Author: Mendi Benigni

TLT

Add a New Twist to your Research Papers and Projects

Mendi Benigni

Infographics are a great way to display information in a visual and succinct way.  Infographics can be used to communicate information and present large amounts of data in meaningful ways.  This is not meant to replace the large research posters done for projects but it can enhance it.  Think of an infographic as a way to get the information to the masses in an understandable way.

‎corporateink.com/pdfs/market_brief/3/TellingStories.pdf

Student Infographic Contest Paints Bright Picture of Youth Concern on Energy and Climate – The Great Energy Challenge Blog

Get stats for understanding visual vs text

Piktochart

13 Reasons Your Brain Craves Infographics | Visual.ly

Student Designed Infographics: Process & Products | Catlin Tucker, Honors English Teacher

A Must Have Rubric for Infographic Use in The Classroom ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

Great Infographic Making Tools for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

Many Eyes

Interpreting the Data: 10 Ways to Teach Math and More Using Infographics – NYTimes.com – NYTimes.com

TLT

Teaching and Course Observations

Mendi Benigni

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TLT is available to sit in on one or more of your classes and conduct observations that you can use to reflect on and possibly improve your teaching.  We are also available to review your OAKS course for your online teaching.

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bulletHere’s how it works…

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Remember, this is just for you, no one else. We don’t mention it to your Chairs, Dean, or Colleagues.

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If you are interested, just complete the form below. Your instructional technologist will contact you to set up a meeting where we will discuss what you hope to get out of the observation. We’ll then conduct the observation of your choice and give you the deliverable that matches.

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bulletTypes of Observations

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TLThd offers two types of observations:  Face-to-Face & Online

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Face-to-Face: Your instructional technologist will come to the class(es) of your choice and just track what is going on in the classroom, what you are doing and what your students are doing, in 2 minute increments. No judgement, just tracking/documenting. We’ll make no suggestions unless you request them. In addition, we’re happy to look for anything specific that you’d like us to.

With the Face-to-Face observations we also offer two add-ons that can be done in addition to the base observation:

  • Video: We come to the class(es) of your choice and film you and/or your students during the class. When finished we provide you with a digital copy of the video and a self-reflection rubric that you can use if you so choose.
  • Student Focus Groups: We go into your classroom and interview your students about what they think is working and not working in the class.  The feedback is completely anonymous and you must leave the room.  This is normally conducted in the last 10 minutes of a class.  You can use our default questions and/or develop your own.

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Online: Your instructional technologist will review a module in your OAKS class and look at anything from course organization to assignment directions. Whatever you’d like to know.  

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bulletThe Process

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sub-bulletFace-to-Face:

  1. You request an observation.
  2. You and your instructional technologist book an appointment to look closely at the observation instrument and to decide on areas of focus.
  3. Your instructional technologist observes your class(es) either at a time you prefer or unannounced, depending upon your preference.  This observation consists of tracking what you do and what your students appear to be doing in two minute increments. 
  4. Your instructional technologist writes up the report that contains a narrative of strengths, data gathered from the observation instrument, a play-by-play of what occurred in the course by time, and some potential areas of change.
  5. You read the report and reflect on the results.
  6. You and your instructional technologist then schedule another appointment to debrief on the report.

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sub-bulletVideo:

  1. You request a Face-to-Face observation add-on.
  2. You and your instructional technologist book an appointment to discuss where you wish to focus: on you, on your students, or both.
  3. Your instructional technologist records your class(es) either at a time you prefer or unannounced, depending upon your preference.  This observation consists of setting up one or two cameras in the room to record the specified action.
  4. Your instructional technologist extracts the video and sends you a digital copy of either your teaching, the students in the room or both, along with a self-reflection rubric for you to use to evaluate your teaching.
  5. You watch the video and reflect on what you see/hear.
  6. You and your instructional technologist can then schedule another appointment to debrief on anything you wish to discuss.

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sub-bulletStudent Feedback:

  1. You request a Face-to-Face observation add-on.
  2. You and your instructional technologist book an appointment to decide where you wish to focus or if there are any specific concerns you have.
  3. Your instructional technologist sends a list of questions to your students two days before the observation so they can reflect on the questions.
  4. Your instructional technologist interviews your students in the last 15-20 minutes of a class at a time you prefer.  This observation consists of your instructional technologist conducting a discussion of the student feedback.  This is recorded in a completely anonymous way. This interview will consist of 3-4 questions that is a mix of standard questions and your questions.
  5. Your instructional technologist writes up the report that contains the summary of students’ answers to all questions.
  6. You read the report and reflect on the results.
  7. You and your instructional technologist can then schedule another appointment to debrief on the report.

