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New Semester? Check Your Course Before You Wreck Your Course!

Check your CourseAnother new semester has arrived at my workplace and Alma mater. We are just days(2) away from the start of a the fall 2014 semester. Many of us have moved last fall’s content over or re-purposed course materials from last spring. Copying course content from previous semesters saves us time and effort that we would otherwise spend re-inventing the wheel.

As you prepare to unleash your online course resources to your students via a course in your Learning Management System, you will need to take some things into consideration to ensure a smooth start to the semester.

Here are a few steps you can take to help guaranty a good start for you and your students:

  1. Get your course’s dating life straight. – Content Availability & Due Dates
  2. Take….these Broken Links! – Check Your External Content
  3. Get a second opinion! – Is Your Course Navigable?

Get Your Course’s Dating Life Straight
(Content Availability & Due Dates)

Date AdjustmentNothing can be more frustrating for your students than having an assignment that is due in the syllabus but unavailable in your Blackboard course.  Obviously this is not done on purpose to confuse the students.  Some content from a previous semester could have been date specific and so a new semester needs new availability dates.  Checking your due dates is also an important part of getting your course’s dating life straight.  Not only to ensure that you have days and dates mentioned correctly throughout your course, but you want to ensure you don’t have things due on holidays etc..

This date checking session also provides you with a good opportunity to make changes for the better.  Think back to your previous semester when you taught the course.  Maybe there wasn’t enough time to complete an assignment, or maybe there was too much.  Make changes to this semester’s calendar based upon issues or opportunities from the previous semester.

Blackboard provides a great tool for date management inside your course.  The Date Management tool can be found here: Control panel>Course Tools>Date Management. The tool allows you to change dates based upon:

  • Using the Course Start Date
  • Adjust by number of Days
  • List all Dates for Review

Being aware of your course’s dating life will greatly benefit you and your students.

Take….these Broken Links!
(Check Your External Content)

One of the primary benefits of posting files and content in Blackboard or any Learning Management System is that you can feel very secure in the knowledge that within reason, your content/files will always be accessible.  This is NOT true with links to external content.  Whether you are linking to an Internet article, a YouTube video, a SlideShare presentation or some other external content, you never know when that content might disappear.

This is why it is uber-important for you to check links to external content prior to releasing it to your students.  This means checking prior to the start of the semester as well as just before your students have to use the content.  Ensuring that links to external content work before your students need them will help reduce pain and frustration within your Blackboard course.

Here is a helpful (and funny) eLearning Best Practice music video to help you remember to Take….these Broken Links!

Get a Second Opinion!
(Make Sure Your Students can find Their Away Around)

So, you have dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s.  Your course dates are adjusted and your links have been checked.  You’ve even read through your course and feel pretty good about it. There is another best practice you can use to help ensure success for your students when it comes to your Blackboard course.

Why not have a colleague, a friend even a family member read through course instructions to make sure they make sense?  Unfortunately ‘they’ haven’t invented a pill that conveys all knowledge of how to operate inside a Blackboard course yet so the importance of contextualized mechanical & academic instructions is key for any LMS-based course.  Layering instructions throughout your course will help your students feel like they have way-points to guide them as they move along through their learning journey. 

Your course might make sense to you the twelfth time you’ve read through it, but there might be some obstacles that people who have never seen it before could come across.  So getting a fresh perspective on your course is always a best practice.  Ask a colleague, your instructional designer, a family member, heck even your son or daughter could help in this endeavor. 

These three steps can go a long way toward reducing consternation and frustration for both you and your students as they and you move through your Blackboard course.

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The Best Browser for Blackboard Learn

Jacob and his MinionSo last week I went on a trip to visit a very good friend of mine.  He can’t see very well and he is addicted to wearing overalls, but he is a great dancer and is the life of the party wherever we go (especially with the younger set).  Any-who, we were walking down Fremont street together and he asks me a fairly straight forward question.

“Jacob, what is the best browser for Blackboard Learn?”

I smiled back at my friend the minion and told him that was a question we get often at our Technology Support Desk for SHSU Online. We strolled along together while I tried my best to answer his question. Well, my friend the minion liked the answer so much he asked me to share it with you.  So, with this blog post, I shall attempt to do so.

Traditionally our support desk has leaned heavily toward one particular browser, Mozilla Firefox when answering this question.  While I still think that Firefox is probably the best answer from a stability and fails-the-least-with-all-of-Blackboard’s-bells-and-whistles standpoint, the real answer is more nuanced than that.

While visiting with the minion last week in Las Vegas, I had the occasion to make a small side-trip to the Blackboard World 2014 (#BbWorld14 – for those that tweet) conference.  One of the sessions I attended on supporting Blackboard’s user community was put on by the University of Knoxville, Tennessee.  During the session they stated something that we here at SHSU Online always knew, but never put into words:

“The best browser for Blackboard is every browser.”

This zen-like statement on viewing Blackboard via the lens that we call our Internet browser is almost mind-blowing. It seems like something that “the Dude” would have uttered.  If you think about it though, it is true.

Internet browsers are on an accelerated development schedule.   They receive updates sometimes weekly in order to be sure that they are safe & secure to use for netizens across the globe. Blackboard, on the other hand, receives updates officially twice a year for the most part (not counting any cumulative patches your institution decides to apply).  The update disparity here is clear. You can already see where the pain points might happen when a browser is updated as often as they seem to be.  If one browser’s update messes with how you interact with Blackboard Learn, then try another.

Sometimes you may be on a deadline and “It’s my Blackboard and I want it now!”  In this case, just being able to launch another browser rather than making sure you clear your cache, delete your cookies and cleanse any temporary Internet files, makes life easier.

This is why it is important to have a stable of tools you can turn to when the need arises.  For PCs, your browser list for Blackboard should be: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox & Google Chrome.  For Macs: Safari, Mozilla Firefox & Google Chrome.

Blackboard even provides a supported browser list that will work with your particular version of Blackboard Learn.

Well, the minion and I had a great visit.   I also visited a few more of my friends and they too had some questions that might interest you, but I’ll save those for another blog post.

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BbWorld14 Session Blog: Building Community with Faculty Using Blackboard Learn

Murano 3301
Benjamin Tixier | Instructional Design Specialist | Arizona State University | W.P. Carey School of Business

Glimpse of instructional design team behind W.P Carey’s top-rated online MBA and how they build relationships with faculty.  They will demonstrate how they use Bb Learn in our process for bringing on the ground courses online and how they keep existing online courses up-to-date.

Pedagogy & Androgogy assistance with online learning.  (About 1000 courses a semester)

Instructional Design Group (8 people)

  • Each ID is paired with a number of different faculty
  • Each ID (Instructional Designer) is also paired with another one in the group, backup is copied on everything (is also a mentoring relationship)
  • pairing takes into account IDs and faculty and traits.
  • A faculty has a Lead ID that does not change regardless of program, platform or course
  • A faculty knows there is always someone to help them

What this means

  • ability to build long term relationships with faculty
  • the backup system also serves as mentor/apprentice system

How do we get your courses designed?

  • Each lead is expected to email their faculty 10 weeks out from course launch to set up kick-off meeting
  • The Kickoff meeting is expected to be 8 weeks out from the course launch date
  • Each time a course is developed they add 1 new thing.  (a new video is recorded or a reading is changed into a video)
  • Faculty are expected to give us all the materials for the course 4-6 weeks from course launch date
  • We start putting the course together in Bb learn
  • We are expected to have the course fully built and developed 2 weeks before course launch
  • At this pint the course goes through a QA process from backup and one other, then ask faculty for approval (in writing)

Faculty Buy-in

  • Faculty Certification
  • Follow Up Certifications
  • Badges, Badges, Badges
  • Get an iPad when they go through the training****
  • One of the most successful ways we have had gains in faculty buy-in is through faculty to faculty interactions. (peer to peer)

 

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BbWorld14 Session Blog – Bridging the Gap: Supporting Users’ Wide-Ranging Needs in an Ever-Changing Technological Landscape

Murano 3201
Frederick Kelly IT Administrator University of Tennessee Knoxville
Mary Lee Stewart University of Tennessee Knoxville
Rosie Sasso Instructional Technology and Research Support Specialist III, University of Tennessee Knoxville

Background: Knoxville has 1,400 Instructional Faculty, Student Enrollments 27k, Colleges 11, Degree Programs 300+, Course Delivery staff of 5.

Course Delivery Tools: Bb Learn, Bb Collaborate

Bridging the Gap –

When You are in Support – Every Day is Different!

We are ambassadors among different groups and people with unique backgrounds and traits with which to synthesize superior support.

