Social Media

Martin's Online Communities Promote Better In-Class Discussions in International Affairs Courses

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2016 21:11:05 +0000

Martin's Online Communities Promote Better In-Class Discussions in International Affairs Courses Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/24/2016 - 15:11

Contributed by albyantoniazzi at Flickr Creative Commons.

Dr. Jessica Martin wants to hear what her students think. Martin, CU �鶹ӰԺ Instructor of International Affairs, creates class Tumblr and Facebook pages for her students to build community and discuss current events relating to their courses--whether post-Cold War politics, the September 11 attacks, or the Arab Spring. Students' posts and comments on these online spaces contribute to their participation grades, and Martin has found that these online forums encourage more students to participate in class. "I notice, by the middle of the semester that more students are talking...It's helped to create a better dynamic," Martin says. She may ask a student to speak in class about their latest post to the class Facebook Group or Tumblr Page. "Where did you find that article?" Martin may ask a student in class; or, "What does this article tell us about the news event?"

Students appreciated Martin's effective class discussions and nominated her for an ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award in the Spring of 2013. One student wrote about Martin's Post-Cold War World course:

Dr. Jessica Martin is an amazing professor with an incredible talent to lead thoughtful engagement and discussion with little more than provoking and skillful questioning...her online discussion through Tumblr was unique and fun to use. This was my first class that used Tumblr as a medium for sharing and discussion outside the classroom. We were encouraged to post pictures, articles, journals etc. to our class Tumblr page in order to share ideas and information about the Arab Spring to our classmates and professor. While we received participation credit for our posts, the Tumblr page was a fun outlet to communicate on and introduced me to new sources and stories that I wouldn't have found without it. Dr. Martin was always trying to find ways to engage her students and her Tumblr page was a smart and creative way to encourage participation and learning.

Not only have the online forums engaged students, but they also serve as effective avenues for building critical thinking skills. Martin challenges students to search online to find evidence for their arguments, and then take a step further to examine the articles that they find for the writers' perspectives and opinions. "We try to have students find different arguments in the information they find...We really want to get as many perspectives as possible," she says, and, ultimately, "I hope they get better at analyzing information," she says. Martin says that her 9/11 class's Facebook group page serves as an extensive archive of media about that topic that seniors can refer back to when finding evidence for their final research papers.

Martin has encountered a few challenges with using these online forums for class discussion. Sometimes, students hesitate to create Tumblr accounts if they are not already registered at Tumblr. Also, since students' Tumblr usernames often differ from their real names, she must keep track of which aliases belong to which students in order to give students proper credit for their participation in online discussion. When it comes to the class Facebook pages, Martin tells students that she only views the students' participation on the class Facebook Group page--she does not Friend students, or visit their Facebook profiles.

Martin has found that online communities build connections among students. She has seen students make new friendships, sometimes just beginning with a post to the class Facebook page. "It's a good way for students to get know each other," she says. The communities formed during the semester seem to last long after the classes end.

Martin considers trying, "... a class blog where students could post," for future classes. Most importantly, when using social media in class, "Students had fun with it!" she says.

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Gale's RAP Students Shared Visual Literacy Images Via Social Media

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:30:00 +0000

Gale's RAP Students Shared Visual Literacy Images Via Social Media Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/24/2015 - 10:30

Kendra Gale, PhD, is an instructor in the Communication and Society Residential Academic Program at CU �鶹ӰԺ. Gale completed the Fall 2014 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar. She introduced a social media page into her class as a mechanism for sharing and discussing interesting images in the media.

[video:https://youtu.be/wXFiHMsT0MM]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

I teach introductory communication courses in the Communication and Society Residential Academic Program (Comm RAP). These are all course with first year students, taught in the residence hall in sections of 19 or less. The enduring idea of the courses is social construction through communication, i.e., how we communicate shapes our understanding of reality.

I used the Teaching with Technology Workshop to explore image delivery mechanisms for students in my Visual Literacy course. One of the goals of the course is for students to master basic vocabulary of semiotics, design, photography and film to use in the discussion of images. But learning a new vocabulary requires practice and repetition.

While I have literally thousands of images in my electronic archive, using them to create exercises for students has been a challenge. I use images on D2L for quizzes but the process of uploading and labeling images for that format is extremely cumbersome and inefficient. While I will continue to use the quiz function for quick learning checks, it is not feasible for uploading large quantities.

In the past, I have posted PowerPoint slides online with questions on the slide and answers in the notes section, created binders of images for students to peruse and practice and required students to create a portfolio of images examples for terms. All of these approaches are extremely labor intensive for me and the interaction is primarily one to one where I am providing feedback individually.

Plans for Implementation

Technology

The goal for using technology is to create a “space” for students to apply the visual vocabulary to a range of images. My vision was to create the equivalent of a “language lab” or sets of electronic flashcards for practice outside of class time.

The tool I choose to explore was a closed group on Facebook because:

Students are already adept at using Facebook so, unlike creating a blog site, there was no learning curve for a new technology;
It is a site they already visit frequently;
A closed group allows students to practice without all of their friends being notified every time they post an image or comment so it respects the boundary between academic and social life. But knowing their classmates would see the posts creates some performance expectation;
Posts and comments are dated;
It is fast and easy both to upload images and to comment on posts on Facebook.

