Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 526 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, unlocking affordable and accessible education with open educational resources with Ann Taylor.

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. I’m thankful today to be welcoming to the show Ann Taylor. She has worked in the field of distance education since 1991, focusing on learning design and faculty development. At Penn State, Ann serves as the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences senior assistant dean for distance learning and director of the John A Dutton Institute For Teaching and Learning Excellence.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:19]:

She is responsible for guiding the college’s strategic vision and planning for online learning. Ann works with faculty, administrators, stakeholders, and institute staff to plan and implement online programs that are tailored to the needs of adult professionals worldwide. She also serves on university committees focused on strategic planning, policies, and procedures related to the Penn State’s distance learning initiatives and was an active member of the university faculty senate from 2007 to 2024 and regularly works with university colleagues to create teaching and learning resources for faculty. And she shares her work as a frequent public speaker and author. Ann Taylor, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Ann Taylor [00:02:10]:

Thank you, Bonni. So good to be here.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:13]:

I am thankful for this conversation. It’s been a while since we’ve focused on these important topics. I want to start by asking you to surprise us or to tell us about surprises that you’ve experienced. What are some often surprising things about either textbook costs or student needs or some jumble of those that you begin to uncover as you work with faculty in attempting to get people to create, Dave use of some of these open educational resources?

Ann Taylor [00:02:48]:

Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. So many surprises. I think sometimes it’s the what is the thing that they need? You know, you think of a textbook, but I have literally worked I’ve I’ve been in the, instructional design field my whole career, so since the early nineties. And, I literally had to help a faculty member get rocks to students for geology course. I’ve worked on a video course where each site it was before we had Zoom, so it was like room based, a room of students here, a room of students in another state, you know, and so forth. And we had to get them construction flags because it was a construction flagger, you know, stop signs, you know, training programs. So you just never know what the students are Bonni need for the for the class.

Ann Taylor [00:03:39]:

But I think in a a bad way, I have been surprised at how some of us don’t think about the cost of what we’re requiring our students to use. I worked on a course many years ago when I was an instructional designer, and a faculty member required his students to buy 7 books for his course, and they were each fairly expensive. And when I tried to point this out that it would be 100 and 100 of dollars, and might we back off or just use sections, oh, no. No. No. I mean, just no awareness of what he was doing to his students and how inaccessible his course was. I mean, he this word spread, and and people would not sign up for it because they couldn’t afford the books. The flip side of that is being surprised when I’ve seen research data about how few students buy books.

Ann Taylor [00:04:37]:

They will just dive into a course. And, I mean, I’ve got 2 grown kids, and I know it was true when they were in college. They use the grapevine. They find out whether you really need the book or not. Can you get by without it? Or they they just literally can’t afford it, and so they are forced to try to get by without it. And all the research shows that they don’t do well. The learning outcomes are not not as good. So I think those are probably among the top top surprises.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:09]:

So I’m curious now as you talk about I love this example of the construction flags and the getting the rocks there. How how else might you like to maybe expand that? It doesn’t even have to be a textbook at all, even considering those people teaching more traditional disciplines, in which textbooks might seem almost required to have some credibility with one’s peers who, you know, might judge us on promotion and tenure, or will we get hired back as an adjunct next semester? What have you?

Ann Taylor [00:05:42]:

Yeah. Well, I think, again, I was I was raised as an instructional designer professionally. So I just can’t help, I always think of what in engineering we call backward design. So my career until I started being administrator was helping faculty design and develop courses. And the first lesson I learned to to do with them was say, don’t think about the textbook. Picking a textbook is 1 of the last things you should if you even need 1, is 1 of the last things you should do. So we start with what is it that you want your students to know or be able to do or have experienced when by the time they’re done with your course. Okay.

Ann Taylor [00:06:30]:

So you got that goal in mind. Okay. How are you gonna know whether they do know or can you know, Dave experienced or okay. Those are gonna start being your assessments or your, like, your learning activities, your knowledge checks. Okay. Great. Now you want them to be successful on those. Now what are you gonna need to have them experience? Are you gonna need to teach them and so on and so forth so that they can be successful Bonni those assessments and reach those ultimate course learning outcomes.

Ann Taylor [00:07:02]:

Okay. Now let’s back up. What resources are you gonna need in order to teach them that? Is it all up here in your head? Is it a textbook? Are it articles? Are are you gonna bring guest speakers in? Do you need construction flag construction site flags and rocks? You know? What what is it that you need? So you really take it from that approach, and it’s interesting. Even seasoned faculty who are great in the classroom, you often see this, like, oh, wow. Wait. What? I was trying as you said, I was trying to cover a book. And and then it really opens our eyes to especially if it’s gonna be text based material that you need, does it have to be a book? What if it’s what if it’s a bunch of articles or some websites or some videos or whatever, and then, wow. Well, are those out there already freely available? Which gets us to our topic of open educational resources or at least affordable, which at our institution, and it seems fairly wide spread.

Ann Taylor [00:08:08]:

Most say around 40 or $50 total. Seems to be ours is a $50 mark. So, yeah, it it’s just it’s a matter of of just looking at what it is the course is about and what you want students to take away from it as your starting point.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:26]:

Tell us about a time in your either your experience or working alongside someone else where you felt that visceral sense of a need for change in terms of handling text books? Is there is there some pivotal moment you can think of where it was just that stark, oh, gosh, something needs to change either within your own way of approaching resources for your classes or someone else’s?

Ann Taylor [00:08:52]:

Yeah. I mean, honestly, those moments for me, almost my entire career, I’ve been in the field of distance education. And since the late 19 nineties, that’s been web based. We did do distance education before then. Penn State was doing correspondence studies since the late 1800, but so it really was more of working with faculty who say, you know, I’m gonna teach at a distance. I’m just I want them to read the book and then read this chapter, read the book, and and then go to the next chapter and read that. You know, take a test. Read a chapter, take a test.

Ann Taylor [00:09:28]:

Read a chapter, take a test. And I’m I’m just always surprised. You know, they’re like, it’s be easy to put my course online because that that’s what it will entail. And I say, so are you saying to me or here’s my PowerPoint. That’s all you need and the textbook. And I say, so are you saying to me that I could just tell the students when they come to campus their 1st year, the library’s over there, and I’ll see you in December for the test. And then go back to the library in January, and I’ll see you in May for the test. Or maybe there’s some interim tests.

Ann Taylor [00:10:01]:

Dave with the PowerPoint. Can can I just give that to my husband who knows nothing about my field and have him go project it in the classroom and then just sit there and click through without saying it. Like, it’s the instructor that’s making the difference, It’s that’s making the content come alive. That’s that’s adding all the nuances and the the inside story and the, oh, and this wasn’t really true in my experience or what have you. So those have been the moments where, again, they their eyes just open and they like, wow. I, you know, I didn’t think about the way I I could make my class more engaging. I could really add my own experiences and my own knowledge to this. I don’t have to just follow a book and and what is and and use the test at the end of the chapter.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:51]:

Oh, you’re bringing so much hope toward that freedom that can come. And I’m also picturing for my own experience as well as other faculty. There’s kinda maybe 3 broad phases. We’ll see. There’s kind of that phase we’ve already discussed where feeling pretty locked into needing to adhere to other people’s ideas of what needs to be covered. Anytime, by the way, we say the word covered, that’s where we have to get concerned, because, generally that? Generally speaking too much, by the way. Then there’s that phase of feeling maybe a little bit more freedom, a little bit more confidence that perhaps within us, within our experience, within our our disciplinary knowledge, we we can go a little bit more far field. And then what I see too much as the tension there to think, and that means I need to create engaging content.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:43]:

What if I don’t think I’m a particularly engaging person? I hear a lot about people who are more introverted, people who don’t feel particularly charismatic and and really wanna resist that they’re supposed to put on some form of edutainment, that kind of a thing. And so then we get to the 3rd phase, which I’m gonna have you share a little bit about in terms of, oh my gosh, there is so much out there, and I just want you to just free form, tell us all, like, what all the good things, as if you could say all of it. What go, What’s the unexpected things where people don’t realize there’s not just textbooks online, but what are some of the surprising things that you’ve seen out there that people have around really seemingly random either topics or ways of expressing information. What are you seeing out there?

Ann Taylor [00:12:31]:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don’t know that anything surprises anybody anymore, but I’ve got more and more faculty who are are wanting to do podcasts as a way to bring in guest speakers to their class and, you know, the things of that nature. But the first thought I had was that last May, a year ago, I was invited by a colleague of mine, Kaitlin at Penn State, to join her and 20 Penn State students on a trip, a 3 and a half week trip to Australia and New Zealand that was a course students got 3 credits of a business management course, and the entire trip was about sustainable business. And there were something like 31 presentations, site visits, tours, of that nature. And the first thing that Kaitlin and I ramped up was, let’s let’s get some funding and take a videographer. So we took so it wasn’t gonna be just our our phones or our little camcorders, but we took a professional with us, which and it was someone from our institution. So it wasn’t we just had to pay their expenses and, you know, their travel expenses. And with permission, we got copyright agreements.

