All posts by Kate Daniels

I Could Say Bella, Bella, Even Say Wunderlist

When we started the Mobile Learning Initiative (MoLI) at DePaul a few years ago, my MoLI teammates and I agreed pretty quickly that our mission was not in finding “magic bullet” apps for faculty so much as it was encouraging learning activities that make use of the unique functions of mobile devices.

Our mission, however, didn’t stop me from seeking my own magic bullet apps. Early last year, at the recommendation of my teammate Joe Olivier, I started using the free version of Wunderlist.  Little did Joe know, I have nurtured a list-making habit from an early age. It started with my mom’s yellow legal pads in the 80’s, and it’s been a fire hazard ever since.

Joe’s app recommendation made a huge difference in my everyday life. I’ll explain how in a moment, but first:

After I confessed to my mom that I had eschewed legal pads and Post-It’s for “this amazing app” (and begged her to follow suit) she sent me the link to The Wall Street Journal piece where she first heard about Wunderlist: The Best To-Do Apps for Feeling Productive. Continue reading →

“Any questions?” Engaging your students with interactive polls.

I’ve been indulging in a bit of a guilty pleasure lately: a network television series that ran a couple of years ago called Lie To Me. It stars Tim Roth as Dr. Cal Lightman, a deception specialist who is hired by agencies and individuals to determine the “truth” at a crime scene.

Dr. Lightman and his team of experts study the micro-expressions (brief, involuntary facial expressions) on all of the parties involved.

Be it a downturn of the mouth, or a twitch under the eye, “The Lightman Group” banks on the fact that these micro-expressions consistently indicate emotions such as guilt, shame, fear or arousal.  These expressions are especially apparent when video footage of a subject is slowed down and studied, frame-by-frame. The scientific premise of the show is based on the cutting-edge research of psychologist Paul Ekman

Paul Ekman group facial expression picturesPhoto credit: Paul Ekman Group

Continue reading →

In the Cloud(s)

I still shudder when I think of standing with my father curbside watching his laptop being carried away in the trunk of an anonymous city cab. We couldn’t chase the cab, we had no recollection of which cab company it was, and my dad had paid the driver in cash. Everything on his computer was instantly, mercilessly gone. All we could do was stand there and watch, slack-jawed.

That was a decade ago.

Just last week, I had a harrowing experience of my own: I spilled water on my laptop, completely destroying it. The Macbook Pro was pronounced dead on arrival at the Genius Bar.

I felt horrible and lamented my carelessness to my partner. He just shrugged and said, “thin client; no biggie.” Continue reading →

GNLEs, Please

We sure love our acronyms at FITS HQ. If we’re not talking about D2L (our LMS), or DOTS, or MoLI, or our CRM, we come up with emoji to get our messages across.

My FITS colleague Jan Costenbader and I recently discovered another acronym with a much wider reach, a global reach, if you will. Globally Networked Learning Environments (GNLE). GNLEs are online learning settings in which students from far-flung countries convene as classmates to learn about the topic at hand in addition to exploring one another’s cultures.

Imagine, if you will , two undergraduate screenwriting courses: one based in the US, the other based in Ghana. Continue reading →

Rubrics? Really?

Yes, really.

Use rubrics, and use them often.

Even you, Mr. Chips.

Whether you teach creative writing online, environmental science in a hybrid setting, or computer programming face-to-face, use rubrics.

Please.

For the students’ sake.

Everyone will tell you that grading will be easier and faster with a rubric. I don’t care about that, though it may be true.

Don’t get hung up on the rubric design (grid or checklist?) or the style (analytic or holistic?) or the point system (how many points does one deduct for misspelling Glasnost?) In fact, forget the point tally, even. Scrap all of that for now.

Students, especially online students, want more feedback. And you’re probably not giving them enough.

One of the highlights of DOTS is when a group of students joins us for Q&A with the faculty. Professors have the opportunity to ask real live students what it’s like, what it’s really like, to take college courses online. And they get (mostly) straight answers. This week, I listened to one student lament that none of her recent online instructors gave her feedback until the very end of term. None?

What?

Moral of the story: use rubrics in your online courses. Start now. Believe it or not, “A” students want to know what they can do to improve. “D” students want to know what they are doing well (did I get nothing right?). If you aren’t doing a good job at telling them what’s working and what’s not, let your rubric do the talking.

That said, rubrics aren’t meant to replace written and/or verbal feedback. On the contrary, if you are one of the instructors who already provides ample, personalized feedback to students, please use a rubric in addition to your written and verbal feedback. That will not only keep your “human element” intact but also fill in any gaps that the rubric might not address.

I’ve heard a few groans when talking about this stuff. One professor, who shall remain nameless, responded to my prompt about rubrics with “Yeah, I use a rubric alright. It looks like this: [expletive] or not [expletive].” Funny, yes, but exactly my point!

Among other things, rubrics help instructors get clear on:

  1. the learning objectives for each assignment;
  2. how to classify above average, average, and below average work;
  3. what each student’s strengths and weaknesses are;
  4. what an entire class’s strengths and weaknesses are; and
  5. whether an assignment’s given instructions are clear or not.

What professor, in what field, should not be concerned with all of the above?

Perhaps you can come up with a wily response to that question—some kind of probe into what learning environments could, should, and/or shouldn’t be. But you, the instructor, can be as creative as you want to be when constructing a rubric. Go completely off the grid if you so desire. Include your students in the creation of the rubric! (Talk about a great way to encourage them to take ownership of their learning goals.) But no matter the approach you choose, prepare to spend some time designing and writing a rubric. Count on at least a few drafts and test drives. Use your learning objectives as your guide. Run your rubric by your instructional technology liaison. Check it against the “Rubric for Rubrics.” Eventually you will have a solid vehicle for feedback, and you’ll be able to drive that baby into the virtual sunset. With Mr. Chips.

Helpful resources:

The Hottest Thing in Higher Ed is in Your Pocket

News flash, people: almost every college student has a mobile device, and most won’t leave home without it.  And, not surprisingly, two words have recently combined to form a compelling phrase: mobile learning. And we’re not talking laptops. Mobile learning is about cell phones, smartphones, and tablets.

Mobile learning meets the students where they are

The students are on their phones. All the time—24/7. My dad once wrote me a limerick about a girl who talked so much on the (rotary) phone it stuck permanently to her ear. But I was only clocking an hour a night tops back then. These 21st-century kids may have an hour a day when they’re not on the phone. So since we are all interested in meeting our students where they are, why not make use of mobile devices to encourage continuous learning? Why not wean our students off of their Instagram feeds (partially, anyway) and get them hooked on their study flashcards in Studyblue? Why not ask them to take out their mobile devices for a real-time poll question during class as opposed to asking them to put the phones away?

Skeptical, are you? A note about the digital divide

It’s true, not all students own smartphones or tablets. But, a simple pay-as-you-go phone with SMS (text) capabilities is sufficient for many mobile-learning activities. It’s also true that some students do not have a cellphone at all. And, I’ve met a handful of faculty members who are sticking to landlines, thank you very much. But the best mobile-learning solutions include equipment workarounds. Students can form groups and use one smartphone between them, or simply use their web browser on a computer to complete the activity.

So, what does mobile learning look like in higher ed?

The possibilities are endless. Creative combinations of GPS, augmented reality, mobile cameras, and apps can create entirely new learning experiences heretofore unthinkable without mobile devices.

An example: I can’t say I fondly remember the days of art history survey courses when I was an undergrad in the last century. Unless my professor had Lady Gaga levels of stage presence, the lectures ran pretty dry. And the room was always dark, which worked well if one needed a quick nap. But imagine the student who signs up for art history in 2013. Instead of sitting in a dark classroom on a given day, she might walk over to the Art Institute of Chicago and listen to a podcast of her instructor speaking about the exhibits. Meanwhile, she tweets her classmates about her own observations. On her way out, she submits her answers to a quiz through her mobile device, and on the train home, she reviews mobile flashcards to prepare for her upcoming exam.

Still, as cool as all of this may sound, mobile learning will never supplant the face-to-face classroom, or the online classroom for that matter

Mobile learning simply augments the instruction that already exists. Clark Quinn, one of the leading mobile-learning pundits, drops the "augment" verb every three sentences when you hear him speak. And if he’s not saying it, he’s implying it. Mobile learning enhances; mobile learning enriches. It is the trim and the moldings, not the foundation. Perhaps that is one of the more appealing features of mobile learning in the instructional-technology domain: it does not, and cannot, claim it is an educational magic bullet. It is not the cure-all for your under-engaged students. It may only appear in the form of one or two activities each quarter. But if the mobile solution is placed in the right context, the results may be downright magical.

Mobile learning may be magical, but is the outcome higher achievement

Research has only just begun in this area. If higher levels of engagement lead to higher levels of achievement, it would follow that mobile learning is promising in this regard. Returning to the art history example: when all is said and done, do you think this student might have had better knowledge transfer via a traditional slideshow carousel in a dark lecture hall? Perhaps, depending on her learning style. We’re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. But there is tremendous value in offering our students learning activities that engage students in news ways and incorporate the technology they are already using. Not just for them, either. Imagine the palpable delight when you ask them to power up their phones.

For more information about the Mobile Learning Initiative at DePaul University, contact MoLI.

The Value We Bring to Students

Value creation. Differentiation advantage. Competitive positioning. What do those terms mean to you? Any MBAs out there? Anyone? I don’t have an MBA, but recently, those terms have come to mean more to me in the university context.

If you read Online Learning for Free?, the blog entry my colleague Elizabeth Schinazi posted a few weeks ago, you may already be on the same dog-eared and coffee-stained page.

Elizabeth closed her post with the following statement: I think it’s important that as a university we keep track of our “competition.” Specifically, Elizabeth was stressing the importance of keeping track of the burgeoning number of free online offerings in higher education.

I couldn’t agree more with Elizabeth. DePaul needs to keep track of the competition. I would also go a bit further and say that it is important that we as faculty keep track of our competition. I have heard several professors lament that free online universities will eventually put us all out of jobs. Even James Gee, the renegade speaker and scholar at the DePaul Faculty Teaching and Learning Conference last week, opened his keynote talk in crisis mode. “Everyone agrees [that higher ed] is in a crisis,” he announced. “But no one agrees on a solution.”

But, truth told, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. If you’ve been to a motivational workshop recently, or better, attended one of FITS director Sharon Guan’s introductory Chinese courses, you know that the Chinese character for “crisis” includes the character for “opportunity.”  I truly believe that the changing higher ed market presents a golden opportunity for us to reconsider the value that we as hybrid and online faculty bring to our students. What differentiates our online courses from the free options? Why will students sign up for our classes next quarter and not the free web offerings? Answering these questions will help us capitalize on the value we bring.  

So, where do you start? Although determining the value of your courses will be a continual work in progress, here are a few near-term suggestions to assist you in making your online course the more desirable option for students.

Commit to Office Hours. Select two hours on different days when you can be available to students. If you teach a hybrid or fully online course, plan to log in to Skype for two scheduled hours each week. If you find your students don’t show up, let them know that you noted their absence and hope they will come talk with you. Find out if there are better times for them to meet with you. All too often, professors choose to offer “office hours available on request.” Any student who is already hesitant to reach out for help may fear that he/she will be a burden by requesting special time.

Establish Your Presence on the Discussion Boards. Read and respond to your students’ posts. It’s that simple. It takes time to do—it does. But the time and thought the students will put in to the discussion board is directly proportional to your felt presence on the boards. In addition, why not have your students create questions to propose to their classmates about the course content? You could then answer their questions and participate as ‘one of them’ as opposed to ”the man behind the curtain.”

Provide Substantive Feedback on Assignments. Providing substantive feedback requires time, but the more you prepare on the front end, the less time it will require when it comes to grading. Create a detailed rubric for each assignment. Not only will this let your students know your expectations, it will help you clarify what is and isn’t working about a student’s submission. Then, when you provide an additional two to three sentences of feedback, the student will more likely feel effectively ‘read.’

Link to Campus Services. This is a biggie. A recent Instructional Technology Council survey tracking the impact of eLearning at community colleges pointed to the necessity of maximizing student and technology support services for the virtual student. Your online students are probably underusing DePaul’s available resources. In your syllabi, be sure to outline the services available. In addition, provide multiple links to campus tech support and other student support services on your course homepage and throughout the course.

Whether it’s through office hours, interactivity on the discussion boards, substantive feedback on assignments, or how we connect students to the myriad support services available to them at DePaul, we are well equipped to meet this new competition. But, we need to make tracks. Now. In the recent words of Stanford University president John Hennessy on the topic of online learning, “A tsunami is coming.”

References:

Auletta, Ken. “Get Rich U.” The New Yorker. April 30, 2012. p.38.

Instructional Technology Council website. http://www.itcnetwork.org