Learning Exercise

Students were required to post 4 times, roughly once every 2-3 weeks, and to comment on at least eight posts from classmates. I provided a list of terms for select modules in the course (semiotics, intertextuality, camera terms, and design choices) and asked students to select one of the terms, provide a visual example of the term in use and briefly discuss how that particular choice contributes to a preferred reading of the image. I also required them to use images that hadn’t already been used. That compelled them to look at all the previous posts before contributing their own as did the requirement to comment on other posts.

Evaluation of the posts was based primarily on completion:

0 = no post or late post
1 = student posted but didn’t complete all the requirements or the post was duplicate of what someone else has already posted
2 = posted and completed all the discussion requirements

Indicators of Success

Assessment of the Technique

Student Self-Assessment

Students were asked about the Facebook posts and assignments in a peer evaluation of my teaching as well as in an anonymous end-of-semester survey. On scaled items students strongly agreed on the ease of use as well as the benefit of having additional examples outside of class (4.5 out of 5). There was less agreement on the number of required posts with some students suggesting that more posts be required in the future. Several also commented on the value of my comments in response to other students posts. They also appreciated the validation when I used their examples in class.

From my perspective, this was also successful as a formative assessment,

I was able to detect patterns of misunderstanding quickly and address them in class.
My feedback on individual posts and comments was visible to the whole group so the learning experience extended beyond the individual.

Unexpected Additional Affordances

Having students contribute images from their own lives provided me with a range of images to which I wouldn’t normally be exposed. It allows me to easily update some of my own examples, to incorporate their images into class discussion and to use the same image several times to help them understand multiple ways of analyzing an image. Analysis and commentary on images from their own lives helped connect daily experience with larger social discourses.
Generally the students who posted first were some of the more successful and high achieving students in the class. They set a high standard for the posts that followed. But that also meant that those who procrastinated until the last minute had to review all the previous posts. Often times, the last-minute-students are not as strong and I suspect the extra review was beneficial for them.
Since students mostly used their real names and faces in the profile pictures, it helped everyone learn the names of all their classmates.
Because they set their social media accounts to notify them via text when anything is posted, notifications about classmate postings helped remind the potentially less organized students that something was due soon. The immediacy of the social media platform also encouraged conversations to continue after and between classes.
Instant cross-platform connection also allowed students to post from both phones and computers. It seemed easier to post images from daily life when they didn’t have to download it from a camera to the computer and then upload it again.
Their comments to each other sometimes strayed away from discussion of the images, but I believe some of the light banter, commentary on each other’s musical preferences, etc. helped them bond more as a community of learners. They were generous with their praise of each other for posting unusual images, original photographs or enlightening commentary, and disagreed respectfully.

Reflection

Overall, using Facebook as a site for posting and commenting moved this class closer to the kind of learning partnership I would like in all my class. They help each other learn and I am learning from them as well.

The workshop also exposed me to several other easy to use technologies that I have adopted in other courses. In addition, the conversation with colleagues was enormously beneficial for troubleshooting problems, generating new ideas and tapping into collective expertise.

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Storify Curated Social Media Conversations in Albert's Writing Class

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Storify Curated Social Media Conversations in Albert's Writing Class Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/11/2015 - 11:00

PWR Instructor Michelle Albert

Michelle Albert, a Senior Instructor in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric, implemented Storify into her First-Year Writing and Rhetoric Class. Albert hoped that when students tracked the threads of their social media conversations using Storify, they would be able to visualize the developments of their research inquiries. Albert completed the Spring 2015 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Seminar.

[soundcloud width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/298660350&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false"][/soundcloud]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

One of the six primary learning objectives for First-Year Writing and Rhetoric classes in the PWR states that students will develop their information literacy, making critical choices as they identify a specific research need, locate and evaluate information and sources, and draw connections among their own and others' ideas in their writing. To achieve this goal, most instructors include an Inquiry Project that typically culminates in a traditional print-based academic research paper. However, the new complex and dynamic information and media landscape in which we and our students live and work -- the near-ubiquity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in our lives -- requires new kinds of information literacies and thus new information literacy curricula.

As with writing, the creation and sharing of information is subject to social, cultural, political, and technological forces. However, many students (and instructors) have outdated assumptions about the role of research and its relationship with writing. Students associate “research” with library databases, and assume the “research paper” they (dread to) write will be formal and boring, just another hoop to jump through to get the grade they want in the class. Students still commonly assume that their role as learners is to consume information, that their role as researchers is a passive one, and that their writing has no significance beyond the classroom and no audience beyond the instructor.

My project challenges these common perceptions and expectations. A re-designed FYC Inquiry Project will address our new information literacy needs and teach students to think critically about their roles in information and digital landscapes in the both academic and public/civic realms.

Plans for Implementation

Overall, throughout the course of an eight-week Inquiry Project (IP), students will develop practices of self-directed and open inquiry as they pose research questions, navigate conversations, formulate arguments, and compose and circulate their own texts in a variety of modes and media. The IP includes objectives that will help students learn to:

Think critically about the way they seek out, use, and interact with information within ever-changing digital landscapes;
Think critically about the digital identity they create in the process of interacting with information;
Use research to construct knowledge and contribute to networks of information;
Make informed rhetorical choices as they compose a variety of texts in multiple modes and media and for a variety of audiences;
Recognize that authority is constructed, and it is constructed differently in different contexts.

