Signing Off

The Connect & Learn Blog has come to an end.

Thank you to all who took the time to read our postings. We enjoyed sharing our thoughts and ideas with our students, and anyone else who happened to visit our site.

Online Study Hall?

Students email their professors continuously for help, often creating a breath of written communication that is difficult for their professors to manage. Piazza, a website developed by a Stanford University graduate student, may offer professors a solution that increases the manageability of help requests from students. The website contains a built-in study hall where professors and teaching assistants can easily monitor questions from students. This feature is also used to encourage students who understand the material to help students who are seeking help. The Piazza developer, Pooja Sankar, argues that this innovation simplifies student support for the professor by allowing the professor to post responses to a single online forum. Sankar says this approach is superior to approaches where the professor attempts to manage a scattershot of student email.

While this new innovation seems promising for professors, it is difficult understand how this innovation is superior to a well-designed online forum. After all, some learning management systems such as Canvas contain built-in, context-specific help.

Coffee Klatches Without Boundaries

"Klatch: a gathering characterized usually by informal conversation."

Why not hold such informal conversations online? Perhaps it has been because, up until now, the technological "hoops" you have to jump through have been too many to make such conversations either desirable or useful. Moreover, such conversations have been previously limited to text-based chats in which the pace is set by the slowest user, or typist (or "keyboardist", ...whatever).

Your scribe here has not been a fan of "chat". When it takes me 45 minutes to cover a point with a student or chat partner when a phone call or a face-to-face visit would have taken just 5 minutes, well... for me, nothing more graphically illustrates the disadvantages of "chat."

And yet, as educators we want to establish an informal, collegial relationship with our students, don't we? I can think of more arguments in favor of having that type of atmosphere than against.

Now that Canvas has arrived at the University of St. Francis, you may want to revisit the value of holding chat conferences anew, but this time from the perspective of using webcams and microphones. With today's "plug and play" types of devices, it is not anywhere near as hard as you think to get a webcam and mic working on your computer, and ready to go.

In Canvas, when you select "chat", the chat application opens, and gives you an obvious button to "start broadcasting". A "wizard" walks you through the steps of connecting your webcam and microphone, and a video window with you in it pops up in the chat area. And then you wait for visitors.

In the "Preparing to Teach Online" class in Canvas, I scheduled "Coffee Klatches" that appeared on the course calendar with notifications to students. These were mere half-hour sessions in which I entered the chat room, fired up my webcam and mic, and patiently waited with a mug of coffee in my hand. I planned no instruction; I just wanted to hold an "office hours" type of event where we could talk about anything.

One student showed up, then another, and we had a three-way conversation with webcams and mics. Sometimes I'd have to ask a participant to mute his or her microphone when not talking, but that was no big deal, and the conversation would carry on.

We'd jaw away at each other, and invariably the conversation swung to course matters. We'd get a lot done, just talking, as though we were in the same office together. I believe the instructors who participated in this will use it in the Canvas courses they teach.

Of course, you need to bring your own coffee.

Apple iPad Review: The Retina Display Redefines the Tablet

The 2012 refresh of the Apple iPad wows, but not for the reasons so often associated with Apple products. After all, at first glance it appears to be the same product--it's just barely thicker and a tad heavier than the model that came before it. But that impression changes once you turn on the iPad's screen: That's when the new iPad not only takes your breath away but also demonstrates how Apple has redefined the tablet game--again. More->>

Canvas: Evidence of an Evolving Technology

College students who took online courses during the advent of online learning expressed a great deal of discontent with learning management systems (LMS). Several postsecondary students felt that LMS provided a learning environment that was highly impersonal. This environment left students feeling disconnected, and even isolated, from their peers and the course instructor. Such isolation and the lack of virtual presence among online students contributed to a high rate of student attrition in early online courses.

Student disorientation represented a second problem emanating from early LMS. The poor navigational design of many of these learning environments caused students to feel disoriented, as a significant number of students had great difficulty navigating online courses. The difficulties that students experienced during attempts to navigate online courses led to an increase in cognitive load among students, limiting the suitability of online environments for learning.

A third limitation of early LMS was the unimodal design of course content. Most of the course content that students encountered in online courses included text-based content, which burdened learners’ working memory with extraneous cognitive load. Limited video and audio resources were incorporated into these courses despite the fact that research has shown that learning is optimized when instructional content is presented in multiple modalities.

