Each year, the New Media Consortium brings together a team of experts to discuss trends in technology, especially as related to educational contexts.
From the NMC release:
On January 19, 2010, the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) released the 2010 Horizon Report at the ELI Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the NMC’s Horizon Project, a long-term research project that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within higher education.
The seventh edition in this annual series is again a collaboration between the NMC and ELI. Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on campuses within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years.
This year’s report was released at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative conference in Austin, and includes some great things to explore:
- mobile computing – handheld and highly portable devices, able to connect to networks from anywhere
- open content – educational content shared freely, for use and reuse by others
- electronic books – paperless, digital books will finally become as useful as dead-trees versions
- augmented reality – using mobile technology and ubiquitous networking to provide realtime data to enhance interpretation of real places and scenarios
- gesture-based computing – using real-world gestures (waving, pointing, etc…) to control software and interact with others. Wii Tennis…
- visual data analysis – providing rich, interactive visualizations of complex, even realtime data
Grab your copy of the report, or view it online.
Scott Leslie was at the ELI conference, and interviewed several of the NMC board members who contributed to the report. Here’s his video of their conversations:
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning just released a special issue, focusing on open education and open access. There are several articles in the issue that are well worth reading, giving a strong background into the history of open education, and the possibilities for engagement.
From the issue’s table of contents:
Editorial
| Openness and the Future of Higher Education |
HTML PDF EPUB |
| David Wiley, John Hilton III |
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Research Articles
| Open Textbook Proof-of-Concept via Connexions |
HTML PDF EPUB |
| Judy Baker, Joel Thierstein, Kathi Fletcher, Manpreet Kaur, Jonathan Emmons |
Article 10.5.4 |
| Peer-To-Peer Recognition of Learning in Open Education |
HTML PDF EPUB |
| Jan Philipp Schmidt, Christine Geith, Stian Håklev, Joel Thierstein |
Article 10.5.5 |
Open Access Week
| Athabasca University’s Open Access Week Presentations |
HTML PDF EPUB |
| Terry Anderson |
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Have you ever asked a question in class to only to receive no response but blank stares? Or very similarly, have you ever tried to read students’ minds? If you want to understand a little more what your students are thinking, you might find the classroom clicker of interest. Clickers are small hand-held devices that send a signal to a receiver plugged into the instructor’s computer. Each clicker has a keypad, much like a cell phone, that students use to select their answer to a question asked in class. Different to the more traditional means of attaining feedback from students, such as raising hands or cue cards, with clickers students’ responses are anonymous. Once students have answered the question, the software on the instructor’s computer displays the results as a graph for the students to see, whether or not you share the correct answer with them.
Some practical uses of clickers are engaging students in peer learning, critical evaluation on conceptual understanding, and becoming active learners during class. The level of question difficulty can vary depending on level of comprehension from students. Here are 4 levels of questions with examples to help model questions:
- Level 1: Facts and basic information. What is the definition of Active Learning?
- Level 2: Analysis and interpretation. What is the relationship between Active Learning and student retention?
- Level 3: Hypothesis and prediction. In a class of 100 students, what would happen if students were to answer a question individually, then put into small groups to discuss the given problem, then re-answered the question individually?
- Level 4: Critical analysis and evaluation. Can classroom clickers be used in large classrooms to promote active learning? Why?
Fore more information about using clickers see:
- http://tlc.ucalgary.ca/resources/library/itbl/using-clickers/using-clickers.pdf
- http://tlc.ucalgary.ca/science100
- Salustri, F. A. (2009). Four levels of questions. Xikiwiki. Retrieved August 14, 2009 from http://deseng.ryerson.ca/xiki/Learning/Main:Four_levels_of_questions .
- Bruff, D. (2009). Teaching with Classroom Response Systems. Creating Active Learning Environments. San Franisco, CA: Jossey-Boss.
- 7 Things You Should Know About Clickers (EDUCAUSE): http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7002.pdf
- Clickers in the Classroom: An Active Learning Approach: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/ClickersintheClassroomAnActive/157458
There are many applications that are billed as “ePortfolio management” systems – but most are really complicated, or reduce the process of building an ePortfolio to an exercise in paint-by-numbers and fill-in-the-blanks. What is really needed is a flexible, dynamic, highly personalized presentation, crafted by an individual or a small group over time.
The simplest incarnation of this design is in using a hosted blog website as an ePortfolio – taking advantage of the dynamic nature of a blogging application to craft a set of pages containing any content imaginable, in order to represent yourself (or your group) however is needed.
Tyler Sticka recently gave a presentation at WordCamp Portland 2009, where he describes the implementation of a personal portfolio using the WordPress blogging software.
Skip the first 3 and a half minutes, unless you’re a fan of hipster geekiness, but the rest of the presentation is really useful.
There are lots of options available for creating and hosting an ePortfolio:
Posted in Technology
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Tagged eportfolio
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Bryanne Young has written a tip sheet on curricular peer mentoring, a program that “enables students to work together to delve deeper and more analytically into course content”. Peer mentors are not TAs, but students who can help guide their peers through the learning process. Some of the benefits of peer mentoring are:
- Deeper student learning
- Facilitating learning through social interaction – critical for some students
- Peer mentoring can provide personalized support in large classes where it is not possible for the instructor to get to know each student individually
- Peer mentors may be able to relate course concepts and use examples that are in tune with students’ lives
The tip sheet includes more information plus examples of how peer mentoring has been implemented at the U of C in various disciplines. You can view it at:
http://tlc.ucalgary.ca/documents/ITBL_PeerMentoring_web.pdf .