Ann Taylor [00:13:49]:

We were able to have have our videographer, Kay Dimarco, film, oh, gosh, at least half of the experiences we had. We got home, and she edited those. I think she’s up to maybe 10 or 12 now, and we put them in our OER repository. So a faculty member that wants to share knowledge about 1 of the topics that we learned about on our trip and bring that into their classroom without having to take their students to Australia and New Zealand, they can do it now. And we are very it’s OER, so we are very happy to have them or or upon request for our faculty at Penn State edit those. If they just need a little piece of it, I mean, certainly, they could start at point a and end at point b, but if they need it sliced and diced differently, you know, that’s something that we can do for them here at our institution. And, gosh, the excitement that people have had that have been teaching these topics for a long time, they’re like, oh, my gosh. This is great.

Ann Taylor [00:14:57]:

This is like a case study come to life. It’s like a virtual field trip or what have you. It’s just really been amazing to me to see. And now people are thinking, oh gosh, I’m taking a group of students to France next year to as part of my architecture course. I always took pictures. I never thought about not only me filming it, but bringing someone who’s actually really good at filming. And, you know, we’ve got multimedia specialists on our campus, and it’s not that hard for people to figure out that just to fund their travel. But they’re already getting paid to do their day job, so we don’t have to pay them beyond that.

Ann Taylor [00:15:36]:

And someone like Kay was so excited to have this opportunity to go to Australia and New Zealand with us. I mean, we all hit a ball and we all helped carry her equipment around. And

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:45]:

I’m in my mind trying to figure out how I could become a videographer so the next time my people go because that sounds amazing. There’s a couple of things I wanna pull out from your story. You’re telling a story from a position with I mean, we always feel like we don’t have enough resources, so I don’t wanna pretend, but far more resources than at a a small private institution like the 1 that I teach at. So if you are not in a position where you would have a k Demarco, something about the story that Annie just told us is really important. They’re already thinking about the intended audience for the future. So, yes, they’re having this tremendous experience for these these students who went on the trip, and I’m sure that was an incredible learning experience for them. But there’s a design process that is often hidden where people will misunderstand and think, oh, what I need to do is film my lectures inside of that lecture hall every single time, and then that will allow me to have this incredible engaging thing. So if you’re not in a position where you have a k Demarco, and you’re not in a position where you have the time or resources to think about the future audiences for whatever that capturing, my suggestion is, go and have a wonderful time in New Zealand, focus on those learners right then, and draw from the vast resources that already exist.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:21]:

The best example I ever have of this, Annie, and maybe you’ve heard of this, but if you haven’t, I just can’t wait to surprise you with it. If anybody teaches constitutional law or you teach about US government or you teach something like that, you could record all of your lectures talking about the 27 different amendments, and you could talk about different arguments and all that. There are gazillions of people who have already done that. But did you know that WNYC Mhmm. Recorded the most perfect album. That is the name of it, WNYC Studios, where they got different artists. Some of them very well known, Dolly Parton, for example. Some of them lesser known.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:03]:

There’s a wonderful, Mexican, mariachi band that plays on this album, and they all wrote their own lyrics. They performed the music. They have podcast episodes. They have an entire musical album. Why would you try to recreate anything close to that versus then what your role would be to draw out. Okay. Listen. What did you hear? What did you notice? What does it make you think about if you were gonna write a song? Or did you wanna annotate the lyrics and see which really what what really stood out to you? What do you disagree with? What do you agree with? What do you have questions about? That kind of a thing.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:43]:

So I just wanted to say that about the Dave DeMarco’s because I am certain, she is an incredible resource who’s already able to envision the future for what you’re gonna need to have those kinds of assets. So anything else in terms of, like, surprising things that people might find online?

Ann Taylor [00:19:01]:

Yeah. No. I I am I’m not such a 100% agreement. The other thing I just wanna add is there is nothing more boring than watching a lecture a recorded lecture. I am again, my field is distance education, and I often would talk to a newbie who thinks, oh, you just record my lecture, and I put that online. And I say, oh my god. Please don’t do that to your students. Can you would you like to watch an hour long talking head? No.

