Information Technology

Dale Pike, executive director of Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS), has been promoted to the rank of associate vice provost and will now report to Executive Vice Provost Don Taylor.

Stephanie “Nikki” Lewis, collegiate assistant professor in the Honors College, has been awarded a 4-VA Grant through the Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) division to conduct a course redesign in the Honors College.

Dale D. Pike has been named executive director of Virginia Tech's Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies department, a unit of Information Technology. Pike currently serves as director of Academic Technologies at Boise State University, where he has led campus-wide efforts to promote the use of emerging technologies to enrich teaching and learning. "We are pleased to have Dale at the head of this unit, newly formed after administrative reorganization to better serve our faculty, students, and staff," said Provost Mark McNamee. "His experience using technology to enhance academic and research endeavors will prove valuable as he leads this organization."

It can seem a bit magical to users when enterprise-wide programs change service providers, but a peek inside the process reveals the teamwork and planning required to get from idea to launch. The VFI group was charged to evaluate all the available, innovative, and affordable service options for using video in teaching and learning with a specific focus on services not requiring proprietary hardware or file formats.

To help faculty make the switch from Scholar to Canvas, TLOS is offering a range of resources including classes, one-on-one canvas consultations, and detailed guides and instructions. The Destination: Canvas campaign will continue through the summer and fall to help connect teaching faculty with the resources they need to get started. Scholar will be decommissioned at the end of the spring 2017 semester.

Members of the Information Technology team were recognized for successful completion of the university’s Employee Certificate Development Program.

Virginia Tech has selected the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) by Instructure to replace Scholar as the university’s primary platform for course management. The highly-rated Canvas LMS is more intuitive, more portable, more efficient, and more deeply connected to the learning experience than Scholar.

Brett Shadle, associate professor of history at Virginia Tech, has partnered with Kenya Law and the Virginia Tech Discovery Commons to offer a freely accessible digital archive of the Kenya Gazette.

Thanks to Computer-Integrated Learning Spaces, a unit of Information Technology within Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies, children served by the James River Boys and Girls Club will have access to technology on par with the learning spaces on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.

Tech Teams is an initiative administered by Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) to evaluate emerging technologies. Teams are comprised of interested individuals from all over the university. At the conclusion of their rapid evaluation, team members publish their experiences and opinions on the Tech Teams blog.

Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) emerges from the redesign and restructuring of two award-winning entities at Virginia Tech, known previously as Learning Technologies and the Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning. TLOS is dedicated to supporting technology-enhanced teaching and learning throughout the university.

Blackboard is being replaced by Scholar and will no longer be available for course use after August 16, 2010. Learning Technologies offers workshops and other transition resources to assist instructional faculty and graduate assistants with the transition throughout the spring and summer.