Don’t be THAT guy.  – It’s okay to say “I don’t know”, Investigate, Give Users Options

User Real Life examples and practical experiences – even if anecdotal – and then apply them to tech.

– Use analogies, metaphors, and/or similes.  “Like drinking a milkshake through a cocktail straw”
– Computing Systems are like a fingerprint – browsers, operating systems, java, security, MS Office, third party- All users are diverse  (verbal, visual) get to know users and needs

Embracing Change

The only thing constant is change – Heraclitus, Greek philosopher (535 BC – 475 BC)

  • Change is often forced on users, but it’s constant, so roll with it.
    – Know you are a change agent. (Make it as not scarey as possible)
  • Browsers are on accelerated schedule
    – Best browsers for BbLearn? More than one.
    – Your browser is the window for the internet like your windshield is a window to the interstate
  • Sites like Amazon tweak GUIs all the time and no one freaks out.
    – Literal people may view a GUI change as catastrophic
  • Focus on positives from the change.  Yes, things an break, but new features are helpful
  • Find balance between experimentation and frustration.
    – If something looks different play with it.
    – If you’ve got the time to experiment, do.
    – If you start to get angry or frustrated, call support.

“For every ailment under the sun there is a remedy, or there is none; if there be one, try to find it; if there be none, never mind it.”
– W.W Bartley American Philosopher (1934-1990)

Empowering Users

  • Provide cheat sheets, walkthroughs (printable & Postable)
  • Myth: Technology is supposed to make things easier – not true, just different
  • Hold users accountable and foster a sense of personal responsibility. (“let’s schedule a time to get together an set up Grade Center BEFORE next semester.”)
  • Take the Heat when its applicable
    – Know when to say no. Do not be run over.
  • Make a checklist for Instructors to get them started

Fortune favors the brave!  – Publius Terentius After the roman playwright.

Asking Questions

  • What did you do BEFORE BbLearn or BbCollaborate?
    – I hate BB, but I want it to paint my house and do magical things
  • How far did you get?
  • WHY?
  • Would you be willing to try this a different way?
  • Are you interested in learning a potentially more effective way of doing this?
  • Are you willing to come in and meet with us?

Professional Development:

Workshops – F2f, Online, your place or mine? (5 or 6 a month f2f)
Consults – Brief topical – how do I do x with y? one-on-one or group, where can i find? But what about..
Faculty Assist – Detailed, specific need (ID work) Was, Is or Will Be, Across support groupsKnowledge Base – Online constantly updated

Summary –

Offer multiple avenues of support, consistent message.  Be Technical & Practical, Address Expectations, Expect change!!

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BbWorld14 Session Blog: Beyond the Discussion Board – Implementing Blackboard Tools to Increase Engagement

Murano 3301
Cheryl Boncuore | Academic Director, Kendall College
Ken Sadowski | SLATE

Session explores student and faculty experiences form a variety of institutions using traditional discussion boards in online, hybrid and campus-based classes.  It takes a deeper dive with an institution that implemented blogs, journals, wikis and video everywhere in order to increase engagement. Results and Reaction will be discussed.

  • What Engagement Means in Online Learning
  • Faculty Favorites
    -examination of faculty responses positive and negative
    -Status Quo Expected mandated
  • Beyond the Discussion Board
    -Other Tools
    -Tools beyond Bb

Assumptions

  • DB has been around for a long time
  • DB is static and students don’t like it
  • Faculty bear with it because they have to
  • Don’t know any other tools
  • Can’t use other tools
  • Forced Responses
  • No real social Interaction

What the Numbers told us?

  • Survey 400 people from 100 insitutions
  • Return rate of 20%
    -84% Faculty
    -12% admin
    -3% staff
    1% Instructional Designers

What LMS do you use?  74% Bb Learn

How do you Primarily Teach? 36% Online, 35% on Ground, 29% equally

Age Group – Nice Mix 25 – 65 and older
How long have you been teaching – 1 – over 20

What tools do your students prefer?

  • Discussion Board 52%
  • Other – 24%
  • Don’t know 15%
  • Blog 2%
  • Journal 1%
  • Facebook 6%

What has happened?

  • Surprised about positive comments for discussion board
  • perceived mediocre yet they use it
  • molded it to what they wanted it to do to fully engage students

Discussion Board got some “new” friends…

Defining Engagement –

  • Connecting all institutional constituents to the activities of teh learning, discovery and the academic topics of study
  • Great Engagement leads to Greater Retention
  • Every class must go beyond institution walls
  • Fits Mission of University

Tools of Engagement

DB – pre-developed online courses, traditional tool, what else is there?

