Sharing

In an attempt to share my flipped work and explore what research comes back I have set my Manchester course up to share all the documents and files. Previously, these wee just contained on Moodle to the student group. To improve these resources I have put a number of links in to see how and when they are accessed and how they connect outside of the course and how the students can develop around this, however, it may take some time.

 

I have packaged the video lectures with the Soundcloud files from each lecture into a HTML5 file. I have embedded this on Moodle and added a link, additionally, I have posted a copy of the links to the class Facebook. group. In the resources I have added a Twitter share button that, if anyone presses, will present a message on Twitter with the title of the lecture and a link to the resources. Additionally, I have added a link to #manchester, if the resources are shared they can be accessed in this group and shared. I chose Manchester as this is what the course is about, also, it sees to be closed off in Manchester but anyone with an interest in the city will also have access. I am trying to develop more links but this seems the best from the ones tried so far, such as creative and tourist.

 

I have also added a Facebook Like button for the work to be shared.

I have also attached a creative commons license to each resource, this will help people to find it and share it.

All the links to resources have been made through Bitly, therefore I can view and analyse the amount of clicks and where for each resource.

Adding Twitter

I’m adding a Twitter button to my slides to try and connect the students to Twitter and share the work, however, I need a method to be able to incorporate other people and how my students can exchange knowledge with those on and outside of the course.

This seems like it’s turning into a Mooc, is there potential for this?

I have added a Like button and will use a Facebook like button also. this might be the first step in getting the content connected?

 

I’m still trying to figure out how to leave a comments box?

Improving the Flip

After yesterday’s post with regard to analytics, how to improve the flipped experience. Is it that these students simply aren’t engaged, why not? How to improve engagement? This raises a bigger question of management of self-learning, the students are required to access the resources and use their own time to work through them, for lectures they can simply turn up.

So, the resources must be something that the students want to use, and enjoy. I need to do some research on the structure of these resources and develop

1. The timing of each video to be the perfect length – find research

2. The resources are still didactic, they are interactive in terms of students clicking on links but not interactive with regards to learning – it is still me talking to them?

3. How to get quicker results about who has used the resources?

4. How to check they have used the resources?

5. How to record engagement and learning?

 

A few solutions might be

1. Develop a set number of videos as chapters with a scroll menu to jump from chapter to chapter, rather than one long book or set of slides. The work would maybe more easy to manage and students could use the sections that apply most. Additionally, this might give some data on the areas they enjoy most and the types of resources and content that is most engaging.

2. Develop the course in a more engaging way by incorporating things and tasks the students must do. This might be to work with footage in the pack, engage with s particular resource or upload footage from their phone. Another option might be to link ares of the blog to the resources, I could put on my blog and theirs. Perhaps create a sandpit in their so the studenrs have ownership of some of the resources. Additionally, add a comments box.

3. Who has used the resources? The Tin Can API would be good for this, but if I can create a quiz or use comments then this would indicate who has used the resources. There needs to be a way to make sure they have used all the resources and a quiz on each chapter might work well. This is also in point 5.

4. Similar to above.

5. How do we know they have learnt? A quiz of something more exciting needs to be developed to make sure they have engaged with the materials and learnt through them. This brings up bigger questions about course content and curriculum design, rather than designing a curriculum and making the resources fit and replace traditional lectures, the curriculum needs to be developed around the method of delivery. Therefore the two work together and the learning that takes place can be recorded through both. One needs to support the other, so how does the classroom strengthen the online resources and how do the online strengthen the classroom. Is it too late to incorporate this now? Should the resources be used in class? What problems or questions do the resources pose that the students must deal with in class, how do the resources push them to do their own research? Key points here are experiential learning, what potential do the resources have for this, and problem based learning, what are the problems that the resources develop and how to students solve these using the resource as a starting point.

Over the next week this needs to be developed. I will explore the use of a quiz, a comments section and developing sets of problems that they must deal with in-class. The problem should be set at the start of the resource and used as an example, options then for other problems exist and students can work on this.

 

Flipped Learning and Use of Analytics

YouTube analytics are great, they tell me that only a handful of students are watching the materials for this class. YouTube gives details for the amoutn of times the videos are watched, both through YouTube and as embedded files. The average count for any video is 10, this is at odds with a class of 30 who all say they watch it.

 

How do I engage students more in the process, how to test their learning and make sure they have watched the resources. The use of analytics is excellent, and so far I am able to get data from YouTube and Slid.es wiht regard to views. however, these can be anyone from the public. I have tried to reduce this on YouTube by unlisting all videos, this is a problem as I would like to link them to the public and use a Create Commons license to distribute and see how people use the materials.

My plan is to put a number of different quizzes and tests within the work to complete online to make sure each student completes the work, additionally, I was going to place in a few keywords that students would need in class.

I also plan to send them images of the data.

I plan to use more anlaytics, and for all the links to resources I plan to create links through Bit.ly.

There are two aims for this week

 

1. How to introduce quizzes and get analytics of who completes these. Other sources such as Captivate would be good for this.

2. How to successfully connect the classroom to other networks and distribute materials in order to develop more quality through public engagement, and with my students.

 

Flipped Classroom Experiment Week 4

I’m into week 4 of my Flipped Classroom experiment. This was the plan to understand how well students learn in a flipped classroom and how we can better use the time together on campus. I started this project with a few aims, these were to

– Explore the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning

– Improve the internal satisfaction survey scores of my class

– Improve the quality of work produced in the class

– Understand how students learn online

The class is a ten week filmmaking unit. Students must create a blog that contains weekly filmmaking tasks and a final film. It is a lot to ask in ten weeks, but my intention was to make better use of the time we have by providing lectures outside of class time so students would have some knowledge of filmmaking practices before they attend class.

The method I am using distributes a set of slides that contain video lectures, links to online sites, and other clips from YouTube and other sources. Additionally, the students have a worksheet that they can follow as notes and make notes on to bring to the class. Each week they are issued with the resources on the Sunday and they attend a two hour workshop on Wednesday, where they produce work, then a seminar on thursday where they talk about the lecture and review their work from the following day.

Studies have shown that students predominantly use mobile phones to access the internet, and as this is an internet based resource I wanted to provide complete access. The objective is to give students the flexibility of study. The University day is still very much 9-5, however, students have different needs, jobs and need to access coursework in alternative ways. Especially for a generation of digital natives who access knowledge through social networks and other online resources. i wanted to give students complete access to understand where they learn and how they learn, what is the interface to learning and where does it take place. Not necessarily physically, but where online, is it through the resources or the links in the resources, is it the type of learning, the links or does it make the students develop research skills? Another benefit of the resources is that they are online and are connected, how can I improve learning by connecting and networking my classroom to other knowledge networks and resources. This is a good place to start a discussion about OER, this can be discussed later.

The resources are produced in HTML 5, this allows me to distribute the content to any device as this code will work on mobile devices and desktop computers. To produce these I have to use a HTML 5 editor and create a series of slides with videos embedded from YouTube. The slides have a basic design but professional enough to be taken seriously.

I will provide other posts to discuss different aspects of these resources, such as production, quality and reception. So far there have been more problems than anticipated with the amount of time it takes to develop each resource and the shift in quality from classroom delivery to online delivery. The learning resources allow me to include film clips and links to websites all within the same narrative.

The project has provided some interesting research so far, with regard to reflecting on teaching and learning methods. The delivery through lectures is very different and there is no option to get the live response of a lecture environment. Additionally, there is a change in quality as videos are shot on takes and there are certain expectations about the resources. In a lecture it’s fine to read parts of the lecture but with video lectures this is more a problem.

Problems

– The time it takes to prepare resources

– The perceived quality of resources

– Problems with connecting the class

 

Manchester, Moocs and Media

Just getting started on preparing my course Manchester: Music, Media and Cultural Identity. This year it’s going on as a Mooc, and just getting the paperwork organised to put it on Canvas Network.

It used to be that you organise the course, write it then see what staff are needed. The difference now is that I need to organise copyright, methods of delivery, video content, OER materials, staffing, different assignments and the possibility of up to 2000 students. I’m hoping it gives me more than I give it.

Also, the development of an app for it to organise self-directed field trips, more about this in later posts…