. I am hopeful that with a few more staff leaders such as yourself who put their hand up we will soon reclaim our heritage as the best campus with a heart.”
P.V. ‘Sundar’ Balakrishnan, faculty at UW | Bothell
THE CHALLENGE: KEEPING THE AMAZING WORK ALIVE! OR TRYING TO ANYWAY…
I have long tried to leave a good trail of faculty created resources from training events. This from the Wayback Machine has a great list links on the left that don’t work since we lost Wikispaces. We had created a great four year repository of faculty presentations.
More recently, I have used Canvas to create some good places to work for training events. I think we did a good job of creating some good active experiences for faculty and shared some people and tools in a meaningful manner.
“In some instances, he has helped me think about my pedagogy more critically and offered the on-ground support to take challenging technological work to support students. My students have benefitted from my learning and support that I have received from Todd.”
Sarita Shukla, faculty UW | Bothell
THE CHALLENGE: FINDING/USING A PLATFORM FOR INTERNAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
I was tasked with helping a colleague create a short course on technology security. It was less a traditional college course and more of a self-paced professional development type of experience. He had never taught a course before and I was new to Rise, so we made a good team. While it never made prime time and was never actually finished it helped me see some of the possibilities that Rise offers, here is a look at how we used Articulate Rise to get some of it presented.
I have created demonstrations of online classes using WordPress like this one and short faculty trainings like this in LearnDash.
“Thank you so much for your time today, Todd! I really appreciate having you as a colleague and always leave meetings with you more knowledgeable and more energized about my work.”
Natalia Dyba, Director of Global Initiatives, UW | Bothell
THE CHALLENGE: SHARING ABBREVIATED REPORTS OF OUR WORK
Some want an Excel file demonstrating our value as instructional designers. As you can imagine, I can’t do that. I tried to represent the work we have done in some simple charts and some numbers to appease them. I guess.
What I did do was ask faculty about our work and find places where our work was acknowledged. I used those faculty sentiments to fill the “report” as they are the why of our work. I guess these represent what I can do with Photoshop and InDesign. I made these.
“Todd does an excellent job in connecting with faculty and programs. I appreciate his willingness to go out of his way to connect with faculty and be supportive of their teaching/learning efforts. I also appreciate his creativity in helping faculty achieve their teaching/learning goals. Faculty comment on how they enjoy working with Todd.”
Andreas Brockhaus, Director Digital Learning & Innovation at UW | Bothell