SLHS

Groupboard Virtual Whiteboard Connects Long Distance Students in Spanbauer's Class

Anonymous — Fri, 29 May 2015 16:30:00 +0000

Groupboard Virtual Whiteboard Connects Long Distance Students in Spanbauer's Class Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/29/2015 - 10:30

Scott Spanbauer in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Department implemented Groupboard Virtual Whiteboard to connect with long distance students.

[video:https://youtu.be/EiK4Y30EnOU]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

My language teaching techniques are based are the communicative process--how human beings negotiate interpersonal communication through speaking, listening, reading and writing, and through this negotiation process, become fluent. It’s the way a baby learns language.

Although there are occasional constraints on speaking, listening and reading (such as noise, interruptions, and physical disabilities), my particular classroom configuration--with half of the students present in the classroom, and the other half connecting from afar using videoconferencing--software puts a serious constraint on writing as an in-class activity.

In a normal classroom, multiple students can easily and quickly write on a whiteboard or blackboard, the instructor can make written comments on and corrections to this output, and everyone in class can see all of this activity clearly in real time. This allows textbook-based group writing activities, fast-paced competitive exercises, or even a game of Pictionary.

In my classroom, half of the students are in a room with a whiteboard, and the other half are connected to the classroom via Zoom--a program much like Skype. Although I can show them the whiteboard (which requires some camera work), they can’t write on it. As a stopgap measure, I have asked remote students to write on a piece of paper and hold it up to their webcams. However, the writing is often small and illegible (because it actually is small, and because the video is not high-resolution), and there is also a delay involved with the video conferencing link.

I needed some sort of shared digital whiteboard that everyone in the class could see and write on in real time, with an input method nearly as fast and easy as writing on a whiteboard. And it needed to be handwriting, not typing. As numerous recent studies and articles point out, handwriting enhances learning in ways that typing does not.

My simple need is that handwriting be an equally privileged mode of communication in classroom activities, together with reading, speaking, and listening. One initial indicator of success would be that handwriting activities take place in the classroom on a regular, even daily, basis or that handwriting constitutes some percentage of activities over the course of the semester. More importantly, how does more in-class writing affect writing quality? Looking at quizzes, midterms, finals, journals, and other graded assessments that we already use, are students progressing in their adoption and use of grammar and over the course of the semester, or multi-semester series of classes? How do they compare with other classes or cohorts? In the case of this particular class, we are trying to replicate the normal face-to-face, paper and chalkboard based version of the class, so one would hope that the students’ writing skills would at least be equivalent to that of this control group.

Qualitatively, are students comfortable writing in Spanish day-to-day, comfortable enough to go beyond rote responses to prompts? Do they show creativity and humor in their writing? Are they having fun?

Implementation

After quite a bit of searching, CU’s ASSETT found a web-based shared whiteboard tool called Groupboard, which I began testing in my classroom late in the Spring 2015 semester. All of my students, whether in the physical classroom or connecting via Zoom, have the Groupboard app installed on their phones (it comes in iOS and Android versions), allowing them to write on the whiteboard using a finger or a stylus. Additionally, I project a larger version of the shared whiteboard to everyone via Zoom using my computer, and I write on the board myself using an iPad.

Our main hurdle was learning how to write on a touchscreen, and write small. In order to write small enough that multiple students’ writing could fit simultaneously on the whiteboard, the students needed to learn how to zoom in on just their area of the whiteboard.

Indicators of Success

Despite some initial clunkiness, after several days of practice, Groupboard had already met my criterion for acceptance: it is better than holding up pieces of paper to a webcam. A bonus benefit is that I now use Groupboard as my inclass whiteboard for explaining grammar, saving the time it took to change camera positions and move to the whiteboard. And just as I would on a real whiteboard or chalkboard, I can annotate and correct what students have written. But since they can clearly see what other students have just written in real time, they learn from each other, and just correct it themselves.

Reflection

I think that with time and practice, Groupboard will be something that we use in class every day. I have used it to replicating a game where we divide the class into teams that compete against each other to conjugate verbs or answer questions. Another activity is group story writing, where we collaborate on writing a paragraph. We’ve even tried playing Pictionary. Groupboard lets you upload game board background images, so the only limitation on the activities is the instructor’s imagination.

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Kan Archives Language Sound Bites with ASSETT Development Award

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Kan Archives Language Sound Bites with ASSETT Development Award Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/14/2014 - 00:00

Research team from left: Wes Song, Dr. Pui Fong Kan, Allina Robertson, Shirley Cheung, and Fan Yin Cheng

Last year, CU �鶹ӰԺ Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Center Assistant Professor Pui Fong Kan received an ASSETT Development Award to create web based resources for pathologists who treat patients who are multilingual and are having trouble communicating in English. Pui Fong explains that having a go-to database to learn more about a patient's primary language can provide helpful insights about the reasons patients may exhibit difficulty communicating in English.

The Idea

Pui Fong said that student input has made this project possible: "This project started in class. I was talking about how the resources available to bilingual speech and language pathologists are limited." Allina Roberts, a Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences graduate student, came up to Pui Fong after class that day and said, "We can do this!" Roberts introduced Pui Fong to Wes Song, an aspiring programmer, who happened to be looking for a goodwill project. Song volunteered to develop the website as his class project for a Refactoru.com web development class. Roberts now conducts research for the project.

Pui Fong would like the website to offer comprehensive sound bites of different languages' syllables, consonants, and dipthongs. The team will invite peer institutions to contribute their expertise about the languages of the world. Pui Fong and her team explained how time consuming and overwhelming it can be for a clinician when trying to research and learn about a client's first language. Pui Fong's team envisions that with access to their website, speech therapists will be able to more quickly learn about clients' languages. Such knowledge will help therapists determine how to help different speech clients communicate in English. Pui Fong explained, "We are working with a diverse population ... Sometimes [speech patients] make errors in the second language, but they are just in the process of learning two languages; they don't have a problem ..." The team would also like the website to offer some, "... resources about bilingual children." The team's goals are to finish the website and invite other speech therapy clinicians, researchers, and linguists to contribute to it.

Right now, the team is working on the first phase of the website, and Song is rushing to complete the rest. He is setting up the website so that approved users would be able to add new languages and tables of consonant or vowel sounds. Song said that he is incorporating Web 2.0 to make the site more responsive and easier to use: he is using Javascript, CSS, and HTML to code different parts of the site.

Pui Fong views the project as a team effort, and says, "We want students to be able to participate and contribute." Indeed, also working on the project are: Fan Yin Cheng, a visiting Research Assistant in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, and Shirley Cheung, an Honors CU �鶹ӰԺ Senior in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Pui Fong appreciates the input that she receives from her team, "As this project continues I realize that [Song] has some interesting ideas, like mobile devices." The team would like to offer the website on tablets and iPads for their portability. Pui Fong says that she would like to include even more students in the project this year.

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Faculty Learn from Teaching with Technology Seminar

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Faculty Learn from Teaching with Technology Seminar Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/20/2014 - 00:00

Faculty members Giorgio Corda, Dave Rickels, Holly Gayley, Janet Casagrand, Elena Kostoglodova, and Jen Lewon participated in both the Teaching with Technology Faculty Seminar and the Hybrid and Online Course Design Seminars this past 2013-2014 academic year. These faculty presented at the Second Annual ASSETT Teaching with Technology Symposium at the UMC Glenn Miller Ballroom in May. Audience members at the Symposium were invited to browse their demonstrations of use of technology in teaching.

Giorgio Corda of the Italian Language Department presented his hybrid and online foreign language course models. He said that he feels that teaching online provides a more fulfilling language learning experience than just in-the-classroom. Corda ascribes to a cooperative learning pedagogy and uses VoiceThread and other programs so that students can comment throughout a video while they watch it. Students' comments on videos are visible to the entire class so that students can help each other. Corda stressed the flexibility that online learning provides makes a more equitable playing field for more students with outside responsibilities to participate. He provides a weekly fifteen minute one-on-one session with students to assess their progress and allow time to answer questions.

