How learning with technology is like being on Jury Service.

I am a bit behind with my blog posts – my sincere apologies. Curriculum review, Christmas and deadlines. However, I am currently on jury service and find myself in an over warm, unventilated room with a lot of people and nothing to do so I thought I would write you a blog post about it, related to learning technology of course. I have come up with a few similarities between jury service and implementing learning technologies.

• You only have internet on your phone – how can you ever survive the day!

Well for your students, this is probably the norm. They experience most of their life through a hand-held device so embrace it. Be like them. Look for technologies that are mobile friendly, this way your students can work on the bus or while on jury service! Discussion boards are pretty mobile friendly and a good way of getting students to interact. The native Blackboard ones, hideous as they are, will give you the most reliability but other tools like Piazza also have mobile apps. 

 

Podcasts and short videos are also a good way of providing pre-learning information. Anything under 15 minutes and preferably downloadable (for the underground) would be great. You can make these yourself on Panopto or you can direct your students to online sources like TED talks, YouTube or BoB. It is worth being mindful of time as anything that cannot be downloaded will mean using mobile data or being somewhere with Wi-Fi which restricts the places in which students can interact with the content.

• You have no idea what you are doing.

There is an expectation that you will do something. Activate your classroom? Flip it? Digitise it? However, the instructions about how to do it, when to do it and how long it will take are very vague. We can only apologise for this, but things change all the time.

That is not very helpful when you are expected to do something (beware shameless self-promotion). This is why we developed the IMPLEMnT project. It is a community-based tool which collects different technologies and shows their potential uses. It also has a collection of user case studies that allow the community to share practice around what works and what doesn’t. My next project may be to design something similar for the jury service. IMPLEMnT is currently undergoing some upgrades so it not fully functional but we absolutely welcome comments at this stage!

• It’s so boring…. No, it is really interesting…. Oh dear I am so conflicted!

That’s the thing about jury service it could be so interesting, you could learn so much but in reality, you have better things to do and it just gets in the way. Digital learning is like that – you might like to, it might be cool but where are you going to find the time. Not to mention the fact that you have no idea what you are doing. In answer to this I offer my learned friend the long-term view. Many of the reasons people like me advocate for digital is because in the long run it will save you time. Switching that essay to an online peer assessment may be tough the first time around but next time – think of how much less marking you will have to do.

Creating that pre-learning content will take me days!!! Possibly – but once you have done it… you can re-use it as many times as you like. Of course, this is where the likeness to jury service fails. I am not sure there is a long-term benefit (other than lasting damage to my sanity), although I am in a room with no internet catching up on my writing which is a bonus!

Digital vs Analogue: Top digi tools with analogue equivalents

Mentimeter cards against humanity

Everyone loves mentimeter right? You can get interaction from all 300 of your students by asking them to vote on a concept checking question. It’s great, you make sure they are awake, you see if they are listening and you can guide you class around the general understanding of the room. What is not to like?

Well… there has been a snowstorm and there is no electricity, the internet is dead and the Grinch came along and stole christm everyone’s phones. Now what? How will I ever know if all my students are awake? Fear not we have the answer. I piece of paper with 4 colours on it. Red for answer a), blue for answer b) and so on. Simple. I mean you won’t be able to see on account of the snowstorm, lack of electricity and the resulting darkness but you get the gist.

Post-It on a Padlet

Dr Spencer Silver and Arthur Fry were revolutionary men without whom the world would be a very different place. No workplace would function effectively without those little yellow notes stuck to a computer screen to remind you to but milk on the way home. These men are heroes! What is more, without them and their revolutionary sticky notes how would a person cope when lightning strikes the server room leaving you with no internet to present your truly amazing in-class brainstorming session through Padlet? Enter John J Loud and his ball point pen and you have your lesson back on track!

Both the Padlet and the Post-It are ways of running an active learning class, check out Padlet in HE 101 for more ideas and features and post-it note pedagogy for some hints and tricks. In some cases, if you want students to share digital content like videos or journal articles, Padlet and its functions are necessary however if all you want is students to write concise comments and share them – why not the humble post-it? Plus they look cool on your Instagram feed (whatever that it).

