Educational Technology

This has been one of those extraordinary weeks in teaching. I have been edified by what I've observed about my students' experiences in my classes this semester. This week, my consumer behavior classes showed off our learning through a poster sessions event (originally inspired by Doug McKee’s experiences in his economics courses).

I’ll be writing more about the poster sessions event, overall, once the pictures are in from the photographer we used. In the meantime, I thought I would share about my first experience using Facebook Live, in conjunction with the poster sessions.

Facebook Live Successes

I’ll admit to being somewhat reluctant to try out Facebook Live. There was this feeling of trepidation (based on fears like: What is no one shows up? What if it doesn’t work “right”? What if (in this case) people are uncomfortable sharing in this venue?).

It’s hard to look at these sample Facebook Live videos of Jane Goodall, Martha Stewart, Seth Myers, Adam Grant, and Amy Cuddy and not think that maybe this stuff is best left to the professionals.

But, I do enjoy experimentation and live video is becoming so widely used in education and in business, I decided to give it a try.

Here are some of my successes:

Selected a Great Host

Since I knew I would be busy facilitating the poster sessions event, I had found a couple of students who were dynamic and articulate.

Sadly, one of them got sick at the last minute, so we wound up with only one host. She was absolutely fantastic, though, and also had previously recommended a smart phone accessory that made needing a second host a bit less essential.

Purchased a Hand-held Stabilizer Accessory for My Phone

Our Facebook Live event host had suggested that I purchase a stabilizer for my iPhone. She found this one on Amazon for only $15 (at the time of purchase) and I didn’t hesitate.

It serves two purposes. You can hold it in what they call “pistol” fashion, so you can aim your phone in different directions, without having the wobbly, hand-held effect on the video. Or, you can separate the top section and turn it in to a small tripod.

I have an iPhone 7 Plus, which has some built-in stabilization. There didn’t seem to be anything on the accessory that was stabilizing the camera, but maybe this is just my not understanding how these kinds of accessories work.

All I can say is that this is the best $15 I’ve spent on a phone accessory in a long while and I would highly recommend it for anyone planning on doing some kind of Facebook live recording at a fair-type event, where you’ll be needing to walk around a bunch during your filming.

This video with all sorts of options for mobile LIVE streaming gear makes me think that I could just be getting started with my accessories for this sort of thing.

Just Went for It

Finally, I’m glad I decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. As you’ll see below, it wasn’t all roses and unicorns. However, I followed my teaching philosophy of experimenting and taking risks…

Facebook Live Failures

Despite finding a terrific host, having solid equipment, and being willing to experiment, I did make some pretty big mistakes for my first Facebook Live experience. I didn’t notice most of them until after I was done recording, which is kind of disappointing, since they were all correctable.

This post from Mashable with 15 tips for using Facebook Live would have been helpful for me to read before my first experiment, but has been now bookmarked for future reference.

Here are some of my Facebook Live failures:

Camera Orientation was Locked and Caused a Sideways Video

This was the biggest technical hurdle I experienced (and didn’t realize until about 75% through the event, when someone pulled up my Facebook account on their phone and showed me that the video was sideways).

It turns out that with an iPhone, as long as we start our Facebook live recording in landscape, it should theoretically work correctly. However, I had my lock orientation activated on my iPhone, which then meant it didn’t matter how we started the recording. I still wound up with a sideways view of the entire event.

I found this quick video super helpful in providing the answer to Why your Facebook LIVE videos are sideways and what to do about it.

Text Orientation was Reversed, Making All the Poster Sessions Unreadable

The other big technical issue that arose was that all the text was backwards to us, the viewer. There’s a way to fix this as you’re recording, but I wasn’t even aware that it was happening, so didn’t know that things were amiss until almost to the end of the event.

The quick way to correct backwards text in your Facebook Live videos is shared on this post: Horizontally Flip the Camera to Avoid Backwards Text. If you go back and forth between your front camera and your main camera, you may have to switch this setting multiple times.

