Aggregating lesson material

There are a number of tools that can be used to aggregate learning material, collecting and organizing it in one place for student use.

My school system uses Google Classroom.  It is a fee based services, but the school system takes care of the fee for me.  Google advertises it as free - free for schools that have Google Apps for education, but there is a cost associated with Aps for education.    It is easy to give assignments.  Google Docs is integrated with Classroom and it has a nice grading feature where it is easy to add comments in students written assignments.  Announcements can be made on classroom.  Google has also recently added a "Question" feature to make quizzes.

Another tool that I use for aggregating course material is Moodle.  I use it for a course I teach online - Environmental Science.  Moodle does more than Classroom, but some of its features are not as user friendly.  Moodle allows one to easily post files, create assignments, make quizzes, insert learning objects, and make pages.  The grading feature is cumbersome for making comments.  The quiz feature has lots of nice features for feedback, but quizzes are cumbersome and slow to make.

Wordpress is a free program for creating websites and blogs.  Both of these can be useful ways of delivering learning material.  This does not have a convenient way to give tests or quizzes, but for content delivery, it will do fine.

Principles of Building Portable Learning Objects

Building learning objects can be time consuming, but rewarding.  One of the benefits of creating learning objects is that they can be used repeatedly.  So, while it may take time to create a learning object, it can actually be a time saver in the long run as well as a good teaching tool.

For my Teacher Open Online training, I built two "learning objects" on the tragedy of the commons.

The first is a Prezi presentation.

The Prezi above is meant from instruction.  It presents information in a dynamic way and asks a question in the middle to try to keep students thinking.

The next learning object that I created is a quiz using poll-maker.com.  Students can access the quiz here.  I can get the results of the quiz by going here.  I didn't use it here, but one nice thing that I discovered about poll-maker quiz maker is that you can insert logic.  For example, if a student gets a question right, the quiz can go to one question, but if the student misses a question, the student can go to another question for remediation.  I had never used poll-maker before today, but I like it.  It is more user friendly than poll-everywhere which I had used before.

The quiz here is meant as an assessment.  The short assessment that I made can be used as a quick check to students understanding after a video or reading assignment.

Learning objects authoring tools

For my Georgia Teacher Open Online class, I had to explore different authoring tools for creating learning objects.  These tools allow teachers to make tools ranging from annotated video to interactive games.  Below are 5 tools that I learned about: 3 that are free to the public and 3 that subscription based.

3 paid services

Is a paid service that is supposedly very intuitive.  There is a 30 day free trial, but I have not yet tried the software.  The site has several links to activities created using "articulate", but I don't have a membership, so I can't really view them.  Here is a link to a quiz designed to look like Family Feud.

Course lab describes itself as a Learning Management System.  It is supposed to be easy to create e-learning activities without needing to know Java or Flash.

This is a site that allows users to make a number of interactive educational games.  It is a paid service, costing $40 per year for a teacher account.  Below is a link to a sample game from the what to learn site.

Classifying Organisms Game

3 free services

This is one of my standby Web 2.0 tools.  Most often for online teaching, I have my students use it to make presentations.  However, it is also a great way to make presentations (a type of learning object) for my student.  It easily integrates text, images, and video.  And, it's free.

Snagit is a great free tool for making screencasts.  Snagit can be used to add commentary over existing video.  It can be used to record anything on a computer screen, and with just a microphone, users can add video.  This has a free version, so I've listed it here.  There is also a pay version with extra features.

Hot Potatoes allows users to create multiple-choice, short answer, jumbled sentence, crossword, matching, and fill in the blank exercises.
Here is an example quiz.



Learning objects can make learning more entertaining and more engaging for students.  I do feel it important to note here that I agree strongly with this quote from the "Articulate" blog.  -

"While relevance doesn’t equate to interactivity, it does equate to an engaged learner. And an engaged learner is more apt to learn and not be dependent on interactive gimmicks (which is what we usually start with when we try to make the course interactive). "

Locating resources

For this activity, I am supposed to use a topic previously selected.  I have no idea what that topic was - so I'll just use my next topic in AP Environmental science, which is the tragedy of the commons.

The phrase "tragedy of the commons" was coined by Garrett Hardin in his 1968 article of the same name.

Here is a link to Hardin's full article.  It is copyrighted material.

Tragedy of the Commons

On the side bar to this article, there is a place to specifically request permission to use this article.  You can see it by following the link below.

