The ShowMe app has just become available through the iTunes app store. ShowMe lets you create audio-narrated whiteboard diagrams. The diagrams can be uploaded to the ShowMe site (after you have registered at their site). The diagram can be uploaded as either a public or private drawing. A private drawing can be shared with others by giving them the URL to the drawing. Public drawings can be searched at the ShowMe site. From the web site, the drawing can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, email, or embeded in your web site or blog.
You may want to consider getting a stylus. You can read reviews by clicking on the links in this post.
When you open the app (which works only in landscape view), the toolbar shown below appears. In addition to drawing and erasing, images can be imported from your Photo library on your iPad.
Screencasts could be viewed by students for reviewing material covered in class.
If each student or group of students had an iPad, they could be assigned to create a screencast on a particular topic, which then be viewed by the teacher and other students in the class (either at the ShowMe web site or at the class’s web site).
In a post of Tomorrow’s Professor Mailing List, Richard Felder answers a letter in which the person indicates that their teaching evaluations by students when active learning strategies are used and that the students want to be taught using passive techniques such as lecturing.
Felder explains that "An important part of our job as teachers is equipping as many of our students as possible with high-level problem-solving and thinking skills, including critical and creative thinking" and that "well-implemented student-centered instruction is much more effective than traditional lecture-based instruction at promoting those skills."
It’s important that the students know why you are using the active learning techniques. Felder states, "If you tell them you’re doing it because research has shown that it leads to improved learning, greater acquisition of skills that potential employers consider valuable, and higher grades, most will set aside their objections long enough to find that you’re telling the truth." (See Felder, R.M. (2007). Sermons for grumpy campers. Chem. Engr. Education, 41(3), 183-184, http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Columns/Sermons.pdf.
Additional questions that he asks are:
"Did you use the new method long enough to overcome the learning curve associated with it? It can take most of a semester to become comfortable with and adept at active learning, and if you’re using a more complex technique such as cooperative or problem-based learning and you’re not being mentored by an expert, it might take several years."
"If you got unsatisfactory student ratings, did you check references on the method to see if you were doing something wrong? For example, did you assign small-group activities in class that lasted for more than 2–3 minutes or call for volunteers to respond every time? (See Reference 4 to find out how both practices can kill the effectiveness of active learning.) The bibliography suggests references you might consult for each of the most common student-centered methods."
"In your midterm evaluations, did you specifically ask the students whether they thought active learning (or whatever you were doing) was (a) helping their learning, (b) hindering their learning, or (c) neither helping nor hindering? If you do this, you may find that the students objecting vigorously to the method are only a small minority of the class. If that’s so, announce the survey results in the next class session. Students who complain about student-centered methods often imagine that they are speaking for most of their classmates. Once they find out that very few others feel the way they do, the grumbling tends to disappear immediately."
Here are some references provided by Felder:
Felder, R.M., and Brent, R. (2007). Cooperative learning. In P.A. Mabrouk, ed., Active Learning: Models from the Analytical Sciences. ACS Symposium Series 970, Chapter 4, pp. 34–53. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Papers/CLChapter.pdf
In the article, "Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired How Students Learn?" Daniel Willingham, he states that he hears two suggested ways technology has changed the way students think. Some have suggested that without the multimedia that technology provides, students will become bored. Some have suggested that technology has allowed students the ability to multitask.
Willingham states that there is some truth in the first suggestion but none in the second. The focus of this post is to discuss the first suggestion and ignore the second since no one can truly multitask.
Is technology needed in order for a student to be engaged? And how is technology best used to engage students?
Willingham explained in "Why Don’t Students Like School?" that a good way to engage students is to pose solvable mental problems. These problems are not necessarily puzzles but rather can be activities that present students with mental challenges such as when listening to a story and attempting to anticipate what will happen next.
"In order for technology (or any instructional tool) to increase student engagement in academic content, it has to aid in presenting problems as both challenging and solvable."
"…there is nothing inherently interesting about the technology (at least once the newness wears off ); students are not interested in all software or all hyperlinks. It’s the content and what the user might do with it that makes it interesting or not."
As always, the bottom line is that the design of the instruction is more important than the technology.