BB Tools – Journals, blogs, wikis, surveys, video everywhere, rubrics

Web Tools – Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Skype, Big Marker(video conferencing tool – web based no java)

Don’t always look for right answer…look for group work, engagement and problem solving process.

What did we learn?

  • Tools that are available to us can be used in interesting ways
  • Faculty use tools that they are comfortable with
  • It’s not the tool, it’s the pedagogy!

What’s Next?

 

 

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BbWorld Keynote Blog – Corporate Keynote

Jay Bhatt CEO

Learning how Blackboard is reimagining the education experience.

*disclaimer – all stuff mentioned here is in development and may or may not be what we see eventually.

Education 2020 – some trends

Education system is not responding fast enough to engaging students and driving appropriate outcomes. 1/4 students are motivated because they like their school experience.  School is not an engaging environment for 3/4 students.

75% of kids own/use a mobile device – far to little content is being delivered in this medium.

1/3 college students feel that education is preparing them for life..while 2/3 dont.

11 million people employed but 4 million jobs remain unfilled in the U.S. – people who can fill them are not being produced by higher ed system.

Raison D’etre  of schools – manage student learning and develop appropriate outcomes.

100 million learners will be coming into our learning systems in the near future.

Blackboard sees a different future for education – learner-centric.  Creating a better education system for learners of all kinds.

Key to reimagining education is putting the learner first.

Redesign, Redefine – How

Redesign –

  • The Approach
  • The Portfolio
  • Innovation & Education

New vision, reorganized our customer facing teams, single points of contact, increased support of international customers. New Data Centers (Germany, Brazil etc..)  5000 consulting projects to 1,500 clients.  Joined Internet2, new integrated product team and roadmap.

Launched over 25 product updates to meet country requirements, Blackboard Store, Mobile App, Bb labs and Polls, Invested in Moodle Rooms, launched 40 schools running MOOcs, founding members of badge alliance, aquired MyEDU

MyEdu – (Based in Austin, Texas) Speaks to skills gap by helping student collect competencies and connect to workforce.

Redesign – Solutions, Support & Services, Industry Citizenship

Solutions – Changing the way we bring products to us.  Making it easier to buy and deploy products together as one unit.  Want to share course content with folks outside of org they should be able to.  Student should see same workflow.  Bb is combining learn, collaborate and mobile.

Learn, Content, XPLOR, Community, Mobile – Combined into Learning Core (Now Blackboard’s base product)

Real-time Collaboration – Learning Essentials

Data – Learning Insight

Retention Services – Learning Insights + Retention

k-12 solutions include common core, innovative classroom, parent engagement (focused on blended learning)

Common core – learn, content mobile and xplor

Collaboration – innovated classroom

Parental Engagement is third solution – K12 Central parents can interact with schools via mobile device

Redesign – Support & Services

Customer Support – Consolidated and improved, private cloud offering improved, now 7 managed hosting facilities. (adding germany, singapore, brazil)

Institutional Focus – Technology Implementation, Faculty Adoption, Grow Online Programs
Student Centric – Attracting & Enrolling students, supporting student pathways, measuring outcomes

Blackboard acquired Perceptus by adding contact centers in South Carolina, Arizona, Kentucky and Texas.

Redesign – Industry Citizenship

partnership with ACE – American council of education – new models of learning (competency based learning – emerging area)
Founding members of Badge Alliance – Support Research and Studies to inform industry dialogue – Project Tomorrow
Speaking and writing and publishing
Spotlighting Bb Customers – SouthWest College in Northern Ireland – eLearning project in Zambia, Africa
T!PTXT – anti-bullying messaging platform – free platform for k-12

Redefine – Utility and purpose of technology in the support of education.

User Experience – new
Mobile First –
Expanded Cloud Strategy – SAS public cloud offering (public – new)
Big Data – pull rich data from across learning experience

User Experience – dramtic switching focus to learner

  • Blackboard Store – Connecting learner to everything they need (material wise for the course)
  • MyEdu – allow students to communicate accomplishments in academic context
  • Entirely new user experience and workflow (streamline navigation, integrate capabilities)
  • Responsive Design UI
  • Completely different look and feel.
  • Easy of access and use for students.  Very simple, very streamlined
  • Linking content and activities to conversations – learning from other learners.  A completely integrated UI
  • New online meeting tool!  Video capable and awesome!!
  • Blackboard Collaborate Mobile – very simple!
  • Bb Grader – Mobile app super simple way to do grading (audio, video, written feedback as well as rubrics are available in the tool)
  • BB K-12 Central –
  • Blackboard Job Genie – Connect dots, career paths etc,
  • Blackboard Mobile Learn – Completely Redesigned – speed, efficiency and engagement.

