Follow Up Questions from Cloud Based Technology Webinar
Today I did a webinar for Academic Impressions: Using Cloud-Based Technology for Learning and Engagement. The webinar lasted an hour and forty-five minutes, which means I had to talk for that long. This isn’t generally a problem for me if I’m talking about and sharing about what I love to do: teaching and learning with technology, so the time flew by. I was really surprised that I was able to keep to my planned timeline. I got everything in but a few questions at the end, so I’m hear to address them now.
One of the tools I used in the presentation to help give every participant a voice was GoSoapBox. I blogged about it in my last post about what I’d do with a $300 grant. I was able to address the remaining questions in there, since participants had posted them in the webinar and in GoSoapBox. Below is a list of a few questions I answered for participants.
I had a great time talking about cloud based technologies, and I really hope it was helpful for others. And I hope they get out there and give it a try. Remember to start small and play around with it before you make it a major assignment for a course.
What Could You Do With a $300 Grant?
Three hundred dollars isn’t a lot of money; nevertheless, this question is kind of a mute point anyway since my college doesn’t currently encourage us to be innovative with teaching and learning by offering grants. We have nothing, so most teachers do nothing. The district offers learning grants, but you can’t use any of the funding to buy software or tools, so you basically have to write the grant to pay you for your time, and then use the money you earn to buy software or tools. It’s not a very sustainable solution considering some of the tools are web apps, and you’re paying a yearly subscription, not a one time fee.
So I’m going to do a little dreaming. If I had just $300 to spend on teaching and learning each year, this is what I would buy.
First, I teach Freshman Composition and all my courses are eCourses, 4 online and 1 hybrid. In keeping with the Quality Matters standards for online courses, I try to use technology and instructional materials in accordance with the recommendations from the QM rubric. Here are the QM Standards I try to meet with the tools I select to use in my courses
- Assessment & Measurement
- 3.1 The types of assessments selected measure the stated learning objectives and are consistent with course activities and resources.
- 3.5 Students have multiple opportunities to measure their own learning progress.
- Instructional Materials
- 4.1 The instructional materials contribute to the achievement of the stated course and module/unit learning objectives.
- 4.4 The instructional materials are current.
- Learning Interaction & Engagement
- 5.1 The learning activities promote the achievement of the stated learning objectives.
- 5.2 Learning activities provide opportunities for interaction that support active learning.
- Course Technology
- 6.2 Course tools and media support student engagement and guide the student to become an active learner.
- 6.5 The course technologies are current.
As I spend my imaginary $300, I will tie in how each tools helps me meet the QM standard listed above for added benefit. I will also discuss how would use the tool to help my students meet the objectives of the course.
My first purchase would be VoiceThread. The Manager account costs $99/year and comes with 1 Pro account and 50 Basic accounts (student accounts).
A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways – using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.
In my online courses I like to have class discussions to “provide opportunities for interaction that supports active learning.” Each module includes at least one discussion forum. These forums, especially when I used Blackboard, where boring, dry and full of meaningless text from students. I’ve tried for years to come up with ways to make these interactions more meaningful and engaging for students. VoiceThread (VT) is a simple answer. VT gives students 5 ways to participate in the discussion and it gives the instructor a way to focus on several different points within one discussion.
Not only can I use this tool for class discussions, I can also use it for content delivery (think boring PowerPoint presentations). VT “supports student engagement and guides the student to become an active learner.” This is so because students are invited to participate in the presentation by adding comments and feedback about their understanding while they watch the presentation.
My second purchase ($201 left) would be for GoSoapBox for $90/year for up to 100 concurrent student users. GoSoapBox is a new instant student response system (think boring and expensive clickers). It allows teachers to gauge student understanding or confusion levels throughout a lesson, poll students and track the data for future reference. It can be used on laptops, tablets and smart phones, which sets it apart from some other clicker/student response systems.
GoSoapBox is used during class to break down participation barriers, keeping students engaged, and giving teachers insight into student comprehension that was never before possible.
