Author: Amy Ostrom

Assessment, Best Practices, Collaboration, Distance Ed, Events, Innovative Instruction, Pedagogy, Teaching Advice

DE 2.0 Workshop: Humanizing Your Online Course

Amy Ostrom

humanize-your-content-900x423
“I miss getting to really know my students. It’s just not the same.”

“There’s no way of knowing who is on the other side of the screen.”

Sound familiar? If so then you aren’t alone.

Not only do some instructors feel this way about online learning, but students do as well. Often they feel isolated, disconnected, and insignificant. These feelings of seclusion can often lead to decreased motivation, attention, and engagement. As part of the online learning process, it is vital to intentionally design elements to make sure that that the human connection isn’t lost in the online learning process.

 

What is Humanizing?

Humanizing your course involves considering the teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence of all participants in order to build community and enhance communication. The ultimate goal of this process is to make online education as personal and individualized as possible while building relationships between your students, the content, and yourself.

About the DE 2.0 Workshop

This 3-week long, self-paced session will take you through some strategies that you can use in your online class to make you and your students feel more connected. While this course is held fully online, it does contain three optional synchronous sessions with experts in humanizing online education from around the world!

You might be interested in this session if:

  • You feel you are not connecting with your students in your online class the way you do in your face-to-face class.
  • You feel like your online class lacks community.
  • You want to make your course more engaging and personal for the students.

 

humanizing-youronline-course

Workshop Goals

  • Discover the elements of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence as it applies to the online learning environment, particularly in the areas of facilitation, learning domains, and course design.
  • Research assessment and engagement strategies, community building/maintaining platforms, and technology tools for increasing the humanized element.
  • Discuss elements of humanized learning with other faculty teaching online at College of Charleston.
  • Ask questions, exchange ideas, and meet other CofC faculty teaching distance education courses.
  • Create engaging content and online activities that foster the elements of teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence.

Learning Outcomes

  • Explore instructional theories that lead to a more humanized online class.
  • Identify areas of your course that can be made learner centered and/or interactive.
  • Revise and/or create course interactions, including social learning experiences, content delivery methods, and assessment of student learning.

Register now on TLT’s DE Readiness Blog!

Applications are open until January 31, 2017!

 

Best Practices, Distance Ed, Events, Pedagogy, Training Opportunities

Wanted! CofC DE Instructors Interested in Professional Development

Amy Ostrom

TLT is proud to announce the start of a new training opportunity for online faculty!

DE 2.0 is a series of immersive workshops that will be delivered largely asynchronously online. These sessions will be focused on topic specific items for faculty who are currently teaching online and want to dig a little deeper into updated technology and pedagogy for online learning.Now that you’ve taken the DE Readiness Course and taught online, what do you want to learn more about?

2.0 Deuces wild flyer

One workshop will be offered each semester starting Fall 2016.

Here are some examples of faculty nominated workshop topics that will be offered:

2.0 Card table

More information about these workshops will be available on TLT’s DE Readiness Blog by August 15th.

Do you have a session topic you’d like to suggest for the future? Or a resource that you’d like to see?

Visit http://blogs.cofc.edu/dereadiness/de-2-0/ and fill out the suggestion form.
Conferencing, Distance Ed

“So a robot walks into an elevator” and other tales from OLC Innovate

Amy Ostrom

So a robot walks into an elevator…sounds like the start to a joke, right? Believe me, this conference experience was anything but a joke! …and I really did see a virtual presence robot in an elevator, but more on that later.

Image Credit: Alex Rivera via Flickr https://goo.gl/u09l13
Image Credit: Alex Rivera via Flickr https://goo.gl/u09l13

 

 

Imagine that a conference dedicated to exploring emerging technologies for online learning and a separate conference to discuss blended learning possibilities had a baby and decided to throw a party in the Big Easy to celebrate and you might come close to the experience at OLC Innovate.  According to the official site, the purpose of the OLC Innovate conference was to “build new foundations for stronger, better higher education environments. And because innovation scales best when ideas are shared, our work sessions will explore emerging technologies and adapted teaching behaviors aimed at informing policy, inspiring leadership, and evolving practice at all levels impacting institutions, universities and colleges.”

Here’s the deal: we’ve all been to conferences that claim to expose people to new ideas, network, and maybe have some fun while you’re at it. What typically happens? You come home burdened with vendor flyers, business cards, and a head that weighs 20 pounds from sitting and absorbing the best you can in talk-at-you sessions.  This was not the case for me at OLC Innovate.  I came back loaded with ideas that can be immediately implemented, projects that challenge myself and the whole TLT team to do more, and genuine connections to some of the most brilliant and open people in the field.  If you’ll pardon the NOLA pun, I was jazzed to come back to work and get started.

 

Networking and Mentor Speed Dating

Photo Credit: Jessica Knott, https://goo.gl/RqMmf2
Photo Credit: Jessica Knott, https://goo.gl/RqMmf2 

 

One of the things that I was looking forward to most was getting to meet people face to face that I’ve only interacted with via social media in text form through my own professional development journey.  As excited as I was to meet finally, I have to admit the old adolescent fears crept in.  Did we really have so much in common with how we view education? Maybe we only really worked online?  Would they even know who I was? Don’t get me wrong.  I am one of those people who has never really met a stranger and loves to talk to anyone and everyone.  Networking at conferences is one of the best parts for someone like me who loves to talk it out (which classifies me as an Innovator according to the Keynote, but more on that later). I was not disappointed. After swallowing my fear I approached one of my colleagues that I’ve spoken to extensively online to introduce myself as she stood surrounded by people with whom she was obviously friends. Here goes nothing…

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Amy Ostrom, we’ve talked a lot on Twitter.”  

At the mention of my name I heard a gasp to my left.

“You’re Amy?”

“Yes?” (color me confused)

“I’m Laura! We’ve talked about this conference for months on Twitter! Thank you for offering to help!”

**Nods of recognition and smiles all around**

Turns out it was several members of the steering committee that I had been chatting up in my ever growing excitement. Interested conversation turned into an invitation to dinner and hallway conversations about how to get more involved in the whole conference experience. Another instance of this was when I walked into a presentation that was being delivered by another colleague and just said, “well this is where I find you”.  She immediately dropped what she was doing and gave me a hug.  Repeat the experience from above when she introduced me to the crew she was with.  It was amazing to be so readily accepted and made to feel welcome into a group of people who have been working together for years.

Moral of the story: TALK TO PEOPLE.  Whether it’s online or face to face.  Find colleagues from other universities that challenge your thinking and, to be frank, intimidate you.  Those are the people that you can learn the most from.  After all, why surround yourself only with people who can tell you what you already know? How will you ever learn and get better…and there is ALWAYS something that you can do better and you never know where that lesson will come from.

 

Session Take-Aways

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and focus of the presentations.  Even sessions that I thought, “I already know about that. I can skip it.” would turn into presentations that became, “I can’t believe I missed that!”.  For example, Michelle Pacansky-Brock from California State University at Channel Island (who gives fabulous online and face to face presentations if you get a chance to check them out) delivered a session entitled “Create Better Presentations”. Simple, to the point, and deceptively something that I “already knew”.  Keeping my eye on the #OLCInnovate backchannel it turned out to be a transformative experience for even the most advanced presenters.  One colleague of mine even stated that they were going to redo their whole presentation that they were delivering THE NEXT DAY due to the information that was presented.

Photo Credit: Laura Gogia, https://goo.gl/ikE6nh
Photo Credit: Laura Gogia, https://goo.gl/ikE6nh

 

 

Another session introduced me to one of the best “I can implement that!” ideas of the conference.  Jackson Wilson from San Francisco State University and his colleagues talked about the QOLT initiative in the California University System.  They gamified the quality assurance process for their online faculty using a deck of cards! I just fell in love with this process.  They had one of their faculty members give ideas on how he uses his own deck of cards to look at the assessment process.  He mentioned that assessment is typically long, involved, tedious, and hard to focus on. Can I get an Amen for that? However, with the deck he is able to focus on one standard at a time at his computer without having to switch browsers constantly and work his way through the deck.  Other times, he would pick 3 cards from the deck and those were his “greatness” challenges that he would revise and redesign within all of his courses, online or not. It was a way to maintain focus while also progressing without getting overwhelmed.  The participants of the session played a game that I thought would be fabulous for new to online instructors.  We each were dealt 2 cards.  On our turn we had to draw 2 additional cards. Someone then turned over a minute timer.  In that minute we had to look at our cards and make connections to what was already on the table, laying down and explaining the connections for as many as we could before the timer ran out.  It allowed us to see how the different parts of an effective online course are interdependant rather than just an arbitrary, stand alone standard.