For my ASSETT Teaching With Technology Seminar project, I focused on one particular learning objective from the larger Inquiry Project:

Students will investigate and recognize inquiry and communication practices in new media environments.

More specifically, as part of this objective, students will:

Understand that ideas and theories are formulated, debated, and reformulated over time;
Understand how authority is constructed in different new media contexts and learn to determine if specific information matches their needs and purpose;
Learn to identify meaningful, current, ongoing conversations about an issue or topic they are interested in

Currently, one set of tools people use to share information -- the dominant space in which public conversations take place -- is social media. It’s important for students to learn how people create and share their knowledge via social media, and to learn to think critically about the way they seek out, evaluate, and synthesize information they find in these public spaces.

To help students think critically about information they find in new media, they will complete a short assignment using Storify, an online tool that allows users to create timelines from a wide variety of social and new media elements. This assignment will be introduced about 3 or 4 weeks into the larger Inquiry Project. Prior to beginning this assignment, I will have taught students about assessing and evaluating information to understand how expertise and authority are constructed, and how to determine whether information and sources are useful and relevant to their purposes. Also, I’ll teach students some skills for doing searches on new and social media.

In this Storify project, students will:

Track a conversation about the issue they’re exploring in their Inquiry Project in a variety of new and social media.
Curate the conversation (show how they’ve tracked it) and create a narrative using Storify;
Present their Storify to the class.
Reflect on their process in a short paper they will submit to me.

Indicators of Success

The students’ Storify narration will begin to address their driving research question. They will write and talk about how the information they’ve found gives them new understandings about the topic they’re investigating. Presenting their Storify to the class will require them to organize their ideas and sort through the information they’ve found to determine what is most important for their audience to know, and will also give them the opportunity to get feedback from their peers. Finally, students will write a short reflection paper for me responding to prompts I will give them to get them to think about how and why they chose the sources they did, among other things.

Students will likely refer back to their Storify and use some of the skills and insights they learned through this assignment as they move on to other pieces of the Inquiry Project. The Storify piece will be included in a final electronic portfolio that students will submit at the conclusion of the whole project.

A screenshot from a sample Storify I created as a model for students:

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Upping Conversational Interactions Through Twitter In Simonson's Communication Course

Anonymous — Wed, 06 May 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Upping Conversational Interactions Through Twitter In Simonson's Communication Course Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/06/2015 - 00:00

The Department of Communication and Media Studies's Associate Chair of Undergraduate Studies Peter Simonson attended ASSETT's Teaching with Technology Seminar this past spring. Simonson designed an eight week conversation module across an online “civic commons” through D2L and a Wordpress site. He encouraged student engagement with Twitter conversations about the issues they had chosen to investigate.

[soundcloud width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/298660869&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false"][/soundcloud]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

The larger problem I am facing is how to design a 200‐person first‐year lecture/lab course on the topic of Conversation in a way that stimulates student engagement, teaches basic concepts, provides opportunity for the development of communication skills and doesn’t put too much strain on the five graduate teaching assistants in charge of the 19‐person lab sections. The core skills are tied to conversational practices of speaking, listening, and embodied interaction as well as critical thinking and basic argumentation; but the course opens out toward multiple media as both stimulants of conversation and channels through which it occurs publicly and in social networks. I want students to engage in conversation across media and internalize the “big idea” that communication helps to create the social worlds we live in and through. The course is one of four 8‐week modules that first‐year students will take‐‐the others being Storytelling, Images, and Information.

Plans for Implementation

Overall, I am looking to improve students’ abilities to: (1) recognize that discourse presented through news, social media, scholarly publications, face‐to‐face talk, and other forms of cultural expression are part of longer and wider conversations about issues marked by differing perspectives that have a history/unfold over time; (2) consider how that conversation is differently advanced across different media; (3) engage in that conversation themselves in ways that skillfully, intelligently, and ethically recognize issues, audiences, situations, and communication forms; (4) critically reflect on their engagements making use of key concepts for the course and with an eye toward what makes for a vibrant and diverse participatory democracy.

These interrelated goals point to a pedagogical problem insofar as students: often do not connect what they read or experience as audience members and what they say or write as communicators to larger social discourses; often do not fully recognize varied and competing perspectives on issues or the ways they can be expressed through affordances of different media and communication forms; and often do not participate in them as skilfully or reflectively as they might.

Indicators of Success

I’ll gauge whether students have made progress in achieving these outcomes through a eight‐week summative project in the course. Here are the main parts of the assignment:

Find an issue of contemporary concern that people are addressing in the news, through social media, and/or through other public media like music, film, or performance. (Goal: stretch yourself out and find an issue through which you might teach your classmates something and raise consciousness).
Investigate the issue, and chart key differences of perspective and opinion on it. (Goal: combine wide online search with thinking and talking about the issue to discover multiple ways of looking at it, experiencing it, and making arguments about it.)
Educate yourself on the issue, ask questions, explore how you feel about different aspects of it, and develop your own positions on it.
Find organizations that are dedicated to addressing the issue and bringing about social change through action, policy, and/or public opinion.
Participate in conversations that take place face-to-face conversations and through Twitter and other media as a way of investigating the issue, clarifying your views, and engaging with democratic publics.
Write an artful 1,500 word essay that draws attention to differing perspectives on the issue, helps readers to learn more about it, takes a stand, and potentially moves others to adopt your position and bring their beliefs or actions into line with it. The top two essays from each lab will be posted on the public website for Concepts and Creativity and earn extra credit for members of the Conversation Groups that the authors belong to.
Share the essay with members of your lab section and take part in a discussion led by another member of the class.
Reflect on the assignment in a 500 word essay that applies key concepts from the course to interpret your work as an effort to shape social reality through communication.

