LATTE Steering Committee
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 11TH, 2015
1:00-2:30 pm
In attendance: Rick Alterman, Chad Bergeron, Jim La Creta, Ron Etlinger, Jim Lambert, Adam Lipkin,
Jennifer Livengood, Karen Muncaster, Brian Salerno, Emily Scharf, Rise Singer, Aimee Slater, Josh
Wilson, Steve VanHooser, Anne Livermore (observer), Lindsay Atkinson (notes)
Discussions ensued about the current state of LATTE, its users, ideas for areas of opportunity and
change.
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LATTE is the University’s version of Moodle. LTS updates LATTE twice a year, in January for
backend updates and in August for functionality enhancements
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Some faculty do not know how they can use LATTE to support their teaching. It’s important to note
that both faculty and graduate teaching assistants use LATTE quite heavily.. How can we help the
university community learn what they need to be successful?
o Conduct a marketing campaign.
o Create a single sheet on LATTE’s capabilities for faculty or teaching assistants who use
LATTE as often.
o Share Lynda.com videos on the use of Moodle. (Chad has posted a playlist that he created).
o Build a LATTE orientation course for new students or following the model of the Rabb
School’s LATTE Orientation course.
o Recruit student workers to coach faculty in their offices on LATTE best practices.
o Publish a blog entitled “Did you know about LATTE?” with posts by committee members.
o Schedule LATTE-related presentations in departmental faculty meetings.
o Encourage faculty members who use LATTE to share tips with their colleagues.
o Gather LATTE improvement suggestions from faculty, TAs, and students via surveys and
focus groups.
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New features this year include: an enhanced instant messaging system , an autosave feature within
the text editor, and integrations with Box.com (secure cloud file storage) and Turnitin (plagiarism
detection software),
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Desired features/functionality include:
 GPS would like to add Poodle, Voicethread, an integrated link to Adobe Connect, a content
management feature, analytics dashboards, more expansive rubric functionality, and some social
media-like course formats.
 A way to identify questions that remain unanswered in the forums.
 A specific search feature in forums.
 A repository where shared content can be stored for use by multiple instructors or multiple
sections.
 Better interface design to limit the scrolling that’s currently required.
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An improved analytics component\dashboard, to track which assignments or projects students
struggled on. It would be nice to have students see how their performance measures against the
class average to determine educational needs. Integrating a better rubric system that includes
more visuals so it’s easier for faculty when grading their students.
A better way to integrate visuals and audio better in order to capture some of the face-to-face
aspects of learning.
An integration of audio/live recording platforms that will require no additional sign in (e.g.
Poodl)
A way for students to post questions anonymously (similar to Piazza platform).
A way for the responses to individual questions can be displayed together, so they can be graded
together.
Better ways for students to collaborate within LATTE.
Action Items:
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Rabb and LTS teams will:
o draft a one-page fact sheet on LATTE capabilities.
o consult with Christina Maryland (LTS Strategic Communications Specialist) to gather ideas for
better dissemination of information about LATTE
o prepare a short LATTE presentation for the committee at the next meeting on December 10th
Each committee member will tap their networks to gather thoughts from current users of LATTE on
potential improvements to LATTE.
Lindsay will send out a link to Lynda.com with the minutes, along with details and planning for the
December 10th meeting. Alternately, there’s a link to Lynda.com in the dropdown menu on the
Brandeis login page.