Photo Credit: Amy Ostrom, https://goo.gl/oyibL8
Photo Credit: Amy Ostrom, https://goo.gl/oyibL8

More information from individual sessions will be coming over the summer.

 

Follow the Leaders

I can’t stress enough how empowering it was to be able to share ideas with the brilliant people I met at OLC Innovate. I’m looking forward to going again.  In the meantime, follow these people for an interesting perspective on teaching online.

 

M Pacansky-Brock

@brocansky

Barbara Taylor

@bltmacomb

Autumm Caines

@Autumm

Phil Denman

@PhilSDSU

A. Michael Berman

@amichaelberman

Jessica Knott

@jlknott

Whitney Kilgore

@whitneykilgore

Melissa Rasmussen

@mel1017

Laura Gogia

@GoogleGuacamole

Laura Pasquini

@laurapasquini

Keegan Long-Wheeler

@KeeganSLW

Amy Collier

@amcollier

Patrice Torcivia

@Profpatrice

Laura Gibbs

@OnlineCrsLady

Best Practices, Collaboration, discussion, Distance Ed, Events, Information Session, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Mobile, Pedagogy, social networking, TLT, Training Opportunities

TLT’s Distance Education Resources Blog

Amy Ostrom

TLT has a new resource available exclusively for our faculty who teach, or are interested in, online instruction!

http://blogs.cofc.edu/dereadiness/

There are two paths to choose from depending on your role:

Social-Media-2-1irk9m3-300x300 (1) Social-Media-23ptrpu-300x300

Choose this path if you:

  • Have never taught online before
  • Have taught online at another institution, but not CofC
  • Plan to teach online at CofC in the future

Start learning more about teaching online at CofC!

New to Distance Education

Choose this path if you:

  • Have completed the DE Readiness Course
  • Are currently teaching online at CofC
  • Are looking for resources related to online teaching and support

Explore more about online learning and support!

Currently Teaching Online

Make sure that you follow #CougarsOLI on all social media outlets to stay up to date on information and research pertaining to Online Learning Initiatives at College of Charleston

#CougarsOLI Logo (2)

#tltcon It's Going to Be Epic!
TLT

#TLTCon Session Highlight: All About DE

Amy Ostrom

Are you interested in online teaching?  Or maybe you’re wondering what others are doing in their online courses?

Then these are just some of the sessions for you!

distance-learning-banner-pic

Lessons Learned: A Discussion of Successes and Trials in an Online Course

Workshop Panelists:

  • Silvia Rodreiguez-Sabater (HISP)
  • Mary Ann Hartshorn (TEDU)
  • Amy Ostrom (TLT)
  • Melissa Thomas (CSL)

This interactive panel discussion is designed to hear the experiences from multiple online instructors from College of Charleston as they designed and taught their courses for the first time. A portion of the discussion will be opened to the audience to ask questions and turn from a panel to a round table discussion on issues relating to Distance Education.

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Online Course Assessment

Workshop presenter:

  • Doug Ferguson (COMM), Faculty Coordinator for Distance Education

Faculty at the College of Charleston complete the DE Readiness course before they teach online, but how are the online courses that they develop assessed for quality after faculty complete their training? A quality rubric is presently required of all applicants for an online course development stipend. Developed by Amy Ostrom and Jannette Finch, the rubric is a self-assessing, formative measure intended to reinforce the best practices learned in the Readiness course. This session presents detail about the rubric and entertains questions from the audience regarding online course quality at the College of Charleston.

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If you are interested in these sessions be sure to register for TLTCon, March 8th-10th, 2016.

Come to one session or come to them all! Whatever works best for you and your schedule.

For more information, visit our Eventbrite Page or the TLTCon Page on our blog.

Accessibility, Best Practices, Distance Ed, Pedagogy, Productivity, Teaching Advice, TLT

TLT’s Top Tips for Time Management

Amy Ostrom

What are instructors spending time on?

