Oh, how I loved PowerPoint as a student. When the lights at the front of the room clicked off and the PowerPoint projector clicked on, my peers and I took that as our cue to sit back, relax, and start surreptitiously texting under our desks. What was class time for, really, if not to catch up with the latest Facebook news?
Silly faculty, I thought, don’t they realize that, by posting the lecture slides, they are eliminating the need for me to listen in class? As for the few wily instructors who left blanks in the slides? Well, they eliminated the need to study for tests, as we could be fairly sure those blanks would comprise the bulk of our quiz questions.
It was only when I became an instructor that I realized how vital PowerPoint was for me. The slides helped keep me on-track, allowed me to share images or embedded videos, and ensured that I touched upon key discussion points.
But, as I gazed out at my students, not-so-covertly texting, nodding off, or staring at me with vacant eyes, I realized I was doing something wrong. I was using PowerPoint as a crutch and not as an effective communication tool. I turned to PowerPoint to organize my notes when I had not left myself enough time to plan a thoughtful, engaging lecture. I thought that by using a different font (hello, Rockwell!) and selecting a colourful PowerPoint template, I was somehow pioneering educational technology.
Wrong.
I had to face the sad fact that I didn’t know how to use PowerPoint effectively. I didn’t, and you probably don’t either. And that’s okay. We can fix it! Here are my top 5 resources for reinventing how you use PowerPoint in the classroom:
The past year has witnessed a landslide of global participation in Massive Open Online Courses. These classes are commonly referred to as MOOCs and have attracted a diverse range of students from across the globe. In addition to massive enrollment figures (spilling over 100,000 in some cases), these courses are unique in that they are offered by some of the top universities in the United States and the world– for free.
Last month one million users registered with Coursera, making it the most popular MOOC site on the web. The site was founded only a few months ago, in April of 2012, by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University. A competing MOOC site, Udacity, was also launched by a former Stanford professor, Sebastian Thrun.
It would be remiss not to mention Sebastian Thrun and his role in the MOOC revolution. It was his Fall 2011 Artificial Intelligence class that ignited the spark of MOOC fever that swept the U.S. after enrollment numbers climbed to 137,000. Though only 23,000 completed the course – Thrun said he was hooked on the thrill of teaching massive classes, describing a particular fascination with the peer-based teaching that flourished among the course community.
The trend of MOOCs is spreading not only in the U.S., but to other countries as well. Today, Coursera has a participating university in Canada, India, Scotland and Switzerland. International support for these classes is most evidenced in the international student participation rates. In Thrun’s original AI class, only 25% of the enrolling student body was located within the United States. Independent classes are cropping up across the world in Internet labs and open universities, providing education to those who may not have had access to such information otherwise.
Information is exactly what students of MOOCs are receiving. The classes do not offer degrees or course credits to students who are not enrolled in a parent university, which makes the very purpose of MOOCs different from a traditional institution of higher education. Currently, the most popular courses are in business and technology, suggesting that professors are seeking to answer a need for information within the professional field, making MOOCs relevant and impactful for members of the workforce rather than a student body. There are certificates of completion available for some classes, but the certificates do not carry the title of any university.
Currently, Coursera offers the widest selection of classes of the MOOC sites and has branched out of the STEM box (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) with humanities courses such as poetry and mythology. Other sites such as edX seemed to be bound to the STEM courses for the simple reason that coursework can be assessed and graded by calculations – in other words, by a computer. Other sites are embracing the concept of a peer-educated community by requiring peers to review original work that cannot be graded by a computer. The quality of such peer-based education has yet to be determined.
Another unknown factor of the MOOC era is how these sites will develop sustainable business models. While the motives behind these startups have been primarily utopian – to make higher education globally accessible – the millions of dollars invested in these new companies demand a for-profit model.
The business model that Thrun has suggested would possibly transform MOOCs into a type of trade school in which qualifying students would agree to have their scores and information sold to recruiting companies. This relationship would support a definition of open courseware that provides education despite barriers of finance or distance; but it could also work to limit courses to relevant industry-related topics.
Katheryn Rivas is a prolific freelance writer and professional blogger who frequently contributes to www.onlineuniversities.com as well as other education and technology sites. If you have any comments or questions, drop Katheryn a line at katherynrivas87@gmail.com.