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sub-bulletOnline:

  1. You request an observation.
  2. You and your instructional technologist book an appointment to decide where you wish to focus or if there are any specific concerns you have.
  3. Your instructional technologist will review the OAKS class module(s) as you requested.  This can consist of going through every piece of content, reading instructions, checking dates, etc.  Your instructional technologist will look for consistency and observe the class from a student perspective.
  4. Your instructional technologist writes up the report that contains a narrative of strengths and some potential areas of change.
  5. You read the report and reflect on the results.
  6. You and your instructional technologist can then schedule another appointment to debrief on the report.

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MOTION CHARTS
Google, Google Apps, instructional technology, Research

Using a Motion Chart to Visualize Data

Mendi Benigni

While motion charts are not new, I just learned about them and I thought they would be something that faculty can use in their classes to help students see and understand certain concepts in their classes.

Motion Chart

A motion chart, at least as it’s used in this post, is a bubble chart that can be controlled by the viewer, not the creator.  It allows the viewer to visualize multiple dimensions of the data.   These dimensions are shown by the bubble size, color and position on the chart over time.  Here is an example from Kwantu.com:Screenshot of the bubble chart

  • Vertical (Y) axis – Percentage of HIV exposed infants given ART for PMTCT at birth
  • Horizontal (X) axis – Percentage of HIV+ women receiving ARVs for PMTCT
  • Bubble size – Health expenditure per capita (current US$)
  • Bubble colour – Pregnant women receiving prenatal care (%)
  • Time – Years

According to JuiceAnalytics, “modern-day motion charts were developed by an organization called GapMinder as part of a product called Trendalyzer.  Hans Rosling, one of the founders of GapMinder, popularized the motion chart visualization in a much-admired TED Talk.”

What are they good for?

What I think sets this chart type apart from other charts in either Excel or Google Sheets, is that they are interactive.  The end-user can use the sliders to change time and the dropdown menus to change the data parameters shown.  It allows the viewer the control over what they see to help them better understand the data and to work with it in multiple ways.  Any discipline that uses statistical or relational data over time can benefit from a motion chart (political science, sociology, history, education, biology, etc.).

How do you make one?

With Google Sheets, part of CofC’s Google Apps for Education (G-Suite), you can make a motion chart in just a few easy steps.

  1. Create the data in Google Sheets, or upload it from an existing Excel spreadsheet into Google Drive.
    1.  Column A (first column) should contain the data you want to track.  In the example above, it is Country.
    2.  Column B should contain the time data and should be sorted/grouped by time.
    3.  Column B also needs to be formatted as a date, not text.
  2. Highlight all the data in the table and click on Insert > Chart.
  3. Choose the Chart Types tab.
  4. Scroll to the bottom under Other and choose Motion Chart.
  5. Click Insert.
  6. Once it’s inserted you will be able to change the X/Y access, use the scroll bar to slide through the times and the boxes on the right to narrow the data seen.

BONUS — You’ll also notice, in the upper right corner, that you can choose between a bubble chart, bar chart, or a line chart.

Let us know

If you try this let us know how you are using it in your teaching or with your students!  We love to hear from faculty.

TLT

Using Lumi and H5P to Create Drag and Drop Activities for Students

Mendi Benigni

What is Lumi and H5P?

H5P is an open source application to create interactive and engaging learning objects quickly and easily.  Up until now it required an on-campus installation but now there’s an application called Lumi Education that allows you to create these interactive objects and even embed them into OAKS for your students to use.

It’s free and easy and you, and your students,
can use it to create interactive learning objects.

How It Works

  1. H5P Editor StartGo to https://lumi.education/ and click on Download.
  2. Select your operating system to download the app for your computer.
    NOTE: if you get sent to a page asking for a donation, just click the back button and do it again.  Next time it shouldn’t ask you.
  3. Save the installer, then install the Lumi app.
  4. Once it’s installed, click on the Lumi app to open it.
  5. Under H5P Editor choose Start.
  6. Choose Create New H5P.
  7. Next to the item you want to create, click Get to load this option into your Lumi app.
  8. Click Install (if first time).
  9. Then click Use.
  10. Always start by viewing the Example and the Tutorial.
    screenshot of tutorial and example

 

Drag and Drop

Drag and Drop allows you to create many forms of drag and drop using images as well as text.

  • This can be used to teach vocabulary in any language that is supported.
  • Creating games.
  • Creating maps with drag and drop options.
  • Creating labeling for a diagram or image.

screenshot of drag and drop question

 

Drag the Word

Drag the Word allows you to create text based challenges where users are to drag words into blanks in sentences.
  • Excellent for language training among other things.
  • You can use this to teach vocabulary in any language that is supported.
  • Can also be used to allow young students to quiz themselves and get instance feedback.

screenshot of a drag the word question

Image Pairing

Image Pairing allows you to create pairs of images to be matched. Learners are presented with the unpaired images and have to either use drag and drop or click on the images they think matches. Since it is not required for both images in a pair to be the same, authors are also able to test the understanding of a relation between two different images.

