Giving that the ENG102 course is research based, having students collaboration and share in the research process is invaluable. This is easily done with the help of social media sites like Diigo or Delicious. Diigo is a social bookmarking web service that not only allows for one to save and share bookmarked websites, but also to highlight, take notes, grab images and write comments on said web sites and save them all with tags and categories for easy access via any web browser anywhere one has internet access. It’s a great tool for doing research. With Diigo research doesn’t have to be a solitary activity. In this case, students are beginning the research process with a pre-research activity where the goal is to discover possible topics for an argumentative essay that fits the class theme of personal freedoms. Most students at this point don’t have an idea about what to write about, so not only are they exploring for themselves, but all of their ideas are saved and shared with the whole class.

The instructor can set up a group in Diigo which provides the class with a single URL to access the group bookmarks and discussions. It also permits the instructor to limit participation to only students in the class. Students can be invited to the group via email or they can sign up individually at the group page. For the assignment, students are instructed to save 10 websites with personal freedoms themes, tag the sites with our class tag (personal+freedoms or “personal freedoms”) as well as other relevant tags, and then write a 2-3 sentence summary of what the web site is about and why it could be valuable for someone who chooses this topic. This assignment is easily converted into an asynchronous discussion assignment by additionally requiring students to read back through the group’s bookmark list and comments and then comment on bookmarks that look interesting to them. Students can also “like” saved bookmarks that they think are best suited for the class by clicking a thumbs up symbol next to each bookmark. The compiled list of bookmarks gives the students a starting place for exploring possible paper topics and a place to discuss those topics.

The first image below shows what the Diigo group list looks like with student bookmarks, comments, likes and tags.

There are quite a few more features that Diigo offers for incorporating research skills into your assignments for students. Instructors can create a discussion around an online article by having students annotate and discuss it right in Diigo. Start by bookmarking the article in Diigo and then instructing students to visit the link, highlight sections in the article and comment via a sticky note. Sticky notes will need to be saved to a group and not private, so that all students can see all notes. Students can then read the highlighted sections of the article and view other students’ comments. It won’t be threaded, but students can also comment on other students’ sticky notes. Below is an image that demonstrates what this looks like. Click here to see a video on how to add sticky notes.

To help keep students engaged with Diigo and any discussions you have going on, instructors can have students set up alerts for the group. Students can get immediate, daily or weekly alerts via email any time someone in the group saves a bookmark or leaves a comment on a bookmark.

Diigo is free with an option to Go Pro for a few extra features. They also have educator accounts. There is a heavy focus on education with this tool, so if you sign up with an educator account, you’ll end up with a Teacher Console area where you can manage all of your classes (groups).

Related Posts

• MIL Research Project: Peer Review & Asynchronous Discussion
  
• MIL Research Project: Medium Group Discussions – Prompt and Group Size Matters

Successful discussion is all in the discussion prompt and size of the group. It’s pretty much a given that whole class discussion for classes with more than 20 students are not that effective because of the volume of content 20+ students can create, so dividing the class in half or in medium sized (5-10) groups can be beneficial and better for discussion. If students are overwhelmed with the volume of posts to read and respond to, often they opt out completely or try to participate partially. This means that they aren’t reading all the posts and thus not truly participating in the discussion. This is understandable; therefore, it’s best to create a discussion that minimizes the quantity of posts to allow students to be able to thoroughly read and participate in a discussion. Most LMS’s permit instructors to set up multiple discussions and assign students to select ones. If not, instructors can still set up multiple and instruct students as to which they are to participate. A helpful tip here is to set the options to “students must reply before seeing comments.” This prevents students from one group from reading and copying content from other groups they are not members of.

The number of participants in a discussion is not the only factor in its success. The questions or topics you have students discuss also play a factor. Discussion prompts are the written “springboard” from which online discussions are launched and are essential to encourage shared understanding (Du, Zhang, Olinzock, & Adams, 2008). Taking into consideration your purpose for the discussion, let that drive your discussion prompt. “Explicitly described and well-structured prompts support the students to interact and co-construct higher order knowledge” (Pedagogical Repository). For instance, in my ENG102 class, students are writing argumentative essays, so they are learning how to address opposing views and counter arguments in their papers. To help with this process, I have students participate in a discussion where each student is asked to present an argument that supports the thesis of the paper they are writing and briefly explain it to the group. Other students in the group are then instructed to provide a possible opposing view to that argument. Again they are asked to briefly explain the opposing view. And as a follow up each student who posted an original argument must now offer a counter argument to the opposing view that was posted in response to their argument. This gets students thinking about possible opposing view that they may not have thought of, but it also gives them the opportunity to test their counter argument skills. The discussion can end there or students can be instructed to provide feedback on whether they feel the counter argument was effective or whether or not it was presented correctly (accommodate or refute). It becomes a learning opportunity as well as another opportunity for students to provide feedback and connect with one another.

There are many alternatives to the usual whole class discussions that ask students to comment on readings in general. More focused and directive discussion prompts will get a better response from students. In her study, Nancy Bryant stated one of her biggest insights as, “The format and topic of the prompts influenced the amount of internalization for the students, as well as impacting the amount of self-directed research the students were willing to initiate. When the student had some control over their topic and format, their participation and quality of posts increased. The students asked more questions of one another and also generated more quality responses” (Brunsell). Check out the article for more common themes related to asynchronous discussion.

Related Posts: MIL Research Project: Peer Review & Asynchronous Discussion

Most people don’t think of peer reviews of student essays as discussion, and if you stop at the step where students provide feedback to each other on the written work, then yes, there’s not much discussion going on there. But that doesn’t mean you can’t turn peer review into a meaningful asynchronous discussion activity. Here’s how I run peer reviews in my ENG102 class. First I create groups of 3-4 students. Then I set up the questions that I want for students to answer during the peer review process. Giving students specific things to comment on helps them stay focused and makes it easier for them to provide meaningful feedback. The questions usually stem from the rubric that was provided to students during the writing process. My thought is that if students composed their essays under certain guidelines, providing feedback based on those guidelines could be helpful. So for example, the rubric points out that 10 points are awarded for a strong thesis statement that either takes a position or proposes a solution to a problem. During the peer review process, I ask students to review the essays of the students in their group and answer the provided questions. One question instructs students to highlight what they think is the thesis, identify it as either a position or proposal statement, and then weigh in on whether the thesis is a strong thesis or not. During the writing phase, students are tasked with writing a strong thesis, so this feedback they receive from peers is valuable.

Once each student has participated in this phase of the peer review, they are instructed to move over to Piazza for a small group discussion on the peer review process. This discussion is open ended with no specific guidelines about what needs to take place. The instructions simply ask students to continue the discussion from the peer review by providing further commentary on the overall work that each student did for the essay assignment. Comments in this phase of the asynchronous discussion activity are the ones I found most enlightening. Many students took this time to thank their group mates for the valuable feedback they provided in the peer review phase. They express their pleasure in participating in such activity, and showed enthusiasm for helping each other. One group was so exciting to start the discussion phase that they started their own group before the instructor had a chance to set it up.

An additional benefit to a discussion like this is the opportunity to build community among students. If students feel like there are others who are willing to read their paper and provide valuable feedback, they often feel obligated to do the same – provide valuable feedback back. But they also grow to like the people in their group forming a bond that carries over to other activities in the class. I often find groups start to ask questions of each other instead of asking the instructor. This is facilitated if you have a good tool to do so, which is why I adopted Piazza to help with Q&A and discussions in my class. Students don’t feel like they are alone in this process after they’ve completed the first peer review/discussion assignment.

Related Posts: MIL Research Project: Medium Group Discussions – Prompt and Group Size Matters

The Samsung Galaxy S3 cellphone has a 8 megapixel camera that shoots full 1080p HD video. Many cellphones these days do, so you don’t really need to carry around a “real” camcorder anymore unless you are a “real” movie maker. So as proof of concept, I set out on a mission to create a video advertisement for our upcoming technology conference. My goal was to use only my cellphone and a web app to edit the video. No complicated expensive software allowed. I figured if I could make something useful, why couldn’t our students. They all have cellphones and there’s no cost after that. Here’s what I did…

I came up with a plan in my head and then secured my actors. I used a mini portable octopus style tripod to hold my cellphone. I shot my actors with the cellphone sitting on a desk and/or chair. I shot an action shot of me running down a hallway by wrapping my tripod around a door knob in the hallway. That was it. Five shots total. Next I opened up the WeVideo camera app on my phone and uploaded the five clips to a new project in WeVideo online. WeVideo does have an Android app in Beta that lets you do a lot more than upload video. WeVideo for Android lets you:

• Easily capture photos and video footage
• Trim, split, arrange and stylize your video clips
• Add existing music, photos, and videos
• Export to social channels
• Sync your mobile content with the cloud

But I want to be fair and only use tools that most cellphone users have access to, so I’m only using the uploader. I did all my video editing online in the WeVideo web application. It was super easy. I just drug the clips into my timeline and added some titles for the speakers on each of the clips. Then I chose a theme, which adds transitions and background music automatically, and then published it. My free account only gave me 480p quality and had a WeVideo watermark in the corner, so I paid .99 to upgrade to 720p quality with no watermark. Perfect. This all probably took 30 minutes, and I was able to create this video below. Click the cogwheel on the bottom right and change the quality to 720p HD. It looks really good in HD.

Are You Registered for the Maricopa Tech Conference?

This process was so easy, I know students would have an easy time producing content for a class. And the best thing about WeVideo is it’s a cloud-based, collaborative video editor that is available to anyone through a web browser, on any device. Students can start a project and invite classmates to collaborate on shooting and editing video for the project. They have free accounts, but also affordable education accounts as well. For $30 a teacher can create projects and invite up to 50 collaborators. Sweet deal for sure. Oh, and WeVideo integrates with your Google Drive. I didn’t try that out yet, but if you look in GDrive, you can add the app.

You don’t have any excuses now. Get your students creating some videos. It’s easy. Even I can do it.

Title: Student Engagement in a Changing World * Overall Theme: Student Engagement

I. Introduction: This presentation was designed to demonstrate different ways to engage students using a few technology tools along the way. (Animoto video) + Storytelling: Used to be a track coach, busy all the time, quit, realized I was bored with teaching, students were bored and unmotivated, started using tech to mix it up, went back to school, learned how to do it right, better engage students in their own learning. Student engagement is important in what we as teachers do.

“Students learn more when they are actively involved in their education and have opportunities to think about and apply what they are learning in different settings. Through collaborating with others to solve problems or master challenging content, students develop valuable skills that prepare them to deal with the kinds of situations and problems they will encounter in the workplace, the community, and their personal lives.”

Introduce CCSSE study – purpose.

II. CCSSE Data (Poll Everywhere)

2012 CCSSE Executive Summary (PDF) focuses on the importance of relationships among students, faculty, and staff, and with institutions themselves: how they evolve, the value they add, and the importance of building and sustaining these critical connections. The report offers data about the quality of community college students’ educational experiences and describes how colleges across the country are intentionally making connections with students online, in the classroom, on campus, and beyond.

“Personal connections are the unanticipated success factor — a critical variable that improves the odds of persistence.”

The five benchmarks of effective educational practice in community colleges are active and collaborative learning, student effort, academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, and support for learners.

Show key results from active and collaborative learning – Open a poll (“…79% of entering students report that they plan to earn an associate degree, but just _____ of full-time students meet that goal within six years. What percentage met this goal?) Answers:  35%, 45%, 55%, 75% <–PollEverywhere/ View our results and then the CCSSE results for A and C learning.

One more area possibly – Student/Faculty Interaction – another poll question – Transition -relate to student engagement

III. Student Engagement- occurs when “students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in learning the formal indicators of success (grades), but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives.” It is increasingly seen as an indicator of successful classroom instruction, and as a valued outcome of school reform. The phrase has been identified as “the latest buzzword in education circles.” Students are engaged when they are involved in their work, persist despite challenges and obstacles, and take visible delight in accomplishing their work.Student engagement also refers to a “student’s willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process promoting higher level thinking for enduring understanding” (Wikipedia).

How do we engage students? Go back to Active and Collaborative learning from CCSSE. Introduce 7 Principles. Explain

I started teaching in 1990. Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson published these 7 principles in The American Association for Higher Education Bulletin in March 1987. Been around for a while.

IV. Seven Principles of Good Practice (Diigo)  “http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm”  – Use Diigo to discuss

VoiceThread Discussion

• encourages contact between students and faculty,
• develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
• encourages active learning,
• gives prompt feedback,
• emphasizes time on task,
• communicates high expectations,
• respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

V. Where are we now? (YouTube) The end of 2009. Faced with some of the same criticism that Chickering and Gamson addressed in their 1987 article, we also have to contend with a changing world. I could tell you how the world is changing, but why when I can show you: YouTube video

Transition to 21st Century Literacies-

“As we move forward into the 21st century, it is up to us to identify the essential elements of current multi-literacies and promote them, to address the special characteristics of each of today’s media and technology, and to create the personal and institutional flexibility to change and learn as the world does.” (http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/21stcent/framework.htm)

Slides: Engaging Students in a Changing World (PDF)

When: Wed, March 20, 12pm – 1pm

Where: GCC CTLE HT2-139 (map)

Description: Google+ is a social media tool built into our Gmail system, but why should you care about it? Come learn how you can use this new tool for teaching and learning, as well as building your Personal Learning Network (PLN). This session will highlight how G+ is used as a live online classroom tool, online office hours, video chat, blogging, content curation, joining communities, and connecting and sharing with colleagues both on a desktop and on a mobile device.

Tools Covered

• Google Hangouts: Host face to face chat sessions, virtual online meeting, or broadcast live
  • Chat with students online about progress in class
  • Schedule office hours online in a Hangout
  • Broadcast a live class session for students not in class – Tape if for later viewing
  • Share your desktop, Google Docs, YouTube Video
  • Connect with colleagues in your field from around the world
  • Join public Hangouts on Air for topics you’re interesting in
• Google Chat / Talk
  • Instant message with colleagues
  • Built into Gmail – readily available
• Circles - On Google+ you can share as broadly or narrowly as you want. If you have something to say that the world needs to hear, choose “Public.” To keep your message to a specific group, choose one of your circles. You can even share with individuals — just type in someone’s name or email address.
  • Group colleagues, students, friends or others according to the topics you want to share with each
  • Set up class circles and share only to that class
• Communities - Communities bring people together around passions. Exchange news and ideas, and make new connections in public communities.
  • What our Gaucho Plus is based in
  • Create your own private communities where only the people in the community can see what is shared
• +1′s - Click the +1 button to give something your public stamp of approval.+1 lets you share recommendations with friends, contacts and the rest of the web when your advice is most helpful – on Google search.
  • Create a collection of resources found on the internet for later viewing or sharing
  •  
• Mobile
  • You can do all this on your mobile device

As an online instructor and eCourses Faculty Lead for my college, the general purpose of my project is to increase my knowledge and the knowledge of our ecourses faculty of the best pedagogical practices in online teaching by establishing a Personal Learning Network (PLN). “Personal Learning Networks are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning.” It’s a system of lifelong learning and provides support for learners to manage their learning and to communicate with others in the process of learning. This PLN will be used for professional development and will help myself and other faculty learn from content-area specialists and each other. In order to create this network, I need to improve my skills and knowledge in the process and learn about best practices for creating such networks, as well as learn how to help and motivate others to join the network. The true value of this project is that the learning doesn’t end after the final report is submitted.

My goal is to do this by first attending The Teaching Professor Conference to learn theoretically sound ideas covering the following topics:  course design, teaching and learning with technology, learner-centered teaching, active learning techniques, teaching and engaging unprepared students, and assignment strategies. My participation in this 3 day conference will equip me with new skills and strategies that will augment my strengths as a teacher and leader for eCourses on our campus, and give me a chance to make connections for the PLN, but also to gain ideas for content for our contributions to the network.

We currently have social media on our campus: Twitter, Google+ and a WordPress blog; however, these tools are not currently being used effectively, not in the manner I know they can be. I will do research to learn from other institutions who have developed PLNs, find appropriate communities to join and create an easy plan for others to join our network. Considerable time will be spent on learning about Google+ and the new “Communities” feature, as well as developing my own resources. In addition, I plan to set up several new tools that will add value to the PLN, those being LinkedIn and Diigo.

This project aligns with my college goals in that we are piloting Google+ right now as a way to distribute communications across the campus. It hasn’t taken off as our marketing department had hoped, but my project will help with that. My project gets at the why and how of connecting, collaborating and contributing that is important for learning new things. Our eCourses Strategic Plan Mission Statements states that our plan provides guidelines, course management goals, and strategies within the context of the changing environment of distance education. Participating in this projects helps me stay abreast to the changing environments, gain the skills and knowledge necessary to support our strategic plan goals and help our ecourses faculty in the process.

Event description: “The thought-provoking talks feature presenters from a variety of professional backgrounds covering an array of subjects — from theater and music to math and science. Presenters include faculty members, tech gurus and students.”

Below is a playlist of all the talks featuring Maricopa’s past and present technology leaders. So go grab some popcorn, get comfy and enjoy the show.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Online Discussion Participants

Most students hate online discussion. It’s true. Ask them. I don’t blame them. I hate it too. Ha! Yep, I just admitted that. It’s not the idea behind asynchronous discussion that I dislike. It’s how it is implemented in most online courses. It’s almost as if it’s an after thought. Oh wait, I need some student to student interaction, so I’ll throw a few questions in a discussion forum and be done with it. There’s no clear purpose. Then 24 students all jump in and try to manage what can quickly become unruly or worse boring and meaningless. First, my horror story. How do 24 students “discuss” this question: What was the theme of the story? Yes, I’ve seen that discussion question in an online course. Well, after the first student nails the answer, and it didn’t take long in this case. Everyone waiting 4 days until the one brave soul responded with the correct answer. Done. What was everyone else supposed to say after that? Not much and the discussion was a flop. Twenty-four students echoing the same response. And I’ve seen worse.

There’s a lot that goes into creating successful asynchronous discussion in online courses. I talk a little about some of it in the video at the end of this post. Instead of elaborating on that further, I’d rather share with you a very rewarding asynchronous discussion going on right now in my ENG102 online course. Discussions don’t have to take place in a traditional discussion forum. That’s the first lesson. In this case, my real goal, aside from getting students to interact with each other, was to have students help each other out with their writing by offering some valuable feedback. This discussion begins in Connect Composition where students submit their latest essays. I set up a peer review assignment and put students in groups of 3. Their goal at this stage is to review the other two papers in their group and offer feedback based on the 6 questions I set up for them to answer.

The objective is twofold: challenge students’ knowledge and understanding on the concepts required to write the paper and help each other discover strengths and weaknesses in the paper based on those general concepts. For instance, one of the questions students respond to is based on one of the competencies on the rubric for the paper: Does the paper clearly define the issue or problem only and not state a position or proposed solution? Does the writer remain objective or can you tell which side of the argument he/she is on? It’s more like a check list, but students are encourage to comment as well. They are not asked to grade the paper or edit the paper – just answer the questions.

In the second phase of this discussion activity, students are ask to participate in a more free discussion to offer more general feedback. Here is my discussion prompt:

Group 3: Discussion 3: Peer Reviews Paper 2

On Monday, after you have submit your paper in Connect, participate in the peer review process in Connect where you will peer review your 2 teammates’ papers. Watch how: http://youtu.be/N-gYmdV_P0A

After you’ve done your peer reviews, come back here and reflect on your experience. Did you get good feedback? Was it helpful? What else do you need to know to help make your outline better? Provide feedback and ask questions here to complete discussion 3.

Most students are so excited to participate in this part of the discussion. They thank each other for the feedback they receive. They sum up their thoughts on the individual papers and offer suggestions to make it better. It’s turned into something completely different than what I anticipated. See below for an example of part of a discussion from a group. Students have expressed that they like the peer review and the concluding discussion because they feel they are helping each other and they feel bad if someone helps them and they done reciprocate.

Click to image to see in full size

As a result of these types of discussions, students have found friends in the course and “hang out” with each other online. A key element to this is I haven’t done much changing to the groups. Some groups are not as successful and when a change has been made, students have been thankful. An added benefit for me is that the rewrites on these papers after the peer reviews and discussion are much better and students are more confident about their work. I can’t wait until the end of the semester when I poll students on which aspects of the course they found most helpful in their learning. Usually the discussion forum ends up dead last. I have a feeling this semester, they might be at the top of the list. We’ll see.

Two Components of Successful Asynchronous Discussions in Online Courses

Well, that’s part of the problem, not enough faculty know the answer to that question. So the few of us who do know, may suffer the consequences. There will always be a need for an interactive lesson builder,  and I vote that we keep what we already know.  However, if there is something else out there that will blow me away without causing me stress learning how to use it, I’d be open to that too. In the mean time, here’s hoping others in the district find this video interesting enough to start using Softchalk while we await the verdict.