What I get for my hard earned $90 is:
- Student-ranked Questions
- Discussions
- Confusion Barometer
- Polls & Quizzes
- Advanced Data
- 24/7 Access
- 15 GoSoapBox Events
My third purchase ($111 left) would be for CreateDebate which runs for $99. I’m starting to see a trend here in educational pricing for web tools. Anyway, CreateDebate is “a user-driven social debating website which serves to facilitate discourse on topics of users’ choosing. CreateDebate combines social networking technologies with debating and voting in a social and democratic nature” (Wikipedia).
CreateDebate is an integrated and dynamic virtual learning environment that will stoke the discussion and participation in your classroom!
Since I teach argumentative writing, this site works well for getting students engaged in active debates about current events. They can demonstrate use of rhetorical devices and identification of logical fallacies in the arguments presented. This course activity and resource would be the “type of assessment selected to measure the stated learning objectives” for the course, which is to “organize writing to support a central idea through unity, coherence, and logical development appropriate to a specific writing context.” CreateDebate increases participation, promotes critical thinking, and improves the vocabulary and persuasive writing skills of my students.
So with $12 left, there’s not really much I can buy with that, so I could just not spend it. The point is for under $300 I can get some valuable tools to help me engage my students in the learning process, as well as teach them using current technologies that also teach 21st Century Skills that help students to learn to think and work creatively and collaboratively. I can see the value in these tools, so as there is no such thing as the $300 grant at GCC, I’ll probably be digging into my own pockets like I always do to fund my innovative ideas for teaching and learning. I think my students are worth it.
Professional Growth Important for 6 Hours Accountability
TechTools Program
One of my favorite things about being a teacher is that I get many opportunities to continue my education. I feel like I’m going to school to learn just like my students. To be successful in your profession continued professional growth is a necessity and should be encouraged. Maricopa does a good job of affording us these opportunities. We have learning grants, sabbaticals, travel funds, district dialogue days and technology workshops available. We have faculty developers, instructional designers and technologists on every campus to plan, train and work with faculty. I make it a habit to take advantage of as many opportunities as I can squeeze in.
Today was a great event that I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to participate in for the past 3 years: TechTools at Scottsdale Community College. Each year I volunteer to present, so this year I was on a panel discussion on social media in education. My focus was on using social media in the classroom. We had a pretty good turn out for that session. The best part, however, was getting to listen to Jill Schiefelbein’s keynote presentation: The Human Touch. Jill, online instructor from ASU & CGCC and owner of Impromptu Guru, shared with us different strategies for uniting communication and technology for an added human touch in online classes. Her talk should be required viewing for all online instructors.
I was able to sit in on two other sessions that day: one on Canvas, our new LMS for next fall and another titled Secrets of the Technology Club presented by a virtual Maria Andersen. Both were informative sessions that I’m glad I got a chance to participate in. Five hours went by fast (8:30-1:30pm), but my day of learning didn’t end after this event. Today was also the day for the monthly CyberSalon gathering, and the afternoon’s agenda including different people sharing how they’ve been using Canvas. So after an hour hanging out with colleagues at SCC and grading papers (online office hour), we were off to CyberSalon for 2+ more bonus hours of professional growth. It was truly a great day.
It’s not realistic to think that everyday’s 6 hours of accountability can be like today, but it’s nice to be able to find a balance between teaching and learning. And this is clearly defined in the RFP. So after a week, I’ve managed to meet more than 6 hours of accountability each day and include all 3 areas outlined in the RFP.
Instructional Residential Faculty members are required to meet the thirty (30) hours of professional responsibilities per week.
- to meet all classes as scheduled;
- to hold a minimum of five (5) scheduled academic support hours reflective of instructors’ teaching schedules; and
- to participate in department, division, college, and/or district activities as defined in Section 1.2.20.;
Is It a Degree or an Education That You Seek?