Deployment Strategies –

  • Self-hosted, private cloud, Learn in the Public Cloud
    Learn in public cloud – elastic, resilient, current (Canvas-esque)

    Learn in the Cloud – Available this Summer
    Open Education platform for MOOC’s FREE

Redefine Big Data – Platform Analytics

  • Academic Platform data flows (across learn, collaborate, connect, others using IMS Caliper Standard
  • Learner should also consume report data.  Recent Activity comes with tip telling them where they are falling short, how they are doing compared to their peers.  Wow!!
  • Instructor view graphs of student performance and compare to other students.

Blackboard is more than just an LMS.

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BbWorld Session Blog: Trends in Online Learning

Murano 3301
Jason Rhode Director of Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center – Northern Illinois University
Melissa Stange System Application Administrator Shenandoah University
Karen Yoshino, Principal Strategist, Blackboard Conuslting

Session explores how the use of collaboration tools, mobility, and more will be changed by shifts in student demands and the fight to attract and retain students.

Agenda:

  • Student Expectations
  • About Our Presenters
  • Review Trends in Online Learning Report
  • What’s Next
  • More Info

Context –

Definition of Student is changing.  Non-traditional students are about 85% o learners int the US.  Old student journey linear pathway with few choices.  New pathway is “swirling”  (1/3 of students transfer between students) average student has credits from 2.3 institutions.

Now they are Post-Traditional learners:  Attend multiple institutions, listen to peers, pursue skills and competencies, like to interact with services via apps and not websites.  Consumers of Data/Info, Goal is Job placement.

Trends – Report

  • Conducted in 2014 Feb, (survey)
  • 200 Participants
  • voluntary participants 100%

Where are you today in offering courses online? – 88% have courses online of those who do not already, half intend to have courses online.

How many Courses Currently use a blended learning model? – half the institutions surveyed are using a blended model for at least 25% of their courses.  22% offer more than half their courses in-class and online.

What Annual Growth in online programs do you forecast? – Most responders expect growth in their online learning programs (59%)

What are the goals that drive investment in online programs? – 79% Ability to attract new/different students, 67% – Increase Revenue, 62% – Improve Retention, 60% – Better engaged students, 57% – Improve learning Outcomes, 17% – Other

What is holding you back from growing your online programs?  Growth of online programs will depend on improved online strategies and faculty support of putting courses online.  (35% said nothing is holding them back, but 33% stated lack of coherent strategy).  Faculty Resistance, lack of funds, lack of talent/resources, technology programs and chaos are other obstacles.

What Challenges are you facing regarding online learning? – Gauging impact on retention and engagement 52%, Faculty skepticism is a top challenge 51%, Ensuring level of academic Challenge 44%, Measuring faculty/student interaction 41%, Developing benchmarks for success 39%, Lack of Resources 39%, Assessing active and collaborative learning results %39, not viewed as budget priority 19%.

What Trends do you see in how your faculty is putting their content online? – Increased faculty content development is driving growth. Develop their own content – 84%, Use captured lectures -43%, use open content – 34%, license commercial content – 26%, contract with 3rd party vendor – 19%, other – 5%

How do you think Most of your faculty are using your organization’s LMS? – 94% – Posting course content, 74% Grading, 67% Engaging students, 60% Assessment, Reviewing course/student analytics 24%

What features in an LMS system are most sought or valued by users? – LMS functionalities with the highest value: ease of posting -80%, and grading workflow ease of use -67%, Having Mobile Access – 55%, Integration w/other Systems -55%, Analytic tools embedded in system – $1%, Social tools embedded in the system %29

What Collaboration and/or communication tools are you currently using in the classroom?  90% – email 81% – LMS 57% – Lecture Capture, 55% – Social Media 52% Video Conferencing 45% – Mobile Apps 40% – Web Conferencing $31% – texting

How do you foster a sense of connection an community across student population. 52% – Electronic Newsletters, 46% – Targeted Facebook pages, 39% – Webcasts,

How important are strong online programs to attracting and retaining students?  Critical – 34%, Very Important – 30%, Important – 14%, not very important – 12%, unimportant – 6%.