The summative project for the course will take place over the entire 8‐week Conversation module across both an online “civic commons” (formed through D2L and a Wordpress site) and through face‐to‐face meetings in lecture and labs. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on one dimension of it: student engagement with Twitter conversations about the issue they have chosen to investigate (#5 above). It is one of several ways to address the larger problem of students needing to recognize how public conversations about social issues cut across media and face‐to‐face talk; and unfold through particular turns/moments of participation that are variably intelligent, skillful, appropriate to the forum/occasion, and respectful of others.

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CU �鶹ӰԺ Grad Students Teach with Technology

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 07:00:00 +0000

CU �鶹ӰԺ Grad Students Teach with Technology Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/10/2014 - 00:00

Three CU �鶹ӰԺ Grad Students Talk to ASSETT about Teaching with Technology

Graduate students at CU �鶹ӰԺ have gone above and beyond to incorporate technology into their teaching. Josh LePree of the Sociology Department uses Twitter and Voicethread to encourage students to share their thoughts about class topics outside of class. Students nominated LePree for an ASSETT Outstanding Teaching with Technology Award in the Fall of 2013. Leah Holz in the French and Italian Department uses Yabla.com resources to expose her students to spoken French language. Holz went out of her way to improve her teaching when she participated in ASSETT's Flipped Classroom Workshop in the Summer of 2014. Suzie Wright in the Spanish Department uses Prezi in her teaching as a non-linear approach to presenting. Students nominated Wright for an ASSETT Outstanding Teaching with Technology Award in the Fall of 2013.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwIrVKJFoEM]

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Tweeting in Tyler's Crime and Society Courses

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Tweeting in Tyler's Crime and Society Courses Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/28/2014 - 00:00

Tweet for homework? This spring, CU �鶹ӰԺ students nominated Sociology graduate student Amanda Tyler for an ASSETT Outstanding Teaching with Technology Award for her teaching of Sociology 2044, Crime and Society. One student wrote, "We used both Clickers and Twitter to enhance learning and incorporate current events into the curriculum." Tyler spoke with ASSETT about how important it is for her to involve students in class discussions: "... I work toward creating an environment where students are able to discuss class material, even when the class has a large number of students. Clicker questions are a great way for me to engage my students in conversation." She says that she uses Clicker questions to poll students about their opinions and start discussions. Tyler explains that when students don't have to worry about whether their answers are right or wrong, the class can better engage multiple opinions. Also, Clicker questions help her gauge her students' understanding of material.

Using Twitter in Class Discussions

Additionally, Tyler creates class Twitter pages as venues for student participation. She embeds the class Twitter page feed onto the D2L course page and asks students to Tweet current event news stories or videos about class topics and write their own discussion questions for homework. Tyler says that she believes that Tweeting provides an opportunity, "... For students to apply course material to their everyday world." Tyler truly involves students in class discussion when she uses students' Tweeted questions as the class's Clicker questions. "Students often Tweet insightful questions that engage their peers in further discussion, so I like to highlight these questions in my lecture slides," says Tyler. In class, she projects the class Twitter feed onto the board and often invites students to Tweet their ideas during lecture. Tyler says that she finds that giving students the opportunity to join the spotlight motivates them: "I think Twitter makes class more fun! I believe that when students have fun learning, it is more likely that they do their homework, and they will want to attend class." Tyler says that she hopes that Tweeting may even help students better remember course material: "They might visually remember a term they learned in a Tweet, which will stick with them later ..."

Case in point: one day during a discussion about the value of eye witness testimony in court procedures, Tyler staged a mock eye witness activity. A colleague came into the classroom and quickly left again. Tyler asked her students to Tweet to the class Twitter page what they remembered they saw. When the students' realized how few of them had accurately remembered what the man had been wearing, they better understood the validity that is often lacking in eye witness testimonies.

In order to give students participation credit for their Tweets, Tyler assigns specific hashtags to each week's Tweets and periodically asks them to submit screen shot logs.

Tyler looks forward to a career in teaching at the college level: "Teaching is one of my greatest passions! It always keeps me on my toes. I am constantly researching and thinking about new ways to engage my students. Being nominated for this award is an incredible honor!"

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Williams's Students Create Tumblr Pages

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Williams's Students Create Tumblr Pages Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/15/2014 - 00:00

CU �鶹ӰԺ Ethnic Studies Assistant Professor Bianca Williams encouraged her students to use Tumblr to archive the cultural multimedia that they found in their research.

Teaching and Learning Challenge

One of the gifts and strengths of teaching Africana Studies and Anthropology courses is the opportunity to have students connect the theories of race, gender, and sexualities they learn in the classroom to their everyday life experiences. During the semester (and sometimes long after they have left my courses), students frequently send me music videos, films, YouTube tutorials, blog posts, email discussions, and various forms of narrative media connected to the topics we have discussed in class. Through these digital links, students show that they are making connections between practice and theory, and finding ways to apply the tools learned in the classroom to the other lenses they utilize to make sense of the world.

My project during the Teaching with Technology Faculty Workshop was to create an exercise that encouraged students to curate the various Internet and multi-media sources they found that connected to the themes and topics of my “Black Women, Popular Culture, and The Pursuit of Happiness” seminar course. Instead of sending dozens of emails to share these resources with one another and having to comb the Internet or our inboxes to find these sources at a later date, I thought it would be more effective to create a digital archive that students could tailor for themselves and potentially share with their classmates. For example, one of the texts we used in the course this semester was Beyonce’s latest multi-media album. Within five days of the album release, there were over thirty blogs posts, video commentaries, TV episodes, and pictorial editorials dedicated to the debate about whether the album and its creator were legitimately part of a (Black) feminist movement. In a project like this, a student could gather all of these digital materials in one place, creating a database for anyone interested in this topic (and the ever-changing contours of the discussion), while creating a great archive for them to draw on as they wrote a final paper on the topic.

“Black Women and Happiness” provides an introduction to Black feminist thought while discussing how race and gender influence one’s definition and pursuit of happiness. In the course, students explore personal notions of happiness, while also examining the social, political, and economic factors that influence one’s access to happiness. I wanted to create an exercise that allowed students to engage in a form of authentic learning, where they could apply the theories of gendering, racialization, and happiness from the course to the media they consume and produce in their own time. By discussing how they were curating their archives, I hoped that this would lead to even more student engagement with both me (the professor) and between peers. Additionally, participating in this exercise would assist students in growing a sense of information literacy, encouraging them to pay careful attention to various modes of storytelling and narrative production, while assessing evidence and audience.

Plans for Implementation

Initially, I thought that this project would result in a course webpage or some other localized archive of multi-media texts. While some suggested that creating a simple folder on D2L or Dropbox would suffice, I was aiming for a more dynamic, interactive space where students could collect sources, put them into conversation with one another, and share them with others interested in the same topic. After reviewing a few online curating tools such as Pinterest, Storify, Evernote, and Scoop.it, I decided to use Tumblr for this exercise. Tumblr’s interface seemed user-friendly and had clean lines; it connected easily to Facebook, which students already utilized quite a bit to find and share their multi-media resources; and many of the students in the class reported they already had personal Tumblr accounts, which meant the technological learning curve would be non-existent for most.

I did not have the opportunity to introduce this exercise to students at the beginning of the semester. However, the seventeen students in this upper-level undergraduate and graduate course were excited about the prospect of completing a digital archive connected to a course theme for extra credit. This allowed students to create a digital archive as they searched for outside resources for their final papers on race, gender, and happiness, and to use their Tumblr pages as capstone commentary on what they had learned in the course.

Three weeks before the last day of class, I handed out a worksheet describing what I was looking for in this Tumblr assignment that interrogated the connections between race, gender, and happiness. Students were to curate Internet images, videos, or any other form of media to create a page that comprised a consistent commentary on a theme from the course. A week later, students complained that choosing one theme was either too rigid or too overwhelming for them. Subsequently, I decided to spend some class time discussing the assignment and figuring out how to make it successful.

Ensuring that students engaged in a conversation with one another, we spent time discussing the ten words or theoretical concepts students felt encapsulated the most important ideas from the course. These ten words acted as a word bank that guided students in their digital archive creation. For each source (image/video/etc) included in their archive, students could provide commentary in one of two ways: (1) write a brief paragraph (5-7 sentences) describing how they felt the source connected to one of the words from the word bank; or (2) post a short introductory video (5-7 min) that described the concepts they used and how these connected to the content on their Tumblr. The Tumblr page had to be comprised of at least seven pieces of content, and the link to the Tumblr had to be emailed to me by midnight on the last day of class.

Indicators of Success

I would say that the digital archive exercise was partly successful. The preliminary in-class discussion which created the word bank was very successful in that it (1) permitted us to engage in a brief review of course concepts as an entire class; (2) displayed which ideas students thought were most important, and allowed them to discuss where they had seen the concepts in practice outside the classroom; and (3) acted as its own capstone conversation right before they wrote final papers. We had a wonderful discussion about the different ways race, gender, and happiness are represented and included in visual media (like photography and graphic design) and auditory media (such as music and slam poetry). After this introduction to the exercise and the class discussion, many students were enthusiastic about the opportunity to complete the extra credit assignment.

However, when the assignment was actually due, only four of the seventeen students decided to complete it. This was understandable, as the assignment was extra credit. Additionally, the students and I had just completed a particularly productive, yet emotionally-trying semester discussing individual and collective experiences with mental health crises, and exploring connections between power and access to happiness. Many students experienced a tough time synthesizing their personal narratives and the theoretical concepts into an eight-page paper, and spent the majority of the time at the end of the semester focusing on this paper, which was a significant portion of their final grade. However, at least six students began the Tumblr exercise, stating that this initial process of curating helped them make their papers more focused. In this way, the Tumblr assignment acted as a funnel and sifter for personal brainstorming and theoretical mindmapping for their final papers. Thus, many of the words in the word bank, and the sources they wanted to include in their digital archives showed up not only in their final papers, but also in their class presentations.

