Teaching in Higher Ed

Cataloging course resources using PKM

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Cataloging course resources

One of the compliments that students regularly give me is that I use current examples in my classes.

Generally speaking, they quickly follow the compliment with an example of another professor who shows dated videos in his class with regularity. I suspect that when others get it wrong, I get to look that much better than I actually am…

kodak

Of course, I always remember the time I showed a video in class about Kodak's marketing approach and one of my beloved students texted me from the back of the room.

He shared that on that very day, Kodak had filed for bankruptcy. We got to have a good laugh about it and fortunately, the event didn't take a toll on my credibility with him.

How I use my Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system to catalog course resources

I have a defined personal knowledge management system (PKM) that I've been using for years now. It helps me not have to think very hard to bring current examples into a class. I'm also fortunate to have many current and former students who know I have an interest in a particular topic or company and who will send articles and videos my way.

Here are a few other ways I work to use PKM to bring current examples into my classes:

Use tags in Pinboard.in to make retrieval easier

I always include any course numbers that are related to the topic of the resource, as well as whether the asset being saved is an audio or video clip.

For example, I recently bookmarked this episode of NPR's Planet Money called “Free Parking.”

It is about a guy who decided to attempt to solve a problem of scarce resources in his neighborhood: parking spaces. He created an app that attempted to make life easier for residents, but he wound up in all sorts of trouble.

I used the following tags on Pinboard.in for the episode: busn114 (the course number for my introduction to business course), audio (so I can search for audio clips on a particular topic or course number), and economics.

Here's how it looks on Pinboard:

pinboard-tags

Streamline your PKM process to make saving resources easy

I use Feedly as the service where I subscribe to various blogs and other web resources via RSS. Then, I review the information that comes in using Newsify on the iPad. There are plenty of great RSS readers out there. I like Newsify for its dark mode, when I am reading at night, as well as for the way it displays the headlines, so I can quickly skim through them.

Regardless of which service you us, it is imperative that it has a quick method for saving articles to whatever bookmarking service you use. Pinboard.in has worked great for me these past couple of years. It even easily imported my bookmarks from Delicious, once I decided I had enough of getting frequent error messages when I tried to save to Delicious from within Newsify.

Automate bookmarking using Pinboard.in or IFTTT

While my RSS reader does much of the heavy lifting of finding and saving resources, Twitter also is finding its way into my process. I used to go through the laborious process of finding an article on Twitter that I wanted to save, opening it in my browser, and then saving it using the Pinboard.in Chrome extension.

Now, I've set up Pinboard.in to automatically save any Tweets that I favorite into Pinboard.in. I don't have to do anything except click the star to set a Tweet as a favorite. Pinboard does the rest.

pinboard-meet-twitterHashtags are automatically created as Pinboard tags, though I often find myself needing to do some refining for the resource to fit into my tagging methodology. I have a task in my weekly review that reminds me to check items that have been added to Pinboard for Twitter and to add the necessary tags at that time.

If whatever service you use doesn't have a setup like the one that Pinboard does, check out IFTTT to see if there's a channel that can add the bookmarks for you. If this is the first time you've heard about IFTTT, it is worth checking out the Introduction to IFTTT from ProfHacker.

Getting Started

If this post is all new to you and it is starting to seem overwhelming, start small.

1) Sign up for a bookmarking service. I recommend Pinboard, but Diigo is also good if annotation is important to you.

2) Install the Pinboard (or Diigo) browser extension into whatever program it is you use to browse the internet. That way, you'll have a little button you can press to save an article, without having to navigate to the Pinboard or Diigo website each time.

Here's what my Pinboard browser button looks like on my Google Chrome browser:

pinboard-button

3) Bookmark articles, blogs, videos, etc. to use in your courses. When you come across an article or video that might be good for one of your classes, click the Pinboard/Diigo button on your browser and enter the associated tags and any other information you want saved. Here's an article from the Chronicle I saved today about what if the Harry Potter novels had taken place in a historically black college or university.savingbookmarkIt took me less than a minute to see the link to this article on Twitter, skim it to note that it was of interest, and to save it to my: race, diversity, and higher ed tags on Pinboard.

[reminder] What approach do you use for cataloging your course resources? [/reminder]

 

Applescript for starting and ending presentations

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

apple-script

You know how it is…

It is your first day back after a vacation (or, in our case, a staycation). You're ready to rock and roll.

But, you run into all kinds of road blocks.

Today, I finally figured out the problem with my contact syncing that I've been experiencing. It first required being on the phone with an Apple tech support person for more than 45 minutes, though.

In the middle of the call, I had to ask the guy to hold on, since there was a devious looking spider that I had tried to kill earlier in the call. He was not about to be defeated.

I finally texted Dave and asked him to please come help. Dave was heroic and the Apple tech didn't seem irritated by the slight wait.

When the contacts issue was resolved, I finally got to my tasks on OmniFocus. One stood out to me as not urgent, but a potential time saver during the school year.

Apple Script for Starting and Ending Presentations / Classes

I finally allowed myself to experiment with Helmut Hauser's Apple Scripts for when you're starting and ending a presentation.

When I run it, the script quits various applications that I wouldn't want running when I'm giving a presentation. The script also launches and activates an application called Caffeine that makes sure my laptop doesn't go to sleep or run a screen saver when I'm in the middle of teaching a class.

The end-of-presentation script brings back all the applications that I want to have running when I'm not presenting (such as dropbox and OmniFocus).

It took me quite a while to set it up. This was mostly because I've never used AppleScript before today and I was in unchartered waters.

Helmut has also included on his post a link for an Alfred workflow that runs the scripts off of a keyboard shortcut. I hadn't installed Alfred on my Mac, since upgrading my hardware about a year ago. It is back on and I'm excited to familiarize myself, again, with some of the efficiencies it offers.

It is 5:05 pm… and I'm so pleased to report that when I press option-shift-9 on my computer, it takes care of everything I would normally have tried to remember to do before beginning a class.

Now, if only I could get everything else to the point of “done.” Summer is going to end all too soon.

 

My vote for the top 10 tools for learning

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Jane Hart has invited our participation in the 2015 Top 100 Tools for Learning. If you want to have your say, you can submit your top list here.

top100

Top 10 Tools for Learning

Here are my thoughts on the ten most important tools in learning (not in any particular order):

Twitter

From time-to-time, I'll have friends threaten to stop using Facebook, as they just no longer see value in it. I don't hear those same threats from those who are using Twitter and have a strong personal learning network (#PLN) established for themselves. Twitter offers a constant stream of news and information that is most relevant to me (primarily on the professional front, with some personal in there, as well).

PollEverywhere

The PollEverywhere service provides an excellent way to both gather real-time input from students, as well as assess their understanding. I like how many ways there are for students to engage (tablet, phone, text/SMS).

Remind

This video has all the reasons why I love using Remind to keep in touch with my students.

GoAnimate

GoAnimate provides an easy way to build animated videos. You choose a background, add characters and other objects, and include text and/or audio. The video on Remind, above, was created using GoAnnimate4Schools.

Attendance2

This app does just what the title implies (takes attendance), but does a whole lot more. My favorite feature is the ability to call randomly on a student who is marked present for a given class session. Attendance2 helps me avoid calling on the same people, without realizing it.

Planbook

I like to ensure that each class session is somehow connected to my course learning outcomes. Planbook helps me organize all my handouts, PowerPoints, and links in one, central place. Plus, you can have it publish that information on a free site for your students to access, so they have information on what they may have missed, or for additional reinforcement of their learning in your classes.

Adobe Captivate

The two best products to use to create interactive, SCORM-compliant eLearning courses are Articulate's eLearning Suite and Adobe Captivate. The reason that Captivate has made my list and not Articulate is purely because Captivate is available on both the Mac and the PC.

SnagIt

Camtasia's SnagIt is also available on the Mac and PC and is the best screen shot tool I've ever used. I also spoke at the beginning of the Mac Power Users episode #240 about how I use SnagIt for screencasting feedback during the grading process.

LiveScribe Smart Pens

I've had a love/hate relationship with LiveScribe smart pens. On one hand, it is incredible that you can record what you're saying/hearing/writing and have it all be in sync with each other when you go to play it back. It's also a great method for creating what I refer to as micro-lectures. The biggest downside, though, has been that they've changed their playback methods so many times over the years. Currently, a user has to play them back by dragging a PDF to a website, to enable playback (or play it via an app, but that doesn't work as well for sharing). If only MP4 was offered as an alternative publishing method; I would be “sold” for good.