Below are the five most mentioned teaching behaviors identified in the research and from the feedback of online instructors. The ranking begins with the teaching activity that involved the highest time commitment, and descends from there. This is not a scientific analysis, but I included the list to provide an overview of the most prevalent online teaching activities (Van de Vord & Pogue, 2012).

  • Interacting with students: moderating discussion forums, responding to student emails
  • Evaluating student work: assignments, papers, discussion forums
  • Recording grades
  • Modifying and making changes to course materials and/or course home page
  • Addressing technical issues/course administration (not including grading)

 

Tips for Time Management

  1. Handle it once.

Following the principles of the GTD (Getting Things Done) Methodology, manage items as soon as you can.  For online teaching, this means doing things in a regimented format.  When emails come in, if an answer or action can be done in less than 5 minutes…do it now.  If It needs deeper thinking and reflection, mark it in a follow up folder or category before closing it.  While reading discussion boards, keep a spreadsheet open so that you can grade as you go and make notes while reading to help keep your students straight. Grade as items arrive and space out due dates to cut down on last minute or end of term grading.  Create blocks of time during each day to work on a particular item.  For example, Mondays from 10-11 am I work on items strictly for the mentors.  Everyday from 830-930 am I answer emails from participants about course related issues.  Thursdays from 1-4 are spend grading specified assignments.  Making this set schedule for yourself will make sure that you are allowing ample time to focus.

 

2.   Respond to students efficiently.

If a student asks a great question via email, reply to them and ask them to post their question and the response to the class, but if more than one student has emailed about the same issue or set of instructions, then address the group as a whole with a news item, whole class email, or something else that will make sure that all students see the information.  For example, if there is a procedural problem (students not knowing how to do something in a class) create a short video or screencast to walk them through the process.

 

3.   Make Time Count.

If it’s something that a student won’t notice…don’t do it!  If it’s something the students can do for themselves or with each other…delegate or provide opportunity to do it.  For example, a Course Lounge or question forum will allow students the ability to answer each other.  You can back this up by adding an “ask 3 before me” type policy so that you know they’ve tried to find help on their own first.  To make this efficient, you need to mindfully not engage in what one professor called “Whack a Mole” facilitation, where as soon as a discussion post or a question comes up the professor logs in to answer it or replies immediately.  Make sure you give your students that time to help each other or they will become accustomed to that immediate feedback and you’ll spend all your time responding to email.

 

4. Get Organized:  Location, Location Location

Have your course follow a logical path so that not only you but your students also know exactly where to go and what to do.  The easier it is to find something, the less time you spend looking for it!  This is especially applicable to the syllabus.  The more text heavy and exhaustive your syllabus, the less likely your students will be able to find what they need in the process.  Try breaking your syllabus up into sections and bulleting information rather than using paragraph texts.  Have your students engage in a scavenger hunt or quiz to show that they understand the key pieces of the document before the class gets too far underway.  This will lead to less questions and less time emailing “it’s in the syllabus”.

5. Get Organized: Me, Myself, and I

Make sure that your workspace is organized and ready to go.  This includes your computer!  If you have a hard time finding files or folders on your machine, take some time to organize your files so that you can easily grab an item when it is needed.  Keep a list handy of places you can go to for help.  Obviously TLT is going to be number one (:)) but make sure that you add your librarian, CDS, CSL, and other campus resources and how to contact them.

 

6. Develop a routine and electronic minions

There are a lot of moving parts in an online classroom.  Some can be automated, some cannot.  First, make a list of all items that you need to do (that you know of) and due dates prior to the course starting. Identify any weekly activities and blocks of time you’ll need to answer emails, grade, respond to discussions, etc.  If an item can be automated (for example, a news item reminder about a test that you want to go out on a certain date) go ahead and create the wording and release conditions before the class starts.  In the immortal words of Ronco…set it and forget it!  For those items that can’t be automated, create calendar reminders or use a task management tool that contains reminders like Asana.

 

7. #Unplugged

In honor of the TLT Lifetime DE Mentor award recipient Lancie Affonso, we bring you this most important tip.  Unplug every now and again!  Take some time away from the screen and technology to engage in the world.  It is tempting to want to be logged in 24/7 when your students are in session, but taking some time to take care of yourself (and your eyes, back, and wrists) will benefit you in the long run as an instructor.