My Biggest Suggestion

You probably saw this coming, but my biggest suggestion to you, in terms of Facebook Live, is to give it a try. You can test it out by changing the privacy settings on your stream, which lets you keep your broadcasting to yourself, as you work out any kinks.

Let me know if you have started experimenting with live video in your teaching, yet, and how it has been helpful to you. If you have any stories of failure to share, as well, we can all contribute to others not having to go down the same paths we did.

I've found pencasting to be a tool that is aligned with my pedagogy and valued by my students. Many of you have asked for me to share about my process, so I've created a How to Pencast video.

How to Pencast Video

In the pencasting video, I describe:

• What pencasting is
• Why it is vital to my teaching and instructional design
• Essential tools for pencasting
• My pencasting toolkit
• How I record and publish pencasts

Additional Resources for Pencasting

• Apple Pencil
• iPad Pro
• Doceri
• Mike Wesch's The Sleeper
• LiveScribe (product I used for years, prior to switching to a tablet-based method)
• The Sketchnote Handbook, by Mike Rohde
• The Back of the Napkin, by Dan Roam

 

Yesterday, a colleague emailed me with a query:

We are so frustrated with the mis-use of electronics in class by students and feel they ultimately take away from learning and discussion. Texting, messaging, on line, etc. We have considered putting a ban on all electronics (laptops included) and see what happens.

Our occasional bans have certainly increased student involvement in class! On-line we find articles regarding such a ban, but wondered if you have any helpful information for us.

So can you speak to the other side of this coin?

PS – I so wish we were all where you are in regards to electronics in the classroom, but we are not…

Her message coincided with me not knowing what to blog about this week. A match made in blogger heaven…

The Dynamite Device Debate

Distractions abound in our classrooms and in our lives. The device debate has been raging for as long as I've been teaching. Often times, the debate produces a false dichotomy: Should we “allow” laptops/phones/etc., or should we “ban” them?

The “yes” side says we should ban laptops/phones because:

• Using one's smart phone too often could result in decreased academic performance
• Taking notes by hand will prove to be more effective for their learning
• Avoiding their use helps us focus better (though, as this study explores, it's far more complex than that)

The “no” side says we should avoid banning laptops/phones because:

• It takes away the option our students are most familiar with (they grew up taking notes this way)
• We may inadvertently discriminate against students with learning and cognitive disabilities
• “…unilateral bans on technology in the classroom accomplish nothing but demonstrating an off-putting rigidity and an adversarial view of students“

Then, there are some who advocate for giving students the choice of whether or not to use devices. Some faculty create a laptop-friendly zone where students can choose to sit, if they prefer to use a device. It can be vital to explain these choices to our students, to properly equip them to make decisions about how they will engage in the classroom. There's also the option to cooperate with the inevitable and allow for tech breaks during an otherwise gadget-free class.

The Invitation

If you visited one of my classes, what you would observe (in terms of device usage) would vary greatly. On some days, the students wouldn't use any technology at all. In fact, I wouldn't use any, either, preferring to teach with sticky notes or engage in a more serendipitous dialog than linear slide structures provide.

Jose Bowen advocates that we “teach naked” – as in not use technology while in a classroom environment. He stresses that we consider what we are doing in our pedagogy and whether or not laptops and other technology tools serve our purposes. When he was a guest on Teaching in Higher Ed, he said:

Nobody uses a laptop while doing yoga or playing tennis. – Jose Bowen

After learning from Jose's model, I started to frame my requests to put the tech away in more of a need-based argument. That might sounds something like:

We aren't going to be needing laptops or phones today, so you can put them away and get ready for today's case.

However, on other days, I make use of retrieval practice tools and invite students to take their devices out.

Today, we're going to review about the four types of competition in a capitalistic economic system. I invite you to take out your phones as we use PollEverywhere. If you don't have a phone or other device with you, let me know and you're free to borrow mine.

I continue to be challenged and encouraged by people who have questioned outright laptop bans like James Lang and Kevin Gannon. I'm finding that the whole idea of banning really sets the wrong tone for my teaching aspirations. I don't want to treat my students as adversaries. I want to engage them with the possibilities that learning offers.