What would be the primary advantage to your college having more robust online offerings?  Attract more non-traditional online students – 71%, Expand geographical presence – 62%, improve student retention – 42%, academic quality improvement – 36%, reduce costs – 28%, greater communication across departments – 19%

Next steps? – Shenandoah University

  • More hybrid and blended courses to meet student needs
  • Continuation of articulation agreements
  • Develop & Deliver online courses in specific fields to meet national recommendations
  • Focus on online 7 Hybrid course quality
  • faculty training & support
  • Infrastructure improvements

Next Steps? Northern Illinois

  • New niche programs
  • attract new students, increase revenue, improve retention
  • Coherent online strategy
  • investment in central support infrastructure.
  • focus on student career success
  • articulation agreements
  • mix of online and blended/hybrid programs
  • Accelerated courses – 8 week
  • Faculty content development
  • Ongoing faculty training & support

 

 

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BbWorld14 Session Blog: Desiging Equivalent Instructional Learning Activities for Fully Online Courses

Murano 3304
Michelle Simms | Director of Instructional Technology, Gwynedd Mercy University

Learn how to make online activities engaging, fun, collaborative, authentic and as close to actually “being there” as possible.  Sessions looks at how Gwynedd Mercy University is building its fully online programs in Blackboard and designing EIAs (Equivalent Instructional Learning Activities) that really get the students motivational juices going.

Gwynedd Challenges:

  • Requires demonstration and documentation of 42 contact contact hour equivalent instructional activities and 14 hours of seat time per 3 credit hour course.
  • Gwynedd reputation is high-quality – how to transfer reputation to online programs.

Questions

  • How to design accelerated programs (7 weeks) to be just as effective.
  • How to best leverage learning technolgies to offer meaningful and rigorous content that takes full advantage of technology.

ERIC Online Activities

E – Engaging
R – Relevant
I – Interactive
C – Collaborative

*Use list of accompanying technology for instructional equivalent activites.  A list of matching instructional activities and complementary technology.

Example Class – Tech Applications for Educators – Master Teacher Program

Seven Week Course week Weeks content area and each week has its own folder (module).  Modules are outlined in each week folder and it is aligned to course objective.  Each Module includes resources and activities, supplemental resources and activities and assignments.

Based on EIA list, this course emphasized three popular Conceptual Frameworks:

  • Bloom’s Revised Taonomies
  • TPACK – Technology, pedagogy and content knowledge.
  • SAMR – Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition

Activities

  • Web based learning resources include: Wordles, audacity, infographics, prezi, pedagogy wheel, glgosters, powtoon, goanimate, embedded twitter, feed, padlet etc..
  • IceBreakers – (Student Bios and Riddles)  – Introduce yourself and solve a riddle.  Twelve pears hanging high twelve men came riding by, Each took a pear, and left eleven hanging there. How did they do it?
  • Pre/Post Quizzes – Establish a baseline and provide a way to see how far they have come.
  • Extended Journals & Blogs – Students posted their personal teaching reflections blogs and turned their posts into wordles.  (Search- 50 Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom) – Go beyond
  • Weekly Animated lectures – Audacity, Powtoon, and Vimeo introduce each week’s topics.
  • Incorporate Bloom’s Revised Taxonomies – and an -ING.  (Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing, Applying, Understanding, Remembering.
  • Students explore the differences between revised taxonomies and original and how it would impact 21st century teaching and learning.

    Bitstrips for Schools (has subscription fee) – Comic Strip Generator (Activity)

  • Collaborate in Group Wiki Debates – In this activity, students use the Bb Wiki tool to debate which learning theory has had the most impact in the last 100 years.  (Team Constructivism, Team Objectivism, Team Cognitivism etc..)  (pre build areas in wiki to place team info and then comment on each team’s place for debate.  Another – Should cursive writing still be taught in schools?
  • Design Collaborative Script Writing – Bloomin Apps (Goggle earth, Google Maps, Google Translate, Google Lit trips (marry google earth/google maps and story telling), You Tube, Google Calendar  Assignment was to create a script writing project in teams using tools.
  • Use wiki or google docs on collaborative story telling.

Look at “Padagogy Wheel”.