When Trello was young it was a chalk board!

Many of the technologies we use today grew out of a need to streamline processes and make them more mobile and more accessible to a scattered population. Generally speaking, these tools were developed for business not education as that is where the best cost/benefit ratio lies but that does not stop them being useful to education. There is a great case study on IMPLEMnT about using Trello (a project management tool for those unfamiliar) to manage PBL teaching and it is brilliant, especially for longer term projects but there is also a certain administrative burden with it. So if you are new to PBL and want a simple solution to manage the task distribution while you concentrate on other things put yourself into an episode of Mad Men, pour self a vodka martini and write out those roles on the whiteboard.

Answers on a post card please

We have all been there, having spent ages creating a google form (other survey tools are available) to collect information from your cohort about their opinions on medical ethics and where certain practices sit and on a moral scale of Mary Poppins to Philip Green.

Then the unthinkable happens and the heatwave that has been gripping the country for the last 2 months finally takes its toll and the sprinkler systems come on knocking out all the electricity and all you are left with is 300 students... There is nothing for it other than to get them to put the proverbial answers on a post card and collect your information that way.

On a slightly less flippant note there is a moral here and that is twofold.

1. Don’t rely entirely on the internet, no-one ever looked silly for having a plan B.
2. 95% of the digital education tools we use now have an analogue equivalent and if you are stepping in to active learning and don’t want the added hassle of learning a new technology as well, don’t. Make it work the old-fashioned way and once you have that sorted then you can tech it up!

5 ways to flip out

When flipping things like lids, pancakes, classrooms and the occasional desk it should be remembered that some things are more appropriate to flip than others. Basic info, anything that students could look up on Wikipedia is arguably better outside the classroom where students can engage with it in their own time leaving the more valuable time, in a room with an expert, to be devoted to higher order thinking skills. It is also worth noting that there is no formula for flipping a classroom, you should do whatever works for you and the ideas I have written here can be mixed up and used in any way that you feel is relevant.

1.     Low tech (flip a lid)

Before your face-to-face session ask your students to read part of a paper (keep it short or they won’t do it) and give them a couple of questions to answer – make sure you warn them you will be checking answers (see previous parentheses). Begin the session by asking your questions. Multiple choice questions can be answered by showing the relevant number of fingers and keeping hands close allows a level of anonymity. Alternatively get the students to bring the answers on a bit of paper and ask them to discuss with each other.

You can then assess how many got it right and react accordingly. If they all got it… move on to something more advanced. If they didn’t give them an explanation. Then instead of lecturing to them give them a task, one that requires them to use the information they were given in the paper.                 Class flipped, students engaged, no tech needed.

2.     Tech it up a tad (flip a table)

That is great, your lesson has been flipped and your students are engaged. Unfortunately you are in trouble with estates because of the 300 tiny pieces of paper on the floor and there were a few students who didn’t really get involved because they were shy or they hadn’t done the reading. Using mentimeter.com you can do the same again but without the paper. In addition it also allows you to see how many have answered, the students see their peers answers (if you want them to) and anonymity is preserved. Plus they get to play with their beloved smartphones. But why bother when I could do it with paper? Because with no extra effort you can ask the same question again in the middle or at the end of your lecture and see if they have changed their minds. Then you can get the data… who doesn’t love data!

Plus it is all reusable.

3.     Cooking on gas (flip a pancake)

Fine, but all they are really doing is engaging with their reading list, shouldn’t they be doing that anyway? Well probably yes, but you didn’t concept check before so it’s a start! But what if you could give them something a bit different? There is a whole internet full of information out there and it doesn’t even have to be very good as long as you teach students to be critical. TED talks are generally very good but often too long. YouTube can be shorter but of questionable providence. Newspapers, well who knows… but all of this information can be used for effective flipping if it is presented alongside the right questions and can be a great way to inform a session. I know, I know, you have used Mentimeter and it was fun but they are getting tired of it. Yes it is indeed time to up your game. Create an online quiz to concept check your information and you can track how many have done it, what answers they have got right and wrong and then you can frame your session accordingly. That is a good plan but I am not using Blackboard!!! OK, OK, I know you hate it and even if it is the most reliable way to collect information there are others. Google Forms, Qualtrics, and a host of other free web based offerings. Most of which I will admit are prettier and easier to use than our beloved Blackboard.

4.     Olympic flipping (double tuck)

We are on a roll now, classrooms are being flipped left, right and centre but I hear a cry of frustration because you just can’t find the information that you want on the internet. That is ok, we can make our own and it is really quite simple.

• Make a talking head video.
• Record a voice over for your slides.
• Record yourself annotating a diagram on a visualizer.
• Do a screen cast of yourself using some specific software.
• Take camera into your lab and film an experiment.

Most of this can be done quite simply on Panopto using college equipment but as always there are other options, some free, some not. Plus once you have made you video it is there to be used for as long as it is relevant (things that go out of date very quickly are probably not worth the bother).

5.     Flying away (loop the loop)

Let’s go fully interactive! Number 5 is probably only for those of you with a learning technologist available or a very large budget but there is nothing wrong with being a little aspirational. There is software out there that can roll all of the above into 1 neat little interactive online package which will give students a guided learning experience before they even reach a classroom. This isn’t as daft as it sounds. If you have been doing this for a while and you have information and resources that work for you and your students enjoy using there is a case for developing something more professional, particularly if it can be used for other purposes, internal or external, or across multiple courses. Cost benefit sometimes works out in your favour and fortune favours the bold so I you have an idea… ask!

The return...

I haven't posted for a while...well... three years but you know, work gets in the way. However I have done a bit of writing for Imperial College and a few other places (ALT, HEA blog). Most of those have been open but most recently I have been writing for Beacon which is a community site for those working in postgraduate medicine but behind an Imperial log-in. These posts were written to engage with academics so I have decided I should share some of them externally. I think some of those academics that are suffering curriculum review will identify with the excruciating nature of my blog. A name from a long time ago when I was new to teaching, learning and reflective practice but the sentiment remains - if it is worth doing it will probably be hard.

At a meeting today one of the presenters likened learning to going on a quest - not just an adventure that you come back from with photographs - but a journey, where the road is the destination not a defined end point and which changes you as you reflect and react to the ideas, people and concepts that you are exposed to along the way.

The learning designer should be enabling the quest for others as well as travelling their own and the really interesting stuff will happen when the two meet. The next step on my quest will be SFHEA and I am looking forward to the adventures I will have on the way!

A colouring book of accessiblity

Doing CMALT section 3 – wider context, the section that is all about legislation and policy, has brought a number of things based around good practice to the front of my mind, things that would have been thought about in purely abstract terms if at all. One of those things is web accessibility and what it actually means.  I have been guilty of ignoring such things or just relying on the fact that I am working within a VLE or in within the Imperial website so it must all be ok. I guess this has been true partly because I have always had other things to occupy my mind and partly because it has never really come up having trained as a teacher I know all about making work accessible to diverse groups of students and some of that translates into on-line materials. Making things accessible to different learning styles is second nature to me but I have never formally investigated the rules or protocols of web accessibility. Doing my CMALT portfolio has however made me think a bit more in depth about this.

Recently I have been updating a set of sharepoint pages and I was asked if I could put some colour in them. Then jokingly – because the person who asked is also doing CMALT – said ‘ I wonder if that will make it inaccessible’. This was a question I realised I did not actually know the answer to so I thought I would do a bit of research and it was actually quite interesting.

Once I got past the WCAG guidelines that definitely fail on their own rule of language accessibility and found some sites that have been dumbed down a bit (clearly I needed an idiots guide) I discovered that colour – in and of itself – does not make that much difference to people who have impaired vision however contrast and an awareness of it can make a big difference to the useablity of a site.(read article here) Then I found this cool online tool which gives you a rating for how good your colour scheme is.