Ann Taylor [00:19:30]:

That is not what we do. And and the other thing that I just wanna add to that is I mean, again, totally agree. And 1 of the things we did not do was get anything at the Great Barrier Reef where we did go, because there’s already so much online. We really had her focus on the sites and the presentations and the tours that we weren’t gonna already find online. But the other piece of that is that it doesn’t have to be a trained videographer. Yeah. We’re lucky. We are super lucky.

Ann Taylor [00:20:04]:

But we worked with a class a long time ago with professor Richard Alley, who is just, no pun intended, a rock star in the geology field. And he was taking a group of students out west to visit some of the national parks, and it was built into this course. It was a face to face course at the time, but we knew it was going to become an online course. And, again, the question of how could we let more students have this kind of experience or learn this information even if they don’t go with him, in the future, we had someone teach the students how to record the video and help them use simple editing tools. Gosh. I’m sorry, but this is gonna sound but people are so good at this now. Like, I feel old. They’re so good.

Ann Taylor [00:20:55]:

And so it was student recorded and student produced video. And it and we used it in in the course for years years years, and now we’re faced with, gee, we need to update it because it’s been so good. We haven’t wanted to touch it. And I’ve also had faculty who did have some really good homegrown video recording skills with their cell phone. I mean, you know, and it’s not that there’s a lot on the the the line of OER. There are tons of free DIY resources out there for capturing and producing really great video or podcasts or what what have you. So, yeah, you don’t have to have a professional videographer.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:43]:

How would you think about if somebody is new newer to this? What makes it good? What makes a video great? What makes a podcast great? You said it’s really boring to listen to an hour long lecture, but I I would say, by the way, I think we maybe have a caveat, most of the time.

Ann Taylor [00:21:59]:

Most of the time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:00]:

For most of us.

Ann Taylor [00:22:01]:

Most of the time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:02]:

Yep. Especially if we don’t design it with the knowledge and intentionality of who would be watching said lecture. But what what what kinds of qualities come to mind for you thinking of like that? That’s what here’s some things that make a great video or make a great podcast. What are some elements to it?

Ann Taylor [00:22:19]:

I do think there is a lot said for just making it engaging, making it enter have some energy. You know, some of the yes. I I there there can be recorded lectures, but even some of the best face to face individuals may or may not come across well in in video. But I think it it is about if you’re if you’re boring face to face and monotone or you just kinda mumble and separate, you’re probably not gonna come across great recorded either. So I I think that if you think about what are the things that you really find engaging in a when you’re listening to to a speaker, a presenter, it’s it’s some of the same qualities. And and I heard you when you said earlier, we don’t want people to think they have to be this great show person, you know, this great entertainer. Yeah. Absolutely.

Ann Taylor [00:23:15]:

So know your weaknesses. And if that’s not you, then what can you do to make your class more energized, more engaging? Is it having, you know, really great learning activities you can do with your students? Is it is it bringing in a guest speaker or or, you know, a resource that that would would bring alive the topic you wanna teach. You know, just and and ask colleagues, ask friends. 1 of the things I like to do is just watch other people. Find out if there’s some really great great courses. As you said, so many are fully online and and available to anyone to view, and analyze it. What makes how could you replicate that?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:58]:

I’m thinking about some of the work that Michelle Pacansky Brock has done around the liquid syllabus, and part of the liquid syllabus involves the great welcome video of some kind. And I remember her posting a video. If I can find it, it was so many years ago, but if I can find it, I’ll post a link. The elements that I see coming out of these welcome videos, too many times people think, oh 0 my gosh. It’s gonna be so hard because I have to have all these different shots to make it good, and and I have to it has to be so produced. I find for myself, it’s too much pressure to do that even though I feel like I have the skills to do it. It’s just a a time thing. I feel like it’s way more authentic for me to have it be more current even though I work very hard to never make any time specific references because I do want it to be evergreen, but at the same time, it just feels dated even if you even if you never say it’s 2024, it it still can end up feeling that way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:55]:

So but I so I’m specifically thinking of a video that she posted as an example, a welcome video, and it was the element of the unexpected because the woman recorded it in her car, which I realized Dave everyone, I guess, records videos in their car, but, I mean, she she was just, you know, getting and and it was because it was right before the was gonna be start. I literally felt like I was taking it as I watched it, you know, that this was gonna be my professor, and she’s looking forward to seeing us this coming week. And so much so that she walked right out of her exercise class and run into her car, and as messy as her hair was, you know, all these are my, you know, faint memories and things. And then I did an unexpected well welcome video unexpectedly, by the way. I joked with my friend. It was on a weekend, and I just did not feel like getting quote unquote ready for the Dave. So I don’t wanna put makeup on. And so instead, I recorded a video instead of pointed at me, pointing around our neighborhood, and I just walked around.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:49]:

