Blackboard Collaborate and Zoom Web-Conferencing

It's March 19, 2018.  I should be asleep, but I've committed myself to revamping my journey as an author and writer.

People are always "lookin' at me crazy," asking about what I'm up to this time.  Yes, my brain goes in a million directions.  Right now, my mind is on teaching with technology.

I left you in June 2016, when I was an online professor.  I am still teaching college courses online, and I love it.  But, I did land a job in Texas, so I moved from Florida to Texas at the end of July.  I left you at a point that I didn't even know I was moving.

What has Texas brought me?  A gigantic push for teaching with technology and an eye-opening experience to techniques that I wasn't using.

Today, let's talk about Zoom and Blackboard Collaborate.

Both technologies enabled me to record lectures, tutorials, and conferences.  

I used Blackboard Collaborate for years, and it is built into the learning management systems that I currently use- Canvas and Desire2Learn.

Blackboard Collaborate has improved in that users do not have to download any files to access the program.  Simply provide users with a participant link/ number or log into the session.

Zoom is new to me, I only tapped into it this semester.  From the site, you can set up a free account, and then download the app onto your computer.  From there, you can record a session using Cloud technology or save the file to your computer.  I do like the option to download and save files to your computer. 

Both technologies permit whiteboard usage, file sharing, and screen sharing.  I actually made small slide decks using Powerpoint and Google Slides, and then shared my screen to share the content.  

Just make sure your microphone and camera are working and you actually hit record... or else, you'll end up like me, speaking on mute for an hour, while not recording :)

Online or Brick_and_Mortar

It's been a while, but I'm back and blogging.

I took some time to switch gears and get my doctoral proposal approved.  That's squared away, so let's blog, shall we?

In 2013, I decided to return to school to pursue a doctorate.

I always knew I wanted to be called, "Dr.," but how?

Well, stop trying to fix what's not broken.  I was teaching at the college level since I was 19.

However, at the time, I was working 3 other jobs between 3 counties.  There was no way I could work out a schedule.  On top of that, I kind of don't need my hand held when it comes to writing papers.

The Internet is your friend; at 26, I did not feel the need to have someone in front of me.

Why am I trying then to move to another state to study science? 

Why can't I stay at home, work, and complete coursework from my couch?

Brick-and-mortar are great for certain purposes, but online worked for me, for a particular school.

Do your research and find out who has the program for you.  Who has residencies that work for you?

What are the costs, enrollment timeframe, and what financial aid is there? 

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Prior to this course, I was familiar with learning management systems, YouTube, podcasts, and social media.  However, I gained insight into using RSS readers.  I didn't actually know that this was a technology that I was already using, by subscribing to others and having updates consolidated into one site.  I always saw the RSS logo and Facebook's newsfeed serves to display who I follow, so I gained insight into how RSS sites worked and the convenience of that technology.

Although I have used blogs in the past, it was not a tool I kept up with or tracked statistics of.  I gained insight into formatting the blog and that it is important to post often.  By blogging, I read other blogs outside of this course and saw that it isn't just opinions and rants.  We actually had to provide references.  We can also customize and format the settings so that it is easy for viewers to see who we follow and what they blog.

As an online teacher, I know that students are nontraditional, adults who have various reasons as to why they take courses online.  I gained insight into how my online presence influences them, such as if I don't reply to emails, give feedback on assignments, send out announcements, then they will reflect what I portray.  If my teacher is online, giving advice, then I have to rise to the occasion and improve my work.  I also gained insight into how just advising to buy a textbook and read the notes does not help students.  Yes, andragogy is about self-directed learning but if someone doesn't learn by just reading, then what does text on a screen or in a book help?  I have to verbalize or explain more via supplemental notes to better prepare students for exams.

In the future, I will ask my deans and authority figures about what podcasts, blogs, and videos are appropriate, or in general, what company or people are appropriate to reference information from.  I do have a blog for my course, I just don't use it aside from the first day's information.  So, I can use it more for posting helpful study links, this way the information is reusable for subsequent classes. Upon discovering that there's YouTube EDU, Glogster EDU, and TeacherTube, which are classroom-appropriate, I will use those types of sites to share media with my students.  This avoids the privacy or inappropriate content I fear will pop up with regular social media and open access sites.

Sustaining Smartphone Technology

Smartphones are widely used devices for not only communication, but searching the Internet and can be used as assessment tools. Smartphones are very applicable because they sync with instructor and student schedules.  For example, our learning management system can be subscribed to on mobile calendars, automatically updating, and letting students know what we are doing in class.  Smartphones are useful for accessing the learning management system's app.  In teaching science, visuals are important for understanding microscopic or invisible processes (Valanides, Efthymiou, & Angeli, 2013).  Therefore, smartphones are useful in quickly accessing videos.

