Our first Team Tech Talk today was about synchronous methods of teaching.

First, they told us a little about different synchronous tools, including Second Life, Blackboard Collaborate, and Skype. Synchronous tools can be great for including experts who cannot physically come to your classroom. Also allow you to do similar types of activities as in the face-to-face classroom

Our second tech talk was about ethics in using technology. The team shared information about copyright and fair use, monetary costs of requiring technology such as laptops, clickers, tablets, etc, and also security and privacy issues. Following the information session, the class debated two issues:

1. You should provide alternatives to each assignment so that you give your students more response/self expression options (ex. they can post to either Pinterest or Delicious, or choose between blogging and tweeting).

2. It is better to use hardware/software that students already have access to (ex. having a twitter account v. not, or having a smartphone v. not) than to require that they use technology that is new to them.

The groups all came up with great arguments for their sides, and some even convinced themselves to change their minds! These are great questions to think about before assigning tech-related assignments.

Two more great tech talks, one to go!

Time for class: Everyone open Facebook

The second team tech talk today was by (JL)² about using Facebook in class. They started by asking pairs to think about frustrations with eLC or other learning management systems.

• Not consistent across classes
• Can't have more than one window open at the same time
• Just doesn't work!
• Not user-friendly
• Software conflicts - browsers, Java, etc
• Too many clicks

Using Facebook may not address all of these, but it does address some.

Next, Lindsey gave us a history of Facebook and some statistics.
Jeremy talked about some of the research about usage of Facebook in higher education.
Jessica showed us a video she made with some of the procedures involved in creating and using a Facebook group. 
Denise shared some drawbacks of using Facebook -

• distractions, advertising, instant messaging
• It may discourage face-to-face communication. 
• Some students may not participate as often as other students. 
• Also, it may be difficult to locate older posts/discussions. 
• Privacy is also an issue - for both students and teachers. However, some amount of teacher disclosure may be good for student motivation for class.

Good talk!

Flipping Out!

Before class today, Team! asked the class to review a narrated PowerPoint about flipping the classroom. They then started with an activity for the class to open our blogs and type a sentence or two about how we would define flipping the classroom. After about a minute, they asked us to pair up with another person to discuss what we wrote. Next, they asked the whole class to share.

Some of the things that came up:

• Takes the homework out of the home and puts it into the classroom. 
• Some disciplines may already be doing this, such as in literature. Students have to prepare for discussion and activities. 
• Some traditional faculty may feel that they have to sacrifice content coverage for "active" learning. 
• There may be a disconnect with some people regarding what the activities can be. 

The next activity was a small group discussion, with a member of Team! facilitating each small group's discussion. As I looked on, it appeared that everyone was participating and contributing to the conversation. There were four prompts: challenges, benefits, assessing the success of flipping, examples in different disciplines. Some ideas that came up...

• Getting students to do the work at home - there must be incentive.
• Students may be more likely to watch a video than do reading. Although, an actual assignment that will be handed in has a grade. Or they may "watch" the video at the same time they are doing other things. 
• It is important to continue to assign critical reading.
• This is not necessarily a revolutionary idea, just repackaged and branded.
• Flipping may not be appropriate for all topics.
• One example was for a research methods course - students work in groups to create a moderator's guide for a focus group. 
• Another example is a public speaking class - allowing more time in class to practice speaking. 

The final activity was back to blogging - we were told to respond to the original blog post with reactions and additional reflections.

Great job, Team!

Connections

Just read a post on Inside Higher Ed - Dangerous Curves - about students who staged a boycott of their class final...and all got As. At first I was intrigued by the outcome, but after reading the post, I was more interested in how the students organized themselves via social media. It really should come as no surprise, but since social media meant phone trees when I was a college student (yes, that makes me feel like an ancient human being), I am still in awe of the connections students have with one another today.

How can faculty help students use their connections to facilitate learning?