It’s been a long time since I was in undergrad, so maybe I’m a little out of touch with the reality of today and today’s college students. Today is a technological world and times are tough. People work hard to make ends meet, and many people return to college seeking better opportunities and a chance to get ahead. Others rush to college to update outdated technology skills to better compete with the new net generation. In a competitive job market where the college educated and tech literate are winning the jobs over the less educated and tech savvy, I understand the rush back to college. I get that. But I’m not sure if all students understand why exactly they are here. When I ask my students why they are in college, I rarely here a response like, “I want to learn about space,” or “I’m really interested in improving my writing skills.” I know. Who says that? Everyone wants “to get a good job,” “make good money,” “get enough credits to get to ASU, NAU or U of A,” and “get a degree.” That’s great! Those are all worthy goals, but there’s something missing for me. Don’t students want to learn anything? Don’t they want to be educated?
Earning a degree doesn’t guarantee anyone anything. Trust me, in this economy I know plenty of degreed individuals seeking meaningful employment. These people have years of experience in the workforce and yet employment somehow escapes them. Maurice Johnson is homeless with 2 master’s degrees (VIDEO). Is earning a degree enough today? No, it’s probably not, but it is a good start. But that shouldn’t be the only goal. Along with that degree students have to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete with often better educated, better experienced, and more seasoned individuals who are now willing to take less pay just to have a job. The key to success for students today is knowing what skills employers are looking for. Degree? Check. Educated? Check. Skilled? Check.
So what does it mean to be educated? Here is a list of the top 3 skills employers are looking for and how students in college today can learn these skills. “The one skill most often sought by employers is the ability to communicate well – to listen, write, and speak effectively” (Barnes, 2009). It’s interesting to me how many students sit in the back of the room and don’t participate in class discussions unless called upon. What faculty are trying to teach students is that by participating in class discussions, students can practice those much needed communication skills. So speak up and show those teachers that listening and speaking effectively are important to you. Don’t hide in the back of the room. Come to class prepared and participate. That is part of the education we are trying to teach.
Another sought after skill is the ability to work with others in a professional manner while achieving a common goal. This skill has become increasingly important in today’s work environment, yet in the classroom before I can get the two words (group project) out of my mouth, there are groans from my students. Very few want to work in a group. The complaints are numerous. I tell my students they should be thankful if they end up with a “dud” in their group. Think of all the valuable experience one can gain in overcoming all the obstacles. Working with people is often going to be difficult in many different situations, including the work place, so learning how to deal with those difficulties and still accomplish the goal is valuable. Sometimes all it takes is someone stepping up and taking the lead even if it might mean taking on a bit more of the workload. Be that leader.
The last skill, not to imply there are not many more necessary, is “the ability to find solutions to problems using creativity, reasoning, past experiences, available information and resources.” Demonstrating good problem solving skills can indicate how well you will lead when you are put in charge. So all those excuses about why that essay didn’t get submitted on time only demonstrates to your professor that you lack problem solving skills or initiative to get started in a timely fashion. We’ll save the latter for another time. Instead of excuses, try solutions. Be creative. Faculty have even been known to learn something from students who have taken the initiative to solve problems in the classroom. And it’s much more pleasurable to listen to creative ideas than excuses all day.
The choice is yours. Are you just seeking a degree or do you really want to be educated, to learn what it takes to be successful in today’s world? What your teachers are trying to teach you in those college courses goes beyond the subject matter of the class, which is important. But being educated doesn’t mean just answering all the questions correctly on the test. Being educated is “a demonstrated ability to listen carefully, to think critically, to evaluate facts rigorously, to reason analytically, to imagine creatively, to articulate interesting questions, to explore alternative viewpoints, to maintain intellectual curiosity and to speak and write persuasively. If we add to that a reasonable familiarity with the treasures of history, literature, theater, music, dance and art that previous civilizations have delivered, we are getting to [sic] close to the meaning of educated” (Denning, 2011). And I’ll leave you with that.