Other Activities:

  • Building padlet walls (like pintrest
  • Creating WebQuests – (Students “interviewed” any historical figure asking three qeustions about their thoughts on the 21st century education by researching works, biography.  Answer from figures point of view and cite.
  • PBL Case Studies
  • Live Twitter Feed embedded in course
  • Build own assessment tools using Bloom’s chart.
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BbWorld14 Session Blog – Being Present & Engaging Students Online Using Video Everywhere

Murano 3304
Jason Rhode
Director, Faculty Development and Instructional Design Center
Northern Illinois University

One instructor’s use of YouTube’s free and easy-to-use features incorporated into Blackboard for recording, editing, captioning video in YouTube will be provided as well as examples of various approaches.

jasonrhode.com/bbvid – link to presentation and Jason’s Blog.

Outline – Steps(Recording, Editing, Captioning, Embedding) Examples (approaches for incorporation), Feedback(from students – lessons learned), Q&A

Considerations for using Video in Teaching –

Why not?

  • Want to keep course materials accessible
  • Don’t want videos public
  • Use alternative text & audio communications
  • Haven’t tried before

Online Instructor Roles – Pedagogical, Social, Managerial, Technical ( 4 key roles)

Community of Inquiry – Total Educational Experience (Social presence, Cognitive Presence, Teaching Presence) As a teacher you are always working in one or more of those areas.  Video crosses all three.

Why Video?

  • Web Based (no special software)
  • Accessible
  • Embeddable
  • Quick
  • Shareable
  • Human
  • Easy

Why YouTube?

  1. Free
  2. Accessible
  3. Embeddable in LMS

Where?

  • Blog Entries
  • Discussion Boards
  • Journals
  • Instructor Feedback
  • Wikis

Steps

1. Clarify Purpose

  • Why are you using Video in Your Course?
  • *What current communications are you augmenting or replacing
  • Are students allowed to incorporate video into their discussions and assignments
  • How ill you gauge effectiveness of using video? (mid-course survey)

2. Setup YouTube Account

  • Use personal account or setup academic account (up to you)  If you use personal you can permission individual videos
  • Edit Your Profile (put links to other social media accounts, edit privacy settings

3. Verify Your Account youtube.com/verify

  • Gives you a few additional settings (Put in custom thumbnail image for videos)
  • Get longer videos

4. Record

  • Video everywhere is on every textbox so you can record in Bb
  • Doing video recording in YouTube you get larger screen and easier to deal with (then use video everywhere to browse for previously recorded video
  • Students can do the same

5. Preview & Upload

  • Don’t Fret over video, doesn’t have to be perfect
  • Put in custom title/description/tags
  • Privacy settings (choose Unlisted – others can’t find it)
  • Advanced Settings – Share video using Creative Commons licencse
  • Default Settings are as public as possible so PAY ATTENTION

6. Add Captions

  • Youtube captioning is not perfect (really)
  • You can transcribe and sync video yourself via captioning screen (hit play and type along video will pause as you type)**
  • When you are finished transcribing, click sync
  • CC button shows captions

7. Save Transcript as Text File

  • Stay accessible

8.  Embed the video

Setup a Youtube Playlist for Your course – organize all videos for the course into one list that students can subscribe to outside of the LMS.  Students received notification upon addition of new recordings.

Examples

  • Welcome Video(tour de course) in Start Here (served as course course homepage) [Put in player controls in settings for video everywhere gives users more ability to start/stop video.
  • Instructor Info page (another video about Professor) (keep player controls)
  • Video in Announcements – Quick Video just like talking to them class, no rehearsal (umms and ahhs are okay)
  • Welcome Video to Each unit – Things to look forward to, preemptive advice etc..
  • Video Resources (youtube videos)  (Pirates of the Carribean for Bloom’s Taxonomy)
  • Video in Groups Home Page (in Description Area)
  • Videos in Discussion Instructions
  • Video Discussions – accessibility aide for learning disabilities
  • Video Journal – Reflect on Learning Journey option for text
  • Video Feedback in Grade Center

Feedback from Students

  • Unit Introduction Videos – most viewed in Unit
  • Students loved the videos
  • videos gave clear expectations

Lessons Learned

  • Students find the helpful
  • Videos don’t have to be polished to work
  • Transcription features are easy
  • Auto captioning has some issues

Keep your Videos Quick and Dirty, Under 10 Minutes, Record in Quite location, Use consistent Volume Level, Embed Videos in LMS!

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