 

8.  Use the right tools for the job.

Technology can do so much to help with time and task management, as well as automating parts of your responses without losing that personal touch.  Talk to your instructional technologist about some of the options to help you with time, task, grading, and communication management for your online class.  Check out this article on how to go about choosing the right tool for your situation:  http://blogs.cofc.edu/tlt/2014/03/05/plan-attack-implementing-technology-instruction/

 

9.  To Thine Own Self Be True

“Each person has a daily cycle when he or she is most alert; schedule that time for online work. Determine the best time of day to check and respond to email. Flag and prioritize emails.  Realize that what is an overload for some instructors is not for others. Before accepting teaching assignments, look at the other assignments already accepted for that semester and consider whether the workload is too heavy. Factor in family obligations and planned vacations when considering personal work capacity.  When planning for the future record notes each week in a teaching journal identifying thoughts about revisions for the next semester. Some fixes like broken links can be done on the fly during the current run, but others, like the rewriting of a section, need to wait until the students are no longer present. At the end of the semester, reflect on the notes and adjust as needed.”

 

10.  Practice your online writing

Because writing is a major channel of communication in an online class, the importance of clear and concise writing of the course materials cannot be over-emphasized. If one student finds a sentence unclear, the instructor will need to spend valuable additional time responding to clarify. Five or ten minutes of additional time for polishing a message or task instructions before distributing or publishing may save hours in clarifying later.  Have someone who is not familiar with an assignment read the instructions and see if it makes sense or if they could do the assignment with the information you provided.  Keep a list of frequently asked questions and your responses.  You can then copy and paste your responses or keep a running list published in a Google Doc that would get updated in real time for your students and would be easy to search for keywords.

 

11.  Design with Accessibility in Mind

Too often faculty members will design an online course and then realise a semester later that they have a student with a disability in their courses that require accommodations (screen readers, subtitles, alternative formats, etc.)  While it may take more time as you build the course, designing your course to be as accessible as possible from the start will save you more time (and you will reach more students) than trying to scramble after you get an accommodation request letter.  Remember, it is easier to construct than to retrofit a class!

 

Clearing a Path for People with Special Needs Clears the Path for Everyone
Accessibility, Assessment, Best Practices, instructional technology, Pedagogy, Teaching Advice

Designing with Accessibility in Mind, Part 1: The Theory

Amy Ostrom

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:

  • Think about the whole process more as Accessibility rather than Compliance. When you hear someone bring up the topic of working with students with disabilities, you often hear it referred to as ADA Compliance.  Just that phrase can conjure up images of lawsuits, courtrooms, and “early retirement”…but it doesn’t have to be that way!  True, there are federal requirements that are outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act, reauthored in 2010.  What it all boils down to is making sure that each student in your course has equitable access to the information and participation.  When you think about it, that just makes sense!  Why would a student be in our courses?  To learn.  How can we help them learn? By giving them the opportunity to do so.  To learn more about what this means, check out this video on Web Accessibility as it pertains to College of Charleston.

 

  • It is much easier and less time consuming to design a course to be accessible from the ground up than to try and retrofit it later. Sometimes, you’ll hear a faculty member say “I’ll worry about that IF I have a student who needs a disability in my class”.  However, as one professor who recently had a student with visual impairments in her class put it, “I realized at that point it was too late.  I had to struggle to get all of my material together and put into a format that the student could use.  Add that on top of not knowing what that meant or looked like and all of the responsibilities of the semester.  I was stressed out, the student was falling behind, and it wasn’t really their fault! I just hadn’t thought about it.” Many of us will be teaching courses that we’ve taught before, so how can we start looking at accessibility issues and fitting in pieces that fit?  Which leads us to…
  • Consider using Universal Design for Learning principles as you redesign parts of your course. “Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn,” (CAST 2015)[2].   Structured to help all learners in your courses, not just students with disabilities, this framework for curriculum design is based off of three primary principles:
    • Multiple Means of Representation: Present information in different ways so that all learners can access the information.  Look for flexible ways to present what you teach and what you want the students to learn.  Consider using visual and auditory elements, experiential learning, and kinesthetic opportunities to engage with content.
    • Multiple Means of Expression: Provide ways for students to show what they know and what they can do using multiple modalities. Project Based Learning is a great way to do this by giving students a forced choice menu of final product options and adding in a reflection piece.
    • Multiple Means of Engagement: Consider using different “hooks” or “activators” to capture your students’ attention to the content and hold it. Remember, relevance is key!