You can hear my footsteps walking around the neighborhood, and then I’m sharing with them. And then after the fact, it’s very easy to then put pictures on top of a video. And so I asked the students later, you know, what did you notice? And they’re they’re I mean, noticing things I never would have suspected. Like, oh, I was curious about where you live, and it looked so beautiful, and there were so many trees there. And then 1 time, I rerecorded it because once I realized, oh, they really like this unexpected thing. And our, kids were playing a game of wiffle ball with my husband in the middle of this park. So I asked them, what do you I want you to watch this video and tell me afterward, what is it you noticed? And they were like, well, we noticed that your daughter made it to 1st base. There’s all these things that I never that I never noticed come to life.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:35]:

It just it’s really fun when you when you sort of prep people to do that, but the easier that we can do these things, if we’re gonna do it, quick production and and the humanness that you show up at is really going to be that unexpected. Oh, I don’t really normally see I normally see professors in a more formal context. I normally see them with bullet points. I normally see them where you know, dressed certain ways, all the things. Yeah.

Ann Taylor [00:27:00]:

We have anecdotally heard over and over from students that they appreciate those kind of videos much more than the professionally produced ones. Now I like to think that the ones we did on our our trip had a different purpose, but, yeah, getting to know your instructor as a human, as a person, and someone who’s gonna care about you, it’s conveying those things throughout your the the the video that you produce that’s way more important. And a lot of it, it’s the informality that makes that come through.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:36]:

Yeah. I love that you’re helping us distinguish between what is the purpose of whatever content it is you’re developing. Is it to get to know your professor? And and would that timely authenticity matter more? Or are you really gonna go for it and produce some really unexpected engaging content that you’d like to last for 3, 4, 5 years? Those are 2 very different thought processes and different kinds of design things that we may come in. You talked about the backward design model, and I wonder if there are any other models you’d like to recommend to people that have kind of been a mainstay for you as far as helping you, especially for faculty who perhaps are not as as familiar with teaching online, or perhaps they got into it in emergency remote teaching, and those were certainly not the best circumstances or often ways to expand our collective imagination in in some of the cases. So what do what do you think of? Any other tools where you go, yeah, you gotta know about backward design. What else are some of the frameworks or tools that might be really helpful to us in this endeavor?

Ann Taylor [00:28:44]:

That’s a great question. Definitely starting with the backward design. Definitely seeing if there are any instructional design people that you can can work with, even just get a consultation. I know that I am very, very lucky to have all the resources we have at Penn State. And, you know, you may have no 1 or 1 person, but still to really rely on people whose expertise, and this is instructional designers, whose expertise is how to teach. You know, most of us are taught our discipline, but we aren’t necessarily taught how to teach. So that’s huge. The other thing, if if you’re moving into the online realm and you’re you’re moving away from the emergency mode, we talk a lot about intentional course design.

Ann Taylor [00:29:36]:

And that is that means working with with professionals who know how to do this, know how to do it right, or at least exploring online resources where you can learn that. There’s, I’m sure, a 1000000 courses out there, you know, free, MOOCs, and so forth on how to design high quality online material. The the biggest point that we make when we’re first working with a faculty member, other than backward design, is to to try to put a picture in their head of what their course might look like when it’s online. And and the mantra that I I know I use over and over again is text first, not video first. We we use a text for people do not like watching hours and hours and hours of video. They’re gonna speed it up. They’re not gonna know what’s important. They’re not so our online courses and we’ve developed probably about a 150 just in my college within Penn State.

Ann Taylor [00:30:37]:

We start with the written word, and then we make sure that anywhere it’s Bonni make a difference or it’s gonna engage the students, we incorporate multimedia pictures and graphics and interactive tools and video and so forth. But we don’t start with a recorded less lecture. We start with backward design and what is it that you need to say to your students. And the other benefit of doing it that way is, as you were saying earlier, it doesn’t it’s evergreen. It’s more evergreen, and it’s much easier as a seasoned podcaster. You’ll appreciate this. It is much easier to update and edit when it’s written than if you have to go refilm or re audio record material. So we have these, I I think, and by all accounts, these amazing, engaging, high quality, rigorous online courses that are not video based or even audio based.