The four students that actually completed the assignment created Tumblr pages that were provocative and introduced me to several mainstream media sources (such as T.V. shows and music videos) that provided useful commentary on race, gender, and happiness. Their Tumblr pages included poetry, GIFs, short video clips, images of paintings, and photography that connected to the key words from the course they wanted to highlight. I will be using some of these resources in future semesters when I teach this course. The order of the resources, the quotes from texts, and the brief paragraphs describing how they viewed the Tumblr’s contents as connected showed that the students were using the tools from the course to analyze their consumption of multiple forms of media content and venues. Through the layout of the Tumblr page, and the choices made during the process of curating, I gained some insight into how the course affected students personally, which is also useful information. Additionally, a couple of students shared their Tumblr pages with friends and students not in the class, using the page as a way to introduce others to the theoretical concepts of the course. I thought this was a wonderful way of authentically learning, and passing on the knowledge to others not able to be in this particular seminar.

Reflection

I would definitely use this digital archive exercise in the classroom during a future semester. Next time, however, I would carve room in the lesson plan to introduce the assignment at the beginning of the course, and use it as a tool throughout the semester. This way students could begin curating earlier, observing how their interpretation and analysis of the pieces change as they progress through the course. Also, this would permit students more time to gather a deeper archive, and organize it in a way most useful for them. Last, just as they engaged in a peer review for their final papers, I would have students engage in a peer review process for their Tumblrs also, allowing their peers to provide feedback and additional sources that may add to their digital archive.

I conclude from the low percentage of participation in the Tumblr extra credit assignment that it was not a complete success. However, on the last day of class, students decided to create a private Facebook group for the course, allowing those that wanted to continue a conversation about the course themes and topics, and share media resources they came across that they felt were important. Students asked that their peers who had completed the Tumblr assignment jump start this discussion by posting some of the images, videos, and other sources into this Facebook group, or posting the link to their Tumblr pages. I counted this as a success.

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Students Nominated Allison Rowland for an ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Students Nominated Allison Rowland for an ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/03/2014 - 00:00

".. the art of speaking and writing well ..."

CU �鶹ӰԺ PhD Candidate Allison Rowland has given some thought to teaching effective rhetoric. Students nominated Rowland for an ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award last year for her teaching of an upper division writing class with the topic of the War on Terror. She assigned her students to read a wide range of opinion pieces about the War on Terror. Then, Rowland spent class time at the beginning of the semester teaching students how to create their own blogs on blogger.com and write blog posts in response to their readings. She showed her students purposeful layout designs and readable fonts to encourage them to make their own blogs visually appealing. Rowland also challenged her students to do more than just write summaries of their readings but to also consider their larger online audience:

I didn't want to be their only audience ... When you have students create blogs, it opens up more conversations about audience ... When students see how many people see their writing, it is easier to encourage students to think about voice when they realize other people might read their blogs ... It makes you think about audience, voice, appealing to people, what will keep people reading ... It makes writing better knowing others will see it ... The quality of their writing on a digital public forum like weblogs is so much better than if they were just submitting an assignment to me as the instructor.

Rowland encouraged her students to ask themselves, "'What kind of writing keeps the reader reading? ... How should my writing change, depending on the audience?'"

Rowland wants her class to help students, "Make broader connections to the real world," and she believes that incorporating technological mediums into teaching is critical for that purpose: "We have to teach this ... across digitally mediated platforms." Rowland sees the blogs that her students create in her class as writing samples that they can show to potential employers to demonstrate their proficiency with technology. She said that one student has already told her, "'This blog got me my job.'" In nominating Rowland for the 2013 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award, one student wrote that Rowland:

... [gave] us a vast opportunity for publishing, countless followers and readership, and an opportunity to expand our horizons in writing. I've never experienced a class that was so eye opening in appeal to the real world. [Rowland's] prowess in the forefront of modern technology for writing was breathtaking.

"I've benefited from excellent training at CU," says Rowland, and she credits how much the CU Lead Graduate Teacher Program taught her about teaching. Rowland strives to keep her classes interactive--with small group activities or independent freewriting periods interspersed with PowerPoint slides.

Rowland is finishing her PhD in the Communications Department at CU �鶹ӰԺ. She has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor position at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York this fall. Rowland plans to continue, "... experimenting with ... a range of digital platforms," in her teaching.

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Hearing Students' Voices Through Twitter and Voicethread in Josh LePree's Sociology Courses

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Hearing Students' Voices Through Twitter and Voicethread in Josh LePree's Sociology Courses Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/25/2014 - 00:00

Josh LePree has a vision for teaching that transcends the classroom: "[I want] to create a seamless environment for class [so that] ... it seems like there's no break between [class and homework]," says LePree. He is a Sociology PhD student at CU �鶹ӰԺ and has been teaching at the college level for four years now. Students nominated LePree for an ASSETT Outstanding Teaching with Technology Award last year, and one student wrote: "Technology use was a large part of our classroom and homework discussions in [LePree]'s Race and Ethnicity class."

The Sociology Department awarded LePree for his vision with the Special Topics in Sociology GPTI Fellowship for the Spring 2014 semester. LePree designed and taught the Spring 2014 Sociological Perspectives on Migration: Gender, Race and the State course (SOCY 2091). He created a class Twitter page and instructed students to hashtag it in a new tweet each week. Students needed to hashtag both the class and the week of class (see the screenshot from the class Twitter page, below) to get participation credit for that week. That way, LePree could just go to the Twitter page #SOCY2091 #WK2 to grade students' participation on the class Twitter page for the week! If students were concerned about keeping personal and class Twitter Handles (aliases) separate, LePree encouraged them to create new handles just for class with their names and the course name--just like he did (@LePreeSOCY).