Tech Question of the Week: Group Texting
Not a day goes by that someone isn’t asking me some kind of tech question. Often I just get these random text messages from students, friends or colleagues. This week’s tech question comes via random text. Because I use Google Voice, often the texter is unidentified, so my usual response to random anonymous texts is first, “Who is this?” What’s funny about this question asker is before I could text my usual response, she realized her anonymity and quickly sent another text identifying herself. It made me laugh, so I was eager to help.
So here’s the question:
Now, I’ve gotten this question before, so I knew that Google Voice only permits you to send text messages to 5 people at a time. I had originally hoped that I could create groups in GVoice and then send text messages to that group, but that is not the case. Bummer. Google should really consider this, as there aren’t many options out there for this feature.
My next thought was to suggest one of the many new group texting apps that hit the market this year, GroupMe and FastSociety being my two favorites. But the problem with “group texting” is that their sole purpose is to be a mechanism for groups to communicate with each other. In the case of Terry’s question, she simply wants to send a message to all of her students. She doesn’t want to create a conversation amongst them via texting. That could result in a lot of unwanted text messages going back and forth between 20+ students. She just wants one way distribution, and if students want to reply, they can only do so back to her, not the whole class.
In order to do this, I had to search the web for a good alternative to the existing text messaging program on her cell phone. Luckily Terry has a shiny new Android phone, so this will be an Android only solution, but I’m sure there are apps for the iPhone that do the same thing. After my search I was surprised to find that the program I already have installed on my HTC Thunderbolt does exactly what Terry needs, and I didn’t even know it. Yep, Go SMS Pro (Download from Android Market) lets you send text messages to groups of people in your address book. And the best part is it uses your existing groups that you have set up in your Gmail contacts. It basically does what Google Voice should do.
Go SMS Pro works well with your existing messaging program on your phone, and it has a much nicer look and feel. There are lots of add on and features (that I didn’t even know about) to help you improve your texting productivity. To make GO SMS Pro your default messaging program and avoid receiving two notifications when a message comes in, open your stock SMS or other SMS app in Settings, disable the Notifications, and in GO SMS Pro’s Settings and verify that the Notifications option is enabled.
Some other cool features that I’m just now learning about are scheduled messages: Allows you to set a future point in time, and then send a text to single or multiple contacts. A ring tone appears when sent successfully. This is a nice feature. This app is definitely worth giving a try even if you’re not interested in sending text messages to groups. You’ll like the look and feel, and you’ll be able to so so much more with texting.
Late Night Post
Posting from my Android phone tonight after a day full of emerging technology and department partying. A day full of colleagues and talking shop. Loved it. Good thing I get to do it again tomorrow. This is what is great about Maricopa.
Setting Up the CyberSalonAZ Network
Step 1: Install WordPress
Cheryl purchased the cybersalonaz.com domain name and installed WordPress to her existing Dreamhost server. Mary Jane Onnen donated $20 to pay for two years of domain name registration. Installation of WordPress can be quite simple, as most hosting companies have 1 click install. However, Cheryl decided she wanted for the site to be as secure as possible, so she did a manual install through sftp. You’ll have to talk to her about what all she did.
Step 2: Create a Network
Cheryl created the network in WordPress 3.1 and chose to use the subdirectories option. She basically followed the directions for doing so on the WordPress Codex page (Create a Network). I think this can probably be the most challenging step, but if you follow directions it’s not hard. When you set up a network in WordPress, you have the option of either using subdirectories or subdomains for the network blogs you create. For example, in my setup for my class, all my students have their own blogs. I had to decide what I wanted the URL to their site to look like:
- Sub-domains — like
site1.eng101online.comandsite2.eng101online.com - Sub-directories — like
eng102online.com/site1andeng102online.com/site2
Cheryl chose subdirectories because it was easier to set up. When I chose subdomains on my ENG101online site, I had to open a help ticket for my hosting account to ask them to set it up for me. Keep that in mind if you like that option.