Ann Taylor [00:31:45]:

They may have Bonni. They may have video, but that isn’t the premise from the beginning.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:51]:

I your your story reminded me of in April of 2020, I believe it was, Mike Caulfield came out with this it was a mini course, and it was called the dirt simple online course or something like that. I’ll definitely find it and put a link in the show notes. But he helped so much. You know, people are so much trauma, so much chaos, so much utter devastation. What are we gonna do? And then it was, no. You don’t have to completely turn into a different person. And so it was very much low bandwidth, both from a technological standpoint, so it’s more equitable to people who may not have access to high high speed Internet, reliably speaking. But then also people because many of us do engage in our scholarship in a written way.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:44]:

It’s less likely we would have engaged Bonni our scholarship for most disciplines in video or through podcasts. So Right. Take what you already know, what you already do well, and what there’s a lot of resources out there that are openly licensed to do so and and remix and make your own, that kind of a thing. I really that that is a great reminder. And to me, what even though, Annie, I know how to make videos, you’ve just highlighted for me that sometimes I just get too excited about, oh, 0, I’m gonna burn the whole class to the ground and start again. My colleagues are laughing if they’re listening to this, like, sure, she does that every time. If you do start with text, at least if you bit off more than you can chew, you can see how far you have to go, and at least have a skeleton of written content, and then start adding some cool videos in. And pretty soon, if you’re me, you’re gonna figure out, I don’t have time to create all the different things I wanted to do.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:43]:

Can I find a really cool 2 minute thing that’s openly licensed or some kind of

Ann Taylor [00:33:48]:

already did? Yes. Well, the other thing to Bonni is even if you the the writing, we want to be much less formal than the scholarly. Yeah. You know, I don’t wanna see a research citation every other sentence and so forth. So it is different. And, yes, they probably at least have lecture notes that can give them AAA launching point, and then they just have to flesh it out. But we also not everyone’s comfortable doing that, but record yourself. Audio.

Ann Taylor [00:34:20]:

Mhmm. I have had I had a faculty my class is usually seminar style and and I said, yeah, but I bet at the beginning before you say talk amongst yourselves, I bet you set the stage. You probably spend 10 minutes. But and he goes, oh, I probably spend about 20 minutes giving some background and blah blah blah. And I said, see? That’s what we need to capture. Joel, I’m not gonna write that down. I said, hey. This was a long time ago, so we didn’t have our great cell phones then.

Ann Taylor [00:34:54]:

But I had a digital record audio recorder, you know, little kinda like a tape deck. And I said, I can loan this to you, and you can just sit in your chair in your living room when you feel like it and record it. And then we can and nowadays, again, we’ve got these easy tools that’ll transcribe it for you and so forth. That and then I’ll give it back to you. We’ll transcribe it. I’ll give it back to you, and then you can polish it up. Take all the uhs and umms and misspeaks out. And he was thrilled.

Ann Taylor [00:35:24]:

Thrilled because I wasn’t making him write anything. If there were parts of it that really were like, oh, wow. I wanna just actually use that audio clip. We could embed it. Or if it it came clear that it would be great to have him on video or to go find someone else’s video. You know, it’s super I mean, but like you’re saying, it gave us a foundation that even if even if it it just started as a text based course, it it’s a start. And every we all start somewhere and we can improve every time we offer and build it as we go. And, yeah, you don’t have to start with the highest, fanciest thing in the world.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:08]:

So important. When I had Leon Fertz on, he was talking about and this this was staggering to me still to this Dave. It’s staggering to me. He does his writing while he runs. I’m not a runner, so I can’t I mean, I can’t even wrap my head around how he does this, but I have been trying to challenge myself a little bit more when I have an idea of a story that I might tell or something. You know, just get ready, and the the tool that I use is called whisper memos. There’s so many of them out there. You can do it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:36]:

And and for me, the I have to reduce all of the friction. So how quickly Oh, it’s Oh, it’s too easy, though, Annie. And I guess today is just my day of disclosing things on the podcast beyond what I feel comfortable doing because I’m in the restroom the other Dave. And my husband didn’t realize I was in the restroom, so he’s having a conversation with me through the door. So so I and he’s like trying to take the kids somewhere. So it’s like like, I’m in the bathroom. I’m I’m needing some privacy here, you know, the whole thing. And and on the because I can access it on my watch to start recording.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:20]:

No. I kid you not. Water splashing, water splashing, water splashing. I need some privacy. It was the most hysterical thing. So, I think we need to reduce the friction, but I think I’ve gone too far here because I can’t be activate

Ann Taylor [00:37:34]:

Yeah, that’s terrible. I can’t

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:36]:

be activating the watch. While it is recording the most, you know, human of moments for us. Yes. It’s too funny. So alright. Well Oh my gosh. This is the point in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. I guess I kinda just shared 1, maybe.

Ann Taylor [00:37:53]:

I was gonna say, I wrote that down. That was a great 1.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:57]:

But, also, the part about don’t make it so easy for yourself that you accidentally record. So I have kind of some fun ones to recommend. So I have been participating throughout May, June, July, and August of something called Myfest, which is short for midyear festival, and it’s just a opportunity to renew and refresh and connect with people from all over the world. And anytime that I see Irene Mawe’s name show up on any of their descriptions, I just want whatever it is, she has infectious joy and wisdom. I just wanna be there. And so I saw that she was doing something with Bonni Carr where they were gonna come together and dance, and I have done sessions with her before where she dances. And this was even more unique because we danced, but they also had us do some reflections and some writing and a little bit of meditation. It was so nice.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:49]:

But they during the dance part, they shared 3 songs, and I wanna share these songs with you now, and their links to them will be in the show notes. So there’s 1 called it’s okay by a group called Nightbirde, and I was not familiar with that song or that group, and I love it. Every time it comes on now, I’m just so excited. It’s definitely gonna show up in my most listened to songs for 2024. I can guarantee you. And then another artist, which I suspect many people will be familiar with, I was not, but it sounds like this is a popular artist, a song called Africa by Salif Keita. Those of you who know him are shaking your head right now. I’m sorry.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:25]:

I tried to do my best to pronounce it. And then, so that was again a new both of those new songs to me, a new artist to me. But the 1 that was a new artist to me, a new context to me, but an old and familiar song is the song feeling good, which I know sung by Nina Simone, but this is a the Spanish version, I mean, I’m just gonna try to do my the group is called Cubaneros, and it’s as in feeling good. I’m feeling good, the Spanish version. This version is it is infectious. Same Dave. So a song that I know from, gosh, I as same time. So a song that I know from, gosh, I as long as I can remember, but I’ve never heard it sing in Spanish, and it’s a different rhythm and a different group, and it’s I’ve been having so much fun.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:23]:

So I guess my recommendation is listen to these 3 songs and please dance while you do it because Irene would and and Tony would be so happy if you did and so would I to bring a little joy into your day. And, Annie, I’m gonna pass it over to you for whatever you’d like to recommend.

Ann Taylor [00:40:37]:

Oh, I love that. Well, I mean, I was thinking, I’m really hooked these days on podcasts. And there are a couple that I love for work. I’m an administrator, and so, really, the the ones that I’m really listen to a lot these days are Coaching Real Leaders with Muriel Wilkins. And and it’s it’s like being in the room, a little fly on the wall while someone’s getting an executive coaching session. It’s really cool, and you learn from what she’s helping these people deal with. The other 1 I love at her work is Dear HBR, Harvard Business Review. Dear HBR, they take listeners’ letters describing some issue they’re having in the workplace, and then this little panel each weigh in on their advice for the person.

Ann Taylor [00:41:31]:

And it’s just I love it. I love it. And I actually listen I debrief with those with colleagues at work. But but the fun ones that I have to admit I listen to I have a a speaker in my shower, little Bluetooth speaker, and I listen to in the shower and on walks and while I’m cooking dinner. My 2 favorite that you guys just have to listen to if you haven’t before, and probably I’m the last to know about them. But Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Drufus. 0MG. They’re amazing.

Ann Taylor [00:42:08]:

She is a little older than me. You may remember her as Elaine or the star of Veep, and she interviews women who are typically a little older than her or a lot older than her, women, to share their amazing life knowledge. I mean, the whole thing, she starts in in episode 1 just explaining that we don’t we ask older men for their advice and their guidance. Why don’t we? Why don’t we ask wise women for their guidance? And so it’s interviews with people like Jane Fonda and Ina Garten. And it’s just oh, my gosh. I love it. I love it. It’s hilarious.

Ann Taylor [00:42:50]:

It’s it’s insightful. So fun. And then the other 1 that I just am so hooked on, and I know I’m late to this party, really late. I’m a big NPR fan, big public support supporter by public radio station, but I never listened to the Moth Radio Hour. And the Moth Radio Hour, if you haven’t listened to it, is people telling stories, real people. Almost all are just real people. Every now and then, it’s it’s someone a little famous or maybe a lot famous. But it’s mostly people like me telling a story.

Ann Taylor [00:43:25]:

They’re usually around a theme. They’re, like, 10, 15 minutes long. And I’ll tell you, Bonni, I have been a big fan of storytelling in teaching, and so this is really inspiring me to go back to that idea and to promote that idea. And again, you don’t have to be the storyteller. There are so many that I listen to and I think, oh my gosh, that would be great in this kind of a class or in that kind of a class. So I yeah. Those are my those are the ones I’ve hooked on right now, but, actually, there’s more. But I’ll just limit it to those 4.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:03]:

Okay. Because I did not I’m of the Moth Radio Hour Dave heard about from long ago, but it’s been so long since I’ve listened. I’ve gotta revisit it. I’d heard about Julia Louise Dreyfus, but hadn’t heard wiser than me. So now you’re prompting that. Didn’t know that HBR had this dear HBR. I’ve listened to other of their they used to have a women leadership podcast, which I think has gone away, but I used to listen to that. And I I didn’t know about this coaching real leaders.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:28]:

That sounds, like, so good. Now you got music to listen to. I’ve got podcasts to listen to. We’ve just filled up. You know? We filled up some talk for each other.

Ann Taylor [00:44:38]:

A new list of things I need to listen to.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:41]:

Yes. Thank you so

Ann Taylor [00:44:43]:

much for check out my whisper memo.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:45]:

Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for joining me today. It has been so great being connected with you, and I’m so excited because it feels like just the beginning of something big. And I wanted to have you share a little bit about the organization that connected us just to for us to thank them and also as a potential valued resources for people who might be listening.

Ann Taylor [00:45:07]:

Oh, I am so happy. I I really, UPCEA is the professional organization that connected us, and I was thrilled because I have not listened nearly enough to your podcast. And so it reinvigorated. That’s on my my big on my list too. But OPSEA is an the Online and Professional Education Association nationwide. It has been in existence for many, many years, and I have been a member for a long time. And, well, Penn State, where I work, is an institutional, member. And I’m so lucky because I really it has become my professional home.

Ann Taylor [00:45:50]:

It’s where I find my peeps. They have a number of events year round, regional events, webinars, coffee chats that are online. They have networks. You can join 1 of the networks, which is like a subgroup of members who share a common interest. I’m in the network for online administration. But the big events that that I love and and 1 of which is how we got connected, is their annual meeting, which just brings everybody together and is so like, you just come home so jazzed and so excited and with all these new friends. And, the 1 that that you and I connected over is the Summit for Online Leadership and Administration and Roundtable and Distance Teaching and Learning Conference. We call it SOLAR and DT and L.

Ann Taylor [00:46:43]:

Solar has been around for a number of years, many years. My UPCEA colleagues are dying because I’m not remembering how long these things have all been around, but a long time. And then we recently, UPCEA recently became responsible for the distance teaching learning conference, which is a long time, 40 year just hit its 40 year mark. Beloved, really kind of teaching them distance teaching and learning focused conference that the University of Madison, Wisconsin always hosted. It was their baby, and they asked UPCEA to take it over a couple years ago. And so now these 2 events are back to back so that someone like me who wants to go to both just makes 1 trip. Oh, so it does. A couple Dave.

Ann Taylor [00:47:28]:

This year, we’ll be in Minneapolis, but I’m super excited. And I’m gonna be presenting there about Penn State’s new Coursemark initiative, which is our way lots of institutions are growing number of institutions are doing this now of making it apparent to students when they’re registering for courses which courses are using free or very affordable, and and every institution sets up a money bar on what ours is $50 of material required materials. Students for too long have just been in the dark and relied on the grapevine to figure out what course they could afford, let alone the tuition, but the materials. So this kind of a course mark is is really important. So that’s what I’m gonna be speaking about. But that’s what got us connected and what it got us talking about OER.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:48:18]:

Oh, well, I am so grateful that that’s what got us connected, and I’m glad today’s conversation because that’s what’s gonna keep us connected. I can’t wait for it to get released and just so appreciate your time and your energy, your passion, and all these years of experience you brought to the conversation.

Ann Taylor [00:48:34]:

Thank you. This was as much fun as I knew it would be. It’s been awesome. Thank you.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:48:43]:

Thanks once again to Annie Taylor for joining me on today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you have not yet signed up for the weekly email updates that come from Teaching in Higher Ed, head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive all the show notes from the most recent episode as well as some other goodies that don’t show up in those regular show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.