Our new learning management system, LEARN, includes an integrated ePortfolio. EPortfolios can be used to help students make connections to learning experiences regardless of where those experiences occur. They can help students document their learning, see how they are developing over time, and make plans for future growth. EPortfolios provide a space for students to reflect upon what they have learned in the classroom, in the workplace or in community and social environments, and provide evidence of how they have been able to apply skills and knowledge learned in one setting to another setting.
Since we’ve adopted LEARN this past year, there has been a significant increase in the number of instructors (and students) interested in using ePortfolios. Once instructors have decided they would like to use ePortfolios, the next question is often “So how do I go about incorporating the use of ePortfolios into my course or program? What do I do next?”
Here are six things you can do which will go a long way to help ensure the best learning experience for both instructors and students using ePortfolios in a course or program. (Based upon presentation by Lithgow, K. and Penny Light, T. (2012). Six Degrees (or so) of Integration: What Students Have to Say about ePortfolios. Presented at the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) Conference – “ePortfolios as a Catalyst for Connections: Celebrating the Curious, Creative and Capable Learner.”, Boston, MA.)*
Introduce ePortfolios and Expectations Early
Give ‘em Grades
Provide Feedback (Early and Often)
Respect disciplinary context
Encourage meaning making
Acknowledge that ePortfolios are a different way of providing evidence of learning
Unpacking the Process
Introduce ePortfolios and Expectations Early– Let your students know as early as possible in the course that they will be using ePortfolios. Outline what they will be expected to do and how the ePortfolios activities will help them achieve goals and outcomes for the course or the program. This can be done in a number of ways. Show an example or examples of previous students’ work (with permission, of course!). Show them an example of an ePortfolio presentation that you’ve created which models your expectations. Provide a rubric or statement of expectations.
Give ‘em Grades – Although we would like our students to be intrinsically motivated, the reality is the majority of our students are motivated by marks. The ePortfolio activities should be an integral part of your course or program, not an add-on. The mark assigned should reflect that this is a worthwhile activity. ePortfolio activities which are most successful in terms of student buy-in and student learning are those where the time and effort expected of the students is reflected in the weighting of the activity in the final course mark. The least successful and the least valued ePortfolio activities are those that are voluntary or are assigned minimal or bonus marks.
Provide Feedback (Early and Often): Incorporating reflective activities into the ePortfolio is an integral part of creating an ePortfolio presentation. Reflection is a learned activity; receiving constructive feedback from classmates, instructors, TA’s and mentors helps the student develop the capacity to reflect critically. You can create opportunities for students to get feedback by having them submit their work in progress midway through the term. Divide the students into small groups and have them peer-review each other’s work-in- progress using a rubric or guideline of expectations which you’ve provided. This gives students the opportunity to see other examples and exposes them to different perspectives. When students provide constructive feedback to others, they can consider ways to improve their own work prior to the final submission.
Respect disciplinary context- Students will see value in the ePortfolio activity when they can see how it will help them develop within the discipline. The activity has to allow them to use the language, skills and knowledge of the discipline. They have to understand how the activity will help them achieve program goals and outcomes.
Encourage meaning making (making connections-reflection) – Give your students permission to make connections to other courses, other disciplines, to their work experience, volunteer experiences, and social and community environments. Ask the students to explain what they’ve learned and how that learning is personally meaningful to them. Create a learning environment which provides them with a ‘safe place’ to share this with classmates, mentors and instructors. Encourage them to examine what they’ve learned in their academic and non-academic environments and how that impacts their learning as a whole. Ask them to reflect on past experiences- what have they learned? How will this affect future actions?
Acknowledge ePortfolios as a threshold – Asking students to explain what they’ve learned, provide evidence to support what they’ve learned, and demonstrate how they have achieved learning outcomes and goals you’ve set is not something students are accustomed to doing. Incorporating multimedia to demonstrate this is very different than asking students to write an essay or answer a multiple choice test. Students are accustomed to getting things ‘right’, rather than being rewarded for focusing on the process of learning- part of which ncludes making mistakes. Providing early and often feedback helps them reassure them that they are on the right track or gives them the opportunity to get back on track. Providing examples of ePortfolios from previous students (with permission!), or showing how you, the instructor, have completed a particular section of the ePortfolio, provides guidance and structure that students will need when hey are first introduced to ePortfolios. Provide a template or some sort of structure in the early years- decrease this over time. Take some time in class to review the ePortfolio functionality to address technology related concerns.
