April 21, Operational Update
April 21, 2020 Update (View on YouTube)
Transcript:
President Feinstein (00:00):
Well, good morning everybody. Tuesday, April 21st, and this is our daily operation
status report. As a reminder, today at four o'clock is the all-faculty meeting, and
tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM is our Board of Trustees meeting, and I hope that you
can join us for those conversations. So this morning we are pleased to have another
guest speaker. Dr. Matt Farber is an assistant professor of technology, innovation
and pedagogy at UNC and is also the cofounder of the TIP Creativity Lab. He holds
an Ed.D. in Educational Technology Leadership and an MA in Educational Technology
from New Jersey City University, as well as a BA in History from the State University
of New York at Albany.
President Feinstein (00:48):
His research is at the intersection of game-based and social emotional learning. He
studies educators who use games in classrooms and how they afford student agency while
also teaching skills of empathy, design thinking and systems thinking. He also works
in youth initiatives around game design as a form of self-expression. His presentation
is titled "Connected Learning in Uncertain Times" and will be especially helpful to
those of you who are working or learning alongside young children who are also home
from school during this time. Matt, the floor is yours.
Matt Farber (01:27):
Hi, good morning. Thank you.
President Feinstein (01:28):
You're welcome.
Matt Farber (01:31):
I'm visible on the screen? It's hard to tell. [inaudible 00:01:36].
President Feinstein (01:36):
Yep, I can see you. You've got a Minecraft background. I like it.
Matt Farber (01:40):
Thank you. Of course. So yeah, thanks for the introduction. I'll try to keep it short
and succinct. Yeah, so I guess the short thumbnail version is that I have no work-life
balance, not because I'm like constantly teaching UNC and researching online, but
it's because of the overlap of games and play and learning and having a nine-year-old
son. So thank you. I'll share some slides. I actually think I'm able to do that, but
let's see. There we go. Okay, so I'm going to share my screen, see how this works.
No pressure being in the Technology, Innovation and Pedagogy department, being able
to share a screen. Okay. I'm assuming you can see this, so I just have a few slides.
Matt Farber (02:36):
Okay, awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah. So this is an initiative from the World Health
Organization, which had previously critiqued gaming before and have really done a
180 here, and there's an initiative called Play Apart Together, which is with all
the major video game companies. And it's about how games actually provide a high degree
of social connectedness amongst the players. There's this myth that persist that people
that play video games are wearing headsets and living in the basement and drinking
orange soda all day and only playing like certain games. But the average age of somebody
that plays video games, do you know? Anybody want to take a guess? Shout it out.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
15.
Matt Farber (03:29):
No.
Dan Maxey (03:31):
45.
Matt Farber (03:32):
Close. It's about 35 years old. It's about equal men and women. And the fastest growing
demographic are senior citizens. It's just that games are different, the different
types of games people play, and of course mobile games. So we have been playing games
to be connected to one another for quite a while. So here's one I've been playing
called Kind Words, and I'm writing a book right now on the intersection of social
and emotional learning and game-based learning. And certain types of games, I mean
not like a first person shooter, that's not going to like bring out a lot of compassionate
people. Although people do play together, and they have headsets on and talk, but
this is a game called Kind Words, and it's a fairly straight forward game where you
write letters anonymously to real people, and they write back to other players anonymously.
And it's like how the internet used to be, like kind and not as toxic. So this is
the game I've been playing in researching a bit in and it's sort of a game, sort of
social media, more like a game, about kindness.
Matt Farber (04:45):
The designer of that game referred to it as games being in like this cozy space. So
this is one of the more popular games these days called Animal Crossing. And there
is a company in Japan that's had their meetings in Animal Crossing. It's on Nintendo.
There are students that meet together, right? You can make your own island, anybody,
have you played? So yeah, it's the right game at the right time basically. And how
that works in classrooms, right? So this is something put together by the University
of Southern California, supported by Higher Education Video Game Alliance, which I'm
a part of, called Zoom Jam. And the idea here is to make a game within the constraints
of Zoom. Of course it can work in Teams as well.