Rights and Permissions

However, for classroom use this should not be necessary.  I should be able to use excerpts of this material under Fair Use and to use the article in its entirety under the TEACH act as long as I let my students know that the material is copyrighted and I only use the material for educational purpose.

In teaching tragedy of the commons, I may want to use images both of the name and to illustrate the principle.  I found a couple of images about "tragedy of the commons" available in creative commons by using and advanced Google search.

This image illustrates tragedy of the commons as the sheep have overgrazed the land.  The image comes from a Wikipedia article on grazing rights.

Here is a cartoon image illustrating tragedy of the commons.  it is from flickr.












Here is a video that I found using an OER Commons search.  You will see that the link is from OER commons.

Tragedy of the commons video

Finally, here is a link to an Environmental Science book available through open stacks.  It is linked to a section on environmental ethics which includes a section on "tragedy of the commons."

Fair use and the teach act

Fair use and the teach act

This year I am teaching AP Environmental Science as an online class for Floyd County Schools.  For this, I have created some of my own content.  I like to do this because it gives the class a personal touch and allows me to teach the material as I like.  

However, it is unnecessary to create all the content needed to teach the class.  Creative Commons content is immensely helpful for teaching online. Most of the material that I use is available under creative commons.

There are also laws that allow teachers to use materials that are not licensed as Creative Commons.  Fair use and the TEACH act give teachers access to much more material than they would have otherwise available.

Fair use

The Georgia Teacher Open Online website nicely summarized the basics of fair use as follows.

1. The purpose and character of the use
2. The nature of the work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole
4. The effect of the use on the market or potential market for the original work

"The TEACH Act allows for copyright exemptions only when the following criteria are met:

Materials that I used must be used for education - not entertainment or profit.  This is easier to show when the material used was designed for educational purposes (documentaries for example).  The material used must be used in appropriate lengths.  If only part of a program applies to what is being taught in my class, only that part should be used.  I am not allowed to use commercial test prep material as that is taking away from the potential market for commercial test prep material.

Teach act

The Georgia Teacher Open Online website nicely summarized the Teach Act as follows.

• The institution must be an accredited, non-profit educational institution.
• The use must be part of mediated instructional activities.
• The use must be limited to a specific number of students enrolled in a specific class.
• The use must either be for ‘live’ or asynchronous class sessions.
• The use must not include the transmission of textbook materials, materials “typically purchased or acquired by students,” or works developed specifically for online uses."

As a teacher at a public high school, all of my uses qualify as educational.  I use these materials in my live class for direct instruction and in my online class as asynchronous presentations.  My course is not a MOOC.  In fact, it has a very small enrollment.  The only thing I have to  be careful of is using textbook or test prep material and of using only appropriately sized clips from larger works.  There are a number of good, old documentaries for environmental science.  If they are not in Creative Commons or the Public Domain though, I can only pull clips appropriate to a particular topic.

One thing that I did learn and that I must start doing in my class is this.  When using copyrighted material for legitimate class purposes, students must be informed that the material is copyrighted and that copyright law may apply depending on their use.  This can be done for individual assignments, or it can be made clear as part of a course introduction and lesson in online etiquette.

In short, fair use and the Teach Act give me much more freedom than I would otherwise have as an online teacher.  The allow me to find and use reliable content much more easily without having to create so much material myself.

Open educational resources and creative commons

Open educational resources are some of the most powerful tools available for teachers to use today.  These that are resources that are free to use by all.  My favorite provider of OER is MIT Opencourseware.

OCW

Open educational resources can have several different types of creative commons licenses.

The can be:

• Attribution only: This type of license allows anyone to use the work as long as they give the original author due credit.
• Noncommercial: This type of license allows anyone to use the work for noncommercial purposes.  This includes copying, distributing, displaying, and modifying the work.
• Share alike: This type of license allows anyone to copy, distribute, display, or modify work as long as the new work is also share alike.
• No derivative: Anyone can copy, distribute, or display the work.  However, users may not modify this work.

I use open educational resources in my class in a number of ways.  I use videos from MIT OCW for in class demonstrations and for homework assignments.

Another one of my favorite open education resources for teaching physics are direct measurement videos from CERC Carleton.  These are under the creative commons license for attribution, noncommercial, share alike.  Here is an intro activity for teaching with direct measurement videos provided by CERC Carleton.

Roller Coaster Activity

One thing that I did learn from the Georgia Teacher Open Online Training was how to search specifically for Open Educational Resources.  This will be a tremendous help for me in the future.

Web tools for differentiated assessment

A number of web tools can be used to differentiate student assessment.  Interactive Web 2.0 tools can allow students to show what they know in creative ways.  The key thing for teacher to recognize though is that the tool is not the assessment of what the student knows - it is merely a way for the student to present what he has learned.

One tool that I have found helpful for for student assessment is Prezi.

Prezi is a powerful, dynamic slide show type program.  It can be used to deliver all types of content and allows students to do so creatively.  Here is a link to a video on how to use Prezi.

There are a number of ways that Prezi can be used for assessment.  Let me here present one assessment that I am actually using with my environmental science class.

Class assignment on population pyramids

We are currently learning about population.  You have learned about population pyramids and how to tell whether a population is developed or developing from the population pyramid.

In this assignment you will be assigned a specific country.

You will

• examine the population pyramid of your assigned country
• explain whether the population is developed, developing, or somewhere in between based on what you see in the pyramid
• tell whether the population is likely to increase, decrease, or remain static in the next ten years and explain why
• examine the population pyramid decade by decade describing the population from 0-10, 10-20, etc.
• explain any anomalies in the population by decade

Here are some examples of such anomalies.  In one decade, the population of men may be way less than the population of women.  Why?  In one decade the population of women may be way less than that of men.  Why?  In one decade the population may be way more than the decade before it or the decade after it.  Why?  In one decade the population may be much less than the decade before it or after it.  Why?

Your pyramid may have some of these anomalies or none of these.  Also, your pyramid could have other peculiarities.  Explain those as well.

You will present your analysis in two forms - a short paper and a Prezi presentation.

For the paper, write an introductory paragraph that gives a brief overview of your country.  Then, in subsequent paragraphs, do all of the things listed above.  The paper must be written in complete sentences and flow logically.

For the Prezi presentation, you will represent your findings in a way that includes text, images, video, audio, animations, or any other creative method to help the viewer understand the demographics of your country.  Be sure to have a central idea for your Prezi and to develop it with appropriate material.  Your presentation should be logically organized, visually appealing, and cover all the same topics listed above.

After you have completed your presentation, you will post it to a discussion group.  I will comment on the presentation for content and organization and each student is encouraged to comment as well.  After a period of feedback, you will then modify your presentation and submit it in final form along with your paper.

In conclusion

Using Prezi for this assignment will allow students to creatively present their findings about food pyramids.  By critiquing the Prezi of others, students will get a better idea of how to use Prezi and learn about different populations without having to research them all.  By writing a paper to go along with the presentation, the students will see the benefits of a visually appealing presentation.

Tools to differentiate teacher instruction

There are many convenient Web 2.0 programs that can be used for differentiation in the classroom.  One that I learned about in my Georgia Teacher Open Online training is PollEverywhere. I immediately put it to use in my traditional classroom.  I used it with my AP Physics class to determine the overall level of understanding for multiple choice questions on circular motion.  I made a 5 question poll for use with that class.  

Here are three of those questions.

Question 1

o

Question 2

Question 3

I used these questions in my class to poll students on answers (like a clicker question).  

• If most of the students got it right, I could tell they had a good understanding and move on quickly without much explanation.  
• If answers were scattered, I could tell that the class didn't really know and spent more time on explanation.  
• If most of the class chose one answer, and it was the wrong answer, I could tell that the class had a misconception.  I had to make sure to explain the correct answer and to try and get at the root of the misconception.

Now, let me speak to what shows up in my blog as "Question 3" (it was actually question 5 on my poll).  This question is designed in a different way.  This did not work with my live class as students could not text in the answers.  Rather, it is designed for the student to click at a certain point on the screen to select an answer.  I have not done so yet, but I intend to try to use this type of poll question with my online AP Environmental Science class

As a note, I also learned about a number of other Web 2.0 tools, some of which I was already using and some of which were new to me.  Some of these I rely on heavily and use every day - Google Drive, Google Classroom.  Others I use less frequently - Prezi, Soundcloud, and now Polleverywhere.  Still others do not fit with my teaching style - Wordle.  I'm not saying that I'd never use it, but it is not something I will use regularly.

Web Tools

It is easier than ever to create and share information on the web.  These easily interactive tools that allow the online user to create and share content are collectively referred to as Web 2.0.  I have chosen three Web 2.0 tools to describe that I think are highly beneficial for education.

Google drive is the best, easiest way to create and share content with others.  It allows users to share their content or to collaborate on content.  It works with many file types (documents, spreadsheets, etc.) and converts these file types to other platforms (Word).  Google has integrated its drive nicely with Google Classroom (another great Web 2.0 system).