In his post, The $2 Interactive Whiteboard, Frank Nochese describes the use of whiteboards for teaching physics. The focus of his article is that too many times professors and teachers are engaged in pseudoteaching which doesn’t engage the students.
If you want whiteboards that have a handle on them, go to WhiteboardsUSA.
In my opinion, in order to make this type of teaching effective, students need to have read the textbook before class and the instructor needs to have a lot of questions for the students that engage them in higher order thinking. The book, Lecture-Free Teaching, has some ideas as to how to implement this approach.
In her article, “Teaching and Learning in an Interactive Classroom,” Dee Silverthorn indicates that she does not advocate getting rid of lectures entirely since there are some concepts that are difficult for the students to learn and by presenting the information to the students, the professor has the opportunity to ask and answer questions.
The free software, VUE (Visual Understanding Environment), is used for creating concept maps. VUE can be installed on your computer but if you want a class of students to have access to VUE, you can install the VUE on a server. But if you don’t have access to a server, you can install the VUE applet in the Public folder of a DropBox account. Although the main use of DropBox is for synchronizing files across multiple computers, DropBox can also be used for sharing files (and accessing with others by placing them in the Public folder, by placing the VUE applet in the Public DropBox folder, anyone can create their own concept map with VUE.
Here’s what you need to do.
1. Go to http://vue.tufts.edu/download/index.cfm and set up a new account if you don’t already have one.
2. Once you have created an account, you will be taken to a page where you can download the Applet.
3. The applet will be downloaded as a zip file. Unzip the file which will create a folder called vueapplet. Place the folder in your DropBox Public folder. You can rename the folder if you like.
4. One of the files within the vueapplet folder is named “index.html.” In order for others to create a concept map using the VUE applet, you will need to get a URL that will access the index.html file. The instructions for getting the URL can be found on DropBox’s site on this page. Give this URL to others and they will be able to create a map using the VUE applet.
Here are some apps that students might want to use if they own and iPad:
Course Notes – http://www.coursenotesapp.com/ – With this app, you can organize your notes into multiple subjects, export them via email, transfer note sessions with other CourseNotes users, track assignments and ToDo lists for each subject, and build your own dictionary. In upcoming versions, you’ll be able to add drawings and images into your notes. $4.99
Audiotorium – http://audiotoriumapp.com/ - This app will allow you to create audio into your notes. You can also share your notes with friends. (As of this writing, Audiotorium is not available in the App Store so I don’t know the price. This site has some photos of it.
The following are excerpts from the February, 2010 issue of Campus Technology, page 34.
I recently read some interesting information that was compiled by Project Tomorrow, a nonprofit organization that surveys K-12 students, teachers, administrators, preservice teachers, and parents nationwide to understand the trends in student learning. In 2008, they surveyed 281,500 K-12 students.
“When Julie Evans, the CEO of Project Tomorrow, gives presentations to higher ed leaders, she discovers that they are usually interested in the students that will be going to college in a couple of years – the high schoolers. But she explains that “looking at the middle school students or upper elementary students – in grades 3 through 8 – is actually a better instructional tool for them, because those kids have a very, very different view from their high school peers.”
“As example of those differences, she points to their viewpoints about online learning. ‘The traditional, conventional theory is that high school students take online classes because they want to get college credit and they want to have a class that fits into their schedule. But when we look at middle school students, they’re more interested in blended learning – where they take a traditional class with a teacher and then also have an online component.’
“Her point: ‘If I’m a college CIO (chief information officer) or CTO (chief technology officer), and I’m only thinking about the 100 percent online class that my students are looking for, then I’m not properly preparing for that next generation of students coming up, who want a blended approach. I want to be building for kids I’m going to see five-plus years from now.’”
“Evans lists nine attributes that characterize these students:
- They’re self-directed in their learning.
- They’re untethered from traditional education.
- They’re expert at personal data aggregation.
- They engage in the power of connections.
- They create new communities.
- They’re not tethered to physical networks.
- They prefer experiential learning.
- They’re content developers.
- The process is as important as – and sometimes more important than – the knowledge gained.”
