Meet Prezi

Learning to create new material using Prezi was probably the most valuable experience I had in this course. I spent quite a bit of time learning how to use Prezi and my first attempt was not completely successful (I missed a crucial step which made the presentation move from one slide to another). However, it opened up an entirely new world of presentation possibilities to me that I wasn't aware of and I went searching online for other tools that would be equally as useful in my classes. I did have the opportunity to practice the prezi again the following week and I found it to be a much quicker process than the first try!

I decided to create a Prezi about the major project for one of the courses I teach. The material that I covered represented the types of questions that students often ask about how to complete the project so I thought that having a presentation in one spot that they could refer to on their own would encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning. The Prezi is a tool that I think works well with my teaching style because I tend to only use key points on powerpoint slides that bring students back to what they have read in preparation for a class. I also really like the ability to embed a video into the presentation and add graphics and color that would appeal to my students. I would stay away from Prezi though if I was trying to get alot of information across to students because of the flipping around, zooming in and out, that is a part of Prezi. I think that students might find that too distracting if there was a lot of information that they needed to gather from the presentation. In an online course I would likely use Prezi as a teaching tool, to introduce key concepts to students about what will be covered in a chapter or module, as well as having students make their own Prezi as a tool for presenting research projects that they may complete throughout the course. I think that the amount of time it takes to learn how to use Prezi is adequate for a student presentation, assuming they have not used it at all in previous courses.

My Prezi is called The Green Business Proposal. You can see the prezi here.

Diigo

Diigo is a tool for bookmarking and sharing articles and blogs that you find online, making them available to groups that you belong to. For this course I was a member of the MVCR Tech Tools group. I must admit that I didn't really find this to be a very useful tool when I first started using it. It seemed like a lot of work to figure out how to use it and I did the first assignment that was required and didn't touch it again until the end of the course. I'm not sure why it seemed so much easier at the end of the course, but the process was quick and I saw the usefulness of being able to keep articles in one spot that I would find useful for the course. As a teacher I can see that using this feature in an online course that had a fairly large research component to it would be very beneficial. You can access my Diigo library here.

And For Something Completely New....

Check out my Wordle here. I've always loved the look of wordles and I think they are a great tool for students to use as part of a reflection exercise. As I near the end of this course I thought about a way that I could express the main concepts and ideas that I take away from this experience and came up with a word collage. I didn't know what that was called, but a bit of online searching led me to the wordle site and it was pretty easy to create one. I think it would be great to encourage students to create a gallery of wordles about a concept in an online course or a reflective piece at the end of the course. For a business ethics course that I am planning to teach I am going to have students create wordles that express their personal code of ethics at the beginning of that chapter in the text. I think it is a simple but very personal learning experience for each student that also allows them to demonstrate their creativity. My wordle is titled Online Learning.

More Prezi Practice

For module 7 we looked at online cheating and the concept of massively open online courses (MOOC's). We were challenged with creating some type of presentation or teach back session about either of those topics using one of the presentation tools we had discovered in Module 6. I had so much fun with Prezi that I decided to try it again. You can visit my Prezi here.

It was great to have the opportunity to practice using the presentation material, Prezi, that I had spent so much time learning the previous week. I understand from a constructivist perspective why the course exercises were built like this and I see the value in having that type of incremental learning process for my students as well.

Creating Surveys

I created a survey on Corporate Social Responsibility using Survey Monkey. You can click here to access the survey.

The actual survey tool was not difficult to use, and it took me approximately 1 hour to complete the entire project. However, I missed one critical step in the creation process because I did not assign "collectors" - people I wanted to take the survey - and therefore it wasn't available to anyone! I managed to figure it all out with a couple of hours to spare before the end of the module and finally was able to share the link to the survey with my classmates. I asked for input from the class because I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong initially, and an observation by one of my classmates that my survey appeared to be private because of the https: feature was the answer I needed.

Finding Content on the Web

I have found that students really enjoy watching video clips as part of a class and I try to incorporate them as often as I can. One of the challenges I have is finding videos that are both strong on emotional impact and graphics AND teaching material that relates to the subject matter we are addressing. For my Greening of Business class I found the following video which is part of the Story of Stuff video series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0&feature=related

I really like the format of the video. They have a "live" person speaking while a stick figure acts out the story line in the background. It keeps your interest as a viewer. The video is 8 minutes long and I would likely build a discussion exercise around it by having students view it and then post comments about it during the module in the discussion forum.

I also found a podcast that my students might enjoy. You can access the podcast here.
I searched quite a few different sites to find a suitable podcast that fit my criteria: it had to be free, from a reputable site, and it must not require you to download another program first in order to be able to access it. I came across the podcasts at cnn.com and this was a suitable choice. I think I will use the podcasts in my teaching in a similar way that I use video clips. They are a great way to add variety to the course material, reinforce a concept, offer a differing opinion or introduce the students to experts in the field that can offer a new perspective or generate discussion about a topic.