To make the out-of-class Twitter threads even more relevant to class discussion, LePree would regularly bring in students' tweets of articles and videos that related to class topics. Consequently, one student wrote in her nomination of LePree for the ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award that posting original discussion questions on the class Twitter page for homework made her feel less anonymous in class:

Twitter was used for [LePree] and his students to share pertinent videos, ideas, and discussion questions to which the entire class had access. I as a student thought that the use of Twitter was an ingenious way to include everyone's thoughts since sometimes larger classes can make students feel 'invisible.' ... I thought that [LePree]'s use of Twitter was also really effective because he used it to facilitate in-class discussions with Tweets that students had previously posted.

At the same time that LePree uses Twitter to bridge homework and class discussion, he also embeds his classes' Twitter feeds onto the D2L course pages. That way, students' latest tweets greet them when they login to the course home page on D2L, and, "They can see what other students are tweeting about," says LePree.

LePree viewed incorporating Twitter into class discussion and homework as a trial-and-error process: "I didn't know how it would work out," he admits. LePree asks students for feedback halfway through the semester: "'Do you have any ideas beyond what we've tried? What's working and what's not?'" LePree listens to students' feedback and gives credit to them for the success: “Students are the authority with technology," he says.

Voicethread Lends Authenticity to Student-to-Student Feedback

LePree didn't stop with class discussion and homework--he has also innovated students' final presentation formats, assigning Voicethread as the medium. Students still create PowerPoint presentations, but they also upload them to Voicethread. Then, Voicethread allows students to record themselves speaking over slides to create what LePree calls a, "narrated slideshow." This format could be considered much less intimidating with more room for smoothing out presentation bumps than would be standing and making a presentation live in front of the class.

Since Voicethread was new to many students, LePree invited OIT Academic Technology Consultant Courtney Fell to visit the class and train students in using it. Furthermore, he pairs students with 'feedback partners.' Students record comments on Voicethread for their feedback partners to help improve one another's presentations along the way. LePree says that recording voiceover commentary is more personal than is sending typed comments back and forth. "I was blown away by their Voicethread discussions," he says. "The gratification that I get as an instructor was a huge payoff. I couldn't stop honoring them in class."

As part of his fellowship, LePree recently led a brownbag lunch discussion for other Sociology graduate students about "Designing Your Own Course Curriculum." He looks forward to continuing his career in teaching at the university level. "I appreciate my students," says LePree. "I'll never go backwards."

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Jen Lewon Builds Student Community in Distance-Learning Courses

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Jen Lewon Builds Student Community in Distance-Learning Courses Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/25/2014 - 00:00

Jen Lewon uses social media to build student community in distance-learning course.

[video:https://youtu.be/citckgnAX2c]

Teaching and Learning Challenge

The Speech Language Pathology Prerequisites (SLPP) program is a distance-learning leveling coursework program in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Many of the SLPP students live in areas where they cannot access traditional (on-campus) undergraduate coursework. Students come from all over Colorado, including rural and remote regions of the state. Students are very communicative using D2L discussion boards, and often state that they wish they could meet in person and work together more often, in and out of class. Students who live in close proximity have put together study groups when possible, but most students don’t have access to this option. Students have discussed using other forums to connect, but have not realized that goal yet. Many are non-traditional age learners and most work while taking these courses.

How the Teaching and Learning Challenge has Changed Over Time

Students engaged in traditional campus-based programs have unlimited forums for connecting with other students in or outside of their programs of study. Distance learners have limited access to similar forums because many rely on being face-to-face with peers. Researchers and instructors have invested time ensuring that online courses and learner outcomes are similar to traditional study, but perhaps less on how to build student community for distance learners.

As evidenced by the maps below (Figure 1, Figure 2), SLPP students come from all over Colorado, including rural and remote regions of the state.

Jen Lewon's Figure 1 and Figure 2 demonstrate the diversity of distance learning students' homes

Plans for Implementation

Plans to Address Challenge

Idea or opportunity:

Build an online community where students can have conversations and share ideas
Use technology in the course that promotes student interaction (via text, audio or video)
Use technology to engage and connect students for course content and to demonstrate technology, but also allow student access to also use this technology on their own to communicate, work together and build community

Increasing opportunities to connect distance learners in the SLPP program will benefit the students, the courses and the community.

Benefits for the student:

Students can act as valuable resources to one another, whether it be studying for tests, helping a student who doesn’t have a textbook, working on projects, etc.
Students can build community. Many of these students are coming back to school in a field they have passion for, and would like to share that with others. Also, students need a forum where they can discuss courses, instructors, texts, etc. outside of the course, especially for more critical discussion.

Benefits for the course:

Students working together will enhance opportunities for course projects, collaborative learning and learner outcomes.

Benefits for the community:

Certain communities have limited access to skilled personnel for community, or the educational opportunities to train individuals in their community to fill these roles. Connecting distance learners helps to grow these life learners in situ.

Implications for not solving or addressing it

Students may feel disconnected and will not benefit from the resource/support of their fellow students. Students may use chat rooms or discussion forums to connect, but without a good structure for this, students may connect incompletely or not at all.