The Canvas LMS solves a number of the problems inherent in early learning management systems. This system allows students to communicate with video and audio messages and maintain a virtual presence with personal images. Communicating in such modalities makes the online learning environment more personable than the earliest online learning environments. Video, audio, and images can also be used in Canvas to enhance the delivery of instructional content, as learners are no longer forced to learn in an environment that features unimodal instruction. A reduced burden is placed on learners’ working memory. One significant contrast in the Canvas LMS and early LMS is the fact that limited navigation is required by students. Most course content can be accessed by students with limited clicking, which minimizes the potential for students to become disoriented with the course environment. Thus, the Canvas LMS provides clear evidence that LMS technology is evolving.

Using video clips contextually

The question of how much of a video clip to use is one that I address with some frequency with instructors. If the copyright owner of the video clip is a publisher, there are restrictions on its use that should be consulted. A review of the TEACH Act, passed by congress in 2002, is worth your time and effort. One of the best sites that covers the opportunities this law creates for presenting video to online students is at Ball State University.

While I can only give a personal opinion, not a legal one, I believe the TEACH act offers marvelous opportunities for showing a portion of a video to students enrolled in a curricular course at a non-profit institution. Moreover, those opportunities are enhanced, markedly, with the introduction of the learning management system, Canvas, very soon here at USF.

But notice I said "portion". Some instructors feel they should be able to show an entire movie to an online class just as they can before students in a face-to-face classroom. The TEACH act says you must use only a "reasonable" portion, but I understand the guidelines leaves those "reasonable" limits up to you, the faculty member. Still, it's pretty obvious to me that the law does not want you to show the entire work online.

So, my recommendation is, give the movie clip you want to show online a "contextual wrapper". Lead-into the clip with some commentary (in the form of a narrative paragraph or a recorded comment by you). Then show the clip, next in sequence. Then follow that up with an activity or assessment. Here is an example:

In the movie, "To Kill a Mockingbird," the lead character, lawyer Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck, is defending an African American, Tom Robinson, who is on trial for the rape of a white woman. This is the old south, 1930's, and Jim Crow laws are in full bloom; it is a very bad time for African Americans. While Robinson is accused of raping the white woman, in actuality, it was the white woman, Mayella, who seduced Robinson. That's the evidence that has been explicitly drawn out by Finch during the trial. In the closing arguments you are about to see, Finch is calling on the all-white jury to consider these facts. Now let's watch the clip.

To Kill a Mockingbird clip

What does this video clip say to you about racial injustice? Does it apply today?

Like I said, it's only an example. But the effect is that the student does not have to see the entire movie to get the meaning of the video clip, if all goes well with the conceptual framework that you provide in the narrative. In Canvas, the link to the clip appears as its own video clip window, which makes for a seamless viewing and reading experience for the student.

The clip is taken from http://www.youtube.com/movieclipsFILM, which is a marvelous resource for adding clips from major movies for an instructional purpose!

Glen Gummess

Note-Taking Apps for the iPhone

Jotting down ideas and information to refer to later should be easy, and these five apps help different people do it in different ways, from the visually-oriented to Microsoft devotees. As any efficient, organized, and focused person knows, finding the right note-taking app is crucial to getting the most out of your iPhone. But the very best note-taking apps are designed help disorganized people keep their thoughts and memos in tip-top order, too. More->>

Electronic Performance Support in Learning Management Systems

It has taken nearly 20 years, but electronic performance support systems (EPSS) are finally appearing in learning management systems. EPSS are integrated, computer-based support systems (LMS) designed to provide an individual just-in-time support while the individual is performing a particular task. Help is provided to individuals in the form of expert systems, multi-modal data, software, and instructional tutorials. Electronic performance support provides a sheer contrast to training, as training focuses on preparing individuals to perform. Such preparatory approaches are not used in EPSS; these systems support individual performance.

The learning management system Canvas provides one example of electronic performance support. This LMS uses just-in-time tutorials in its Sidebar feature to support students and faculty with critical tasks at the moment of need. While the Sidebar in Canvas represents a major milestone in LMS development, innovation in LMS design is just beginning.

Paradoxes of Open Source Knowledge

These days it's just about uncommon to find something that isn't available on the World Wide Web. Paradox? You bet. Just the other day I used Google to search for video or images of a frozen turkey being dipped in cooking oil.
Boy, did I ever find it.