Synchronous Communication - The Moodle Chat

Online learning is very appealing because of the asynchronous nature of the learning process. Students have the flexibility to post at a time that is convenient for them, offering a number of advantages in terms of managing school, work, family and other personal commitments at the same time. In module 4 we were asked to participate in a synchronous event. I chose the Moodle Chat feature and took part in a scheduled session on a Thursday evening with my professor and 1 other student. We chatted for approximately 15 minutes and I enjoyed the activity and found it useful. I had used chat features in courses prior to this, both as a student and as an instructor. The moodle chat was a bit different in layout than the chat featured on the system we have at my college but essentially the features were the same. One of the things I learned how to do during this synchronous chat was post a link to an article, website or blog right into the chat and then have other students click on the link and make comments about it, live, during the chat. It may sound simple enough, but I had no idea that could be done. I decided to utilize the chat feature as part of a class assignment in a course I am currently teaching and instead of having students participate in asynchronous online discussion forums for the entire week to discuss a couple of topics, I am going to set up specific times for them to participate in an online chat to share the links with others and offer some analysis of the articles. An interesting article about the use of synchronous tools in online courses can be found here. You can also see a quick video on using moodle chat here.

Greening of Business Blog

One of our goals this week was to search for a blog that would be useful to students in one or more of our courses. I chose the Green Business Blog at the New York Times. One of my goals for the Greening of Business class is to have each student create a blog that they can update throughout the course with articles that are particularly relevant to their area of specialization in business. Students might choose accounting, marketing, business management, corporate social responsibility and ethics, purchasing, international business, etc. I always encourage students to look for credible sources and research articles that are peer reviewed. The New York Times is a credible news source and while there is a diversity of thought and opinion offered on the blog, it is much easier for the reader to establish whether an article or link is fact based research or an opinion piece.

The Use of Blogs and Wikis in the Classroom

My focus this week as part of our online discussion was to examine whether tech tools such as blogs and wikis would be a good fit for the online classroom. Blogs and wikis are excellent examples of asynchronous learning tools.

There are a number of benefits and potential difficulties with using blogs and wikis in the online classroom. The benefits include the richness of learning experience that the student is able to experience as they access vast resources available online. EduBlog Insights refers to numerous benefits including giving students a voice through the use of a blog, encouraging a larger body of knowledge on a subject, a gathering place of sorts for students to come together to share ideas. One aspect that I was particularly excited about was the opportunity for students to collaborate with others around the world who share an interest or passion for a particular topic, assess research that has already been published on the subject and engage in critical reflection with potentially thousands of others around the world, thus contributing to a growing body of knowledge. It is also likely that public blogs would offer the student such diversity of opinions and new ways of looking at topics that they would be forced to step outside their own comfort zone and familiar learning style. When I think about the idea of students moving from passive to active learning, the blog or wiki appears to hold a lot of possibility!

Blogs that I have followed over the past few years, on a variety of topics, have invited constructive dialogue from readers and a sharing of ideas and resources, and may offer a type of peer review that, while informal, might benefit the learning experience in an online classroom.

There are also potential problems in relying too heavily on public blogs and wikis because of the potential for students to interpret opinions as facts and forget that these opinions are not subjected to the same level of peer review and academic standards that one might expect to find on a moderated, educational blog. The tendency of bloggers to connect to each other might also feed an information frenzy with ideas that are rarely challenged on their merits, potentially reducing the learning experience for the online student. I'm also concered with the issue of privacy, as students may link to blogs that put them, and their role in the course, in a more public spotlight than they would have wished for. Comments posted on blogs may be taken out of context and there is the potential for online bullying to occur. If an issue like online bullying were to occur, what role does the professor then play in terms of managing the situation? At what point does one draw the line between offensive comments being made on a public blog that is being promoted as a learning tool for a course?

"Blogs are reshaping our environment. They are beginning to emerge in large numbers in the educational field and offer great potential to transform learning and teaching. Its about new literacies appropriate for this
time." (Edublog Insights)

Tweet Tweet - Exploring Twitter and Social Media

I have always been somewhat cautious when it comes to social media and until taking this course, I had not really considered using it as a teacher. For one of our modules we needed to establish a Twitter account and send out at least one tweet during the week to our classmates. I also read a couple of journal articles regarding the use of twitter as both an assessment tool for higher education and a way to improve student engagement with the Gen Y and Net Gen groups.

This was my first tweeet:

"Tech tools ION course is forcing me to to get
with the program - first tweet today!"

At the end of the week I posted the following statement to my classmates:

"I've spent the last couple of days actually following my twitter account far more than I thought I would and I'm actually quite excited to see what the possibilities are with using it in the classroom."

I ended up really enjoying this exercise and found that there were a number of news organizations, political leaders and really interesting people doing really interesting things in the world that I could follow and receive regular updates from. I gave my twitter name out to my students and told them to follow me as I'd send out articles and interesting links that I came across that were related to the courses I teach. Out of approximately 160 students I had 1 (yes, that's right...just 1) student who decided to follow me on Twitter. Perhaps it isn't the answer to student engagement that some researchers believe it to be! I'm still hopeful though...

This is definitely a tool that I am going to use in the future, both personally and professionally. I like being able to receive relevant, current tweets from people that I am interested in following and being able to check these from my blackberry. I appreciate the convenience and the diversion while I am waiting to pick up my children after school. I also see the potential for incorporating it into my classes and hope for additional participation from my students next semester. Let's face it...when you only have 1 student following you there is alot of room for improvement! If you would like to follow me, my twitter name is @lisaschw.

Welcome to Tech Tools for Online Teaching

Welcome! I've created this blog as part of a course I am taking for the Master of Online Teaching Certificate through the University of Illinois. Throughout the next 8 weeks I will be updating the blog with great resources and technological tools for online teaching. Please check back often!

Lisa