However, I also recognize that our students have established norms in many of the educational experiences they have had before meeting me that engagement is not welcomed. Many of them have only known learning as a passive experience. For that kind of pedagogy, give your students the choice of how to take in what you have to say.

If you are committed to a different type of teaching style than lecture, invite your students to experience deeper learning through the power of dialog. Instead of imposing restrictions about what they can't use, invite them to have an experience that can't be had through the use of technology.

One of my professors in my doctoral classes would allow us to use our laptops during about half of the course time, but had a dedicated time where we invited to rearrange our chairs into a circle and put all our gadgets away. Each of us would share our reflections on that week's reading.

I remember grumbling (to myself) a bit about the “hassle” of moving furniture. I now recognize the symbolism that the actions represented. After a couple of weeks, he no longer had to instruct us on what to do, we had adopted new norms for having a deeper dialog than we typically had when our noses were behind our laptops.

Don't ban; invite.

Be sure that the first time you extend an invitation to put the technology away that you have something planned that will demonstrate something different is happening. Surprise them. Engage them. Get them up and moving around.

Build their trust that when they accept your invitation to put the potentially distracting devices away, that you'll be welcoming them in to a learning experience worthy of the sacrifice.

I’m experimenting with flashcards in my teaching this semester. For as long as I’ve been teaching, I’ve strongly recommended flashcards to my students. However, I knew most students didn’t follow through on the advice.

Over the summer, I decided to have my teaching assistant make flash cards for my entire introduction to business course. I recognized that some of the benefits from flashcards are derived by actually making them, yourself. However, I suspected that a larger percentage of students would receive at least some advantages that this form of retrieval practice offers, even if they didn’t make them from scratch.

After doing a little bit of research on possible tools, I decided to select Quizlet as the app for this function.

Results

In my recent mid-semester review, many students commented that the flashcards were contributing to their learning. However, I was concerned that the focus was still on memorization and not enough on application.

This wasn’t the fault of Quizlet, of course, but more so that having baseline knowledge of terms and their associated definitions will only take us so far.

I also was concerned that they were only likely accessing the flash cards, at best, once a week. That level of frequency wasn’t going to prove anywhere near as useful as if they could increase the times they accessed them.

Some students have downloaded the Quizlet app on their phones and have reported being more likely to review them a few times each week. I have the flashcards embedded from within our LMS, which ensures that they’ll likely go through them at least that one time, but doesn’t provide any more accountability than that.

Something New

Overall, my thoughts this semester about Quizlet have been positive, though I already have some ideas about how I might want to tweak things next time around.

However, this week I tried a new feature of Quizlet, in class, and was instantly in awe.

Quizlet Live

The name of this feature is Quizlet Live. It is a game that you can play with a minimum of six students (two teams of three), all of whom have a mobile device.

Introducing Quizlet Live from Quizlet on Vimeo.

I’ve got around 30 students in this class. When I accessed the flashcard deck that reviews for our upcoming exam, I chose to use Quizlet Live.

It brought up a code on my computer that all the students entered into their phones. Then, I had the option of having teams randomly created, or assigning students to teams.

Students then moved around the classroom to sit next to their teammates. Each student saw a question on their devices and 3-4 possible answers.

Only one of the students on a team had the correct answer on their screen, so they spent a lot of time comparing possible answers and discussing the likelihood of one of their answers being the correct one.

On my computer, a scoreboard was displayed, showing each team’s progression. With each correct answer, their team’s circle would move forward on the line. With each incorrect answer, their team’s circle moved all the way back to the beginning.

Recommendation

I wish I had a video of the students playing the game, or at least some audio. Every single student in the room was completely engaged.

They laughed. They groaned. They failed. They tried again.

Quizlet Live provided information about what the students learned while playing, as well as where they need additional clarification.

I will need to think about how to review more effectively, next time. I’m afraid I may have skipped too quickly back to the game play, for another round, versus providing them with further explanations of difficult concepts.

Still, I highly suggest you check out Quizlet Live for an interactive way of reviewing in one of your courses. This tool is especially good for the kind of information that would be suitable to put on a flashcard.