CTC Ed Tech March 26, 2013

Hi all,

Just a couple thoughts from my reading this week:

1. Increase student effort and achievement with Blackboard announcements

It's great to give your students weekly reminders and feedback via the announcements in Blackboard.  A new announcement shows that the professor has been in the Blackboard shell recently.  Without that change up on the front page of your Blackboard shell, students could easily wonder if you've been there.  If you haven't been in the shell, why should they.  Give them the cue that you are present, post announcements regularly.

You can take it one step further and use the announcement to cheer on/challenge/engage your students.  It depends on the language and the "frame" you use.  One of my education heros, Eric Jensen, talks about framing in his March newsletter:

We all have our biases, but framing is very intentional. As you work with others, framing is the "spin" you put on things. I call it an intentional bias. ...

Here's another example in the area of testing. A teacher might think to him/herself: "That last quiz was a disaster. One in five completely failed it. If we don't ensure everyone does their daily reviews, nobody will pass it next time."

But, what you should say to the class is, "Good work for most of you on the last quiz. We aren't yet at the 100% pass rate, so this week we'll be trying out a few different things to get everyone in the pass column."

Note that the framing effect could realistically be used all day long, and all year long. Too much can be annoying and a lot of work for you. But when things are not working well, one place to notice is how you frame the daily events. For example:

"I'm worried. You have only five minutes left and if you don't get your act together, your team loses out and you'll never make the deadline." Or, you could say,

"Attention everyone: You're all right on track. In your last five minutes, be sure everyone gets his or her two items listed and the team report is finished just like the posted sample. This will ensure everyone gets full credit. Now turn to your team mates and say, 'We can do it!'"

Notice how there are many ways to say the same thing. We all have our biases. Why not put a positive spin to things so that students feel more capable and energized? Let me know how this works for you. (www.JensenLearning.com)

I encourage you to consider the frame next time you post an announcement.  For that matter, consider the frame when you're in class.  

Here's a video tutorial on creating announcements in Blackboard. 

2. Course on multitasking

This article from The Chronicle describes how and why David M. Levy teaches a course on "Information and Contemplation," in which students both learn how multitasking affects them and how to focus on one task at a time. 

Best regards,

Lee

Lee Maria Henrikson

Instructional Designer

Beyond Anchorage Workforce Development Grant

UAA Community and Technical College 

UC132G

907-786-4903

CTC Ed Tech March 18, 2013

My final workshop of the spring is this Friday, March 22, from 1 to 2 pm in 132N.  t's Blackboard sharing - bring a great example of Blackboard use or just come to get ideas from your peers.  I'll have a couple examples to share as well.

It's not too late to do a mid semester evaluation with your students.  It can give you information on what's working and what's not working in terms of student learning.  I like to use our online survey tool, Qualtrics.  It's really easy to create a survey, copy it, and use it in multiple course sections.  There's a big yellow Get Help Button on the left when you login (with your usual UAA username and password) to get you started.  If you've used Survey Monkey or Zoomerang, you'll catch on to Qualtrics pretty quickly.  

Here are some sample mid semester surveys:  

From the Center of Teaching Excellence, University of Maryland College Park

Instructions:

1. Please complete the form below honestly and include details as appropriate. The purpose of

your feedback is to help determine how the course is going at this point at what areas might be

improved to better meet student needs.

2. Areas you may wish to comment on could include: homework, teaching style, fairness, the

textbook and other materials, intellectual stimulation, etc. However, please comment on any

aspects that are important to you.

Anonymous Mid-Point Student Feedback Form

1. What's going right?

2. What should change?

3. What would help you get more out of this course?

From theCenter of Teaching and Learning at University of California Berkeley

Your answers to the questions below will help me plan for the second half of the semester.
 

1. What are the most important things you have learned so far in this class?

2. What don't you think you understand well enough yet? 

3.  What would you like to see more of between now and the end of the semester?

4. What do you think we could cut down on?

5.  What do you need to do in terms of understanding the material between now and the end of the semester?

6. How much of the reading that has been assigned so far have you completed?

100%               90%                 75%                 50%                 less than 50%

7. How many hours per week, outside of regularly scheduled class meetings, do you spend on this class?

1-2                   2-4                   4-6                   6-8                   more than 8

8. If you have comments about the class not covered in the above questions, please use this space to make them.

 

From Princeton University:

1. Do you usually understand what is expected of you in preparing for and participating in this class? If not, please explain why not. 

2. What aspects of this course and your instructor's teaching help you learn best? 

3 .What specific advice would you give to help your instructor improve your learning in this course? 

4. What steps could you take to improve your own learning in this course? 

5. What other ideas would you suggest to improve this course (e.g., changes in course structure, assignments or exams)?

CTC Ed Tech March 5, 2013

I attended ASTE (Alaska Society of Technology in Education) last week and was particularly fascinated by Augmented Reality (AR).  If you've watched a football game on TV, you've seen AR when they overlay the first down lines on the field between plays.   I first saw Smart phone based AR a couple years ago and was not very impressed.  Well, times have changed. I am now impressed.

With AR,  there is a target that you point your phone at - it can be a geographical location, an object, or a sign/marker.   You look at the target through the AR App on your phone and there is more information overlaid on the image in your phone's screen - the reality of what you are looking at is augmented.  I have the Anatomy 4D app on my iPhone and iPad - it's really cool.  You can download the app from either the iOS or Android apps.  Print out the target, launch the app on your smart phone , and point the phone's camera at the target.  

Here are some AR Apps for the iPhone.  Have fun!  What can we do with this technology?  How can it help our teaching and our students' learning?  Most of our students have Smart phones already.

CTC Ed Tech Feb. 26, 2013

I want to point out several professional development opportunities for you this week:

Sneak preview of Collaborate - March 1, 1:00 - 2:00 pm, UC 133

eLive will be going away in Fall 2013.  Take a trial run of the likely replacement.  Also find out how to archive and save any eLive recordings you want to keep.  I will be teaching this

Best Practices for Online Science Education Symposium

Friday March 29, 9am – 4:30pm,

at UAA Student Union lower cafeteria

Speakers include Dr. Peter Jeschofnig, Professor Emeritus of Science, Colorado Mountain College & founder, Institute for Excellence in Distance Science Education;  Dr. Daniel Brannan & Albert Balbon, North American Network of Science Labs Online; Dr. Julie Fronzuto and Don Bickley; and Marnie Chapman, UAS. Register here.
For more information contact Sheila J. Soule, M.Ed.
sjsoule@uaa.alaska.edu

Google Apps for Education Summit

April 6-7, 2013

The FTC will co-host the Google Apps for Education Summit at UAA, along with the national award-winning Ed Tech Group. This high intensity, two day event focuses on deploying, integrating, and using Google Apps for Education and other Google Tools to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education For more information visit:https://sites.google.com/a/gafesummit.com/ak/