This month’s TOPkit Digest is brought to you by Tina Calandrino (Tina.Calandrino@ucf.edu), Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida. She discusses the TOPkit Outreach Campaign: Collaborating and Contributing to TOPkit.

Instructional Designers say this all the time: Collaboration is critical to our success. Finding time, outlets, resources are often our stumbling blocks to better collaboration. "The Seven Keys to Creative Collaboration” video discusses how to have and achieve stronger collaborations by communicating, forecasting change, and even problem-solving. 

For over seven years, TOPkit has pursued it's mission across the state of Florida. This past summer, TOPkit created an Outreach Campaign with the Florida College System and State University System of Florida that went into our community of educators and trainers to collaborate and brainstorm how to make TOPkit more dynamic by contributing your expertise.

TOPkit Mission: Our aim is to create a culture of quality for online education across the state of Florida. We do this by empowering faculty development professionals with resources and events to facilitate their success in preparing faculty to teach online. 

We invited all involved with faculty development to a deeper level of engagement with TOPkit by contributing their special skills and knowledge to all endeavors that support and sustain the initiative. TOPkit elevated the interactivity of instructional designers and faculty self-designers to unite in our common interest of planning, developing, and evaluating quality online learning with site visits and remote sessions.

Four on-site visits hosted by:

Two remote sessions hosted by:

The TOPkit Outreach campaign was also a time to see the work instructional designers and faculty development experts have been doing to promote a culture of quality in online education in Florida. Each organization's dedication to empowering faculty development professionals and facilitating their success in preparing faculty for online teaching is commendable.

I want to be a TOPkit collaborator.

The expansion of TOPkit’s Outreach Campaign reaches international level as the team participates in the Online Learning Consortium's (OLC) Accelerate Conference 2023 to further our collaborations with designers and faculty development advocates around the world. This is a significant milestone, as it indicates the global relevance of your efforts. Inviting those involved in faculty development to contribute their unique skills and knowledge to our initiatives is an excellent way to foster deeper collaboration and drive improvements in online education. TOPkit has successfully elevated the interactivity of instructional designers and faculty self-designers to unite in the common interest of planning, developing, and evaluating quality online learning. Discover how you can be more and do more with TOPkit! Email us at TOPkit@ucf.edu to learn more about contributing.

Whether now or in the future, it's never too late to get involved with TOPkit by sharing your expertise with colleagues and/or collaborating:

Do you have an idea you'd like to kickstart but haven't found the time? Perhaps you need space to brainstorm a new project plan, development, or evaluation? 

Then join us for the free online TOPkit Hackathon Fall 2023 via Zoom. Registration ends October 30th. Participate individually, or in teams, and across institutions to enjoy and benefit from collaboration. The event will be three days of meeting online, less than a hour and a half per day. The event dates are November 6th and 13th with an optional check-in on the 9th. 

Register now →

View references for this month's TOPkit Digest.

Bren Bedford, MNM, SFC®, Web Project Analyst, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida

Florence Williams, Ph.D., Associate Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida