February 22, 2011

Reboot Camp creates new online courses

College deans have been asked to nominate faculty for the third May Reboot Camp, sponsored by the Office for Faculty Development and Student Success and the Media Resources Center. A dozen faculty will spend five days working with a support team and redesigning face-to-face classes to be offered online.

This May's Reboot Camp will celebrate its third anniversary. Wichita State's Reboot Camp is a semi-annual, five-day, intensive workshop offered in the interim sessions (May and January) that helps faculty convert a face-to-face class to an online offering.

WSU's six college deans each have the opportunity to nominate two faculty members for participation. Those who are nominated must be willing to offer their new online course by the spring semester of the following year. The January 2011 Reboot alums will offer their courses in the 2011 fall semester.

To encourage the growth of new online courses, the nominees must not have previously taught an online course at WSU.

The inaugural class of 2009 consisted of three faculty members, Amy Ham, instructor, Public Health Sciences; Darren DeFrain, associate professor and writing program director, English; and Rick Armstrong, associate professor and director of Basic Oral Communication program, Elliott School of Communication.

That first Reboot Camp had a staff of eight people -- Mike Wood, Tom Brock, Bill Vanderburgh, Corey Ray, Mary Morriss, Stephanie Pope, Chad Sloan and Jennifer Anozie.

By the next Reboot Camp in January 2010, 13 faculty members from four colleges -- Education, Fine Arts, Health Professions and the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences -- participated.

Since that time, 22 additional faculty members and two GTAs from the five colleges and the Barton School of Business have completed training and are either preparing for or are teaching new online courses.

Since its beginning, Reboot Camp has spurred the creation of more than 25 new online courses.

For more information, contact Mark Porcaro, instructional designer, at 978-7787 or mark.porcaro@wichita.edu.