However, as the old adage goes, "things are not always as they seem," and the same is true for Google searches. You get what you ask for.

The search I used in Google was "frozen turkey dipped in cooking oil" and lo and behold, that's what I got. But if you look carefully, one of the sites cautions "slowly and carefully lower the turkey."

There are consequences if you don't. Take a look at this video; the first 19 seconds will be quite enough, thank you:

And how did I land this video in my Google search? By changing the search string to "frozen turkey deep frier". Once again, what you ask for is what you get. The tag line for this video was the "do not try this at home" type: It will burn your house down. No kidding. There was even a message from Captain Kirk, William Shatner, about the dangers of deep frying frozen turkey.

Perhaps this commentary would have been more appropriate around Thanksgiving, but we're heading toward Easter, so, forewarned is ... you know the rest...

But, for instructional purposes, the upshot of this commentary may very well be that Google, Bing, Ask, Yahoo and other search engines are marvelous tools for sifting for knowledge, but only if you're smart in the phraseology of what you are searching for. Composing your search string could make a huge difference in the information you harvest from the web. That is the flaw of search engines. You not only have to be careful what you ask for, you have to know, in advance, what you're asking for.

And that's why search engines will never substitute... never substitute... for the best search engine there is: your reference librarian, who can help you refine what you're asking for. And who resides in the best reputable storehouse of knowledge around: your local library; better yet your USF academic library.

How to Defend Your Android Phone From Annoying Mobile Ads

Your Android phone used to be an ad-free paradise--a place where you could play games, check email, and make a few calls, all without being bothered by those pesky sales pitches that have taken over your PC. But not anymore: As Android's popularity has grown, so too has its attractiveness to advertisers. More->>

Quality Online Discussions

Online discussions often lack substantive content that demonstrates the use of higher order thinking skills by students. Many statements that students contribute to discussion forums include vague generalizations and restatements of basic information. Little intellectual depth is provided in these statements. The lack of thoughtfulness of students during these discussions minimizes the instructional value of discussions. Therefore, many students feel that online discussions benefit them minimally.

Perhaps, students need help with the concept of substantive content. It may be possible to provide students examples of quality discussion scaffolds to enable the students to see attributes of quality student discourse. One proposal is that course instructors create fictitious students who generate quality discussion posts in the online environment. This approach establishes a culture of high expectations, forcing students to evaluate their discussion contributions.

If you can see the video below, you've got an HTML 5 supported browser that also supports a streaming video format called H.264 (or MP4). If not, the space below will appear blank, contain a non-working artifact, or will give you information. In any event, the script for the video is immediately below the video clip.

SCRIPT:

Hello, I'm Glen Gummess, instructional designer in the Center for Instructional Delivery.

I'm here today to tell you about how video is becoming easier to view, and to create, for the world wide web.

The key word is "becoming" for while great progress has been made in enabling people to shoot and upload videos to the web, there is still a lot of work to do to make it truly as easy as taking a picture on a webcam and uploading it to Facebook.

The current state of the art for viewing video on the web is Flash video. Whenever you go to Youtube, or view a news clip on Yahoo, you're viewing a Flash video, based on Adobe Flash.

However, mobile devices do not support Flash video. So, a way had to be developed to deploy videos for I-phones and android devices.

One new emerging standard is HTML 5. Unlike flash video, HTML 5 video plays without an add-in. Browsers that support HTML 5 just play the clip faster and without taking as much computer resources.

Web page authors that write HTML 5 can now just insert a video with a simple HTML "tag". There's no need to embed complicated code in the web page.

Example:

HTML 5 is now supported by a variety of browsers, as this table shows.

You can even test your browser to see if it supports HTML, by going to this web site:

HTML5test-dot-com..

But, not all browsers that support HTML 5 support the same types of video, due to various competing video formats.

And as long as that competition continues, the full implementation of HTML 5 will be delayed. That competition is likely to continue for a few years to come.

10 Great Tools to Get in Shape

The New Year is finally here--and with it comes the realization that you probably had one too many pieces of pie at that last holiday party. Whether you want to work off just a few holiday pounds or you've made a New Year’s resolution to get in shape, you can find tons of fitness tools online and on your mobile phone that will provide motivation and assistance.

Here are ten great tools that will help you track what you eat, where you run, and how quickly you’ve lost weight. More ->>