Trent Batson has proposed the following definition – “ePortfolio technology enables learners to manage the complexity and variability of learning designs and opportunities in formal and informal settings in order to gather evidence of their resultant deep learning.” T. Batson. (2012, Sept.18). Definition of “ePortfolio”. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://www.aaeebl.org/tbb?bmi=1075857
Cambridge, D., B. Cambridge and K. Yancey (eds.), Electronic Portfolios 2.0: Emergent Research on Implementation and Impact, Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2009.
Cambridge, Darren, Eportfolios for Lifelong Learning and Assessment, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010.
Chen, H.L, and T. Penny Light, Electronic Portfolios and Student Success: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Learning, Washington: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2010
Huber, M., and P. Hutchings, Integrative Learning: Mapping the Terrain, Washington D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2004.
Rodgers, Carol, “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking,” Teachers College Record, 104, 4 (June, 2002): 842-866.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake, Reflection in the Writing Classroom, Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1998.
Web 3.0, they say, is going to be a “semantic web,” which I take to mean that it’s a web which will allow us to easily explore relationships among large amounts of discrete bits of data. One way of exploring relationships, of course, is visually: humans can literally “see” patterns of relationships more easily than they can otherwise apprehend them. Examples abound, but one that I recently came across is especially interesting from an “assessment” point of view. It’s a visual depiction of comments that a class of students made on one another’s blogs. In the visualization, each student is represented by a small circle (or node) and the the comments that he or she made are represented by arrows leading to the nodes of other students. So, if Matthew commented on Ephraim’s blog once, then the arrow starts from Matthew’s node and points to Ephaim’s node. At a glance, it’s easy to see who has been most active in making comments, who has received most comments, and who hasn’t been active at all — and that information can clearly help an instructor with both formative and summative assessment. You can the visualization, which was made with the platform Many Eyes, here.
Another visualization tool that I recently came across is called DebateGraph, which is intended to help people map out the various ideas, positions, and evidence that make up complex arguments. At first glance, a DebateGraph visualization looks like an ordinary concept map, but as you click the various nodes, you see that each one dynamically changes: it becomes the central node, and new nodes — ones that are connected to it — jump into place. The platform is collaborative, so if you want to contribute to the argument, you just need to log in, navigate to the appropriate node, and then add your point. You can see an example of a visualization in DebateGraph here.
I’m a bit sceptical of DebateGraph’s “practical” implications: in other words, if your family is having argument about where to go for your summer vacation, I don’t think that using DebateGraph would be worth the investment of time it would take to map out the argument. But as a learning tool — that is, as a way of helping students untangle the complexities of, say, a geopolitical conflict or an ethical issue — I think that the very “deliberate” methodology of DebateGraph could be very useful.
In August, before our students hit the books and before our instructors “hit” the podium (real of otherwise), our new faculty had the opportunity to attend teaching workshops particularly tailored to their career stage and offered in a concentrated format at a timely point before the start of the fall term. For the second year in a row, two days in August (8th and 9th) were dedicated to Teaching Orientation. New faculty members were invited to attend any or all of four teaching workshops that form the core of the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE)’s new faculty offerings. Continue reading Teaching Orientation Days – Monica Vesely
When’s the last time you sat down at your desk and said to yourself, “Okay, now I’m going to come up with a good idea.” Probably never. The thing about creativity, in my experience, is that trying to force it to happen simply ensures that it doesn’t. It’s a bit like a sixteenth-century woodcut I once saw that depicted a man gently cupping his hand so that it would hold a bit of water for him to drink: the message or moral of the woodcut was that if he tried to forcefully grab the water, by squeezing his hand tight, it would go squirting through his fingers onto the ground. Continue reading Talking to Yourself: Apps for Taking Audio Notes — Mark Morton
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU[/youtube][youtube]For a while now I have been digging into the literature to find resources related to creativity and innovation. There appears to be a somewhat old-fashioned belief or assumption that states there are people who are creative and there are people who are not creative and that creativity is a result of natural talent. However, Edward De Bono and his staff state that formal skills of lateral thinking can be taught, learned, and practiced in as deliberate a manner as we learn and use mathematics. Continue reading Where Good Ideas Come From — Shirley Hall
