Wimba created word documents

Using a simple word document you can quickly and easily convert it into content for your online courses or to supliment your classroom delivery. From one Word document you can generate a set of webpages that includes navigation and interactive features that are easily uploaded into Blackboard.

The easiest way of showing this is in the following videos:

Converting word into webpages

Embeding video into your webpage

Inserting a hyperlink

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Video versus Podcast

Video

There is a lot to be said about using video in classroom and online learning, perhaps too much for a short blog post here.  There are a lot of things to think about: editing software, cameras, compression, streaming, storage, audio, etc. So this is a starting point.

Here is an article from Learning Solutions Magazine

And you will find that many of the issues affecting presentations also affect video too. See the Online presentations blog post

You may also find this academic article useful too. Stephen Gomez, Holger Andersson, Caroline Chipperfield (2010)

and here are just a few reasons for using video in the classroom:

To reach students with a variety of learning styles, especially visual
learners, and students with a variety of information acquisition styles

To engage students in problem-solving and investigative activities

To begin to dismantle social stereotypes

To help students practice media literacy and critical viewing skills

To provide a common experience for students to discuss

Devise your own or repurpose one from YouTube?

There are many highly polished videos already available on YouTube (and others) that are fit for purpose, rather than thinking about creating one of your own, you may consider using one of these.

Creating your own bespoke videos can be time-consuming but it is a valuable tools for creating something different that your students can relate to. The team at Derby are very supportive and full of tips and ideas for creating purposeful video presentation. Alternatively, you may want to record a guest speaker or one of your own lectures. This is a great way of capturing contemporary issues within your industry. But be warned, a static video presentation, cluttered room, poor audio and limited student interaction will turn students off watching it. So what could you do as an alternative?

Podcast

One easy and a quick solution is to edit the video (you can do this at Buxton) and save it as a podcast. This way students still get the benefit of receiving the presentation without the static visuals. You might also like to add the audio to Adobe Presenter with a slide show or even Voicethread.

This link gives a simple guide to the benefits of podcasts in education. Educator’s tips for podcasts.

In this animated example from  RSA Animate.  They started with a podcast of the seminar and built up the images around it. I think this is a visually stimulating way of engaging students where perhaps, the subject matter could be very ‘dry’.

Changing Educational Paradigms This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.

Where do good ideas come from? By Steven Johnson, one of our most innovative, popular thinkers takes on -in exhilarating style- one of our key questions: Where do good ideas come from?
 

Quizzes and Polls

Polls, surveys and quizzes are not new to classroom or e-learning, they provide an opportunity for assessment – whether this be formative  or summative.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is often not graded (though it can be). Two external sites that are typically used, SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy, can be used to formatively assess students in the learning process, however you can create good quality tests and quizzes in Blackboard. An instructor could assign a survey to be completed in class (either at the beginning or end) or for homework to determine whether students have learned course material or followed along with the class lecture/discussion. These surveys can be anonymous depending upon how the instructor plans to use the information. Polling students during face-to-face or synchronous classes is another version of formative assessment. Formative assessment data gathered in this way provides useful information about whether to progress to new course content or to review the presented material again.

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Here are some general ideas for using polls, surveys and quizzes in the classroom:

To teach data and graphs

They are interactive; students can complete each others’ surveys

It is quick and easy to view the survey results, and to update these

It is more efficient and organised than creating and interpreting written surveys; paper is saved, there are less organisational problems in obtaining peoples’ responses

Anybody with access to the internet can be surveyed

They can collect situated data that is relevant to the students in the classroom (if the students have created the surveys)

Creating and completing online surveys can be engaging, enjoyable and motivating, particularly when you know the people who have created the surveys.

There is ownership of the ideas and creative process

When creating surveys, students must think about issues associated with data collection, such as the need to construct unambiguous questions that anyone can understand

Students will need to draw on their knowledge to determine the kinds of graphs that can represent different kinds of data.

Summative Assessment

Using non-anonymous surveys either in class or out of class can also be used for summative assessment. Blackboard quizzes and tests can be created to generate the grades in the grade book, however timed tests can be difficult for students with disabilities. Sites such as SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy could be used in conjunction with course management software for students who need the extended time on assessments.

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Blackboard created tests and quizzes

Generally speaking, it isn’t difficult to create a quiz or test in Blackboard, although as with any quiz or test, you need to think it through thoroughly beforehand. Creating a variety of questions styles that accurately assess the learning can take some time, but I suggest that you try it out in your sandbox first. You will soon have the opportunity to learn more about creating Blackboard tests, but in the meantime, you might want to follow this link

Are there any free web tools?