Dave Rickels, PhD, uses the Coach's Eye Tablet app that is traditionally used in sports coaching to coach future music teachers with synchronized video feedback. With the app, he can record his own voice over a video of a student giving a sample lesson. He said, "It's very real to the students because they have to watch themselves."

Janet Casagrand, PhD, of the Integrated Physiology Department presented her use of "Screencasts for Student Review."

Elena Kostoglodova, PhD, of the German and Slavic Languages and Literatures presented, "Integrated Camtasian and Voicethreads Tutorials for the Hybrid Language Classroom."

Jen Lewon of the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Department presented how she encouraged a student community through social media.

Holly Gayley, PhD of the Religious Studies Department presented, "Documentary Storytelling in the Humanities."

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Teletherapy: Medicine is Going Global

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Teletherapy: Medicine is Going Global Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/17/2009 - 00:00

Professor Gail Ramsberger, chair of the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences (SLHS) department, realizes that technology is changing the way speech, language and hearing therapy works.

Something as simple as video conferencing, because of its affordability and relatively low cost, is creating a treatment option that never existed before: teletherapy. Teletherapy is the practice of using technology to provide professional therapy services from a distance.

The SLHS department at CU is taking the steps to implement this practice within graduate level classes; graduate students will not only learn how technology can provide treatment options, but will apply teletherapy to treat aphasia patients.

Professor Ramsberger is the resident expert on aphasia—an acquired disorder of language processing that wreaks havoc on a person’s capability to create and understand sentences, phrases or even choose correct words.

Research suggests that the most effective treatment schedules for those with aphasia are time-intensive: i.e., schedules in which patients attend therapy sessions at a hospital or outpatient clinic for several hours a day, 4-5 days a week, for several weeks.

Most patients with aphasia have experienced strokes or other neurological events that have led to the disease; their old age and impaired physical abilities makes traveling back and forth from a doctor’s office difficult if not impossible. Consequently, aphasia therapy is typically not able to be delivered on an intensive basis.

So what is the solution? Bring the treatment to them.

Professor Ramsberger and Clinical Instructor Barbara Rende are teaching a graduate class this Fall 2009 semester, and will use teletherapy in place of traditional therapy practices to bring treatment to patients. Each patient will be given their own Mac computer, complete with a built-in iSight camera. Using iChat, graduate students will be able to treat up to 2 patients at once, who are sitting in the comfort of their own home.

Each patient will be able to see the student therapist and the second patient simultaneously. The treatment will mirror an in-office experience—but without the hassle of getting to an actual doctor’s office. And besides this benefit to the patient, graduate students in the SLHS department will get plenty of hands-on experience using a modern treatment option.

The answer seems simple, so why hasn’t teletherapy taken off before this? Ramsberger explains, “People are hesitant because what we do as speech-language pathologists is such a human discipline."

In other words, therapists and doctors are more used to seeing their patients face to face—and are unsure about the idea that personal connections and therapeutic input are still possible from a distance. With teletherapy practice in Drs. Ramsberger & Rende’s class, students will learn to become comfortable treating a patient from afar.

“It will show students possibilities besides traditional delivery models,” professor Ramsberger shares. She hopes this practice will train students to be more capable and have a farther reaching effect in our technology-filled world.

There are health challenges around the globe. When people are unfortunate enough to have a disease or disability in an area where no expert resides, it used to be they were merely out of luck. Now, “telemedicine makes treatment global,” says professor Ramsberger.

Gail Ramsberger and Barbara Rende hope that the class they’re teaching provides evidence that teletherapy can be just as successful as traditional treatment. With more evidence behind the practice, she anticipates universities will begin to add technology-supported treatments into their curriculum.

This will contribute to the ultimate goal: providing a more relevant education to students and supplying the world with trained, competent and innovative individuals.

Written By: Kate Vander Wiede, CU '09, ASSETT Staff

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