Teaching with Technology
Teaching with technology isn’t just about staying current on the latest tools, it’s about knowing how to successfully incorporate the best tools into your teaching when and where it makes sense. This article series looks at the benefits of using technology, as well as potential stumbling blocks. You’ll also get an inside look at best practices for using technology to enhance teaching and learning – whether you teach in a traditional classroom or online.
December 9 - Why I Love Conferencing Online with My Traditional Classroom Students
By: Liz Boltz Ranfeld in Teaching with Technology
A few weeks ago, I had to accompany my husband out of town for a week of medical tests. That meant my presence was required in two places at once: in my classroom and at the hospital. I didn’t want to cancel classes, so I decided to try something new. I arranged to meet with each of my students online for about 15 minutes to discuss the first draft of their first composition paper.
November 18 - The Difference Between Practice and Theory
By: Edward Renner, PhD in Teaching with Technology
Donald Eastman III, the president of Eckert College, wrote about the limits of online learning: “…what works for most students…is a small classroom…where a respected authority…is a spellbinding revealer of mysteries – not simply because he or she knows things we don’t, but because a gifted teacher reads the audience the way an actor reads the room…”
November 11 - Improve Your PowerPoint Design with One Simple Rule
By: John Orlando, PhD in Teaching with Technology
We’ve all heard the expressions “Death by PowerPoint” and “PowerPoint-induced coma.” I think we’d all agree that most of PowerPoints stink. Yet after sitting through presentation after presentation that bore us to tears, we turn around and subject our students and colleagues to the same torture that we find so excruciating. Why?
October 4 - How to Create Assessments for the Flipped Classroom
By: Jennifer Patterson Lorenzetti in Instructional Design, Teaching with Technology
It seems like everyone is talking about the flipped classroom. But how do you use this new model to construct lessons and assessments that reinforce student learning?
October 3 - Simple Ways to Create Videos to Engage Your Students
By: Aidan Hornsby in Teaching with Technology
Increasingly, educators are searching for video resources online by sifting through YouTube, searching on Google, and visiting various topical sites. However, what’s often required is quite specific and it can be hard to find exactly what you need.
August 26 - The Benefits of Flipping Your Classroom
By: Charles A. Hill in Instructional Design, Teaching with Technology
A small but growing number of faculty at major universities are experimenting with the inverted or flipped classroom. It’s an instructional model popularized by, among other influences, a Ted Talk by Khan Academy founder Salman Khan, which has received more than 2.5 million views. Institutions as varied as Duke University’s School of Medicine, Boston University’s College of Engineering, and the University of Washington School of Business have joined Clemson, Michigan State, the University of Texas, and many others in experimenting with changing from in-class lectures to video lectures and using class time to explore the challenging and more difficult aspects of course content.
August 2 - Using a Blog to Enhance Student Participation
By: Maryellen Weimer, PhD in Teaching with Technology
A sociology professor in an undergraduate introductory social problems course used a blog to “enhance student participation, engagement and skill building.” (p. 207) In the article referenced below, this professor shares her experiences of using this assignment with 263 students across four semesters.
July 22 - “I Don’t Like This One Little Bit.” Tales from a Flipped Classroom
By: Penne Restad, PhD in Teaching with Technology
The Internet flipped learning before instructors did. Want to find out something? Google it. Wikipedia it. Use your laptop or smartphone or iPad. That’s where the “answers” are. Some of us initially reacted to this cyber-democratization of information asserting, “This isn’t right! The Internet is full of incomplete and simply wrong information.” But the challenge to the classroom was more profound. It has raised questions among students and even administrators about the need for face-to-face classrooms at all, as if correct information and unchallenged “opinions” were all that was needed.
June 11 - Private Journal Replaces Discussion Forum in Blended Course
By: Rob Kelly in Asynchronous Learning and Trends, Teaching with Technology
The discussion board in Kathleen Lowney’s large blended (or hybrid) section of introduction to sociology at Valdosta State University wasn’t serving its intended purpose of engaging learners with the content and preparing them for face-to-face class sessions. She tried dividing the students into smaller discussion groups of 50 and then 20, and the results were the same: the weaker students waited until the last minute and essentially repeated what the better students had posted previously. When she replaced the public discussions with private journals, the quality of students’ posts improved, as did their grades.
June 10 - Experimenting with Facebook in the College Classroom
By: Nisha Malhotra, PhD in Teaching with Technology
While discussing the nuances of regression analysis, I saw some of my students smiling. It wasn’t a smile of understanding; it was a response to seeing a Facebook comment on their smart phone. I later learned that 99% of the students in the research method class were Facebook users, routinely checking for updates 10-20 times a day. I asked them to refrain checking their phones during class.