I read an interesting article recently about including students in assessment. Hart (1999) explains that giving students more responsibility when it comes to evaluating their own work it could influence and motivate them to take the depth of the activity to a higher level. Hopefully, students become more aware and take more control of their own learning. Using evaluative questions is one method to get students thinking about their work and growth. Evaluative questions include:
1. If you had the opportunity to do this assignment again, what would you do differently?
2. What was the most difficult part of this assignment?
3. Did you think of any new questions during this project?
4. If students were to do this project next year, what advice would you give them?
5. How did your initial opinions/views change through the project?
6. How did you profit from this class?
One of the challenges I find with using reflective activities is having the students remember the details of the project. Although details can be recorded using journals and such, one method that comes to mind is using blogs or wikis, while the prior can be kept private and secure. Both have the ability to keep revisions each time a change is made whether individually or as a group. Each revision can then be compared with another one showing the history, or timeline, of a project. This history can then be reflected on and becomes a vital component of self-assessment.
References:
Hart, D. (1999). Opening Assessment To Our Students. Social Education, 65(6), 343-345.
Silberman, L. (1996). Active learning: 101 strategies to teach any subject. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
After sitting through a couple of workshops that used active learning strategies with varying success, I drafted the following guidelines for facilitators. Feel free to add your own to this list:
- Icebreaker activities are a great way to build community and allow students to get to know one another before implementing other active learning strategies.
- The activity should have educational merit. If the activity doesn’t apply to the course, ask yourself why you’ve included it.
- Students don’t necessarily know what they’re supposed to be getting out of an activity, so explain your objective to them and how it connects to the course.
- This one’s obvious, but give good directions. They’re essential for students to get maximum benefit from the activity.
- Make sure you leave enough time to complete the activity. Remember that some things such as readings can be done prior to the class, and some things can be done after the class (such as shared or private reflections, and graded assignments).
- Debrief after an activity. This can be done by groups reporting back to the class, an instructor-led discussion, or posting to an online discussion board after the class. Whatever way you do it, debriefing will help participants to identify common themes and pull everything together. You don’t want students to be so focused on the activity itself that they lose the point of why they are doing it.
- Think about how the activity could be scalable to larger groups. It’s pretty straightforward to incorporate active learning strategies with a group of 20; what if you have 200? Small group discussions are still possible, and give students the opportunity to manage the direction and focus of the topic. Debriefing will look a bit different when dealing with large classes. There may not be time for all groups to contribute their comments in a face-to-face environment, making an online discussion board an appealing way to debrief. If you want individuals to post comments, you could split the class into groups so that the numbers aren’t overwhelming.
- Think about variety. Split up a lecture by including a couple of activities, to allow students to think about the concepts and apply the learning. Also consider variety in your active learning strategies. Change things up a bit to keep interest high. There are a number of books that outline various active learning ideas; I’ve listed a couple below.
Bonk, C. J. & Zhang, K. (2008) Empowering online learning: 100+ activities for reading, reflecting, displaying & doing. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Silberman, L. (1996). Active learning: 101 strategies to teach any subject. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Student feedback is valuable any time during a course, from the first day of classes to the end of the semester. A Blackboard survey is a simple method to solicit feedback from students, and even before the first class or after the last class. Once a student completes the survey, the information is kept anonymous. A nice benefit is that the survey tool will organize the responses from all students, so large amounts of data can be collected and organized easily. The other added benefit is that student feedback can be presented back to the students by copying and pasting the results into a document and posting it for the class to view. Because the survey results are collected in the Grade Center (select Attempts Statistics from the Grade Center column) , participation points can be provided as Blackboard records who has submitted the survey to date.
Although online tests are often associated with student assessment, online testing tools can be used in many different ways. Yes, online assessment is possible, allowing for students to complete tests for grades. On the other hand, online quiz tools can also be used for collecting information from students such as their understanding of course content prior, during and after the course. These same principles could also be applied to individual class or topic. Knowing what the students understand is usefully to gauge and anticipate what information should be covered in class. The results of such self-tests can also be presented back to the students to show that you recognize where they are at with the content.
Online tests can be created in Blackboard with the results organized and summarized in the GradeCenter. Breeze has a similar but less robust testing feature, and is intended for student self-assessment and feedback only. To create online tests in Drupal take a look at the quiz module for a basic quiz tool.
Large enrollment classes have always been a challenge for instructors who try to implement active teaching and learning strategies and activities. Lectures, often contrasted to active learning, appear to dominate large size classrooms today. From the conversations that I had with some instructors, I have the impression that a lot of instructors would try a new teaching method but eventually go back to lecture-based course delivery style, either because that new method does not work very well or it involves too much work. As much as we advocate alternative teaching methods besides lecturing, I happen to think that lecture can also be effective if we can “move beyond monologue”. There are online workshops and tutorials of designing smart lectures on the website of Center for Teaching and Learning of University of Minnesota, with three major components of planning lectures, delivering lectures and evaluating lectures. The link to the website is provided below:
http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/lectures/overview/index.html