Matt Farber (05:36):
There's one on the archive where if a cat jumps into your camera frame, then you have
to leave the camera and then the other people in the Zoom have to make up a story
about the cat that's in the frame. So it's just a way to bring some escapism and social
connectedness to our uncertain times that we're in now. And you can submit a game,
it's free, it's a nonprofit, and it's zoomjam.org. This is from a colleague of mine
at a Drexel University in Pennsylvania. This is a Zoom Jam she had her students all
make together where they're promoting social connectedness and sharing stories. So
there are a lot of different ways games can bring us together these days.
Matt Farber (06:23):
So anyway, these are some screenshots from my son who's nine as I mentioned, and what
we've been doing is I'm keeping him on different games when he's not on Zoom himself
at school. Right? And this is from Minecraft, and he took a map from Disneyland. We
were there like two summers ago, and he's been building Disneyland. Yesterday he was
working at Adventure Land. He actually built the jungle cruise. He put a track, like
a train track, over like one block deep of water and made all the cruise around and
built the animals. So this is what we mean by game-based learning. He also uses screen
time differently. So we hear a lot about screen time prior to COVID-19; now there's
a huge embrace of screen time, particularly for connecting with the outside world
like we're doing right now literally. Right? How meta.
Matt Farber (07:16):
So this is something called Art for Kids hub. It's a art teacher. He's an art teacher.
That's his family in Utah, and he has step-by-step drawing. So this is how my son
uses his iPad. He doesn't just stare at it like a zombie. He's, plays it. Hit pause,
draws the images on the bottom, the health heroes in this case, plays it again, goes
back again, and again the same with Minecraft. He's learning from other YouTubers
on YouTube Kids. So I guess the reason I'm here, I was contacted here, is because
I was a UNC News about this article, making a game of it. And these are four points
that I wanted to share. One is don't worry that kids are going to forget everything
because they're not in a traditional academic settings such as school.
Matt Farber (08:03):
A lot of learning is informal, we learn on our own, we learn on YouTube, they learn
through going to our own classes. We learn ... Right now we're learning from each
other, right? Being a learning broker, this comes out of research from the Cooney
Center, which is Joan Ganz Cooney, founder of Sesame Street, and I've done some collaboration
with them. So parents can be learning brokers. If you find out that your child likes
cooking, well introduce them to spaces where they can learn more about cooking, or
photography, or citizen science, or creating games, not just playing games. Thinking
about screen time as a third space. So it's not school or home, but the reason why
kids are on Fortnite, for instance, is because that's a third space where they can
interact and connect with one another, and they know that games have different types
of emotion than film and books, because you're in the game, you're perspective taking,
you're having agency, and you're taking control. So I will stop sharing, I suppose.
That's my short talk, it's like a Ignite talk almost. There we go. Thank you. Any
questions?
President Feinstein (09:23):
Matt, I really appreciate that. The conversation, sharing your insight with you, with
us. I'm a little bit of a gamer myself.
Matt Farber (09:32):
Oh, awesome.
President Feinstein (09:33):
I certainly enjoy multiplayer games, and there's one I'm playing right now, of course
I love disc golf. So I play a game called Disc Golf Valley from time to time and certainly
experimented with Minecraft with my son. And he's built a ... He and his friends have
built a whole city together, and they spend time not only in that reality, but also
in communicating with each other, as you said, like a separate complete environment
for them.
Matt Farber (10:02):
Yeah. It's ... Yeah, that's, it's terrific, right. By the way, the governor, Jared
Polis, he's also a gamer and yeah. And I show those pictures of Disneyland, my son
didn't want to show me on his iPad. He insisted that I put it on my phone, Minecraft
on my phone. That way I can stand in front of the castle and then he was behind the
castle firing off fireworks.
President Feinstein (10:27):
Oh, how great is that?
Matt Farber (10:28):
Yeah. So yeah. Interesting times. Right? So yeah.
President Feinstein (10:34):
But I really greatly appreciate your time and, and your conversation this morning.
Thank you.
Matt Farber (10:39):
Thank you so much.
President Feinstein (10:42):
You're welcome. You're welcome. So now I'm going to turn it over to our chief of staff,
Dan Maxey. He's going to moderate conversations with the coronavirus task force leads.
Dan?
