On June 4th and 5th 2015, members of the Centre for Instructional Development attended the ETUG Spring Workshop at SFU.
Here are highlights and observations from the fun and informative presentations:
Day 1
Keynote Address: “Anatomy of 21st Century Educator”
Simon Bates, UBC
In his slide show, Simon described different aspects that make up a 21st Century educator:
- Teacher for Learning: design effective instructional activities to support active learning
- Research-based investigation
- Technology in delivery/assessment
- Curator (facilitator) of existing resources
- Collaborator (work wi others; share)
- Experimenter (how we incorporate new ideas/methods)
Another aspect Simon emphasized was student control in constructing content and context. In contrast to a Learning Management System (like Moodle), which is an institutionally-controlled learning space, Students could use other online tools, such as PeerWise to collect and curate their own course content.
Peerwise is a course-based question repository, developed by students, that leverages student creativity and collaboration to develop course content. In effect, it is a student-moderated space, and is particularly effective for larger classes. Students can also tag content, creating their own keywords (or use teacher’s own taxonomy).
Basic iPad Training Session for VIU Forestry Students
Michael Paskevicius, Vancouver Island University
Michael’s presentation was a”broad overview of the iPad and basic device management for students entering a program which requires the iPad.”
Preferred Mobile Platform
From the perspective of the project and institution, it was easiest and most practical to support only one brand of mobile device, and the participants were encouraged to buy their own device.
For this project, iPads were selected as the preferred platform to:
- Reduce textbook purchase costs for students: students will be offered free and/or openly licensed digital textbooks access through the device.
- Mirror industry standard practices from the field: iPads are emerging as an industry-standard device for the collection of data in the field.
- Enable collaborative learning in the classroom: allow students to use iPads for group work in class and to share to the projector via AppleTV.
Polling and Quizzing in the Field
Real-time online polling tools (such as Socrative and Polls.io) also played a big role in gathering student feedback and facilitating discussion. QuesTinSitu was used for its geolocationing ability, allowing questions to be asked that relied on knowledge of geography or a physical presence in a particular location.
Mobile let’s students access more text + documents, and easier to transport than many expensive texts.
Additional Resources:
Day 2
Marginalia Annotation Tool
Lannie Kanevsky, SFU
http://www.sfu.ca/education/faculty-profiles/lkanevsky.html
Marginalia is defined as “scribbles, comments and illuminations in the margins of a book.” This old human habit has been found in manuscripts dating back to the 4th Century AD.
Lannie Kanevsky’s Slideshow:
http://scope.bccampus.ca/pluginfile.php/52542/mod_resource/content/1/ETUG%20Marginalia%20Slides%20Kanevsky.pdf
Prior to putting 75% of one of her courses online, Lannie had her students respond to assigned readings in a printed “triple-entry journal” format in order to critically engage them with the texts prior to each class meeting.
Offline, a “Triple entry notebook” can engage students offline, before class so you don’t have to lecture. (Kooy + Kanevsky)
In a Triple-entry Notebook, Students write in margins, working in groups of 3-4, not talking, but interacting by writing in margins of a page of prepared writing.
Lannie resisted pressures to move this process online until she could find a way for students to interact with the assigned readings and each other with the same pedagogical richness and learning outcomes.
This finally became possible when she found Marginalia, a free, friendly, downloadable tool that can be embedded in Moodle discussion forums. It enables students to select portions of a text posted in a discussion forum on a Moodle (a learning management system) and annotate it with their comments appearing in the margin beside the text they’d selected.
As they had in printed responses, active conversations among classmates, the author of the posting and the instructor emerge as others comment on the comments that accumulate in the margins. Lannie demonstrated Marginalia, shared student guidelines for this process, and her students’ work, and encouraged participants to play with Marginalia on their laptops.
Marginalia integrates with the Moodle LMS, and was designed by Jeff Glass with support from BCCampus.
(Note: This tool is Javascript-based, and must be used on a laptop. Unfortunately, touch-based devices such as tablets or smartphones will not work.)
Keynote Address: Exploring Learning Ecologies: Models and Experiences So Far
Paul Hibbitts, SFU
Given that mobile access is now the new baseline, what is the next step for us to help better support our students in this age of networked information?
For Paul Hibbitts it starts with anytime/anywhere access, utilizes a development process where learning and technology are complementary partners, and evolves into the support and creation of learning ecologies. With a learning ecology, learners have an environment and tools to help better foster their own growth and meet their individual needs.
In this discussion-style session, Paul presented a learning + technology development model and a learning ecology framework for group discussion and feedback. He also shared a recent course where he leveraged both of these models as he undertook the creation of a learning ecology for his students.
Paul Hibbitts’ Presentation:
http://slides.com/paulhibbitts/etug-spring-2015-plenary-keynote-exploring-learning-ecologies/embed
A sneak peek at the models by @m_travin and @hibbittsdesign to be presented at #STLHE2015 in #YVR next Wed (CON02.01) pic.twitter.com/V7GcWfisG4
— Hibbitts Design (@hibbittsdesign) June 10, 2015
More about the ETUG 2015 Spring Workshop:
- https://vibrantoutlook.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/high5/
(A good show report for the 2015 ETUG workshop.) - http://etug.ca/2015/05/19/spring-workshop-2015-keynote-and-facilitators/
(Descriptions of ETUG’s keynotes and facilitators.)