Again, great for language and vocabulary study as well as rote learning.

screenshot of flags and countries

REMEMBER: each learning object type in Lumi contains a built in tutorial so be sure to use those to learn how to create these.  Most are self-explanatory and easy to learn but having the tutorials is handy.

 

[button link=”https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ORFHEy2U0YkHImzc5qS0zs34PoaBfbhpaBNIZDjgZfc/edit?usp=sharing” newwindow=”yes”] View a tutorial on how to add these to OAKS![/button]

Collaboration, Conferencing, discussion, Research

#OneNewThing: Conducting Interviews Using FlipGrid

Mendi Benigni

There are times when you or your students want to conduct an interview with someone but it’s very difficult to get together due to time zone issues, busy schedules, or some other reason.  Well, Michael Overholt, former instructional technologist with LCWA came up with a great remedy for these issues…

FlipGrid

Flipgrid is a video discussion tool from Microsoft…The idea behind this education tool is to use video to create an open platform of discussion and learning that doesn’t require a physical classroom to get everyone involved.  (Tech Learning) But why not expand its uses to interviews.

The concept behind FlipGrid is that someone (the instructor or another student) creates an initial audio/video recording then others respond to it also using audio and/or video.  Because it’s not synchronous, the students can respond at any time that is convenient to them.   Each FlipGrid “class” can have multiple FlipGrid “discussions.”

Now let’s apply this to an interview…

 

  1. You create either one FlipGrid discussion containing all of the questions or one FlipGrid discussion for each question.
  2. Send the link to your interviewee(s).
  3. The interviewee, at their convenience, listens to your recording containing the questions then they will create a video of themselves answering the question.  It’s all done online so it’s incredibly easy for them.
  4. Multiple people can answer the questions if you need to interview multiple people.  In the settings you can select to not allow users to see other users’ responses.
  5. Now you can go back in and listen to all the of the responses. You can even download the videos and edit them together.

This saves you and your interviewees the headache of scheduling a time to meet.

This can be used in your research or by your students for class assignments.  Makes it easy for them to interact with experts in the field in different timezones and countries.

Give it a try!

 

[button link=”https://blogs.charleston.edu/tlttutorials/2020/09/25/flipped-friday-flipgrid-updates/” newwindow=”yes”] Access the tutorials for you and your students[/button]

TLT

Creating Audio-based Learning Activities using Lumi and H5P

Mendi Benigni

What is Lumi and H5P?

H5P is an open source application to create interactive and engaging learning objects quickly and easily.  Up until now it required an on-campus installation but now there’s an application called Lumi Education that allows you to create these interactive objects and even embed them into OAKS for your students to use.

It’s free and easy and you, and your students,
can use it to create interactive learning objects.

How It Works

  1. H5P Editor StartGo to https://lumi.education/ and click on Download.
  2. Select your operating system to download the app for your computer.
    NOTE: if you get sent to a page asking for a donation, just click the back button and do it again.  Next time it shouldn’t ask you.
  3. Save the installer, then install the Lumi app.
  4. Once it’s installed, click on the Lumi app to open it.
  5. Under H5P Editor choose Start.
  6. Choose Create New H5P.
  7. Next to the item you want to create, click Get to load this option into your Lumi app.
  8. Click Install (if first time).
  9. Then click Use.
  10. Always start by viewing the Example and the Tutorial.
    screenshot of tutorial and example

 

Speak the Words

Speak the Words is a voice recognition content type allowing authors to ask a question that should be answered with the user’s own voice.

While the example below is showing math, this feature is wonderful for language and pronunciation learning and practice.  You can show the word they have to speak, ask them to complete a sentence, ask them to answer a question (must have only one answer), add an image and ask the what it is.

Note, this type can give immediate auto-feedback.

screenshot of an audio question

 

DICTATION

Allows you to create dictation exercises. Let your students train their listening comprehension and spelling skills.  In this case the student listens to something you have recorded and they must type out what they hear.

Great for listening comprehension of new language learners and young children.

screenshot of dictation question

 

REMEMBER: each learning object type in Lumi contains a built in tutorial so be sure to use those to learn how to create these.  Most are self-explanatory and easy to learn but having the tutorials is handy.

 

[button link=”https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ORFHEy2U0YkHImzc5qS0zs34PoaBfbhpaBNIZDjgZfc/edit?usp=sharing” newwindow=”yes”] View a tutorial on how to add these to OAKS![/button]