I've never actually used poll everywhere.  I read about it as part of my assignment for my Georgia Teacher Open Online training.  I plan to use it tomorrow.  I will use it to poll my AP students about various multiple choice questions to gauge their responses before we go over the questions.  In the past, I have used Kahoot (another great tool) for this.  Kahoot makes questions like a game and adds a fun aspect, but it has strict text limits and polls aren't the easiest to create.  It also has strict limits on the number of allowed responses.  Poll Everywhere looks easier to use when not needing a game.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Another program I learned about through TOOL is JoinMe.  I plan to use it as a way to run online meetings for my online class.  In the past, I have used Google Hangouts for this purpose.  I will still use Hangouts, but JoinMe looks to be a much easier way to present information to students other than text or voice.  The screen sharing capability is what look forward to using.

The great thing about all these tools is that they are free!  They are great for file sharing, polling, and screencasting.  There are so many tools available, but the right tool at the right time can make so much difference.

Appearance

In an online class, appearance is important.  Some things are simple - maintain a common font of appropriate size, use contrasting colors for foreground and background, choose colors that don't affect the colorblind, etc.  However appearance is much more.

In order to make online learning attractive and interesting, the course designer must integrate visual and even audio elements.  These can come as images, pictures, bullets, or videos.  For my assignment from TOOL, I was to explore learning modules from 10 instructional sites and identify 5 that exemplify sound design ideals and 5 that do not.  I do so now and describe why they do or do not meet these ideals.

I think that to be exemplary a site must have visual variety.  It must also have an ordered layout that integrates the images with needed text.  While some images are necessary to draw in students, I think it is important not to overdo the images.  Too many images serve as distractions.  Images and video in a website should serve a purpose.  If the purpose is not obvious, they should be left out.

Exemplary sites

Howard Hughes Medical Institute educational materials

This is the main page.  The pictures serve as eye catching headers for different areas of the site.  The text, highlighted by the yellow background, stands out from image.  If it weren't for the yellow background, the text would get lost in the noise of the image.  There are not too many choices for categories.  Three or four choices is optimal.  These three look great.

Serc direct measurement videos

I picked this site as exemplary, largely because I love the material on the site.  There are a lot of things that I like about the appearance, but there are a few things that I don't like.

The banner heading is nice - even if the use of the word pedagogy is a bit pretentious.  The site is broken up into 4 distinct areas.  They are headed by eye catching images and a distinct heading.

While I picked it as exemplary, I will now give a few criticisms.  While the site has 4 distinct areas with nice headings, the user has to scroll down to see all abut one of them.  This detracts from the organization.  Also, the sidebars are noisy and can distract from the site.

CK-12 Explorations

I actually found this site through TOOL.  I can not vouch for the quality of material on the site.  In fact, after browsing it just a bit, I think most of the material is subpar.  However, the appearance of the main page is exemplary.

The page that I've shown here is for physics simulations.  Each simulation has an eye catching image followed by  a brief description.  It is nicely organized.  My only criticism is that there are too many choices on one page, but it is as well organized as that could be.

EdX

This is one of my favorite resources.  It is nicely laid out with eye catching images for different classes followed by a brief description.

I will give this site the same criticism as the one above.  It is as well organized as it can be for the amount of information that is presented, but it presents too much on one page.

MIT OCW

Another of my favorite sites.  This site has attempted to do away with the information overload by having images of 4 classes that scroll periodically to 4 more.  This works nicely.  However, there is still too much noise around the site.

Now for the losers - the nonexemplary sites.

Losers

McGrawsh Science Site Virtual labs

Has some good material, but is presented as an uninteresting, hard to distinguish list.

Phet is another resource that I love.  The homepage actually has a fairly clean look, but when you go to look for simulations, you get a boring, somewhat difficult to navigate list.

Annenberg Learner is another great site.  I'm hesitant to put this one on the losers list.  The images used on the page are nice looking.  So why do I put it on the losers list?  The titles are hard to relate to topic for which your looking - even with the discipline tab on the side.  The biggest thing is though that there is a huge long list of activities but they go over 6 pages and the user has to scroll down lots on each page.

This is actually a good website.  It's nicely organized by lists, but it's basically dichrome with lists.  No pop.

Here is another resource that I have to use.  A website should never look like a letter on a page.  It's not easy to navigate, difficult to lookout, and not attractive to the eye.  I find that almost all government websites are atrocious in appearance.