Author Archives: Teresa Ober

Ideas and Guidelines for Interactivity and Using Technology in Teaching

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The readings this week challenged us to think about ways to design assignments using technology in ways that are interactive, reflective, discursive, and socially oriented. In considering ways to incorporate technology into the classroom, it is above all important not to lose sight of the people who are supposed to benefit from being a part of the classroom. Not to be used as a mechanism for transmitting information, technology in the classroom rather serves as means of supporting learning through collaboration, communication, sharing of ideas, fostering a community.

The examples of final projects from the Macaualay Honors College Encyclopedia show how successful the use of websites can be in the serving as a platform for presenting information from research. A collection of websites under the title “People of New York City” shows various communities within the city, each focusing on the people, culture, and history of a specific neighborhood. In developing the projects, students practiced the skills of ethnography and created the content to show dimensions of the neighborhood. The project is so inherently “people-focused” that the final products appear to be a representation of community itself. While trying to get a sense for the Macaualay Springboard site, it seems also to serve the function of supporting the initial development of different project ideas and to communicate, collect feedback, and generally reflect on the progress of projects. It is essentially a place to bring multiple ideas together.

Though perhaps considered more formal in their presentation, scholarly journals serve a similar purpose. Journals provide salient information to a community who share similar academic or intellectual interests. Online open access journals make the sharing of such information possible, and more recently, have even provided means by which community members can become more involved in the review and editing process. The article about the work of Dr. Adrienne Brundage illustrates this nicely, and shows how assignments can be structured to give students the opportunity to learn about the publishing first-hand and in so doing, learn about what is effective for scientific writing.

In thinking about how to actually orchestrate the interaction within the classroom to teach complex concepts of media, or the learning of any material that could be better facilitated through peer-interaction, Dr. Jade Davis shows how to use a system of “speed dating” to help students generate ideas and come up with a project proposal. Since many technologies can be used to broadcast information widely, it seems now more important than ever to be able to gauge the interests and needs of the community that the knowledge you seek to convey can best serve. This dispersive model of one-to-one collaboration seems like a quick and very engaging activity that allows the students to collect different ideas and settle on the ones that work best for them and their overall project goal. The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy present other assignment and project ideas. While many of the projects are specific to certain subject areas, the way that different games and other forms of media are incorporated into the lesson could be applied across a broad range of disciplines. In looking over the assignments, I became interested in the one proposed by Laura Tabor titled “Pre-Research to Create Exigence for Public Argument Essays,” which seems particularly relevant given that we are in an election year and could stimulate an interest among students the discussions that surround political debates.

In addition to incorporating online resources into the classroom, as we may already know, we can also bring the classroom online. Konieczny discusses the resources and general feasibility of designing lessons using Wikipedia and stresses some of the technicalities of using it as a resource both for teaching writing and about online communities. The article is practically a “how to” for novice users of Wikipedia who aspire to incorporate it into their lessons. Barton also discusses the use of Wikipedia as a tool for teaching and learning, with particular emphasis on how it is a community of users and has certain norms of etiquette to prevent the “tragedy of the commons” or the selfish destruction of the information and the medium.

Motivation

  1. In reflecting on the readings, were there any other common elements that you say pervasive through the different assignments that were presented?
  2. In developing your Wikipedia assignment, did you consider some of the issues that Konieczny and Barton mention in their articles on the online open-access, open-editor encyclopedia? Were there any things that you wish you had considered before planning your assignment? Is there anything that you would change about the assignments at this point?

 

 

Teaching, Learning, Technology & You

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This week we read a range of texts focusing on the issues facing education within a digital context. From the qualitative multi-year study conducted by our very own Prof. Smale, we read about the circumstances that many CUNY students face when confronted with coursework. While indeed many students these days are extremely tech-savvy, in some situations, the availability of technology may not meet the growing need. Further, many students are capable of navigating online resources and doing research using mobile devices such as smartphones, e-readers, or tablets. Instructors can learn to maximize the utility and availability of these resources by guiding students through searches to find valid resources to contribute to their research and classroom-based activities and discussions. One such initiative to improve the accessibility of resources is the OpenLab at City Tech as described by Rosen and Smale.

 

In terms of online pedagogy, the presentation of instructional materials is an important consideration because it creates a platform for learning. Based on his own experience, Pelz describes three principles based on experience with online learning. The first principle states that “students should do (most of) the work.” Describing different types of online tasks, such as virtual ice-breakers and discussions of online resources, Pelz convincingly shows how online forums can be used to continue a conversation between students about course material and learning outside the confines of the classroom. Principle 2 emphasizes the importance of interactivity in learning and provides examples for creating collaborative writing activities online. Much like GoogleDocs or Social Paper, the advantages of both writing within a quiet space that free of distractions as much as possible combined with the benefits of receiving feedback from peers and instructors can be set-up online. The third and final principle stress the need for presence in online education. Presence, according to Pelz, in an online environment comes in three distinct forms: affective, interactive, and cohesive. Just as disappointing as it is finding a blog that hasn’t been updated in years, seeing that a course site is out of date is probably similarly upsetting to a student who attempts to use it as a means to access resources and communicate with others in the course.

 

While not evident in Pelz’s piece, Ugoretz brings light to a different aspect of online discussion forums in particular, highlighting the creative potential that forums have for generating digressions. Whereas in a classroom setting, the digressions can consume a large amount of class time and may not always be to the benefit of each student, digressions in an online forum can invite all students to participate in the conversation allowing it to err in any direction that the participants see fit. For those who are not interested in the digression, they may contribute to another conversation or create their own. Ugoretz provides some recommendations for setting up productive digressions – for one, by establishing very clear goals for the discussion forum.

 

If anything, access to technology and information has created a meta-space for learning that extends beyond the classroom and as educators and students, we should try to maximize this potential.

 

Motivation: React to one or more of the following

 

In line with the empirical tradition, no significant statistical difference merely indicates that you have failed to demonstrate of an effect of one variable in relation to another. That is to say, that you have not proven a relationship does or does not exist. One can neither really prove nor disprove anything. Occasionally, errors can occur where an effect is not detected and this outcome, known as a Type II error can stem from multiple issues, including faulty experimental design or simply not having sufficient power as a result of a small sample size. With that said, do you believe that there is sufficient reason to call into the question the studies in No Significant Difference?

 

How is the need for the Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age (BRPLDR) self-evident? Who is primarily responsible for ensuring that they are adhered to?

 

What were your reactions to the BRPLDR? If you were to amend the bill, what principle would you include or change?

 

The article by Pelz attempts to establish very concise principles of online learning. Do you think that they are comprehensive enough to lay the foundation for a good online discussion?

 

Digressions in an online setting can beneficial for students, according to Ugoretz, but need to be set-up by the instructor in such a way the objectives of the discussion are clear. In what other ways can an instructor enhance the productivity of a digression by setting it up?

 

React to your own experience in online education.

Hello!

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Hello Fellow Core II People,

I was lucky enough to meet many of you last semester as a student in Core I, but would like to introduce myself regardless. I’m a second-year student in the Educational Psychology program here at the Graduate Center. This semester I’m excited to be working alongside all of you and learning different skills during labs. My interests are learning, memory, executive functions, games and collaboration.