As briefly mentioned above, SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy have been effectively used in the classroom and by research students. If you want to try out a PollDaddy poll, we have created one here in this blog, click the link. and for more information follow the links below:

Go to www.surveymonkey.com to access SurveyMonkey.

Go to http://polldaddy.com/to access Poll Daddy.

Michaela Mora’s blog post compares three of the most popular free online survey tools.

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Discussion forums

I am sure that you are familiar with what a discussion forum is but would you know how to use one to support your classroom activities?

You can attach a forum to any of your modules and use it in various ways to enable students to communicate whist they are away from the classroom.

When setting up forums, it is useful to think about how you are going to encourage students to engage. Will this be an assessed part of the module, could it be a way of generating formative assessment or is it just for general enquiries?

General enquiries

A good place to start, is to create a discussion forum for general enquiries. Students can be encouraged to use  this type of forum to ask questions about content, assessment or general course management. You might want to subscribe to this type of forum, so that you receive email updates in Outlook as soon as anyone leaves a post, this will enable you to respond quickly. You can also use this forum as a repository for all module students – rather than answering the same question again and again for individual student, think about posting your replies to the forum and telling students to check all the posts there. (It goes without saying that personal issues should not be dealt with via the discussion forum).

Informal chat

Secondly, you might want to set up an informal chat room, where students can talk about things outside of the classroom and get to know each other. This stops the other forums becoming congested with personal chit-chat. As a general rule I don’t subscribe to this forum, but I do monitor it from time to time.

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Active Learning

Thirdly, use the discussion forum for active learning. It is the simplest method of creating conversation, discussion and debate.

The following three links give some suggestions for using the discussion forum in conjunction with classroom activity.

The benefits of discussion forums

Ideas for collaboration

and Grading the discussion contributions for assessment.

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Online Presentations

Creating a presentation to be delivered online is not as easy as it would first appear. There are many factors to take into consideration about who the audience is and what their likely distractions might be. Remember that unlike a classroom situations where the audience is focused and there are limited distractions ( well in theory anyway) an online presentation may be played on the bus, in a cafe, even at a sports match. There are many competing factors that might draw the listeners attention away from the presentation causing them to miss vital information  i.e. conversations and disruptions . The good thing is that the presentation can be replayed, time and time again, the bad thing is that if your presentation is not interesting, the student can choose to switch you off – permanently.

How do we maintain interest and participation?

There are three major factors to this:

1. Create a presentation that uses the appropriate technology for the job.
2. Make sure that the presentation is not too long (even a 10 minute presentation should be broken down in to bite sized pieces)
3. Maintain participation by asking or setting questions or activities; these may be asynchronous and via another medium.

10+2 – You can present for 10 minutes followed by 2 minutes of sharing and reflection( this can be done asynchronously via the discussion forum, blog or wiki)

5+1 – Same idea but a shorter period of time, especially suitable if you know that your students will only have short chunks of time available or they are inclined to be distracted.

3+2+1 Use a follow-up activity to find out what the students learnt from the presentation, where students write: 3 key terms from what they have just learned, 2 ideas they would like to learn more about, and 1 concept or skill they think they have mastered.

What technology tools could I use?

PowerPoint

The most obvious one that springs to mind is PowerPoint; but we should be very conscious of  ‘Death by PowerPoint’ . Bearing in mind the points above, you should be able to create a presentation that ‘slots into’ the overall lesson design and doesn’t ‘become’ the whole lesson itself.

Dave Foord have an excellent series of posts relating to PowerPoint and getting the best out of them. You can see his suggested resources here

and in his blog posts here

Pecha Kucha

This is a very short PowerPoint presentation – 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide. The presentation becomes punchy and precise. There are plenty of examples of this on You Tube and you can find out more here

You could use this for teaching purposes, or ask the students to prepare one to share information with the group or for assessment. This keeps their presentations short and to the point – especially if you have a lot to watch. You could even ask them to record their presentations in Wimba Classroom and archive them, so that everyone can watch the presentations in their own time. Additionally, you can keep the archives for moderations purposes.

Where to host the presentation

Adobe Presenter

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This is a technology tool that allows you to record your PowerPoint presentation, complete with animations. You can upload the presentation directly into Blackboard and there are time markers too; this enables students to ‘start where they left off’ especially if they are interrupted during the presentation.

SlideShare

If you don’t want to create a PowerPoint yourself – take a look at the Blackboard link to SlideShare. 

You can download a PowerPoint straight into blackboard.

Synchronous and Asynchronous participation

In a classroom presentation, it is easy to generate some student interaction this is more difficult with online presentations. On the whole online presentations tend to be passive or require the student to go to a different technology (discussion forum or a wiki) to share their thoughts on what you have said.

There are now tools available that enable students to participate immediately with the presentation, simulating a classroom environment. This is not to say that they should replace classroom presentations but if you are looking for a way to get students to work together outside the classroom, these might help you to achieve it. Follow the links to find out more about Wimba Classroom and Voicethread.

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Wimba Classroom (Presentation + Participation)

Synchronous Participation

In a classroom presentation, it is easy to generate some student interaction this is more difficult with online presentations. On the whole online presentations tend to be passive or require the student to go to a different technology (discussion forum or a wiki) to share their thoughts on what you have said.

There are now tools available that enable students to participate immediately with the presentation, simulating a classroom environment. This is not to say that they should replace classroom presentations but if you are looking for a way to get students to work together outside the classroom, these might help you to achieve it.

Wimba Classroom

Click on the image to enlarge

One such tool is Wimba Classroom. You can use it in many different ways:

You can set a time just to have a 1:1 or conversation (like Skype)

You can upload a PowerPoint presentation, arrange a time to meet and present it as you would in a live classroom – with questions and answer sessions built-in.

You can ask a student to upload their presentation and use it for assessment – you can collect peer evaluations about it too.

You can record the session for student that were unable to meet at the allocated time.

You can even create a complete lesson online, but there are many issues to be aware of. This very informative 10 minute video prepared by Claudia Dornbusch explains some of the pros and cons of virtual classroom presentations.

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Voicethread (Presentation + Asynchronous Participation)

Voicethread (Presentation + Asynchronous participation/ conversation)

If you are looking for a way to enable students to comment on a presentation, answer questions , debate or discuss the topics Voicethread is an option. The free version is limited to 3 presentations but worth a try. Create a presentation – Pecha Kucha, PowerPoint or a selection of images and video clips.

Upload the slides to Voicethread

Record a narration (you can draw on the slides too.)

Share the presentation with your students and ask them to comment on a particular slide or slides.

More information about how Voicethread can be used in the classroom and online, can be found here.

Examples of good practice:

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This is a great VoiceThread created by Alec Couros who did his doctoral
dissertation in educational technology related to social networking. It not only
demonstrates a use for VoiceThread, but it provides an excellent example of how
participating in social networks can be very powerful ways to learn. This
VoiceThread is called “What Does the Network Mean to You?” and starts with an
excellent visual chart. View it here

This is one that I produced myself to introduce the concept of reflective practice. You will see that I have combined animation, images, PowerPoint slides and audio. Please feel free to follow the activity and comment on the last slide if you want to. The activity is currently shared with my work based students who are developing their skills in writing reflectively about their work experiences. The activity is one designed by Jenny Moon and is called ‘The Park’. See the Voicethread here

What do you think about Voicethread?  What do you think about Voicethread? You can post your thoughts directly onto this Voicethread slide.

This presentation is also identified as one element of a lesson design, shown in Compendium

Don’t forget, students could use these technology to host their own presentations too. You could then use it for peer evaluation.

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Compendium Learning design

Designing an e-learning lesson or even a course can be difficult to visualise. You may be used to classroom pedagogy but not familiar with e learning pedagogy. The buzz words here are constructivism , active learning and social learning.

With this in mind, there is a free tool designed by the Open University to help you to visualise how to plan a lesson or course. Not for the faint hearted but useful if you are serious about getting the right mix into your sessions. It’s called compendium and I have attached all the links about it below with a sample from one of my own designs on reflective learning.

Compendium quick start guide

Compendium free download

OpenLearn Labspace full tutorial

Below is an example of using Compendium to outline a lesson on reflective practice. Click on the image to see a larger version.

 

 

The wonderful world of wikis

The term wiki has been used for a while now, the most famous one being Wikipedia. Most people have accessed Wikipedia for quick bites of information but few have ever edited it. Herein lies the problem, who are the editors and where are they drawing their ideas from? It has to be said, that we generally hold a dim view of Wikipedia content – but are we being too critical? Many of the editors have spent time researching their subjects and supply references to support their claims. The key to using Wikipedia (as with any website) is to find the originally sourced materials and check their credentials.