After I had played with it for about 10 minutes just putting in colours to see what happened (it is quite good fun) I worked out which of the colours from the Imperial palette would give me an AAA rating and used those to add some colour to my sharepoint pages. 

Now I am excited and want to put coloured backgrounds on everything!

Assessment and feedback

I recently went to the Blackboard on Tour event in London which was largely based around assessment and feedback – there was an interesting presentation given by Grainne Hamilton on the topic which regardless of the implications for using Blackboard learn brought up (or more accurately, caused me to revisit) some interesting ideas about feedback and assessment and how we approach it in a HE environment. We were asked to decide which three of the following principles we thought were most important.

My choices were:

• ·         Opportunities to act on feedback
• ·         Develop self assessment and reflection
• ·         Encourage positive motivational beliefs

Not necessarily in that order…

Here is why.

Encouraging motivational beliefs is for me probably the most important on that list as, if done effectively, could be the 1^st step to promoting self directed learning and reflection by fostering  student ownership of their own learning. If, as a marker or assessor, in whatever capacity your feedback isn’t positive andmotivational in the sense that it encourages students to study further, it will not be effective. It may even be damaging as a student who is not motivated is far less likely to succeed. Of course feedback should not be entirely about saying ‘well done you are brilliant’, this will not help them think critically about what they have written and improve on it but equally it is important to balance criticism however constructive with some praise. If you are not told you have done something well you may not necessarily have the confidence to do it again. 

Encouraging positive and motivational beliefs leads neatly into the idea of developing self assessment and reflection, ultimately when they leave HE students are going to be in the workplace and the process of self assessment and reflection becomes a lot more important because there will be no faculty member looking at what they are doing and providing feedback. Self assessment and reflection is not a process that comes naturally to most people so it is part of the duty of an HE establishment to create a positive environment where students are encouraged and helped to develop these skills. 

At the end of the day however feedback positive, motivational or otherwise will achieve nothing if it falls on the proverbial deaf ears. The only way feedback can really enable students is if they are given time to act on it. This is something that is often lacking, especially in HE summative assignments may be marked and commented on and returned to students but there is little incentive to read and engage with that feedback as the assignment has been completed. Giving feedback on drafts and building into the process a requirement for self reflection is one way to help students engage and make allow them to develop self reflection skills. This is something I have been working on so watch this space. 

Making a choice of three important principles, however well justified, is all well and good and saying students must act on feedback and engage with is an excellent theory but on some level as a teaching institution we have to provide them with the skills and a framework which enable them to do that or it becomes a little bit like handing someone three skittles and instructing them to juggle. At the very least they are going to get a headache!

Reflecting on others reflects well on me

I am currently working on my CMALT  portfolio. What that really means is I am writing a reflective portfolio on what I do in my day job. I used to hate reflective writing but the more I do it the more I see how beneficial it is and am actually beginning to enjoy it (not the parts where I am forced to say how amazing I am, but the parts where I think about what I have done and how it can be better). I am not sure if I have more ideas because I am reflecting or if it is just because I am being forced to write them down that I am actually following through on them. Or even if it is because I am getting out of the office more and talking to other people who understand what I do for a living. 

There is an added element to the reflective practice that is happening for my CMALT and that is the addition of the group element. We are all working on our portfolios a section at a time and sharing them and discussing as we go along. Clearly as a very shy little person (yes really) – this terrifies me… but if it ain’t scary it ain’t worth doing right? I have always been one for just working away on my own and getting stuff done so this sharing business is new thing for me but this week I went over a section of a colleague’s portfolio with a constructively critical eye and wrote notes on what I thought. I then went back to my own work and took the same comments and edited my extremely verbose, waffly section of rubbish and made it into something a lot more coherent not only by listening to my own advice (why people don’t do this more often is a mystery) but by evaluating the things I thought she did well and then applying it to my own work. In a non-plaguiarisy way of course. 

The same colleague also read what I had written and came back with some inciteful and interesting ideas which have helped immensely sharing is good apparently!

“it is much friendlier with two, said Pooh”