Overcast

The tool that contributes more to my learning than any other these days is Overcast, which is one of many podcast “catchers”/players. One thing I like about Overcast is the smart speed function, that skips over pauses in the recordings, but doesn't leave the speakers sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

 

Guest on Luminaris Podcast

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

Click to access the podcast on the Luminaris site.
Click to access the podcast on the Luminaris site.

I was honored to be asked to be a guest on episode 07 of the Luminaris Podcast, hosted by Mark Hofer.

We spoke about the opportunities for “Connecting with others around teaching and learning,” through 50 podcast interviews on Teaching in Higher Ed.

markThe Luminaris Podcast host, Mark Hofer, is an Associate Professor of Education at William and Mary. We both listen to each others' podcasts, so it felt like we already knew each other as we had our dialog. Mark is a great interviewer, though I'm also looking forward to switching roles in the future. He's already agreed to be on an upcoming episode of Teaching in Higher Ed.

If you haven't been listening to the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast for too long, I speak with Mark about some of my favorite episodes on his podcast. He includes links in his post for the episode, in case you want to go back and catch some of the older shows.

Mark is also active on Twitter and worth following.

Choose your own adventure learning (part 2)

By | | | XFacebookLinkedInEmail

choose-your-own-adventure-learning

I wrote a post about how I provided some Choose your own adventure-style learning for my students last semester. In the comments, Doug McKee indicated that it sounded like it would wind up being much harder than a “normal class” and asked if that was a fair assumption to make.

The question seemed worthy of a follow up post to my prior blog entry about Choose your own learning.

The inherent challenges of course design

I will say upfront that it is challenging to assess what additional time was required, since it was my first time teaching the course at the undergraduate level. Whenever I do that, I spend an enormous amount of time crafting learning outcomes, developing rubrics for each assignment, and on instructional design.

Someone who had taught a class previously, but just wanted to add the component of choose your own adventure would have a lot less work to do than I did last semester.

Questions to address before adopting this approach

Here are some of the areas I've identified that would require additional planning and thinking for a choose your own adventure type approach:

How will you handle exams, when not all students in the class will take them?

  • I taught the course in a three-hour block, so it was easy to schedule the exams as the last activity for the night. Those not taking the exam just left after the first two hours of instruction.

How strict will you be about the class policies you set up for this approach?

  • I had a form that students completed with their points designation, which states that changes could not be made after the fact. I wound up making changes on a number of fronts and would probably figure out other wording to use in the future to reflect what are likely to be my true actions when changes are warranted.

How can you structure the potential options for earning points to be sure that all learning outcomes are assessed?

  • My course had four modules and one comprehensive exam or assignments. I required that students take at least three of the five exams and earn points for some assignment related to the fourth module they potentially wouldn't be taking an exam on.

How will you structure your grade book to show progress toward total points in the class?

  • I was transparent with the students that the way the grade book was set up, they would have to do figuring on their own of how they were progressing toward a desired grade in the class. I didn't have a way to set up individual reports for students, based on the ways they selected to earn points during the semester.
  • This didn't wind up to be too problematic. Half of the class was comprised of accounting majors, who were all quite comfortable with projecting their own grades, individually. The remainder of the students were highly mature and also either kept a close eye on their points, or weren't as concerned about their grade in the class.

How will you track students' selected assignments?

  • I used a form that the students filled our during the second night of class (after hearing about it and receiving the dome during the first session). Then, I made a photocopy for me and handed the originals back to the students. This became problematic when I scanned the documents and recycled the copies.
  • I didn't notice until too late that the items each student had checked did not show up on the scanned copy, except in a few cases. Even then, the documents were difficult to sort through and manage. Some students also lost their originals throughout the semester and had to rely on memory for what they had chosen.
  • Next time I use some kind of choose your own adventure style, I will use a Google form for collecting the students' point selections. I'll have each student include their email address on the form and will set up a mail merge to send each student their selections.

Yes, using a choose your own adventure state of teaching took some additional time, versus having a standard set of assignments. However, I can refine my processes over time and probably carve that down to something almost negligible in the long run.