E-tivity 5.1

This is a wish list of technologies I’d love to make use of for my classes. I am just identifying some of the sites I have found and explaining how I could use them.  I haven’t used them, so I cannot say if they are easy to use or problem free.

1. Edmodo

I have signed up, and done some introductory tutorials. It appears similar in appearance to Facebook.  It offers extras such as tracking progress, awards (badges) and claims to  engage students. The students are mostly familiar with Facebook, so learning the actual program should not be too difficult and allow them to concentrate on learning the content.  I have used Facebook as a means of communicating subject material with the students and I think Edmondo would be a great alternative because it will keep the education account separate from social life. One problem with Facebook is that posts can end up out of order if someone makes a comment on an earlier post. That may still be a problem with Edmondo. Other than setting up folders in a library, I cannot see another way of structuring the lesson material. Therefore Edmodo is not suitable for the particular project I have in mind. it may be useful for a different type of lesson in the future.

2. Scribblar.com

This is an online collaborative whiteboard with text and audio.  It says it can do document and image upload, but doesn’t mention sharing desktops. I have used Adobe connect with work – but it would be good to find a free and simple program for students to use. Chat can be via audio or text, but there is no video. This is not a shortcoming to me, because video requires so much bandwidth. Having a tool which allows people to communicate in real time can be valuable to increase a sense of collegiality and facilitate groupwork. Interaction with other people is a “key learning component in contsructivist learning theories”. (Jonassen, 1991 in Ally 2004, p.43)

3. Jing

This program facilitates the capture of screen images and videos. I envisage using it to create tutorials for online students showing how to navigate certain web sites, or to use some on-line tools we have for cataloguing. Voiceovers can be recorded as you move the mouse around the screen and explain what is being done. The end product is saved online and a link is available to share the end product. This is advantageous for learners, because they have control over when to download the video. The concept of being to provide demonstrations to remote learners is something to make use of whenever necessary. A very user friendly tutorial is available, which also suggests downloading camtasia which enables editing as well. I did use Jing and put it into my project, but the resulting video could not be viewed on a mobile device. I remade the video in Camtasia, with a much better result. Unfortunately Camtasia is only a trial version.

4. Google Docs

I have found a tutorial which shows how to use Google docs in the classroom. Byrne, R (2012) Google Documents for teachers. This gives lots of ideas beyond just having a page to which everyone can contribute, including creating self-assessing quizzes. This would be great for formative assessments. Bransford et al (in Ally 2004) describe instant feedback to students as motivating as well as providing information, so having a tool which enables me to create self-assessing quizzes is very useful. From the experience of using Google Docs to list our class blogs, it would seem to be a much easier tool for asynchronous collaboration than a wiki. I am concerned about tracking the editing though.

You can find the various documents in Google Drive. Anything you create here can be saved in the “cloud” and accessed from any computer, anywhere with access to the Internet. You can allow others access to just see the pages or to edit them. It would be a great facility for students to submit assessments, and the teacher to be able to add feedback directly.

5. Hot Potatoes

I have installed this and had a little play. It seems very easy to use. It is a program which can create interactive activities such as crosswords, jumbled sentences and gap fill.  Although they are not complex problems to solve, I believe there is still a place for simple activities to reinforce some learning. They can be used in conjunction with other forms of online learning to ensure the learner is engaged with the material.  I introduced my class to some word games where they had to identify key words, secondary statements etc. It was a great experience for them, because they were getting instant feedback – and no-one was getting 100% at first. This was a great motivator for them to improve and they kept at it for much longer than I expected. As Ally (2004, p18) says, “learning should be an active process”, and McGonigal (2010) enthuses about the motivation games provide for learning.

I did create some puzzles in Hot Potatoes, but found I could not embed them in my web site. I had to create a link to an external site. Since I wanted to keep things simple, I found another quizmaker to use. See proprofs http://www.proprofs.com

References

Ally, M. (2004) Foundations of educational theory for online learning in T. Anderson, and F. Elloumi, Theory and Practice of Online Learning. (Online, accessed 30 June 2013)

http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/index.html

McGonigal, J. (2012) Gaming can make a better world.  TED Talks (online accessed 17 July2013).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM