Teaching and Learning Technologies
At the 2015 Teaching Professor Conference one of the sessions I attended was Topping Out on Bloom:Technology for Student Projects led by Ike Shibley. I found it to be very helpful when thinking about a technology assignment that encourages students to use Bloom’s. Below is a link to Dr. Shibley’s Obstacles/Opportunities table, questions for analysis of your course and the Padagogy Wheel which aligns Blooms with iPad apps.
TPC Shibley Topping Out on Bloom
Let’s be honest. Grading can be a drag. We may love teaching and mentoring students, but when faced with a stack of 100 essays, some of us consider a career change. Providing students with frequent and meaningful feedback takes a lot of time and energy, but there are plenty of applications that can help make you a more efficient grader. One such application is Kaizena.
Kaizena is a web-based platform that is synced with Google Drive. Students can either upload Microsoft Office files or PDFs to their Google Drive account (which CofC students have free access to) or they can create their assignments within Google Drive. The instructor will get an alert that a student has submitted and can then leave text or audio feedback as well as insert outside resources called “lessons” and 4-point scale ratings called “skills.”
Kaizena’s “lessons” are a fantastic time-saving feature. How often do you find yourself writing or typing the same comment over and over on student assignments? Well, “lessons” allow you to create a library of text, audio, and video resources that can be quickly added to students’ assignments. For example, if I were teaching composition and noticed multiple students making comma splice errors, I could record a quick audio clip explaining what comma splices are. Or, I could find a YouTube video about comma splices and use that existing resource. The next time I come across a comma splice error, I can simply click a button to add that “lesson” and avoid typing yet another explanation of comma splices.
Another aspect of Kaizena that I appreciate is how the feedback is framed as conversations. An instructor leaves an audio comment, for example, and the student can reply with text or audio. When we write comments on students’ assignments, we hope they read them and we assume they understand them. But often this isn’t the case. Kaizena encourages a dialogue between students and instructors that can improve understanding.
Application: https://kaizena.com
Cost: Free
Platform: Web
Tutorials: https://kaizena.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/all
Our guest blogger is Ashley Brown from Health and Human Performance. In January Ashley was awarded an Ungrant for an iPod touch. Her goal was to film her kayaking students while they learn to paddle to help critique their performance and allow them to improve. Not only is this an interesting experiment into real-time assessment but also into exploring the waterproofing options for tablets and phones. There are many departments, such as the sciences and education, that can benefit from her trials with using the waterproof cases in the field.
I won an iPod Touch from the Ungrant through TLT!!
My main objective is to video students paddling during their Coastal Kayaking class and give them feedback on their strokes and maneuvers using the Coach my Video app.
My first challenge was the hardware. The iPod does not like to work when it is wet. I have it in a waterproof case and a life jacket to keep it floating, but when I swiped my wet hands over the wet surface the machine just ignored me. Believe it or not I took it out two times before it occurred to me that the machine doesn’t work when wet, it won’t work when the waterproof case is wet, it won’t work when my hands are wet…so I’m still trying to figure out how to stay dry when I’m wet. I haven’t tried filming under water, but plan to when it warms up – by then I hope to have solved the ‘dry when wet’ problem
Then, after washing my face one might, I had a revelation; if a towel could dry my face…although I still haven’t figured out how to keep the towel dry.
The iPod is still not a big fan of wet hands, and it is hard to get them completely dry.
I had luck videoing the students and using the Coach my Video app to show them their work. However, I didn’t want to waste class time discussing each video individually, and still haven’t found an easily accessible way to project the video for the whole class to watch. So my next challenge is to send them their own assessed video.
I’m enjoying the new technology, and the challenge of using it in an environment where one of the first things I say to students is, “Lock your electronics in your car if you don’t want to lose them or ruin them!” is ongoing…maybe a really big ziplock bag…I mean really big.
We’ll keep following Ashley’s progress as she works through some of these issues. Check back to see the resolutions and more on student outcomes! TLT has longterm iPad minis and two waterproof cases available in our Checkout Equipment if you are interested in trying something like this in your classes.
We have reached that glorious time of year when students are starting to plan for the future (i.e. – register for Fall semester). As we wrap up the current academic year, you may start thinking about the future yourself. What courses will I be teaching next year? How will I do that? What assessments am I going to use? What am I going to change up? Wouldn’t it be cool if {insert innovative idea here}? While TLT is here to help you with all of your planning needs this summer, there are a few things to keep in mind while you make plans for your future courses, especially in terms of meeting the needs of all learners.
College of Charleston currently has approximately 900 students with various disabilities on campus who are registered with the Center for Disability Services. [1] Some of you may have already worked with students with disabilities in your courses and have a working knowledge of accommodations. For others, this concept may be new and foreign to you. In any case, as you look to prepare your courses for future semesters, here are some overall tips that will help you to design with accessibility in mind:
Universal Design for Learning is a vast and useful framework for reaching all learners and to individualize the learning process to meet their needs and your course goals. I would suggest checking out some of the additional resources below if you are interested in learning more about the theory.
When using these principles there are a variety of resources available to help you out. Here on College of Charleston’s campus the Center for Disability Services is a wonderful resource for faculty. TLT can also help you differentiate your instruction and research academic-related technology solutions to implement. Here are some other resources to help you out:
[1] Mihal, Deborah. “Our Role.” Center for Disability Services. College of Charleston, Aug. 2014. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
[2] Poller, Lisa. “About Universal Design for Learning.” About Universal Design. CAST, n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
What is Acclaim?
Acclaim is a web platform which facilitates asynchronous discussion around video content. Students and instructors can add time-stamped comments that link to moments in each video. Each comment is clickable, and once clicked, the video will jump to the relevant moment in the video. Students can see and respond to comments at any time.
Users add videos to Acclaim in one of three different ways:
How could I use Acclaim?
Acclaim would be an ideal tool in courses that involve any type of oral presentations, demonstrations, or performances.
Why should I use Acclaim?
Watching one’s own recorded presentation and reading evaluations from peers and instructors can be an excellent way to identify strengths and weaknesses, and thus improve one’s future performances. Self-assessment encourages critical reflection, increased awareness of skills, and goal setting while peer-assessment develops empathy and encourages students to reflect on their own work while evaluating others.
Acclaim provides a free and simple platform that facilitates such self, peer, and instructor assessment.
Cost: Free
Application: Web-based; http://getacclaim.com
UPDATE: On 3/14/15, we received an email from Geddit notifying us that their servers will be shutdown on July 1, 2015. Contact your instructional technologist to review possible alternatives.
What is Geddit?
Geddit is an online tool that enables instructors to track understanding, instantly and privately, in their classrooms. Geddit is easy for students to use during class, and it can be viewed on any device with an internet browser. It takes just a moment for instructors to invite students to join a class and set up a lesson. There are many benefits to using Geddit in your courses, such as incorporating Just-in-Time Teaching, and we will touch on just a few of advantages and features in this overview.
How does it work?
During class, students can “check in” by self-assessing their understanding of the current topic being covered in class. Instructors can launch poll, multiple-choice, short answer (140 characters), long answer (unlimited characters), and math questions and view results in real-time.
Why should you try it?
The information tracked by Geddit makes it possible for instructors to adapt their teaching and the amount of time spent on certain topics to meet students’ needs. A quick glance at Geddit during class provides valuable information as challenging concepts are introduced and discussed.
The real benefit and strength of this web-based app is the variety of information both instructors and students can review after class. Instructors can view class understanding as a whole, along with responses from individual students. It is easy to view trends and fluctuations in class understanding by topic over the length of the class period. Students indicating confusion on certain topics are flagged allowing instructors to easily follow-up and manage struggling students. It is also possible to review responses to any questions asked through Geddit. Importantly, instructors can export all check-in information and question responses to a CSV file for sorting and grading purposes.
A further advantage of using Geddit is that students can revisit their own reports from a lesson and quickly see which topics they flagged as not being very clear. The report highlights topics students should study.
Where can you get Geddit?
Visit http://letsgeddit.com and sign up for a free account. Try Geddit on your most challenging classes.
Platform – iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad
Price – free in the App Store (NOTE: this is listed as an iPhone app)
Download – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/score-keeper-by-learning-dojo/id954956153?mt=8
Using Team Based Learning or Gaming in your classroom? Having a hard time easily keeping or resetting the score? Score Keeper will not only help you to add up or detract points from 2 teams, but it also allows you to reset the score with one touch. When a team gains or loses a point the app will comment with encouragement or gentle teasing. (Yes, you have the option to silence the app if you’d like!). Simple to use and ready to go, Score Keeper will help you keep track of those points! Game on!
ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) is the leader in supporting “the use of information technology to aid in learning, teaching of K-12 students and teachers.” This not-for-profit organization has created standards for students and instructors regarding the use of technology. These ISTE Standards are the standards for learning, teaching and leading in the digital age and are widely recognized and adopted worldwide.
The goal of these standards include:
Improving higher-order thinking skills, such as problem solving, critical thinking and creativity
Preparing students for their future in a competitive global job market
Designing student-centered, project-based and online learning environments
Inspiring digital age professional models for working, collaborating and decision making
While they were created for K-12 the principles and goals should also be embraced by those of us in higher education. Many of them are excellent goals to have even without the technology component.
Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information.
students use critical thinking still to plan and conduct research, manage projects, sofve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources
Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behaviour.
Pay attention to these standards next time you are creating an assignment or an activity for your students. Conduct an informal self-evaluation to see if you are encouraging these behaviors amongst your students and modeling best practices as the instructor.
Clickers (or audience response systems) are a great way to check for understanding, poll students’ opinions, and even give quizzes. Normally it requires the students to have a purchased clicker such as iClicker or Turning Point or a phone, tablet or computer for use with software like Poll Everywhere. Either way, there is an investment of some type and this may make those of you new to polling a bit nervous. Well now there is an easy and investment-free way to get started with clickers in your class. It’s called Plickers (Paper Clickers). Thanks to Tamara Kirshtein in Teacher Education for sharing this with TLT.
Plickers requires only the professor to have a phone or tablet with a camera and the students to have, you guessed it, paper clickers. Here’s how it works:
With Plicker you can:
With Plicker you can’t:
It’s fast and easy to use. It’s not as robust as some of the other applications like iClickers or Poll Everywhere but it’s a great way to get some of the benefits quickly and easily with very little investment. Print out your cards and get started today.
Resource: http://plickers.com
Margaret Hagood, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, writes about how she altered an existing assignment to scaffold learning.
I teach literacy education courses to students in the department of Teacher Education. The field of literacy has changed considerably over the past 10 years, now encompassing the ability to read and write words in traditional printed material alongside the literacies required of digital, visual, technological, and pop culture texts. Not only are students expected to consume these texts, they must also be able to produce them.
Part of my work in literacy methods courses is to expose undergraduate and graduate students to the variety of texts they will be expected to use in their own teaching with elementary and middle grade students. That means traditional classic texts, but it also means contemporary texts such as youtube videos, apps, movies, graphic novels, websites, etc.
Thinking about these areas necessary for literacy teacher preparation, I decided to use my learning from the Faculty Technology Institute to revamp and rejuvenate a course project for EDEE 377: Teaching Literacies (Grades 5-8) that would both expose my students to reading widely in order to learn about young peoples’ literacies and get them using digital literacies and technological texts to produce a project that could use in their classroom instruction. This project is called the Multimedia Text Set (MMTS). I have taught several different iterations of this project. Although I’ve liked the project overall, I feel that student outcomes are often compromised. Sometimes students’ final projects lack depth of content knowledge to demonstrate wide reading. Other times their published work lacks overall organization and clarity because they didn’t understand how to use the technology to meet their production needs.
Participation in this year’s FTI gave me time to reflect upon the import of using technology pedagogically for scaffolded learning in order to improve student outcomes. Rather than assume the digital native identity (Prensky 2005/2006) given to students by virtue of their age and exposure to technology, I decided to assume that they didn’t know much about the technologies I wanted them to use to create the MMTS project, and decided I’d use technologies and a flipped classroom model to break the project down for them. With this idea in mind, I broke up the project into several components, and used a variety of technologies to illustrate for students how to move from one step to the next. Before I explain how I went about this flipped idea, let me explain the overall project.
Here’s the project description students see on my course Google Site:
What are Multimedia Text Sets (MMTS)?
MMTS incorporate a grouping of texts from many different genres and forms around a common question, topic, or theme. Texts in the set may include print, video, music, Internet, photographs, cartoons, and so on. In essence, a MMTS reflect the texts used by children and adolescents in today’s increasingly connected world.
Many teachers use different genres and forms of text to support the teaching and learning of content. However, teachers, don’t necessarily teach students how to read different text forms. Nor do they explicitly address how multimedia texts as a whole interconnect and serve to include multiple perspectives and deeper understanding of the content and essential concepts. Furthermore, nonprint media rarely are given the same importance and significance as print texts. This lack of attention to other forms of texts ignores the fact that all “texts”—books, ads, film, TV, magazines, music, for example, are constructed messages. In today’s world, an increasingly important aspect of literacy is the understanding that all texts present deliberate, careful constructions. All texts do no just reflect reality but result from the authors’ and/or producers’ attitudes, perspectives, interpretations, cultures, points of view, and purposes.
The range of texts in a MMTS allows teachers and students to explore different forms and genres of texts and incorporate the following instructional foci:
Writing practices — Vocabulary — Visual literacies — Discussion across texts — Intertextual connections — Digital literacies — Engagement — Reading practices — Multimedia production — Multiple perspectives — Critical thinkingText complexity
Reading across texts provides more opportunities to use language to practice literacy skills and strategies to learn content. High levels of comprehension are supported as students read critically across multiple texts and text forms. Reading across text forms provides engaging opportunities for critical dialogue and advanced comprehension. Thus, collaborative instructional planning that combines text sets and language tools weaves a strong, connective path that supports students’ use of strategies and content. It also contributes to a rich context for critical dialogue and advanced comprehension.
What is the MMTS project for this class?
This project may be completed individually or with a partner.
It includes the following:
2. Creation of your own wondering overarching question and 1-2 subquestions that would be of interest to an age group of students you’d like to teach.
3. Research using a variety of multimedia sources to answer the question. (You must use Springpad.com to show this work of at least 20 texts-both print and nonprint). See 7 minute screencast where I overview the app for this project.
4. Creation of your own Wonderopolis wondering using an approved website creator (such as www.weebly.com, www.webs.com, or www.yola.com).
5. Completion of annotated bibliography of your text set (see template below).
Submit the following documents:
1. Link to your completed wondering within the chart to the course gsite.
Go to https://sites.google.com/site/edee377/assignments/child-study-pc-project to enter this information in the final column of the chart.
2. Upload completed Multimedia Text Set Annotated Bibliography chart
(see attachment at https://sites.google.com/site/edee377/assignments/child-study-pc-project). Name it last name-wondering. For example: Hagood-Friendship.
Throughout the semester, we broke the project down into several steps, often viewing videos and websites in a flipped classroom model so that classtime was reserved for analyses of text sets and applications. We studied overall text sets, examining the strengths and weaknesses of them in meeting the teaching and learning needs of students and teachers in diverse 21st century classrooms. We analyzed the applications that students were going to use (Springpad, Wonderopolis, and the web creation apps), discussing the affordances and challenges of each in relation to both the assignment at hand and to uses in middle school classrooms. And we broke the project into parts, moving from whole-to part- to whole, so that students could learn both the import of MMTS and the tools by which to create their own. Students shared their work at various stages over the semester during “10 minute shares” during class, whereby they signed up to discuss components of their projects that were going well or that were confusing them. They also had three opportunities during the semester to bring their work to class for a digital writing workshop, providing them time to examine their work in relation to their peers, to get oral feedback from the professor in relation to the scoring rubric (see Table 1), and to confer with partners about next steps.
Outcomes of Fall and Spring iterations from different sections yielded much stronger outcomes. Students completed projects were immensely better, in form, content, organization, clarity, and applicability. On both fall and spring course evaluations, students noted consistently that although the project was time consuming, they saw it as worthwhile as they became more well read in areas important to elementary and middle grade students and that they appreciated learning the technologies as they were expected to use them.
Here are links to three exemplar projects:
Using screencasting to describe features of apps to be used in specific ways for the MMTS, flipping the classroom by using videos and website analyses, scaffolding the learning of digital technologies, and providing time for classroom discussion (in small and whole groups) gave new life to the MMTS project, better meeting the pedagogical needs of the so called digital natives I taught.
Prensky, M. (2005/2006). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8-13.