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.

To learn more about HOW to do this, including examples from current faculty, stay tuned for Designing with Accessibility in Mind, Part 2: The Practice (Coming in May…debuting just in time for your summer course planning!)

Additional Resources

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.

Score Keeper Screenshot
Assessment, iPad, Mobile, Tech Generation

Track Your Teams with Score Keeper by Learning Dojo

Amy Ostrom

Score Keeper – What is it and how can I use it?

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 

Overview

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!

Score Keeper Screenshot

 

work-struggle-with-technology-Veer
Assessment, Classrooms, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Pedagogy, TLT

A Plan of Attack for Implementing Technology into Your Instruction

Amy Ostrom
work-struggle-with-technology-Veer
Image Credit: Veer

Here at Teaching, Learning, and Technology part of our mission is to support, develop, and educate faculty in the integration of educational technology into pedagogy and assessment.  Our goal for doing this is that it will enhance student learning and promote effective or innovative practices.  Lately, I have met with several members of the College of Charleston faculty who are interested in getting started with incorporating more technology into the classroom or starting to look at it for the first time.  It can be daunting when faced with the choices of technology tools that are on the market.  Which one is the best?  Can my students use it?  Do I really HAVE to use technology to get my point across?

Here are our top 5 tips to consider when you are looking at implementing educational technology into your courses:

  • Above all, technology should be chosen to ENHANCE instruction.  Too often faculty members find a new tool and try to come up with a way to use it in class, which is not necessarily a bad thing and can lead to some innovative instruction.  However, trying to force a tool to fit into your course simply because it’s new and shiny may not be the best way to introduce technology into your courses.  Remember, the instruction should be used to structure tool choice rather than using the tool to structure your instruction.

 

  • Define what you want the tool to accomplish and the relevant features. There are tons of tools out there to achieve your goal for any action.  Just do a quick Google search for apps for managing a to-do list (http://bit.ly/1oquZP2)! The first step to a purposeful integration is to reflect on your current teaching practices to see where your lessons could be enriched with a technological tool.  Next, define what you want the tool to be able to do and what are your “deal breaker” features, or features that the tool absolutely must or must not do.  This will help to narrow your search.  Of course, when it comes to this, you can always have a conversation with your neighborhood, friendly Instructional Technologist to help with the narrowing and research process!

 

  • Plan ahead and test it out.  Whenever you are trying a new instructional technology tool, it may take a while for you to feel comfortable with using the tool or to get it set up the way that you want.  Like anything, this comes with practice and exposure to the product.  Make sure that if you want to use a new tool in your courses that you give yourself at least 2 weeks to really get to know the app or tool before implementing it with your students.  Also, try the tool in multiple locations and using multiple platforms.  For example, try using a web based tool both on and off campus, in the classroom where you want to work with it, and on Chrome/Firefox/Internet Explorer/Safari to make sure everything displays and functions the same way.  Nothing is more frustrating than getting in front of your students to facilitate a wonderful lesson planned with technology and have it not work the way that you intended.  Which leads me to our next point…

 

  • Have a backup plan just in case.  In a perfect world, we would all be able to walk into any classroom and have every lesson go smoothly…the students are actively learning, all of the technology functions perfectly, and you leave class with the high of knowing that you have helped to mold young minds into the way of the future.  Snap back to reality!  There are too many variables to have that utopian classroom be a constant, so as effective instructors we need to be prepared with various instructional strategies to help our students meet the end objectives for the lesson.

 

  • Don’t be afraid to try something new!  Yes, things can go wrong and it’s scary to change from the way that you may have done things for years.  It can also be amazing and you can see growth, access, and engagement with material that you never thought possible.  Be honest with your students about your new endeavors and ask them for their feedback.  When the students know that you are learning and that you value their opinions about what is going on in the classroom, it creates a sense of ownership within the cohort of learners in your course.