Step 3: Install Plugins
We both installed BuddyPress, Achievements for BuddyPress, FeedWordPress, BP Posts on Profile plugins, and set the Akismet API key for the spam filter. If you’ve ever installed plugins on a WordPress blog, you know how easy this is. The hardest part was finding the right plug in. When I did a search for BuddyPress, there were so many plugins that the main plugin didn’t even show up on the first page of results. One I found it though, it was 1 click install. So quickly I’ll explain these main plugins and our reasons for installing them. First, BP adds the social networking features to the WordPress network we set up. To simplify what it is, let’s just say BP is Facebook added to your WordPress. It adds member profile pages, groups, activity streams, friends and friendship requests.
Next is the Achievements for BuddyPress plugin. I’m most excited about this plugin, so of course we had to install it right away. If you’re not familiar with the concept of gamification or social gaming, I’ll be posting more on this later. It basically turns your site into a gaming site where members can earn points, awards and badges for doing certain activities or actions that are determined by the site administrator. As an example, I set up an “event” achievement with the condition of: “The user rejects a friendship request from someone.” When a user performs this event, he automatically earns a badge called the “Asshole Badge.” I just used a image I found on the internet for the badge. I also set it up so the asshole earns 5 points for his efforts.
Connecting our existing individual blogs to the site is important, so we installed the FeedWordPress and BP Posts on Profile plugins. The first is an Atom/RSS aggregator for WordPress. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table. So most of our members have personal blogs where they currently blog about technology and education, and we can now grab the RSS of those existing blogs and have those posts post to the new site’s main page. It’s a really cool plugin in that it automatically maps up with existing users who have the same user name or email address if is listed in the RSS feed. The BP Posts on Profile plugin takes those aggregated posts and displays the posts on the members profile page. So when you’re looking a members profile, there is a posts tab. In that tab, it displays all the posts they have posted.
Lastly, Cheryl set up Akismet by plugging in her API key. As most already know, Akismet protects your blog from comment and trackback spam.
Step 4: Choose a Theme
I chose a BuddyPress theme I purchased for my ENG101online course. We’re not sure it’s the best theme for us yet, but for now we are working with it. It’s called BPSlick and I purchased it for $30. It was the best looking BuddyPress theme I’d seen, and it was recommended by Boone Gorges when we attended his workshop at Wordcamp Phoenix in January. There aren’t many BP themes out there yet -not nearly as many as there are for WP. Cheryl created the purple header to match in Photoshop.
Step 5: Play & Learn
Play with it and learn how to do whatever it is you want to do with your own social network. My first need was: How do I get a RSS feed for a Twitter list? Twitter provides an RSS feed for user tweets, but not for lists. I searched high and low and found that I can do it with Yahoo! Pipes! Yep, Pipes. Check it out: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=fb60de5ff93e81319e3c5fa207b9b276 Someone already created the pipe, so all you have to do is type in your username and the name of the list you want the feed for. Sweet! I created a page on the network called Tweets and I posted the feed to Twitter list: @soul4real/Maricopa.
Online Quizzing in the Absence of a CMS
I survived my first semester of online teaching sans Blackboard. Overall I felt as if it was a success, but there were some things that I just wasn’t happy with. The biggest being the lack of a good quizzing feature. Now I’m not saying quizzing in Blackboard was any treat, so this is by no means a negative on my switch to WordPress for my online classes. In fact, I think if I were still using Bb, I’d more than likely start using my new quizzing solution with it as well.
So here’s the run down. I like to give reading quizzes to keep my students on their toes and hold them accountable for the required reading in the class. These quizzes are not major and usually consist of about 15-20 questions. I’m not a fan of “multiple guess” questions, so I like to be able to ask questions in a variety of ways. My favorite quiz question types are fill in the blank and matching. My solution last semester was to use ClassMarker to create and deliver my quizzes online. It’s actually a fairly good tool, but I had two problems with it. First, I couldn’t write fill in the blank and matching quiz questions. Well, I could do fill in the one blank, but no multiple blanks, and no matching at all. I was bummed, but I made do. The second problem was that I couldn’t embed the quizzes into my WordPress site. Students had to visit the ClassMarker site, log in with a username and password, and then take the quiz. This doesn’t sound like much of a problem, but it just creates one more username/password for students to remember. They already have email, the class site, and the online gradebook, plus we used Diigo and Bibme for our research projects. I did simplify things my making everything I set up for them use the same student ID for username, but I still felt guilty about the number of required logins students needed.
So for this semester my goal was to try to simplify things for them, and my first solution was to retire ClassMarker and find a better quiz solution that would allow me to create flash quizzes that I could install on my own web server and then embed right in the course site. I don’t really need anything fancy for storing or analyzing quiz results. This is not real assessment for me. I just want a score. I was surprised to find many tools available, but I narrowed it down to two. What follows are my thoughts on the two products.
Wondershare QuizCreator
Wondershare QuizCreator is a powerful Flash quiz maker that enables trainers and educators to make quizzes with multimedia objects for online testing.
I like QuizCreator because it is easy to use. I can create 9 different questions types, and I can create questions with images, audio and narration, and embed videos. But best of all I can publish a flash quiz to the web that sends student results to my email address. I created an orientation quiz in QuizCreator. I was able to create the kinds of questions I like: True/False, Multiple Choice, Multiple Response, Fill in the Blank, Matching, Sequence, Word Bank, Click Map and Short Essay. But one downfall is I couldn’t create fill in multiple blanks questions. Also I didn’t like that you couldn’t easily award partial credit for a question if students got part of the answer correctly. To do this, I think I would have to make each part of the answer worth at least 1 point and then go in individually and designate each part of the answer as worth 1 point. That makes the question worth too much then. I would like to have partial points (1/4, 1/2). I like how I could add images, videos, and audio. I can either upload or record audio right in the question, but videos have to be in the flash format (swf or flv). That was a bummer.
In quiz properties I had the option to collect name, email and other information about students or even create accounts for students. That was a nice touch. The default was to ask for a username and email address. I would love to have it ask for a real name instead of the username. I could also create a one password entrance to the quiz and set it up so the student results are emailed to both me and the student. You can buy a QuizCreator educational license for $99.95, and I certainly think it is worth it.
iSpring QuizMaker
iSpring QuizMaker: Create interactive and fully customized Flash quizzes with 10 different question formats and results based feedback.
QuizMaker is also very easy to use, but right off the bat I noticed that QuizMaker has a much nicer look on the published quizzes. I’m not sure what the difference is, but it just looks nicer. It also has different question types: True/False, Multiple Choice, Multiple Response, Type In, Matching, Sequence, Numeric, Fill in the Blank, and Multiple Choice Text (Choose one correct answer in each drop-down list). The Fill in the Blank can have multiple blanks (Yay!), and I’ve never seen the Multiple Choice Text question, but I already love it. Questions can be marked to score with partial credit without having to figure out the scoring on your own. It does it for you. I can add photos, videos and images. I can’t record audio directly into the question, like with QuizCreator, but for videos I could upload all the major formats (avi, mpg, mp4, wmv). I’m guessing it converts it to flash for you, saving you the extra step.
In the Settings, I don’t have as many options for collecting student data. Default is to request real name and email address. Quiz results are sent of my email address by default, but there is no option to send results to the student as well. You can buy a QuizMaker educational license for $150, although I think that is just a tad bit high if I have to pay out of pocket. Interestingly enough if you buy a User Pack of 10, the price is $98 each, so it’s cheaper if you get your school to buy it for you and 9 other teachers.
Overall Impressions
I really like both, and both do so much more than I mentioned in this post. I just tried to touch on the differences. For instance, they both have customizable players, integration with Blackboard and SCORM compliance, offer an online LMS to manage quizzes, testing time limit, pass score, shuffle questions, question pools, custom feedback, and self grading. Both are fairly inexpensive and offer a free trial so you can try it out. I could live with either, but iSpring QuizMaker almost makes it feel like I’d be choosing a Mac over a PC. They both work great, but it seems to work and look just a little bit better. And just like a Mac, it costs more. I have 30 days to decide, or better yet, beg for some money from the college. I haven’t tried that yet at GCC. Wish me luck.
Saying Goodbye to Blackboard – Part III: Missing Essentials
The hardest part about doing away with the standard LMS is replacing the essentials like gradebook, quizzing, and assignment dropbox. The assignment dropbox feature is used to collect assignments from students. I’ve tried using email for this in the past, but I’m not organized enough or consistently organized enough to make that work. Besides I’m a stickler about submitting assignments on time, and if your email inbox is your dropbox, you can’t simply turn that off or lock it down when the due date has passed. So I had to come up with a solution for this, as well as a gradebook and quizzing function.
Increasingly book publishers are replacing standard LMS services with new companion sites that come packaged with textbooks. Last year we adopted both the McGraw-Hill Guide with Connect Composition Plus and Cengage’s A College Writer with Enhanced InSite. Both offer online textbooks and companion sites that provide lots of resources for both faculty and students. I chose to use the McGraw-Hill text with Connect Composition Plus.
Connect Composition Plus provides comprehensive, reliable writing and research content that is searchable, assignable, and inviting. It includes a fully integrated eBook with exercises, peer review tools and editing skills diagnostic tests.
With this new tool, it’s easy for me to assign custom assignments for students that provide detailed instructions and then gives the students a place to submit the assignment. Connect Composition, as well as Enhanced Insite, have built in grading features. I can quickly annotate student assignments and post grades for students to see.There are also features in both that allow for students to peer review essays.
This is a great setup as it gives me one place for all submitted work, and one place to go to grade submitted work. I can create as many assignments as I want and set due dates. The down side is that their is no internal gradebook attached. There is a gradebook, but you can’t add outside assignments or exclude ebook assignments or grammar exercises you might assign students for extra practice. Basically you don’t have any control over the gradebook – weighting grades and assigning point value. Everything is just graded on a 100% scale. Ultimately I would like to see a gradebook built into this system, but in the mean time, I’ve decided to use Engrade for my gradebook.
Engrade is a free set of web-based tools for educators allowing them to manage their classes online while providing students with 24/7 real-time online access. It’s private, secure, truly free, and unbelievably easy to use.
It was very easy to set up all of my classes in Engrade. I just created rosters with the FirstName LastName IDNumber (MEIDs for Maricopa) and Engrade creates an access code for each student. I just emailed this access code with instructions to all students along with instructions on how to access their grades.
Engrade just recently added a feature that allows you to create quizzes, although it is a bit limiting at the moment. You can only create multiple choice quizzes. That doesn’t work for me, so I’m using Classmarker.com for my quizzing needs.
The ClassMarker online testing website is a professional, easy to use, online quiz maker that marks your tests and quizzes for you.
ClassMarker has educational pricing at $24 for the year and I’m able to create quizzes with different types of questions, including fill in the blank and essay – my favorites. It keeps track of all the scores and I can provide feedback on the quizzes. Initially I wanted to use ClassMarker because they have an external quiz feature that allows you to embed quizzes into your site. I couldn’t figure out how to make that work, but that is ultimately what I want to see on my WordPress site, quizzes embedded directly into the site.
So those are the three essentials that I had to replace when I made the move from Blackboard to WordPress. I’ll discuss more about the social aspect of WordPress over Blackboard in my next post.
Saying Goodbye to Blackboard Part II – Student Blogs & Privacy
In my first post I explained how I am using WordPress as a course management system, and in this post I will explain how I was able to easily add students to the class and set up their blogs. Keep in mind that my new course network is completely private, so only registered users can see who users are and participate in activities. To achieve this privacy, I installed a plug-in called Private WordPress. “Private WP will make sure people can only read your blog after they log in. Already logged in users will see no difference. Users who are logged out will get the login page, and only that.” I like to keep my options open, so although we are completely private, I still set up the students so they can have an option to use an alias.
First I added every student as a user to the main “hub” blog using their MEID and their Maricopa email address. This information is easily accessible in both Blackboard and SIS so I can do this before the semester begins. After I add them to the network, students are sent an email with log in instructions and a password to access the site. When they log-in they are instructed to edit their profiles to add their real name and a photo. At this point they can choose to display their first name only, first and last name or just their MEID. They can also use a chosen alias instead of their real names if they want. Students cannot change the initial username given (MEID), so no matter what they provide for their names, I can always identify them on the back end by the MEID. So far, all of my students have chosen to use their real names or stick with the MEID as the display name.
Next I create a blog or site for each user. You are given the choice between sub-domains or sub-directories in Step 4: Installing a Network. This means each additional site in your network will be created as a new virtual subdomain or subdirectory.
- Sub-domains — like
site1.example.comandsite2.example.com - Sub-directories — like
example.com/site1andexample.com/site2
I wanted to try them both, so ENG101 uses sub-domains and ENG102 and ENH295 both use sub-directories. I think I like sub-directories better so. To add a site I need a site name, site title and an admin email. For the site name I used MEIDs again because they will be easily identifiable by me, and if students neglect to make their site private, they are not automatically identifiable to the world. For site title I use the student’s first name temporarily, and then I add their Maricopa email for the admin email. Once I add the site, students are sent another email with log in instructions. They are then instructed to either leave their blogs public or make them private by using the same plug-in I used on the main site. If they choose to go private, I instruct them to choose the option to “Allow all feed access – Guests may continue read your blog via feed readers. “ This is essentially the same option we would have in Blackboard if our district had the balls to turn it on. The blogs are not accessible by search engines, and you have to have the feed url in order to see the posts. So it’s still private, but I can still access it via a feed reader. This makes me very happy. 🙂
Students are also instructed that they can change the title of their blog to whatever they want, thus removing their names. So they can change Mary’s blog (default) to MJ’s Hangout if they want. I don’t really need to have their name in the title because when I set up the blogs initially I created a blogroll for each class using their real name and subscribed to each blog using the real name. This blogroll list is only viewable by logged in users from the main site, and my Google Reader list is private as well. When I want to grade Mary’s blog, I either click on her real name or visit my GReader. And if I ever get confused I can just look at the URL: http://eng102online.com/mar1234567 (fake) and the MEID on the end will identify the student. My initial impression is that either students don’t care about privacy or they’re too confused to care. Not one student has changed the name of their blog, and I haven’t check to see if any have gone private. I’ll do that soon.
Blogroll at the bottom of the main course site.
Students have most of the same controls over their blogs that I have over mine. When I add and install plug-ins to the main blog, I have the option to activate site wide meaning students will now have access to the plug-in on their site. I can even control what themes are available to students, so if I want for their blogs to all look the same, I could just provide the one option. Or in the future I like to create a custom theme built just for writing portfolios for my ENG101 class. I could have all the pages prebuilt to make it easier for students. It can be a little confusing at first for students because they have two sites, the main class site (hub) and their own blog. When they click from the main site to go the dashboard, they end up first in the main site’s dashboard and there is not much there. They have to then click on the My Sites to see their blog and to be able to get to that dashboard.
Students cannot add themes or plug-ins to their site on their own. They can only activate themes or plug-ins that you have activated sitewide. The only problem that I can see so far is with the spam filter Akismet. I activated it sitewide so that all the student blogs could be protected, but it prompts all students to add their API key that you get by signing up for WordPress.com. I didn’t want to have students go through all of that, so at the moment all their blogs are exposed to spam. I like how the Private WordPress plug-in reminds students to activate privacy on their blog in case they missed my instructions to do so.
Overall, I’m pleased with how it’s all working out. I created lots of screencasts to help students, and I haven’t had too many questions about how to do things. I haven’t had too many complaints yet either. Only time will tell. In my next post I’ll talk more about how I’m collecting assignments and doling out quizzes and grades.