Most people, when they first learn about the wiki concept, assume that a Web site that can be edited by anybody would soon be rendered useless by destructive input. It sounds like offering free spray cans next to a grey concrete wall. The only likely outcome would be ugly graffiti and simple tagging, and many artistic efforts would not be long-lived. Still, it seems to work very well.

Ebersbach, Anja (2008), Wiki: Web Collaboration, Springer Science+Business Media,

Baker (2008) writes about his experience of becoming a wiki editor – you might find this interesting especially if Wikipedia is still something of a mystery to you.

Characteristics of wikis

Ward Cunningham and co-author Bo Leuf, in their book The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web described the essence of the Wiki concept as follows:

• A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki Website.
• Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making page link creation almost intuitively easy and showing whether an intended target page exists or not.
• A wiki is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape.
• A wiki enables communities to write documents collaboratively.  A single page in a wiki website is referred to as a “wiki page”, while the entire collection of pages, which are usually well interconnected by hyperlinks, is “the wiki”. A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information. A wiki allows for non-linear, evolving, complex and networked text, argument and interaction.
• A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be created and updated. Generally, there is no review before modifications are accepted.  Many edits can be made in real-time and appear almost instantly online.

Similar in structure to a wiki is a blog. Before chosing either of these technologies think about why you want to incorporate them. See blog post

Wikis in the classroom or online

The characteristics of wikis outlined above, demonstrate the value of using one to engage students in a collaborative activity. This may include:

Creating a table of information from various sources, where each student contributes something – as Sheila McLaughlin used in her marketing module.

Other examples

For collaboration in groups….

Virtual field trip Have your students research far away places they would like to go on a field trip, and get them to share images and information about the location.

Create presentations: Instead of using traditional presentation software, put presentations on a wiki.

Write a Wikibook: Make it a class project to collaboratively write a reference book that others can use.

Study guides: Ask students to create study guides for a specific part of the unit you’re studying.

Readers’ guides: Have your students create readers’ guides to share their favorite and most important parts of works you’ve read in class.

Glossary: Get your class to create a glossary of terms they use and learn about in new units, adding definitions and images.

Class encyclopedia: Ask your class to create an “encyclopedia” on a topic, adding useful information that can be built upon through the years.

Create exploratory projects If you’re teaching a new subject, ask your students to collect and share information in the wiki so that you can learn together.

Debate: Pit class candidates against each other and perform a debate on your wiki.

‘Study buddy’ matching: Let students match themselves up into study buddy pairs.

For Assessment….

Exam review: Encourage students to share review notes and other helpful pieces of information on your classroom’s wiki.

Peer review: Allow students to draft their papers in a wiki, then ask other students to comment it.

Student portfolios: Assign portfolio pages to each of your students, and allow them to display and discuss their work.

Get feedback: Ask students to post comments on wiki pages.

As a teaching tool…

Use wikis as a hub: Any time a student creates anything online, ask them to link to it or upload it to the wiki so that everyone can use it.

Organisation  Save links, documents, and quotes related to units or your classroom as a whole.

Teacher collaboration: Work with other teachers to create lesson plans and track students’ success.

Track projects: With wikis, it’s easy for students to see which tasks have been completed and which ones still need to be fulfilled.

Track participation: Assign a wiki page to a group project, and then individual pages for each student to show their participation.

Classroom policies: Encourage students to draft rules and policies for the classroom.

Calendar: Create a calendar on the wiki and encourage students to add their own personally important dates. I use this method to find out when students are available in the evenings to use Wimba Classroom.

You may find this article useful for some additional reading:

Uses and Potentials of Wikis in the Classroom by S. Pixy Ferris and Hilary Wilder

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Blogging

Blogging has been around for a while, so you may have seen a blog in one of its many guises. However, you may not have thought of using one to support classroom or online learning. before you decide to go ahead with any technology…..

Here is a brief insight into the benefits of blogs:

To teach…

They are a good source of information especially if you search out blogs from eminent people in your industry.

They give access to contemporary issues; these may include videos from conferences that you haven’t been able to attend.

They provide a wider range of resources through web links and videos etc.

To encourage participation…

Students can comment on external blogs and join in a debate.

Students can use their own private blog for reflective writing.

You can use blogs for assessment; particularly useful for work placement and personal development module

Where can I find out more about the benefits of blogging?

Another use of blogging, is for the sharing of academic material as this article ‘Adventures in blog land’ explains.

Another study looked at the use of blogging in the classroom and the different personas students adopted Kerawalla et al (2009)

and finally, this voicethread  explains more about ‘audience, comments, community and presentation. Leave a comment if you like!

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