One faculty member on campus told me that he tests his material for his online courses in his face to face course and has his students rate them.  It helps to shape the instruction and trouble shoot for the next running of the course.  Another faculty member in the Department of Communication told his students that they were going to try a new tool in the class and that it was the first time he had ever tried to use this tool, so they were going to experience it together.  The students responded to his openness and they ended up learning from each other and allowing this particular faculty member to branch out and try more technology tools to engage his students.

 

When you start to look at integrating new tools into your lessons it may seem like there are so many options and only one of you, but keep in mind that there is always safety in numbers.  Talk to your colleagues to see what they are doing and what they have found to be successful and what has not.  You can learn just as much from a failed attempt as you can from a successful one.  Attend workshops and training sessions to help with your comfort level.  In addition, you can always contact your Instructional Technologist to help with an individualized plan of attack!

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1-1-1, Collaboration, Faculty Showcase, Faculty Technology Institute, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Mobile, Productivity

Faculty Guest Post: Paul Collins Talks about Students Helping Students with Celly

Amy Ostrom

Our guest poster this week is Paul Collins, Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance.  Paul attended the Spring 2013 FTI.

As part of the Scenery and Lighting Design and Production concentration in the Theatre major, students are required to take a course in which they learn Computer Aided Drafting and Design. The software on which the students learn is brand new to nearly all of them, and very complicated. We spend time in class going over the necessary skills and tools, but the students are then expected to complete exercises in the computer lab as homework. Because of the complexity of the software and the lack of experience that the students have with it, struggles are very real and frequent, and I spend a lot of time with individual students working through the process.

While I work closely with each of the students, I have also noticed in previous semesters that the students do a great job helping each other. Sometimes while I am working with an individual in class, another student has a question about something, but by the time I get to this student, a neighbor has helped to solve the problem. I encourage the students to work on their homework in the lab together so that they can take advantage of what I call ‘the collective wisdom of the class’.

During the Faculty Technology Institute (in Spring 2013), I was introduced to a tool that has allowed me to expand this ‘collective wisdom’ beyond the walls of the classroom. Celly (simply http://cel.ly/ in your web browser) is a kind of online discussion board, similar to other discussion boards that you may be familiar with (including the tool available in OAKS). However, the advantage that Celly has over traditional discussion boards is the ability for the user to receive and send messages in a number of different ways: via email, mobile app, online web portal or text. The text feature is what makes this tool truly powerful- by connecting the discussion to a cell phone, posts to the board are more immediately available both to the students and to me. A question can be put up on the Celly, and be responded to almost immediately by whoever gets to it first. Here is an example of one of the conversations (note… read the conversation from bottom to top)

 

 

In this situation, a student asked for clarification about a handout. Within a minute, another student joined the conversation to try to help, as well as giving advice on how to create the shape in question. I also was available to help at this time, and checked the handout so that I could answer the question. Within 8 minutes, I had the problem figured out, and posted a clarification to OAKS to clear things up for the whole class. This is only one example of what is a relatively easy question, but would likely have caused this student to either be unable to continue, or at the very least have to go back and make significant revisions. If the message had gone to a discussion board or email, the response time would not have been nearly as quick as the text message allowed.

There are a few things that I’d like to mention, though: First, this is a small class. With a larger group of active users, receiving the messages via text could quickly become overwhelming (especially if you do not have an unlimited texting plan). There is an online web portal which updates immediately, and you can receive the messages via email or mobile device, but this also brings you back to the response time issue that traditional discussion boards have. Each individual user (student and faculty alike) has the ability to set notification preferences to whatever combination of methods desired.

Celly also allows me to contact the class via text message without sending from my personal phone (and thus sharing my cell number with the whole class). I will send out a ‘how is the homework going?’ reminder message around Friday or so, as the homework is due on Monday. However, if this ‘reminder’ feature is the primary reason for using a service such as this, Remind101 is probably a more appropriate tool (as this service allows ‘outgoing’ text messages from teacher to student, but not vice versa).

Celly also has a ‘private messaging’ feature that allows users within the ‘cell’ to send messages to individuals rather than the group.

When this tool was initially introduced to me during the FTI, I did not think that it would be one that I would wind up using, but I’m glad that I gave it a shot this semester. I think that it is a powerful tool for those students who have chosen to participate, and I will continue to use it in the future.

And the best part: I get to be a robot.