Although smartphones increased motivation and independent learning, not all students may be used to the technology or proper netiquette (Backer, 2010).  In a community college setting, the student population is diverse and so may be technology skills.  There is always a risk on what is being shared or posted and privacy with GPS and social media.  Sustaining technology use for students must address privacy and appropriateness, therefore the use of classroom-safe apps and websites should be used.  To sustain usage with faculty, professional development, training, and learning communities are important, as we cannot assume that today's instructors are fluent in Web 2.0 and smartphone technology (Kenney, Banerjee, & Newcombe, 2010).  Adequate instruction and tutorials should be shared with teachers and students to prolong usage, otherwise we would isolate those that need aid.

Despite risks of smartphones, many people use them.  Teaching a student, let's say someone from a different socioeconomic status or nationality or even gender, who faced some form of oppression, can lead to a positive change.  This person may take joy in learning a new technology, thus proving to themselves that they are competent (Laureate Education, 2013).  It is not hard to find adult learners who think they are too old to learn a technical skill. However, the goal is to sustain usage of new skills, thoughts, processes, and organizations, in hopes to pique their curiosity, interest, and excitement in learning (Laureate Education, 2013).

References

Backer, E. (2010). Using smartphones and Facebook in a major assessment: The student experience. E-Journal of Business Education & Scholarship of Teaching, 4(1), 19–31.
Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elisa_Backer/publication/228968058_Using_smartphones_and_Facebook_in_a_major_assessment_the_student_experience/links/0046353311345311be000000.pdf

Kenney, J. L., Banerjee, P., & Newcombe, E. (2010). Developing and sustaining positive change in faculty technology skills: lessons learned from an innovative faculty development initiative. International Journal of Technology in Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 89-102. Retrieved from http://www.sicet.org/journals/ijttl/issue1002/1_Kenny.pdf

Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Dr. Tony Bates: Using technology to engage students and assess learning [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Teaching with Technology Blog—Using Technology to Foster and Assess Student Learning

Pinterest & Flickr

Pinterest is a useful tool, as we really do "put a pin" in "interesting" finds on the Internet.  To foster learning, I usually go onto Facebook and skim through links, news feeds, and suggested sites.  Those searches lead to useful memes or articles, especially on scientific finds, where I can share information via Pinterest.  Websites typically contain Pinterest icons, this way I can direct students to anything from top technologies for college students to world news.  I find learning to be informal yet informational when I can tell students that there is a real world application, and then we can discuss the content and apply it to classroom theory (Shellenbarger & Robb, 2013).

Flickr can be used for more than storing and sharing your iPhone pictures.  Flickr provides students with a photo-narrative learning scheme (Kawka, Larkin, & Danaher, 2012).    As with pinned images and sites, Flickr provides students with a visual of how theory and real-world applications merge.  Students can learn image similarity, and therefore by grouping images together, they receive visual examples  of a lesson.  For example, if I am teaching about microscopic views of fungi, I can group these images I capture in class and place them online.  It is like a picture library once I group together all of our visuals, and this can serve as a review to exams that are practical in nature.

To engage students, I would create a Pinterest and Flickr account for the course and monitor the activity.  Pinterest is useful for engagement because students can "pin" any source that they feel aids their learning and share it with the whole class.  Chances are, they will select a site that teachers and other students didn't think of.  I would enable students to collaborate and add images to respective Flickr collections.  However, having students caption their images helps them to understand what they are actually seeing.  For example, if there is a picture of an amoeba, label the pseudopods.  

To access learning using Flickr, I would create a visual/ image-based test.  I already use images on exams, therefore Flickr Photo Quiz can be used as a sort of Jeopardy.  Pinterest can be used to aggregate quizzes, like personality quizzes.  Therefore, I would use Pinterest to house different sites that contain interactive quizzes.  The objective of interactive quizzes are to provide the students with instantaneous feedback, and with that feedback, students keep attempting the assessments for higher scores and understanding (Xi, 2010).  This repetition hopefully aids in long-term memory storage.

References

Kawka, M., Larkin, K. M., & Danaher, P. (2012). Creating Flickr Photo-Narratives with First-Year Teacher Education Students: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Designing Emergent Learning Tasks. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 37(11). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2012v37n11.4

Shellenbarger, T., & Robb, M. (2013). Pinstructive Ideas: Using a Social Networking Bulletin Board for Nursing Education. Nurse educator, 38(5), 206-209. doi: 10.1097/NNE.0b013e3182a0e5e7

Xi, X. (2010). Automated scoring and feedback systems: Where are we and where are we heading?Language Testing, 27(3), 291–300.  Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

Sustaining Technology Use- Doc Cams

Whether instructors use Skype, other video conferencing technology, a television, or projector screen in a lecture hall, a document camera is essential to science.  From experience, while Skyping students living on the opposite side of Florida or in Japan, a document camera was essential in showing students in real time how to perform pertinent mathematics. Similar to Khan Academy and mini lectures on YouTube, with a document camera I can speak and write, use different colors, and students are free to jump in and ask for clarification. 

Challenges were evident with technical difficulties, Internet connection, and orientation of the document camera.  For me to see the distance students’ calculations and correct them with each step, they would need a document camera. Cost is a challenge, as such technology could run $60 to $70. In person, the challenge is really to fund having the teachers’ document camera in the classroom, equipped with a projector.  This technology worked well for me when my chemistry teachers solved problems, way back in 2005.

To foster engagement, I would use this technology for online students as a whiteboard. For example, my Biology students are learning about Punnett squares; I could show them where to write the letters of genetic traits and how to pair them up. For Anatomy and Physiology, I would draw how blood circulates or how water flows in and out of red blood cells. From experience, sure PowerPoints are appealing, but students grasp the concept when they see me writing or drawing in real time, and they've expressed this.  In a larger class, like when I was a a student in a chemistry course with 200 people, a document camera enabled everyone to see the teacher’s sketches, and the teacher could indicate alternative ways to solve problems; plus, a microphone can be used so the ones in the back could hear (Bogard & McMackin, 2012). 

To sustain this technology, I need access to a document camera and the ability to connect it to a computer and projector, so the IT department would be consulted on the setup. During the lecture, I would conduct an informal discussion or survey of my class and see if writing out the procedures helped more than a PowerPoint. I would invite my dean to see the class dynamics. For my online students, I would conduct a virtual office hour session, use the document camera to aid in a video conference. I would solve problems, draw out concepts, etc., and then report it to my dean for our weekly updates.  I would collaborate with other designing faculty on how to sustain this as a technique on further courses, thus revamping office hours, where I just wait for students to email me.  By communicating with other professors and IT, we can teach each other and brainstorm ideas and troubleshooting techniques, thus moving away from resistance to an older technology that is still not always used, still seen as relatively new, and may be feared (Laureate Education, 2013).

References

Bogard, J. M., & McMackin, M. C. (2012). Combining Traditional and New Literacies in a 21st-Century Writing Workshop. Reading Teacher, 65(5), 313-323.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2013). Dr. Tony Bates: Overcoming resistance to technological change and sustaining change [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Teaching with Technology Blog- Using Technology to Enhance Your College Teaching

          Google Sites is a quick and easy way to create accessible and shareable information without coding or markup language.  It is as easy as uploading files and attachments and inserting maps, videos, documents, spreadsheets, photo slideshows, and calendars.  Permission settings designate those who are collaborators, viewers, and owners.  Content within the site is searchable (Google Sites, 2011).  Cloud computing enables students and teachers to upload and store information that is reusable and accessible.

Using Google Sites for teaching and learning within science provides learners with a “one-stop-shop” for assignments, announcements, policies, and content specific to the individual courses.  Unlike institutional LMSs, Google Sites are created by instructors.  Just like other online resources, students are comfortable using websites and would not have to navigate new and changing LMSs.  YouTube^TM videos and podcasts of scientific innovations and experiments can be quickly uploaded.  In online science courses, students have a tough time understanding concepts written by instructors, but they could take smaller concepts and discuss them in groups and then attempt to re-teach that to others.  Recorded lectures can also be accessed through the site.  When doing group projects or even hosting office hours, Hangouts is accessible and the site is shareable just by copy/pasting the URL.               

Benefits of using Google Sites for student engagement surround collaboration, the ability to upload projects, media, or portfolios for everyone to see.  Open communication, simultaneous responding, yet allowing the instructor to be a gatekeeper as students converse are aspects of constructivist learning (Denton, 2012). Challenges of Google Sites for engaging science students surrounds Internet access and students checking in on the site for updates.  A challenge can be effectively assessing how students improve academically via Google Sites (Denton, 2012).  Using Google Sites to further engage students is useful in sharing reflections, having students learn computer literacy in creating their own pages to teach other students, and establishing a social media connection, such as Twitter^TM.  Rather than having students read and write papers, groups can collaborate and develop and share wikis, critique them like the well-known Wikipedia, and then edit the project (Laureate Education, 2011).  Learning styles may differ but generally people can “play around with” websites and maneuver them well.

       Blogging can be done with Internet access.  I use the Blogger app on my iPhone and iPad to create and respond to blogs.  With Internet access, email notifications alert me as to new comments.  Blogging is easily linked to social networking sites, other blogs, websites, and online platforms.  It is easy to direct traffic to the blog.  Time consumption is inevitable in building a presence or following.  What is the brand? What is unique? Does the blogger put time into keeping up with the posts and being diligent about the reliability and validity of what is being said?  What is the degree of presence of the blogger to generate interest in the blog?  Content is vulnerable to being taken and reused.  If I am a professor with a novel idea or with content specific to my course, then posting it for the world to see will leave the content open to usage without permission.

References

Denton, D. W. (2012). Enhancing instruction through constructivism, cooperative learning, and cloud computing. TechTrends, 56(4), 34-41. doi: 10.1007/s11528-012-0585-1

Gaille, B. (2015, June 4). 16 pros and cons of blogging. Retrieved from http://brandongaille.com/16-pros-and-cons-of-blogging/

Google Sites. (2011). Google Sites overview. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/sites/overview.html

Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). New and emerging technological trends for education [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu