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Digital Story and Assignment 3 Reflection

My Content Module

I would like to think that the result of my first experience with Moodle has been a success.  I am pretty please with the final result of my Introductory Unit and my first Content Unit (Module 1 – Colour Theory). I chose to create an eLearning version of a grade 7 art class that I currently teach. The course is part of our 1:1 iPad program so a lot of the resources that I added to my online version had that type of learner in mind. I appreciated that Moodle works well on the iPad, however, I would have liked to see a stand alone app that allowed for notifications and alerts for students.

The greatest challenge for me when moving from a traditional classroom environment to an online experience was how to maintain ‘my voice’. As Natasha pointed out in my Intro unit – that was lost. I struggled at first to make the course personal – focussing too much on content and direction, rather then making it a more relaxed learning environment. With those suggestions in mind I looked at reformatting not only my Content Unit, but my Intro unit as well.  As identified in the ISTE Standards for Teachers, a teachers role is to ‘advance student learning, creativity and innovation in both face-to face and virtual environments’.

The inclusion of video introductions and more opportunities for students to share, I believe have made the course more interactive for students. As Ciampa notes ‘Multimedia effects such as video, audio, music, animation and interactive capabilities afforded by mobile devices evoke sensory curiosity’ (pg. 84). By providing students an opportunity to ‘see’ me, I feel that I will be better able to connect with my students. I feel that the personality of both teachers and students can sometimes get lost in an online environment. Allowing students the opportunity to use their mobile devices to add multimedia to the course will provide opportunities to make the learning personal.

My greatest concern with the LMS however is still the online assessment tool. In Ontario, teachers are required to assess all four levels of the achievement chart for each Assessment ‘Of’ Learning (typically 1 per unit). Moodle does not permit a course designer the ability to determine what part of an assessment be directed to a specific grade category. Through some research I have determined that while teachers use Moodle as an eLearning provider in Ontario they do not use the online testing tool for Summative Assessments.

 

My Digital Story

I used the digital story as a way to further a class discussion and to provide students with a ‘spark’ to begin thinking about the meaning and symbolism of colour. My intention was to create a short animated video that brought some humour and personality to the concept of colour theory. I specifically chose to include the digital story as part of later section in the unit (2.5 – The Meaning of Colour) to provide students with a different method of instruction – using variety to keep students engaged. As identified in ‘Towards a Theory of Online Learning’, students learn creativity through playing and observation through viewing examples (pg. 62). My hope is that the digital story provides students with both – an opportunity to view and example, but also to engage in a fun and enjoyable learning experience.

 

Here is a link to my Digital Story – Hi! I’m RED!

 

I have always found VideoScribe to be an amazing presentation platform. I have been intrigued by lectures by Sir Ken Robinson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U) which used the animation capabilities to create interesting and humorous discussions about the state of education. However, once I actually began working with VideoScribe I found myself becoming frustrated. The ability to animate and keep the narrative interesting and dynamic was much more difficult then I had anticipated. While I like my final product and am happy with the way that it functions as part of my content module, I will definitely be spending more time working with VideoScribe before  launching this course to my students in the future.

 

Bates, Alexander, and the Hewlett Packard people.

When I read that the report for K-12 sector was funded by Hewlett Packard, I was a little reluctant to be moved by the findings. We have something similar in BC in the Fraser Report on education. Look up a school by their name and find out how they rate against all the other schools in the province. The results for both studies are, to me, going to be skewed.

When I searched for, and read more about Bryan Alexander, it made sense that he couches his “vision” in story, as his PhD is in Romantic-era Fiction and Poetry. I think it was Jason that wrote, many of the elements mentioned are already in place, making it seem less likely a vision of the future.

The future of education through the eyes of Bates however, seems the most compelling. Bates inferentially acknowledges that in order for “higher” education institutions to retain their relevancy to the general public they need to be providers of some “knowledge” learners want. If the “medium” is MOOCs then those MOOCs will need to integrate technology in ways that strengthen the experience for students. The earlier chapters from Bates serve to give the reader (or creator of a course) tools to use for their future encounters with technology.

Will MOOCs be THE answer? I have yet to find a technological (or educational for that matter) panacea. However, I think that the thinking grounding Bates schema provides those who make use of them, a means to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of any way of teaching.

Education will only be as good as the sum of its parts and that means individuals bringing their best to the situations they find themselves in. Education can only work when it is flexible, creative and inclusive. If technology works to make those things happen, then it should be used. My concern, as I look forward, is that we (older ones) would not limit the thinking and creativity of those who come after us. The loudest voices are not always the “correct” ones. How I see myself “shaping that landscape” is by providing opportunities for that plastic/elastic practice for the little visionaries that I hang with every day.

 

References

Alexander, B. (2014). Higher education in 2014: Glimpsing the future. Educause Review, 4(5) Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/higher-education-2024-glimpsing-future?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email+marketing&utm_campaign=EDUCAUSE

 

Alexander, B. (2016). Bio [webpage]. Retrieved from http://bryanalexander.org/bio/

 

Bates, T. (2014). MOOCs. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/part/chapter-7-moocs/ (Chapter 5)

 

Fraser Institute. (2016). School performance: Elementary and secondary school rankings. Retrieved from https://www.fraserinstitute.org/school-performance

 

New Media Consortium. (2015). NMC Horizon Report 2015: Higher ed edition. Retrieved from http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2015-nmc-horizon-report-HE-EN.pdf

Digital Story

The link to my DS is YouTube Preview Image

I have made the digital story to support the theme of the LMS created for this term project. There are many ways to tell a story.

There are many reasons why stories are used.

In one sense a story is a journey that engages for the purpose of conveying some form of message.

It made the most sense to me to use this digital story opportunity to focus on:

  • the audience for this course – who were they? what would their main concerns be?
  • state a problem they may be experiencing – ‘doesn’t it make you crazy when . . . ‘
  • inform of some kind of solution or expertise,
  • clearly show the benefits of that solution,
  • invoke some kind of action from them – sign up now or act now

I wanted to keep it short. Most people don’t have time for epics, no matter how creative they are.

I wanted to keep it on topic. Keeping the content focused will help the viewer be convinced that the content is useful (or not) for them.

I also wanted it to be succinct. Conveying the essentials is both bait and net.  In this case, it communicates the message that, “You could have more of these helpful tidbits if you signed up for this course.”

To create this digital story I used the tool PowToon. I have never used anything like PowToon. Creating a “storyline” with animations, music, pictures, and text is very complicated. The more streamlined it looks, the more effort went into the product. Timing the text and movements of the characters is a trial and error process. Choosing music that doesn’t detract from the overall theme is time consuming. Selecting size of image or word that won’t over-power or weaken the message is daunting. Having the list from Mayer’s (2009) that was in the Bates (2014) article was very helpful to refer to.

I can see how having a team would enrich the content/message. I can also see how this type of tool can capture what scores of pages of text could not. I would like to see where else this would/could be effective. I would like to try other tools, to determine the effectiveness of the features that accompany them.

 

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)

Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

What the heck is ‘rephotographing’?

Copyright issues in a visual arts classroom is often the centre of focus. In my opinion, it is an unreal expectation that student will go out and photograph their own reference images and too often Creative Commons images do not provide students with an mage that is suitable for a particular work. That being said, students are reminded to identify and give credit to any image they use. We use the analogy of a works cited list for a paper – what resource/source imagery have you used in the production of your work of art? Unfortunately, there is no Bibliography that accompanies a work of art.

When we consider the skills that we are teaching students and the tools they use – ones that allow them to easily mix audio and video from different sources, the idea of ownership becomes blurred. When the latest craze is to ‘mash-up’ different songs, videos and images into something new, how do can we speak of intellectual property. YouTube alone is an excellent example – how much of the content on YouTube is original? How much is repurposed or mashed-up? Who is the artist? To whom should the credit be given? Is it the original creator or the individual who took parts of it and transformed it into something new?

I think of Richard Prince, the artist who ‘rephotographed’ hundreds of Instagram selfies and sold them at auctions for $100 000. Prince took images by other people (usually attractive, 20-somethings) added some creative Instagram-like text and emojis and printed them on a large scale. Prince never asked permission from the subjects of the photos to publish them, nor did he compensate any of the individuals. Is this not an infringement on the individual’s privacy? Firstly the images came from accounts that are not private, which means they are viewable by all. Secondly, because Prince added comments and deleted the existing ones, he can argue that his work is ‘transformative’ and under the US Copyright Act he is protected.

In this era of online digital editing tools and Web 2.0 media creation tools, issues of copyright must be re-thought and redefined.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/18/instagram-artist-richard-prince-selfies

Copyright in Education

Management of digital property in schools is becoming increasingly complex. Students assume that digital resources such as pictures, music, videos and documents are available for their use simply because they are ‘copyable’ resources. Spending time teaching students about who actually owns the property and how to utilize it is tricky. Even companies and  large corporations such as Blackboard and Microsoft cannot agree on the rules or how they should be followed.  Students are not typically trying to do anything illegal, or immoral, they simply assume that share sites such as Limeware are available and therefor useable. Educators need to explain the rules in forms that our students can understand, even at a very young age. Are teachers equipped with the necessary information and resources?

Here are a few resources available to help address this rather complex topic:

Your Digital Presence offers a basic overview and links to documents regarding Canadian Copyright laws in relatively easy to understand language: http://www.2learn.ca/ydp/copyrightabout.aspx

MediaSmarts lesson for grades 7-8 which addresses the relationship between intellectual property, copyright and trademark concepts:  http://mediasmarts.ca/lessonplan/up-and-away

Copyright Matters is a booklet designed to help teachers to understand and deliver accurate content regarding Canadian copyright laws: http://cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/291/Copyright_Matters.pdf

Of particular growing concern is the use of original content for reworking assignments. As digital representations become more popular as a means for sharing knowledge and learning, concerns around this property in classrooms is substantially heightened. I was particularly interested in #13 from the Copyright Matters booklet mentioned above,

“13. Can students and teachers use copyright-protected works to create new works?©

The Copyright Act contains a users’ right permitting anyone, not just students and teachers, to use copyright-protected works to create new works. This users’ right is referred to in the Copyright Act as “non-commercial user-generated content.” This users’ right can be found in section 29.21 of the Copyright Act as amended by the Copyright Modernization Act. The following conditions apply to the creation of non-commercial user-generated content:

1. It can only be used for non-commercial purposes.

2. The original source must be mentioned, if it is reasonable to do so.

3. The original work used to generate the content must have been acquired legally.

4. The resulting user-generated content does not have a “substantial adverse effect” on the market for the original work.

This users’ right permits students to use copyright-protected works to create videos, DVDs, or mash-ups, as long as the conditions above are all met.

The users’ right permits user-generated content created under provision of the Copyright Act to be disseminated. Dissemination includes uses such as posting a video to YouTube or a Web site.”

This excerpt clearly demonstrates the usage laws for content in schools. I was reassured of my own usage and my expectations of my students after reading this.

Overall, it is important for students and teachers to understand is that the rules are more open for educational purposes than for other industries. Bill C-11 allows for the expansion of ‘Fair Dealing’ law which states, “ “Fair Dealing is an exception that permits limited and non commercial copying for specific purposes. Fair Dealing is a user’s right that facilitates creativity and access to information by balancing the restrictions in the Copyright Act.” (2Learn.ca Education society, 2012) to educational means. Education has been included as an exemption in the following categories:

“-Publicly Available Materials on the Internet

-Distance Education

-Cinematographic works

-Reproduction in Class”

(2Learn.ca Education society, 2012)


Education as an expansion category and exempt from some of the restrictions of other industry should be communicated to students. Knowing that the rules that apply to them under and educational standard are different than when they are independently creating works outside the school domain, during their school years or beyond, when they enter the workforce. This difference is largely due to the purpose of educational works, for the greater good, rather than for profit. The spirit of these laws is that if works are properly cited, obtained in a way that is not prevented by protection strategies such as passwords and are used for educational rather than commercial means, generally the use of such resources is permitted.

Teachers should also be well informed. Incorrect use of digital resources whether intentional or not, is a serious issue. Lack of information regarding these laws may result in teachers shying away from using valuable resources. Teachers should demonstrate responsible digital citizenship in their own practice by informing themselves, their students and modelling compliant practices with copyright laws.

Noel, Wanda & Snel, Jordan. (2012) CMEC. Retrieved from: http://cmec.ca/publications/lists/publications/attachments/291/copyright_matters.pdf

Aaron Swartz – Creative Common

Each time I hear the copy rights issue I remember the documentary “The internets own boy” Aaron Swartz. Aaron is a hero to most “except for the government and some large publishers”. He believed that information wants to be free and access to information must be open to all. Even though information wants to be free “if we all agree” it still needs to be cited and ownership of this free content must be labeled, referenced, and cited properly. I think this is very important specially when we want to build on this knowledge and expand. Research is always built on other findings and this is how we develop and improve.

On the penalties part each country/region has its own policies. An action must be taken against whoever uses content in a none proper “legal” manner. Yet teachers are somehow protected by law to an extent when content is used for educational purpose (Saab 2010).

What you write online stays online. I strongly believe that we all must be careful while sharing our personal life and other media on the social media. The access levels and policies keep changing and it is possible to expose your content by mistake. Even commenting on posts may get you in trouble “supporting or disagreeing”.

Saab, S. (2010). Copyright basics for teacher librarians. Access, 24(4), 38-43.

Social media in O&G?

I wasn’t entirely sure how to engage with this questions. The teaching I do is a little different. I don’t have a set class that I teach over a long period of time, at least not yet. My teaching comes in spurts. A lecture here, a small group session there, some bedside teaching, and in the operating room (OR). If I have to choose something that I do the most, it would be teaching in the OR. So, could I use social media to develop new learning outcomes in this setting? First thing I have to consider is the patient and issues surrounding confidentiality. And then I would need to consider the learning outcomes for my resident/fellow. The learning objective in the OR would be:

  • to understand the risks and pathophysiology that led to the condition for which we are operating
  • to understand the indications for this operation, as well as the alternatives
  • to understand the anatomy of the pelvis
  • to know the potential complications of this operation
  • to know the precautions needed to avoid potential complications
  • to know how to handle the complications should it arise
  • the steps of the operation and the reasons or function of the steps
  • routine postoperative care
  • any special considerations for the patient and their specific set of circumstances

I’m sure there’s more but I can’t think of them right now. So now the question is can social media help develop any of these learning outcomes? Are there any outcomes that would be better learned through social media than through the means we currently use (one on one teaching/Q&A)?

According to Bates, the affordances of social media are (2014):
  • connectivity and social rapport
  • collaborative information discovery and sharing
  • content creation
  • knowledge and information aggregation and content modification
Based on the above, I can think of a few areas that can be aided by social media, but not specific to the OR. The first is to gain patient perspective. There’s an interesting article I read that demonstrates a positive correlation between physician empathy and patient outcome; the greater the level of empathy, the better the patient outcome (Hojat et al., 2011). Based on these finding, building empathy by understanding the patient perspective is an important learning outcome, though I failed to mention it above. Social media is a great way to connect to people with similar conditions and gain their perspective. Unfortunately, time in clinic is short as are the moments leading up to an operation. These moments may not afford enough time to establish a rapport and gain their perspective. Time and place is not an issue for social media, making it advantageous in this instance.

Through connectivity, not only can you gain the patient perspectives but also communicate with experts in the field that were beyond our reach previously. Every residency program has a journal club where a paper from an academic journal is chosen, read, and critically appraised. I have heard of some places where they get the actual authors involved through Skype or twitter to ask them about the paper, clarifications, and justifications for their decisions during their research. This makes for greater, in-depth understanding of the paper, and a great learning experience. Webinars are another area that could be a useful learning tool for the resident. By participating, they have the opportunity to engage with experts beyond our institution.

But as Bates acknowledges, students need structured support (2011). I think my job as an educator is to facilitate these connections, and provide the residents with these opportunities, give them learning objectives, and set aside time for them to complete these objectives.

References

  • Bates, T. (2014). Pedagogical differences between media: Social media. In Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/
  • Hojat, M., Louis, D. Z., Markham, F. W., Wender, R., Rabinowitz, C., Gonnella, J. S. (2011). Physicians’ empathy and clinical outcomes for diabetic patients.  Academic Medicine Journal, 86, 359-364.

Boris: A review dilemma

I am wondering if Boris could be more intentional during the course as well as looking for review at the end. If he created touchpoint assessments, that could then be repeated at the end of the unit, he would get maximum student impact for less teacher workload. For example, if Boris created a multiple choice exam that provided information for incorrectly answered questions, students would have the review and a place to receive immediate learning opportunities. For example, if they get a question incorrect on one particular element, an interactive periodic table could pop up with information about that element. Other possibilities could be lab simulations, videos, review notes, connections to discussion forums, etc. This way the review is more frequent, more manageable and could be again used before the summative unit exam.

 

Technology & Triangulation

 

In the small private school where I worked, and only recently left, for 5.5 years, assessment was often a major point of discussion for our staff.  In the past year or so specifically, incorporating what the Ontario Curriculum calls ‘triangulation of assessment’ received a lot of attention and effort towards implementation.  For anyone who isn’t familiar with this, here’s a handy picture:


At first we all groaned at the idea of MORE assessment, but before long we all started to realize how empowering it can be, and how well it can be integrated with technology.  Products have now become a tool we all use much more sparingly, and often only after there have been other kinds of formative feedback provided to the students to help them prepare for the summative (graded) assessment.

Observing student interaction or work can obviously be done with a simple checklist, but many of my peers have started to use apps that help them stay organized, as well.  Class Dojo (best suited to grades under 9, I would say) and Socrative (great for senior students) are apps that allow teachers to create checklists for certain behaviours, skills, or even content that they are looking for – Google forms will do this too, if a teacher is willing to make one – and then have it be visible for students to check their own progress.  Providing students will the criterion with which they will be assessed – or ideally, co-constructing it with them – and not always telling them WHEN to expect such evaluation (or making it clear to them it will happen every day), improved our student attendance greatly.    When we were told we could use such evaluations to help inform our professional judgment towards the student’s grade, and the students themselves became aware, they took class-time much more seriously as a whole.  As a result many of the conditions for effective assessment as outlined by Gibbs & Simpson (2005) were met, especially numbers 4 – 8.  Doing this kind of timely feedback, and putting it online where students can check in on it when they wish, also helps take away the phenomenon of them just ‘studying for the exam’ and cuts down on students being able to get a high grade while being “selectively negligent” (p. 6) of the elements they don’t see as valuable.

Gibbs & Simpson also explain the preference students have for coursework over exams, and how studies show that courses in which there was greater emphasis on coursework students achieved better grades – and it didn’t even need to be ‘marked’ (p. 7-8)!  Flipping lessons, where students watch a video or read something content-heavy PRIOR to class and then engage in activities DURING class time that test their understanding, is also made much easier through the use of technology.  Hosting the ‘homework’ (e.g. the content) on the class LMS makes it easy for students to access, so that when they arrive in class they can begin to engage with it and the teacher can get a quick idea of who needs what.

The challenges of this kind of integration of technology can certainly be in the learning and designing process for the teacher – in my experience thus far I’ve found students are quite quick to pick up on how to use the various platforms I’ve attempted as long as I’m confident with them.  Flipping is a front-loaded type of work, but the lessons can be re-used for future teachings of the course or class, and easily shared between peers.  I’m the type of teacher to just jump into trying new technologies or methods, but have learned that scaffolding its implementation is important for many of my teaching colleagues, as it can appear quite intimidating.  Just as with students however, when teachers get to the point where they are creating their own content (whether it’s videos or just lessons that USE technology),  their enjoyment and understanding becomes authentic.  Students have thus far shown a positive attitude towards this kind of technology-based support through assessment, when I’ve had the organization and time to make it come together – but I’ve also been able to benefit from schools with 1:1 device:student ratio.  It would take some creativity to figure out how to proceed if a class had a percentage of students without access!

—

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved fromhttp://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

 

 

With regards to Boris

The scenario regarding Boris seems to be directly built on the following paragraph from Gibbs and Simpson (2005):

“It is a common observation of higher education teachers that if

coursework is taken away from a module due to resource constraints,

students simply do not do the associated studying; for example

students will rarely write unassessed essays. It is argued that you

have to assess everything that moves in order to capture students’

time and energy. However, coursework does not have to be marked

to generate the necessary learning. Forbes & Spence (1991) reported

a study of assessment on an engineering course at Strathclyde

University. When lecturers stopped marking weekly problem sheets

because they were simply too busy, students did indeed stop tackling

the problems, and their exam marks went down as a consequence.

But when lecturers introduced periodic peer-­assessment of the

problem sheets — as a course requirement but without the marks

contributing — students’ exam marks increased dramatically to a level

well above that achieved previously when lecturers did the marking.

What achieved the learning was the quality of student engagement

in learning tasks, not teachers doing lots of marking. The trick

when designing assessment regimes is to generate engagement with

learning tasks without generating piles of marking” (p. 6).

The trick for Boris will be coming up with a peer-assessed periodic review of the periodic table.

Reference

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf