Podcasting on the Fly with Soundcloud
Whether you’re teaching online, hybrid or traditional face to face, there is always a need to communicate with your students. That communication doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. “What kind of mic do I need? What editing program do you recommend? How do I compress the files? Can I upload media to my LMS?” These are all good questions, but it’s really not necessary to worry about these things. If you have a smart phone and a Soundcloud account, you’re ready to go. Below I walk you through the process of recording a podcast on your mobile device, where you can do a minimal amount of editing, and then embed the podcast right into a Canvas announcement.
So many of you might ask, why wouldn’t you just record audio using the built in tools in Canvas? That’s a good question. Sometimes I do, but those files are not high quality and I don’t have control over them. They’re posted where ever I create them in Canvas, but it’s either not possible or difficult to reuse those files. I have control over my Soundcloud files and they are higher quality. Also, there is one step I neglected to share with you – the ability to Add External Feed in Canvas. You can then add your SoundCloud feed directly to your Announcements in Canvas and skip the embed step. That means you can post a podcast using only your mobile phone. I haven’t tested this step yet, but when I do, I’ll let you know how it works.
Creating the Video
What I used to create the video: I used my Samsung Galaxy SIII mounted in the Case Star Octopus Tripod Stand, the Soundcloud app, the iPevo Point to View USB Camera to record the video of my phone, and Jing to record the computer screen.
iPevo Point 2 View USB Camera
Case Star Octopus Tripod Stand
TYCA West Presentation: The Not-So-Distant Education – Blended Comp Courses That Rock!
Many community colleges have experienced a growth in students over the past few years, and with a limited number of classrooms available, many colleges are trying to find a way to accommodate the needs of all of these new students. We’ve managed to meet this need by offering more online and hybrid freshman composition courses. Online courses obviously are not for everyone, but what about blended learning? This presentation will demonstrate how I created and now teach blended composition courses that meet the needs of all types of students (dev-ed to honors) by incorporated good course design, gaming, challenged based learning, self directed learning and multimedia elements. I will discuss basic design steps for developing a blended course, as well as discuss the pedagogy and tools necessary to make it a success.
Tools discussed: Canvas, Connect Composition, Google+, GoSoapBox, Tegrity, YouTube, Piazza, SoundCloud, Camtasia Studio and SnagIt (Jing).
Topics Discussed:
- Course Design
- Gaming
- CBL
- Self Directed Learning
- Multimedia
Presentation Slides: TYCAWestBlendedCoursesRock.pdf
We’re Still Not Blogging Much on Our Campus
Yep, I said it. I’m calling out GCC and their lack of initiative to get students writing for a real audience. Part of the problem lies with the lack of tools available that are supported by the college, but that’s really just an excuse. I even heard someone say yesterday that now that Blackboard is going away, she won’t be able to have her students blog any more. Well, fear not. Blogs live on, and the fact that they are not bastardized and hidden in a LMS should be liberating. For you, and the blogs. You have free reign to choose the tool that is best suited for your pedagogical need, not what is forced upon you by technology designers who probably have never taught a day in their lives. What the LMS might be pedaling is often something trying to be one tool for every need. We all know how that works out in the end. No one gets what they really need.
But there are blogs galore available for use on the web, and most are free. There are traditional blogs, micro-blogs, and micro-micro-blogs, like Twitter. You’re bound to find something to meet your needs, and all it takes is a little patience to learn the basics. I’ll be doing a workshop next week in the CTLE on Blogs for the Classroom, November 1, 1pm – 3pm in HT2-139. Join me in a discussion about using blogs for teaching and learning. There are many uses for blogs from providing content to providing students with a method to share their thoughts and writing with you and their peers. This will be both an informative and hands on workshop. To sign up go to our web page: http://www.gcca
To hold you over until then, I created a video to show you how quickly and easily you can set up a blog and start blogging today with Blogger. Blogger is available to us as part of our new Google Apps, so it’s linked to your school Gmail account. Look at all the tools that are just one click away from your email (image above). We have tools for videos, photos, wikis, websites, and blogging to name a few. We actually have two blogging tools available to us through Google, but I’ll just show you one today. Join us on Thursday more.
Setting Up a Blogger Blog for Teaching Using Maricopa Gmail
Benefits of Asynchronous, Direct Communication and Interaction Between Teacher and Student
I’ve been podcasting for years now, and I’ve always found the benefits of doing so in my online and hybrid courses valuable to the success of those courses. When I first started teaching hybrid and online back in 1998, I always thought there was something missing. I missed the ability to “talk” directly to my students, to point out missing points or correct behavior or provide motivation. Podcasting has allowed for me to add that back into my courses. I was just reading a journal article from the British Journal of Educational Technology where Rob Van Zanten, Simon Somogyi and Gina Curro (2010) wrote a paper that:
“explores how students interact with different types of podcasts. The study compares download and course evaluation data of a series of short-summary podcasts with full-lecture podcasts produced for the same university course. The findings show that students value full-lecture podcasts as highly as the short-summary podcasts, despite the fact that full-lecture podcasts are downloaded to a markedly lesser degree.”
This is interesting to me, as I’ve always heard that the most effective use of podcasts were to have short micro-lecture podcast and not full lectures. If you’ve always thought the same, then this article should be of interest to you.
Regardless if you go for the short-summary podcasts or the full lecture podcasts there are many benefits for including them in your courses. I could bore you with text, but why when I can demonstrate the value of a podcast. The following video describes the benefits of podcasting in the classroom.
Yes, a video can also be a podcast depending on how you distribute it. All videos on YouTube have a subscription option turning video channels into podcasts. The benefits of podcasting that I see are a bit different from Doug Saunders’ video from 2009, and I don’t have time to make a video to match his. However, audio podcasts can be just as effective, so I’m going to share a few more benefits below in an audio podcast. Feel free to make this podcast interactive by providing comments in the podcast stream.
Soundcloud, the program I used to create my podcast, provides a service called Timed comments that let your students and/or fans give you valuable feedback at specific moments throughout the podcast. You can pinpoint exactly where to leave a comment and start a conversation around it. Give it a try.
You have to sign up for a Soundcloud account before you can leave comments, but it’s quick and easy to do so.
Lunch & Learn 1: Engaging Students with Mobile Devices
Workshop: Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the CTLE in HT2-139
Lunch and Learn with Dr. Alisa Cooper: Engage Your Students with Mobile Devices. 11:00 am to Noon.
This workshop discussed mobile apps that can be used to engage students in the classroom, although all three web apps demonstrated can be accessed via web browser on a mobile device. Both Socrative and Piazza have native apps for both Android and Apple devices, but GoSoapBox can only be accessed on mobile devices via web browser. This method can actually be easier and quicker for students as they don’t have to download the app first to get started using the program.
During the demonstration we noticed that Socrative was problematic for some users and was overall very sluggish and slow to load pages on the mobile devices. Socrative is currently free and probably still working to polish its product before they move to a paid model. At this point, despite it’s clear usefulness, it may not be ready for prime time. It is worth giving a look at for use in the class however. Just don’t rely too heavily on it just yet. I’ve had trouble every time I use it.
GoSoapBox, a $90 per year paid for applicatoin, worked flawlessly. I guess it’s true. You get what you pay for. They have an alternate pay model where students can pay $10 per year for use instead of the teacher paying $90. Many institution will not find that model permissible at their institutions. For the most part, the features in both apps are similar, with GoSoapBox adding a “confusion barometer” in their app. “The Confusion Barometer allows students to indicate when they’ve become confused with material, or need the teacher to slow down. The teacher sees a graphical representation of the number of students who are confused at any point during class.”
There are some more subtle differences between Socrative and GoSoapBox, but both will do the job to get students engaged in your in-class lectures. I really like the ability to do “Instant Polling” in both applications. This gives you the ability to randomly ask a question verbally during class and have students answer on the device without you setting up the question in the program. You can write the question on the board or just speak it aloud, then give students an option to choose A, B, C or D or a free response answer on their device. This is great for questions that pop up last minute. My favorite feature out of both products is Socrative’s “Exit Tickets”. “Check in on your students’ understanding as they head out the door.” This pre-designed activity is already set up, so you can just instruct students to do it before they leave.
Lastly, I demo’d Piazza, a Q&A system that integrates nicely with Canvas. If you teach a class that could benefit from a place for students to hangout and ask questions and work together, Piazza is your application. Or if you find yourself saying, “if I have to answer that question one more time, I’m going to scream,” then Piazza if for you. Again this application works on a mobile device via app, but even better in a web browser. The mobile device does make it much easier to keep up with all the interaction happening on the site however. My class is not as active this semester, so once I get more use out of it, I’ll have report back about some of my favorite features. Until then take a look at all three applications below and play around with them for yourself. GoSoapBox offers a 30 day free trial and the other two are free (for now).
GoSoapBox: Instant Student Feedback App
The web-based application GoSoapBox 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. $90 per year or $10 per student per year. 30 day free trial.
- Video: http://youtu.be/6ZulEQdJmBI
- GoSoapBox: http://gosoapbox.com
- Tour: http://gosoapbox.com/tour
- Help: http://help.gosoapbox.com/
Socrative: Student Response System
Socrative is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. FREE
- Video: http://vimeo.com/socrative/intro
- Socrative: http://socrative.com/
- Tour: http://www.socrative.com/how-it-works
- No Help
Piazza: Online Q&A Site for Courses
Piazza is a free online gathering place where students can ask, answer, and explore 24/7, under the guidance of their instructors. With Piazza, easily answer questions, manage course materials, and track student participation. FREE
- Video: On main page of site (no link)
- Piazza: https://piazza.com/
- Tour: https://piazza.com/sandbox/warm?close=fancy#
- Help: https://piazza.com/help.html
Additional Information
- PollEverywhere is another similar application to GoSoapBox and Socrative; however, until recently their pricing model was a bit steep for individual instructors, the number of students permitted to participate was too small, and there wasn’t a mobile option for the instructor, only responses. That has since changed a bit, and I look forward to checking it out again in the future. Check out PollEverywhere’s limited comparison of similar products.
Creating an Online Class Orientation (video)
Creating an online class orientation is very important when teaching online. A good introduction to your online class could make or break the course for some students. If they can manage the orientation it’s a good sign for both of you that managing the class is possible. This video shows you how I’ve set up my online course orientation for a freshman composition course based on the QM rubric standards. You can download a copy of the QM Rubric from their website.
The Best of Both Worlds – Hybrid Courses at GCC
Image from: tmaworld.com
Hybrid courses, also known as blended learning, are the best kept secret of all things GCC has to offer. We don’t offer many of these types of courses in some departments, mostly because students are unfamiliar with the delivery style and shy away from them. It’s a shame because hybrid courses are great courses offering students the best of both worlds. That would be the world of traditional face to face classes and fully online classes.
We all know that online classes are not for everyone. Online classes required discipline, self direction, self motivation and lots of time. Albeit the time factor is flexible in that you can “go to class” when you want and not on a predefined Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday-Thursday at 8am schedule, but you still have to be disciplined enough to get your work done. Online courses can be tough, especially if you sign up for these classes for all the wrong reasons.
Hybrid courses are designed to give a taste of that online learning freedom, but with the comforts of having an instructor available to guide you. If you don’t quite have the discipline necessary to do online learning on your own, you can rely on still having to come face to face with your instructor once a week to face the music. Hybrid courses when designed correctly eliminate the boring class sessions when you drive to campus only to sit and listen to your instructor lecture for 50 minutes. Then you turn in your homework and leave. You could have done all that from the comforts of your own home. With a hybrid class, instructors find more creative ways to “lecture” the course material, like using video or audio. The lecture could come in the form of additional reading or multimedia lessons designed for online distribution. Or better yet, you could learn by doing.
With hybrid classes, you’re still held responsible for doing not just your homework on a weekly basis, but also your newly assigned online work. The online work is not just out there for you to figure out when, where, and how to do it. It’s tied in closely with your face to face class work, and most times, if you come to class ill prepared from not doing your online work, you won’t find the in class sessions meaningful. You’ll be wasting your time. So the discipline and guidance most students crave and need is still there, but in-class sessions are transformed into more meaningful, learner centered, and fun classes.
Give hybrid courses a try. We have plenty still available for Fall. They come in many different “blends,” so make sure you sign up for a full semester hybrid (08/22/2012- 12/14/2012). If the time period is shorter than 16 weeks, you will be registering for an accelerated class and that might be challenging your first time out. Also note that hybrid courses can be one day a week (my favorite) or even two days a week. It’s like making a smoothie in the blender. You decide what goes in and how much of each (F2F and Online) goes in.
Create Multimedia Lessons with Tegrity
This post is actually kind of funny when you think about what I’m doing. I used a screencapture program (Camtasia 8) to record of video of how to use another screencapture program (Tegrity) to create multi-media lessons. Brilliant! Anyway, I just recently upgraded my Camtasia to version 8, so I was anxious to try it out. This is a paid program that I chose to purchase years ago to help with creating lessons for my online courses. Not everyone teaching online can afford to buy their own software, so I’m glad that McGraw-Hill purchased Tegrity and now makes it available in Connect Composition 2.0. We adopted Connect with our English textbooks a few years ago, but McGraw-Hill just this summer updated the site to include this awesome lecture tool.
So the video that follows, created in Camtasia 8, shows how to get started with creating a lesson using a PowerPoint in Tegrity. Are you still following me here? No? Just watch the video then.
My first impressions of Camtasia 8 are wow! They totally revamped the program to make it even easier to use. It’s definitely worth the price to buy it. Even though we now have Tegrity, I still have uses for Camtasia.
Customizing My Canvas Course Part 1
I’ve been teaching in Canvas for a year now, but this fall Maricopa is officially switching over to Canvas on 9 of the 10 colleges. Remember RIO marches to the beat of their own drum. Anyway, it has been interesting to see how faculty in the district have reacted to this new change in LMS. Most seem to be happy, but others I feel are a bit intimidated by having to learn something new. It’s really not that difficult, but it will require some time to roll up you sleeves and dig in. It will be worth it.
I’m going to start posting some random videos of things I’ve done with my Canvas courses. Hopefully you’ll find something useful that you can use in your own. This first is a quick video to show how I’ve added buttons to my Canvas class for easier navigation on the home page. Also, I wanted to add a little branding and color to the class.