Dan Maxey (10:52):
Thank you, President Feinstein. And thanks to Matt Farber for this morning's presentation.
My cat almost jumped in the frame, and I thought that might excuse me from having
to lead the reports here, but he crawled away. So it's Tuesday. The cabinet and coronavirus
task force do not have scheduled meetings today, although I know some of the task
force subcommittees do. As our daily panel gives reports, please remember to unmute
your microphones and turn on your cameras. We're going to turn things over to the
chair of our coronavirus task force, associate vice president for administration,
Blaine Nickeson, for our developing issues report. Blaine?
Blaine Nickeson (11:25):
Good morning, Dan. Good morning, everybody. A little bit longer of an update this
morning given the announcements yesterday from Governor Polis. He announced yesterday
that the state would transition from a quote unquote stay at home order to a model
called safer at home starting on Monday the 27th. This is a slight adjustment rather
than a massive change. Currently with the stay at home order, Colorado has been achieving
social distancing in the 75 to 80% range, and even in the new model, we'll need to
maintain about 65% to avoid overwhelming the healthcare system. Masks are definitely
going to be a necessity in public and in workplaces that are open. Those that can
work at home still need to, especially older employees. The max staffing at offices
should be 50% through work from home measures or things like staggered shifts at manufacturers.
Gatherings of more than 10 people will still be prohibited, and colleges and K through
12 schools are still ordered closed.
Blaine Nickeson (12:28):
Retail's going to have sort of a transition. They'll be able to offer a curbside service
initially followed by some in-store shopping after May 1st if they put appropriate
distancing measures in place, and personal services like barbers and dentists will
be allowed to resume services, but with folks wearing masks, no gathering in waiting
rooms, et cetera. It's not envisioned that much is going to change for restaurants
and bars at this point until mid-May at the earliest. This is very much going to be
an exercise in closely following the data. If people aren't responsible and don't
take the safer at home model seriously, we'll see infections and hospitalizations
spike, hospitalization spike again, and the more restrictive measures that we're in
now will have to be put right back in place. It's also important to note that cities
and counties can have more restrictive measures in place.
Blaine Nickeson (13:21):
To show some foreshadowing of that, yesterday evening after the governor's press conference,
the mayor of Denver tweeted that he'd, quote, rather dig us out of an economic challenge
than dig graves for people when he could have prevented needless loss of life. So
we're going to see a very sort of checkerboard landscape of, of regulations. It's
ironic the governor made this announcement yesterday as this past weekend state public
health officials sent the governor a letter warning that the state needed to meet
five criteria before beginning to open, including the first one, seeing a sustained
14-day reduction in new COVID-19 cases, and that has not happened. Adequate hospital
capacity, we're okay for now, but PPE still in short supply. We're also continuing
to build some of our surge capacity through places like The Ranch and Colorado Convention
Center. Increased testing and tracing of COVID-19 patients, we're not prepared to
do that at this point, and then clear guidelines on social distancing for businesses
to reopen, we are doing that. As we look at a statewide data, we actually crossed
over 10,000 positive cases yesterday, 10,106, that's up about 1,400 cases or 17% since
yesterday.
Blaine Nickeson (14:37):
That's a pretty big spike. The biggest daily jump based on looking back in my data
since March 27th. Just shy of 1,900 have been hospitalized. It's up a little bit less
than 4% since yesterday. 47,000 plus had been tested. It's up 3% day-over-day, and
Colorado has an increase of 27 deaths, or up to 449. Here in Weld County, they reported
a 5% increase in cases, 1,164, since yesterday and an increase of four deaths, or
68 deaths in the county. Weld's holding relatively steady, but Morgan County out to
our east has really seen their numbers ramp up. Their per capita rate is about two
thirds higher than Weld County, and the JBS plant is scheduled to reopen at the end
of the week with some additional preventative measures in place.
Blaine Nickeson (15:28):
UNC's coronavirus task force will continue working to try to understand what this
new set of guidelines means for students and faculty and staff. As I said above, the
new guidelines still explicitly state that in-person higher education is closed, but
we hope to get some more explicit guidance from the state's Department of Higher Education
in the coming days. So thank you for humoring the longer report there. Dan, I'll go
ahead and turn it back over to you.