Plans for Implementation

Course details

Spring 2014
SLHS 4512: Speech Disorders
Speech Language Pathology Prerequisites (SLPP) program distance-learning leveling course
30 students enrolled in the class (part of the 2013-2014 SLPP cohort) that will have completed 2 semesters (2 classes per semester in summer and fall 2013) of distance learning coursework together.

Technology match

Google+, specifically Google communities and Google hangouts, will help to connect distance learners in my course. By increasing student interaction, students can build community, support each other and enhance the collaborative learning process.
Google tools promote collaboration and sharing. Google community and Google hangouts will allow students to share resources, get together for study groups, and engage in discussions about the course or the program.
CU-�鶹ӰԺ has partnered with Google in order to offer Google-powered communication and collaboration tools to the campus. Because of this, students have access to Google+ with their colorado.edu email addresses and OIT will support students with Google+ support.

Description of use

Intro assignment

Students will access Google+, find the SLHS 4512 Google community and post a video, audio or text personal introduction. By using the Google+ community for the Intro assignment in the course, I hope to encourage early access to the technology to increase use through the semester.

Chat/Study session

Next, I will host a Google hangout as a chat or study session to show students how to get together online.

Student discussion

I will post non-course discussion questions on the community (are students applying to grad school? taking GREs? etc.) to encourage students to visit the community and interact there.

Potential constraints

Instructor knowledge/comfort with Google+
- use of a private vs public community
- implications for public access to information/video hangouts
- how to make community searchable
- inviting students who haven't joined Google+
- developing instructions/screencast on joining Google+
- Google+ home page features
- account management
- use of audio or text or video introductions
- scheduling hangouts/events

Student knowledge/comfort with Google+
Access to help/support with technology through OIT
Building a successful community in Google+

Indicators of Success

Managing a Google+ Community: Tips for a Successful Community

(Source: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2870379?hl=en)

Do:

Promote your community as a place where people can have conversations and share ideas
Participate in conversations by posting, leaving comments, and +1’ing posts
Celebrate and engage with your members
Add moderators and invite them to manage content and share regularly
Add categories to help guide discussions
Listen to and learn from your community’s members
Managing posts and members

Don’t:

Just broadcast information
Only pose broad questions in hopes of discussion and engagement
Invite people to join an empty community -- write an initial post to set expectations and welcome new members
Leave your community unmoderated -- check in daily on your community to make sure the right kinds of conversations are happening.

How will you know if your students have achieved the intended outcome?

Students are able to access and use the Google+ community
Students demonstrate an understanding of what your community is about
Students participate in conversations by posting, leaving comments, and +1’ing posts
Students navigate community easily to find the topics they’re most interested in
Students interact in community regarding course content and for course assignment/chat/study session
Students access the technology on their own to communicate, work together and build community

How will you know if the changes you made in your teaching made a difference?

Moderate Google+ community discussions/interactions/conversations
Participate in conversations by posting, leaving comments, and +1’ing posts
Celebrate and engage with members of the community
Listen to and learn from the community members
Student feedback

How will you identify/ measure growth in your students or in your teaching?

Start a discussion toward end of semester within Google+ community regarding the project
- Specifically ask students whether they would like a Google+ community built into other courses or for the SLPP program in general

Survey within D2L
Faculty course questionnaire (FCQ) feedback

Reflection

What worked well?

The technology was intended to promote student interaction (via text, audio or video), to engage and connect students for course content, and to allow students to access this technology on their own to communicate, work together and build community
Students in SLHS 4512 were able to access and use the Google+ community. Students participated in conversations by posting, leaving comments, and +1’ing posts. Students navigated the community easily to find the topics they were most interested in. Students did not use the Google+ community for discussion of course content, since the Discussion tool in D2L already seemed to meet that need. However, students did access the technology on their own to communicate, work together and build community, specifically to introduce themselves and interact on a more personal level, and to have a continuing discussion about applications to graduate school, GREs, etc.

What would you do differently in the future?

SLPP students begin coursework in summer and enroll in 4 consecutive semesters (summer, fall, spring, summer) to complete the program. I introduced this tool in spring 2014, during the cohort’s third semester together. Introducing this kind of communication tool earlier in the program (during summer 1) would likely increase its utilization and build the distance learning community.

What feedback did students give?

A few students had difficulty accessing the technology initially (to get signed up with Google+ and enter the community). Other students were very helpful (within D2L discussion forums), sharing their experiences and how they had encountered and overcome similar issues. Ultimately, every student in the course was able to join the community. The discussion about graduate school applications was productive, although some students expressed that they wished the discussion had begun earlier (most of the graduate school application process occurred before the community was built). They expressed how nice it was to meet each other, see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices following the introduction assignment. I may continue to survey the students for feedback on use of the tool (during end-of-semester FCQs or course reflection surveys).

Description of sample experiences or student use:

Of the 24 students registered in the course, 24 accessed and joined the SLPP 2013-2014 community, and 21 posted introductions (17 text, 4 video and 0 audio). There were 13 comments posted on introduction posts. In the community posts category, there have been 17 posts about the grad school application process, mostly interacting with one another about where students applied, whether they were waiting to apply, and comments/questions about the application process. No hangout sessions have been initiated by the instructor or students.
Figure 3 is a screenshot of the Google+ community, specifically the text and video introductions

Screenshot of the Google+ community, specifically the text and video introductions

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