Providing Learner-Centered Feedback Using D2L - A 2014 UO Conference Presentation

Post author: Cobern Whitehead

Providing feedback regarding a student’s learning is a crucial part of the learning process and is something that, as instructors, we need to do on a constant basis.  In the traditional style classroom setting where I spend most of my time, I am able to do for my students via a combination of verbal feedback in the classroom and written feedback on their assignments.  When introducing D2L to one of this semester’s evening classes, I quickly realized that the way I provide feedback needs to be modified.  For this reason, I found Jainping Cui and Marilyn Letts’s UO conference presentation to be particularly useful.

Jianping and Marilyn’s presentation begins with a quick review of the essentials of providing feedback – namely that feedback must be timely, ongoing and positive and actionable – and then moves on to cover some of the feedback and assessment tools that are built in to D2L.  I’ll admit that I sometimes tend to view online learning simply as an updated version of traditional long-distance learning, and I was pleased to be shown differently when the presenters focused largely on ways to provide instantaneous feedback in D2L – something that I’ve always thought to be missing from non-FTF learning environments.  I look forward to putting their tips on D2L’s discussion , dropbox, quiz, self-assessment and grader tools to use and providing my students with improved feedback.

To learn more about providing feedback on D2L, please watch Jianping and Marilyn’s UO Conference session.

New appreciation for YouTube in the classroom:UO Conference

Post author: Tasha Nott

When broached about the topic of YouTube and its uses in the classroom, I sometimes cringe at the name and suppose that YouTube should belong to the same category as Wikipedia – an informational hub that can sometimes carry a tarnished reputation due to its boundless and editable data.  Preferring scholarly documentaries and journals to potentially opined ideas on websites, YouTube used to be a website of – agad! – fear and loathsomeness.  That is, until I attended some YouTube Media Curation meetings with the CEFL team and, the Media Curation UO Conference presentation by my fellow podmate and online teacher extraordinaire, Jennefer Rousseau.

Jennefer Rousseau (source)

Jennefer’s presentation took us on a journey through technology.  She began by discussing her own voyage using YouTube in the classroom – back when it was in its infancy. Jennefer demonstrated through an engaging PowerPoint how her roots in YouTube began as (and what her students must have thought also) an imaginative teacher engaging her students in a language that they could really relate to: technology.  Shakespeare and sports?!  On video?  Fantastic!

What the presentation really hit home for me was the fact that student engagement is driven up when using a visual that they can understand and, more importantly, relate to.  No more need for lengthy and scholarly documentaries, conducting basic searches in YouTube will yield many suitable choices for even the pickiest of teachers provided he or she has the basic principles in mind: condensed length, visually-appealing design, and audience and curricularly-appropriate content.

Jennefer challenged her participants to view several YouTube clips that ranged from the, uh, ordinary to the awe-inspiring.  I left the session feeling like I had a new repertoire of resources at my awaiting fingertips, and I was eager to see what other great, concise video clips were out there.  My search has yielded a multitude of beneficial resources and now my problem is not how to find the latest and greatest, but where to store all these juicy videos!

Move over, BBC, here comes YouTube!


To view the presentation, click on the following link: UO Conference - Media Curation.

Notes on “Coaching Instructors: Tales from an LMS Transition” presented online at UO Conference 2014

Post author: Marjorie Contenti

The standout idea of this session from the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary was the use of graduate students as technology coaches providing support to instructors in the implementation of a new learning management system (LMS).  The presenters described benefits that were realized by the student-coaches, the instructors, and the Werklund School and provoked discussion about effective ways to roll out new technology.  One of the main strategies and benefits seemed to be the collaboration that developed among IT, the graduate students, the instructors/users and the presenters.  It seems like a very simple and logical idea, but I have not heard of many institutions using graduate students working in this way with instructors.

The presenters invited input from the small group who attended the session, and a few Bow Valley College people offered comments.   I observed the implementation at BVC was on a smaller scale and was focused on pilot projects followed by workshop.  In addition, budget and resources were quite different as the U of C graduate students were paid as coaches, and the timeline seemed quite a bit longer. 

Overall, the session provided some strong ideas for future technology implementations in an educational institution.

You can access the recording of this session, presented by Luciano da Rosa Dos Santos and Jennifer Lock, on the UO Conference website.

Let's chat - September 16 on Twitter

Join us on Twitter for a conversation about digital literacy in adult education in the UO Conference’s first Twitter chat.

If you've never participated in a Twitter chat before, that’s OK - we've never hosted one before, so we will all be learning together! All you need is a Twitter account (it’s free) and internet access during the scheduled time.

A Twitter chat is an online conversation using Tweets on a specific subject. Anyone on Twitter can join in; so it is a great opportunity to network and meet others in the field who are interested in the same topic. It is structured as a set of questions that you reply to or comment on; the questions are posted as the chat happens by the chat moderators (more on them below). You need to know our hashtag - #uochat. Search that hashtag to find the chat. And make sure to add that hashtag to all of your tweets so others can follow and respond to your thoughts.

The first chat you join can be a little overwhelming if there are a lot of participants. Don’t worry about reading every Tweet. Choose some that are the most interesting to you and connect with those people or delve into more depth on a certain area of the topic. The chat moderators are also there to guide the conversation and help everyone participate. This first chat will be moderated by me (@deannajager) and Penny (@TheNerdyPenny). If you have any questions feel free to talk to us in advance or reach out to us on Twitter during the chat. This chat is part of the bigger community of practice we are cultivating through the UO Conference (@uoconference); we look forward to learning with you.

Twitter Chat

Topic: Digital Literacy
Date: Tuesday September 16
Time: 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Hashtag: #uochat




Other hashtags that may be of interest:

#digilit
#edtech
#edchat
#STEM
#adulted
#elearning
#uoconference

Tweeting an event live

Once again, Bow Valley College and NorQuest College, were pleased to host the two-day Upgrading Online Conference for adult education programs, their faculty, and administration. The theme of our third annual conference remained "Best Practices in Upgrading Online," including best practices in "Instruction and Learning" and "Development or Administration."

This year we were also pleased to be able to live Tweet the webinars, as a way to interact with a wider audience in the online adult education field.


What is live Tweeting? All it involves is posting information on our Twitter account in real-time - while we are participating in the webinars. The information can be quotes from the webinar presenter, tips that are shared, links to websites and other resources relevant to the webinar topic, questions or comments.

Why Tweet live? One reason to Tweet at all is to connect with others who are interested in the same topics you are interested in. As conference organizers, we were promoting both our conference and the topics that the speakers were presenting on by tweeting in real time. Besides promotion, we were able to have conversations with participants even though they are at a distance. This became really important when it turned out we had a bad link on our website. We were able to update participants as soon as we found out, as illustrated below.

Who can live Tweet? Anyone really. We had a whole team of volunteers who took the time to share what they were learning in a webinar and post it to our Upgrading Online Twitter account (@UOconference). We were a group of newbies, some of us feeling excited and others feeling rather nervous about this endeavour,  but each willing to experiment with this new-to-us medium and add our own style.

On top of that, we had our partner @NorQuest College helping us spread the word by live Tweeting from their organization’s account.

And that wasn’t all. Some other participants, who were not connected with the conference organization, also live tweeted their insight. This gave us, as conference hosts, the opportunity to retweet them or engage in a conversation about the information they shared.

Want to try live Tweeting? As this was such a successful part of our conference, we will certainly need more volunteers to help us Tweet at the UOconference in 2014. Here are a few pointers to get you started:

• Research your presenter before you tweet, including knowing his/her background, twitter account handle if they have one, and other pertinent information.
• Find suitable hashtags before the presentation. Others may come to mind during the presentation, but it's good to have some appropriate ones on hand.
• Have a snipping tool or phone on your camera ready, so you can take a picture of any slide you want to tweet about [ensure in advance that the presenter is ok with images of slides being tweeted]
• It is helpful to have two computer screens: one to watch the conference and one to Tweet.

Are you new to Twitter? Here are some of the basics:

• A handle is the Twitter username; it starts with the “at” sign @. Our handle is @UOconference.
• A hashtag is a search tool; it starts with the pound sign #. Our hashtag is #UOconference. By typing a hashtag into the Twitter search you can find all Tweets sent by anybody on Twitter that use that hashtag. Some of the other hashtags that are relevant to the conference are #elearning (elearning), #adulted (adult education),  #abpse (Alberta post-secondary education), and #edtech (educational technology).
• Twitter, the microblog site, is increasingly being used as a collaborative learning tool in many educational settings. Here is an overview of Twitter in Adult Education and here is a collection of Twitter tutorials for teachers.

Upgrading Online Conference May 30-31

Join us for a webinar, a day, or the whole conference! Register here

Are you interested in online delivery? Curious how to connect with learners from a distance? Whether you are part of the Anytime Online team, the Real-Time Online group, or just like to connect with your face-to-face learners in a virtual way, this conference has something for you.

We will have a multitude of webinars on Best Practices in Online Education, including teaching & learning, and development & administration in this third annual event co-hosted by Bow Valley College and NorQuest College. Some of the presentations include:

Keynotes

• Carmen Simon (formerly Taran) of RexiMedia showcasing research on how to use PowerPoint presentations effectively
• Tony Bates, President and CEO of Tony Bates Associates Ltd, discussing how to design online programs for adult learners, including the use of social media
• Tim Coates and Deanna Shostak of Alberta Education showing how to construct effective multiple choice questions in humanities and math/science

Presenters

• Travis Seaman RTOL instructor demonstrating best practices to promote learning in a Real-Time Online environment using Adobe Connect
• Lee Murray ATOL instructor focusing on basic exam structure and blueprinting

For other presentations and more details, see the Conference Schedule. And remember that we also have a pre-conference session on May 29th.

