Thinking EdTech: A Flat Discussion and Overview of Tools

Friday, September 12, 2008

A Flat Discussion and Overview of Tools

I started class by distributing half sheets of paper and asking the students to write down two things that they learned last week - from lecture, lab, or the reading. I also said that they could think about and write down any questions that they had about this course as well. While they were writing, I distributed the cups and lecture worksheets and worked on learning all of their names. After a few minutes, I had them turn to their neighbor and share what they had written. Then, a few shared with the whole class. Only one question was raised relating to how to do the collage when someone from their group was not following through with contacting the others through Facebook like was promised. I suggested finding this person in the IU e-mail global address book or through Oncourse and sending her an e-mail. Without any other contact info, there wasn't much else I could think of that she could do.

I then took the discussion to what it meant to teach in a now flat world. On a PowerPoint slide, I displayed some phrases that I had copied from their lecture worksheet responses. I then tried to take the discussion a bit deeper. While there was much discussion when the students had paired up in the beginning of class, little was said in the whole group discussion arrangement. Only a few actually volunteered answers; I mostly had to call on students to voice their thoughts. Overall, the discussion did not last very long, so I decided to move on to reviewing some key terms and ideas from the reading. I encouraged the students to do their reading, though it might not explicitly correlate to what they hear and see in lecture. We talked about what cognitive load, educational technology, technology, and instructional design meant and how they might apply in various settings.

I was unsure about what direction to take this week's lab workout and so I queried other AI's to find out what they had planned or had done. One had the students review webquests and three others did an overview of some of the tools we would be using this semester. I decided to go with the overview of tools. We had only created the accounts last week, and I thought it would be good to talk about what they were and how they could be used instructionally and then have some hands-on time to learn how to use them. I provided an overview of Blogger, Delicious, and Google Sites, and the students just watched. Then, they had about an hour to post to their blog, bookmarks sites, and create a new Google site. This was just the right amount of time, and the students really participated well in this workout. I had them type their URLs to these three sites in an Oncourse assignment so that I could review their work. We reserved a few minutes at the end of class to debrief. Many said that they enjoyed having time to work on the tools, as some had experienced frustrations and were able to get problems resolved in class.

Overall, I think the discussion segment could use improvement, while the workout was just right. I plan to investigate and then incorporate some strategies to better facilitate the discussions.

I am appreciative of Chip, Clare, and Pratima for discussing with me their plans for this lab and Andrew for sharing his blog and adding me to his Oncourse site.

Labels: teaching, W200

posted by SG @ 5:45 PM

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