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