Join us for a webinar, a day, or the whole conference! Register here

Follow us on Twitter

@UOconference

WriteForward: What have we learned about writing?

Last week’s Share the Wealth session provided a great opportunity to discuss what we have been discovering about writing during the first year of the WriteForward project and to open up the conversations about writing here in CEFL. There were six main facts that I wanted to share with the group which are currently influencing our project work.

1. As a field, we have not defined what writing is. Our definition is influenced by our values and shapes the way we instruct.
2. Writing is individually situated and writing instruction needs to be learner-centred.
3. Writing instruction, practice, and assessment need to be authentic. This means that the learner can see how it connects to his or her life outside of the classroom.
4. Writing assessment approaches have been limited by the use of psychometric theory and the definitions of valid and reliable constructs. We need to rethink these in the context of writing.
5. Using technology for writing is part of being a literate Canadian. This means technology needs to be integrated into instruction, practice, and assessment.
6. Writing instructors need more professional development to understand how to choose writing assessments, how to interpret them, and how to integrate them into the instructional plans.

As a group on Friday, we just made it through a discussion of the first three points. We spent time contemplating what counts as writing; we approached this question as instructors and as readers and found that context played a huge role in how we define writing. Overall, an attempt at communication and expressing thoughts on paper were two common ways of expressing how we define writing. We also took time to think about what we value in writing. Again, context was key - what we value in a learner’s written assignment may differ than what we value in a co-worker’s email. In general, we talked about valuing the expression of thought and understanding, being clear, providing information, appropriate grammar and spelling, and use of voice or showing personality.

Current research encourages us as writers and writing instructors to collaborate and define writing locally - in a way that makes sense in our programs and classes with our instructors and learners. There is the acknowledgement that one size does not fit all and that we need to address this in order to best help our learners improve their writing. I’m glad that we had this opportunity to start this conversation within our department on Friday, and hope that we will make time for further discussions in the future. Thanks to everyone who participated!

For more information, please see our project website: writeforward.ca

PD in Your Inbox

Keeping up with technology

Are you interested in new technology skills, but don’t have time for scheduled workshops? What if the lessons arrived in your inbox and you could do them at a time of your own choosing?

It’s not always easy to find time for professional development, but with a brand new curriculum there is a need for PD. Working with Andy and Marjorie in the Teaching and Learning Enhancement (TLE) department of the LLC, this term we are offering all AcPrep Reading instructors “PD in Your Inbox” opportunities. This PD is designed as mini-assignments that are aligned to specific learning outcomes in the new Reading curriculum. Each assignment comes with specific instructions, learning handouts, a marking rubric, and a deadline. Instructors have 1 - 2 weeks to fit in the 10-30 minutes necessary to complete the assignment and submit it to the TLE for feedback.

We have had three mini-assignments to date, allowing us to practice some the digital literacy skills that form part of the Reading 2, Reading 3 and the Reading 4 courses. The feedback from instructors has been positive so far, noting the importance of increasing students’ digital literacy skills, the flexibility of this form of PD, and the opportunity to learn skills beyond the boundaries of the mini-assignment.

TIP #1 - Naming Files

The TLE provided individual feedback and also let us know of overall trends in our abilities. Our number one error was not being specific enough when naming our files, which could lead to difficulties in finding our files later. This motivated us to look closer at our file naming habits and to implement file naming conventions for all AcPrep Reading course files. Following the conventions used in the Academic Upgrading courses, we took time on our meeting day in June to reorganize our files and folders on the P: drive. You can get an explanation of our system in this file.

Reading Curriculum Pilot

Since last September we have been working on redesigning the curriculum for all eight reading and writing classes in AcPrep, and we started the piloting of the new reading program this spring term. One of the new aspects of the curriculum is a dedicated part on Digital Literacy, which currently focuses on ensuring students have adequate technology skills and are able to use Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, use email, and effectively search the internet. A Digital Citizenship component, which focuses on skills beyond technology use, is to be added in the future.

Before we can require this from our learners, we need to ensure that instructors have confidence in their own skills and their ability to teach technology skills along with the reading and writing content skills. The “PD in Your Inbox” series is part of pilot phase for the new curriculum. The TLE has also provided one group workshop, a handout on Tips for Teaching and Troubleshooting in a Computer Lab, and has invited all AcPrep instructors to contact them for one-on-one help in any aspect of teaching technology.