Dan Maxey (15:52):
Thank you, Blaine. Next, I'll turn it over to Dean of Students Tuck Tucker for our
report on impacts on student life. Tuck?
Gardiner Tucker (15:58):
Good morning everyone. Coming towards the exam time of the semester puts a lot of
pressure on our students and especially to finish up writing projects and research
projects. So UNC's strategy is to provide writing support for our students, especially
in April. So today's example is our Writing Center, which supports students all year
long for their writing projects, but April is the highest-use time for the Writing
Center, and the director, Melody Denny, has moved writing support online. So she hires
undergraduates, master's students and doctoral students from a wide range of disciplines
to give writing support to students. So if you're in any discipline on campus, she
has what she calls tutors that can help you with the writing for that discipline.
Gardiner Tucker (16:49):
So what your technique is, if you're a student, is you submit your written document
through their website, posted there; you list any questions that you want answered
about your written piece and the type of feedback you're looking for. And then they'll
get back to you within 24 hours with written ... That's very good. With written responses.
One faculty member she highlighted was George Junne, who's in the professor of Africana
Studies, and he requires that his first-year students use the Writing Center at least
twice during the class to help them learn how to write at the college level.
Gardiner Tucker (17:24):
So the first visit they have to submit their abstract, and the second one is their
final draft. So it's great support for them, and thanks to George for making that
part of his curriculum. And she was telling me one student came in several times for
help this semester and then excitedly got back to them and said, "I got a 95 on my
paper." So they do a lot of good work. In addition, they have what's called an accountability
group, where people who are working on writing projects meet once a week and set goals
together to help motivate them to get their writing done, because we all know that
procrastination creeps in when you have a large writing project. So that's helpful
for that.
Gardiner Tucker (18:04):
So one of the challenges they've faced is that they no longer have social media support
so they've ... Melody and Jayne Blodgett, the interim dean of the Libraries, have
come up with the collaboration where the library, because they do have the capacity
to market on social media, is going to tweet on behalf of the writing center to get
the messages out to students. So that's a great collaboration.
Gardiner Tucker (18:26):
Finally I just want to give you a brief glimpse of their website, and here's the writing
center website. It says the write place for everyone. Love that. The services are
below. So eTutoring, click on that, and you can get a tutoring session with the writing
person, and here's the accountability group. And then you schedule your appointment
down below. So there you can go to get your help during the rest of the semester,
and please use the Writing Center, and good luck during these final times leading
up to exam week. Thank you very much. And that concludes my report.
Dan Maxey (19:03):
Thank you, Tuck. Provost Mark Anderson is on the CDHC academic council call this morning
so is unable to join us today, but we do have a Human Resources report from HR director
Marshall Parks. Marshall?
Marshall Parks (19:17):
Thanks, Dan. Good morning, everyone. Wanted to make everybody aware of some excellent
resources available from the Colorado State Employee Assistance Program. They're offering
the following webinars in the next couple of weeks. First one is managing stress and
anxiety during uncertain times. I dropped in on that one last week, and it was really
well done. A new one they've added also is managing the social and emotional impact
of the stay at home order. And lastly they added an additional one that we've talked
about recently, navigating uncertain financial times. So three really good offerings
from the Colorado State Employee Assistance Program. I'll be sending out the details
on how to register on UNC today. The seminars are limited to 160 participants, and
they have been filling up, so if you're interested, make sure you get registered early,
and I'll send that information out and encourage you to take advantage of that really
good resource. And that's all I have this morning, Dan. Thank you.
Dan Maxey (20:12):
Great, thank you Marshall. We have no Facilities report today, so I want to thank
everyone who's tuned in. I'll turn the floor back over to President Feinstein.
President Feinstein (20:21):
Thanks Dan, and thanks to all of our presenters today, particularly Matt, greatly
appreciated. As a reminder, tomorrow morning, nine o'clock is our Board of Trustees
meeting, so there will not be a daily operation status report. We'll resume these
daily operation status reports on Thursday. So stay safe, be healthy, and we'll see
you again here on Thursday morning at 9:00 AM. Take care, everybody.