“Ultimately, Evans says, “students want to define and direct their own educational destinies.” That will, she explains, require schools to develop new kinds of learning spaces, move to more social-based learning, tap digital resources that add relevancy, and move learning beyond the classroom walls, whether those walls reside in a district or on a campus.”
Here’s my take on this – Many of these characteristics such as being expert at personal data aggregation, they engage in power of connections, and they create new communities are features that tell me they are very comfortable in the online world. The fact that to them “the process is as important as the knowledge gained” tells me that they would prefer to learn by doing rather than by listening to a lecture or even engage in a discussion. They are content developers. They like to create and experience what they are learning.
So how do we change the learning environment? As already indicated, hybrid learning may help. Connections and learning communities are not made (or at least not as easily) in 50 minute periods. But learning that can be accomplished anytime, anywhere using mobile, portable devices that have wireless access will allow these students to thrive.
There are a number of products that act as personal response systems (also known as student response systems or “clickers”) that work with the iPod Touch or iPhone. Here’s what I have discovered so far:
Turning Technologies ResponseWare is versatile but there is a subscription fee that each student must pay. Also, the system pings Turning Technologies server once each second so you have to make sure your network will be able to handle that amount of traffic.
The eClicker by Big Nerd Ranch is limited to 32 clients (students). The Host application (for the instructor) costs $24.99 but the client app is free. The system is WiFi-based so an Internet connection is not necessary since the teacher can set up a wireless network (easily) if he or she has a Mac. (I don’t know if it is easy to set up a wireless network with a Windows computer.)
The app that seems the best (from what I can see) is iResponse Classroom Responder System. The app for the clients costs 99 cents and the host for the instructor’s computer is free. There is a Mac and PC version and there is a basic and Pro version for both platforms. The iResponse system is also WiFi based. Instructions for how to set up a wireless network with a Mac as well as instructions for using the software are available.
The video below describes the concept of student-generated content. The basic idea is that one method of engaging the student is to have them generate content that illustrates the principles being learned in the class. Will students be enthusiastic about this? I don’t know but I suspect some students would not want to generate content but would rather just sit in class and be passive.
This article points out that although mobile learning is a topic of interest among educators, very few have implemented it on their campus. Judy Brown, the founder and former director of the University of Wisconsin system’s Academic ADL Co-Lab offers some suggestions and factors to consider if a college is considering mobile learning.
She suggests asking if you want students to be consumers of content, creators of content, or both.
Of course, three devices that can enhance the mobile learning experience are the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad. To get ideas of how to implement the iPod Touch (and the iPad) into education, here are a few sites:
As teachers, we always tell our students to spread out their studying and don’t cram for a test. Daniel Willington, the author of the book, Why Don’t Students Like School, has an article “Allocating Student Study Time” which provides evidence for this advice. The article also contains a section, “What Could This Look Like in the Classroom?”
Evernote allows you to clip information from the Web and edit the Web pages. You can create your own notes, drag and drop content into Evernote. Also, there is software that you can download that allows enter information and sync it with the Web-based content.
By default, the information is kept private on the Web but you can make it public.
A number of video tutorials are available here. The Getting Started Guide can be found here.
With the free account you are allowed up to 40MB of uploaded files each month. With a Premium account, which costs $5/month or $45/year. the amount of uploaded files allowed is 500MB. There are other advantages of upgrading to the Premium account. Click on this link for more details – Premium account.
You can also embed widgets into your Web pages such as the one below.
A nice software title that allows you to create tutorials by screencapturing portions of your computer monitor is the software ScreenSteps. With ScreenSteps, you can insert various images of various portions of what is on your screen and insert things like arrows, boxes, and circles. With the Pro version of the software, you can export the tutorial as a PDF or HTML page. Check out the videos on the Web site to learn about some of the other nice features.
At the 2007 Educause conference, Diane Zorn described an online course in philosophy that she created.
Here are the main points that I got out of this podcast:
“The goal of distance education, in my experience, is not to replicate the in-class experience but rather to go beyond what is possible in a conventional classroom.”
She used Mediasite which provides a video of the instructor along with the corresponding Powerpoint files but with a little ingenuity, something similar to this could be done using Keynote, Garageband, and iMovie.
Using Video Streaming and Podcasting to Design Rich-Media Online Courses[ 29:25 ]Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
This video is quite impressive. It presents some interesting facts about tomorrow’s world and challenges us to consider what we are doing to prepare students for tomorrow’s world.
In their article, “Learner differences in distance learning: Finding differences that matter,” Dillon and Greene (2003) point out that although there has been much research conducted in learning styles, it has been difficult to find reliable and valid measures of learning types. They also discuss the notion of field dependence and field independence. But what is particularly interesting in this chapter are two ideas that the authors propose regarding the relationship between learners and instruction. The first has to do with the notion whether distance educators should attempt to provide instruction that matches a learner’s learning style or cognitive style. The second concept is that there are characteristics of learners that are more important to focus on than matching learning style and cognitive style with the instruction in order to help learners achieve. These characteristics will be discussed below.
Dillon and Greene (2003) state that one of the most important goals of education is to help the learner learn how to learn. Rather than spending time attempting to design instruction so as to accommodate the differences among the learners, the authors state that “our ultimate goal should be to help learners learn in a variety of situations and under a variety of conditions, because that is the nature of the learning society in which we live” (Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.238). They go on to suggest that educators should “identify effective approaches to learning and then help students acquire the metacognitive skills needed to adopt those approaches in settings where they have been found to lead to success”(Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.239). They point out that there is large body of empirical research that shows that using different approaches to learning are very good predictors of both effort and achievement. (The authors provide seven references to support this statement.)
According to Dillon and Greene (2003), various approaches to learning are placed into action in terms of three areas: achievement goals, self-efficacy, and reported strategy use.
Achievement goals are the “the reasons students report for trying to learn in a particular setting (Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.239). They indicate that there are three types of achievement goals: learning goals, performance goals, and future goals. Learning goals relate to the desire to increase one’s understanding and skills. Performance goals relate to someone’s desire to do better than others and to protect one’s ego. The authors indicate that there is some research that has shown a negative relationship between performance goals and productive achievement behaviors, while on the other hand, there is a positive relationship between learning goals and self-regulation, strategy use, and effort. Likewise, there is a positive relationship between future goals, those goals that are distant, and productive achievement behaviors.
Self-efficacy refers to a person’s confidence in their ability to accomplish a task. It is not the same as global self-esteem and the confidence level varies with different content.
According to Dillon and Greene (2003), strategy use is influenced by goals and self-efficacy. Various forms of strategy use can be classified as either shallow processing or deep processing. While shallow processing involves processing information separate from existing knowledge, deep processing involves processing new information as it relates to existing knowledge, and attempting to elaborate on new information. This concept of deep processing reminds me David Ausubel’s subsumption theory (http://tip.psychology.org/ausubel.html) and the formation of schemata. The practice of concept mapping popularized by Joseph Novak is based on Ausubel’s subsumption theory and is a technique, which if used by a physical sense and mental sense, could be a strategy that could help learners process information at a deeper level. Novak’s book Learning How to Learn (1984) is a valuable resource on how to use concept mapping as a way of learning. Another book by Novak that is valuable is Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations (1998).
References
Dillon, C. and Greene, B. (2003). Learner differences in distance learning: Finding differences that matter. In M.G. Moore & W.G. Anderson (Eds). Handbook of distance education (pp.235-244). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Novak, J. D. (1984). Learning how to learn. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Novak. J. D. (1998). Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Inc.
In the course “Instructional Design and Development” that I am taking right now (Summer, 2007), we are reading through the book The Systematic Design of Instruction by Dick, Carey, and Carey. In Chapter 8, “Developing An Instructional Strategy,” the authors state that when an instructional designer is designing an instructional strategy for the knowledge domain called Intellectual Skills, that the designer should be aware of how learners have organized their entry knowledge in their memory. My thoughts on this is that maybe one of the ways of determining how a learner has organized their knowledge of a subject is to have them create a concept map of that knowledge.
The authors go on to say that the instructional strategy should provide ways for the learner to link new content to prerequisite knowledge that they have in their memory. They also state that the there should be direct instruction about the links and the relationships between the new knowledge and the existing knowledge. A concept map created by the instructor would be a very good way of illustrating the relationships.
