For my current class EDU 709, we had to search and present two instances of current innovative uses of technology in the field of education. For my project I focused on finding information that was as current as possible. The first case presented below was found in an educational journal from 2010; the second, which I’ll post next week, was discovered in a July 2011 news article (barely one week old).
Implementation of podcast and clickers in two biology courses at Los Andes University and impact evaluation in the teaching-learning process
1. Reference information
Journal Article by Maria C. Montealegre Ortiz, Diógenes Carvajal, Andrés Holguín Coral, Ricardo Pedraza Barrios, Carlos A. Jaramillo Henao, “Implementation of podcast and clickers in two biology courses at Los Andes University and impact evaluation in the teaching-learning process,” in Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 2 (2010): 1767-1770.
2. A brief description of the case
College professors at Los Andes University desired to offer a unique environment for students taking Immunology and Biology courses. They began by first looking for technology that would suit their needs of creating and capturing video. After this, they explored various audience response systems for classroom use. To gage the impact of their endeavors, surveys were created using a four level agreement/disagreement scale with the middle level eliminated to avoid neutral responses.
Their findings show 95% of their students felt the use of the technology enhanced their learning by helping to support the concepts they were learning.
3. The purpose of the innovation
The primary goal of the educators involved was to make their classes more interesting and dynamic in order to better facilitate learning through increased motivation and interaction.
4. The technology and resources involved
The software utilized in this case pertained to Camtasia in order to record lectures, Turning Point 2008 hosted and captured classroom responses, and the media was all pushed through Blackboard in order to reach the students. Additionally, PowerPoint was extensively utilized to guide the lectures. These slides were included into the class lecture videos and they housed the questions students answered via clickers.
5. What prior skills and knowledge are required of students
Students taking these classes required little knowledge to utilize the technology. The use of Camtasia and Turning Point, was solely on the end of the instructor and using a clicker to answer in-class questions is practically self-explanatory. The only aspect that may require a prior understanding would be accessing Blackboard and installing the class video podcasts on their personal media player.
6. What are students asked to accomplish exactly
Students were asked to first utilize the videos. Second, students were to interact with the lecturer through clickers. And third, in order to gage the effectiveness of the use of technology students were asked to answer a brief questionnaire.
7. What are the procedures of the project
The project consisted of recording each class lecture and making it available for students to access. For this study, the students were asked to use the available media and then following the class were asked to reflect on their experience.
8. What are the advantages of the project
Against the traditional classroom setting, the ability to review an entire lesson is immeasurable in value. Additionally, the implementation of an audience response system into the standard lecture based classroom allows for instant assessment and therefore providing a dynamic aspect to a traditionally linear class. 95% of the students believed that the addition of the videos was an excellent way to reinforce their learning, and it was observed that the audience response system was beneficial to both student and teacher interactivity through the promotion of active and involved participation.
9. What are the disadvantages of the project
While there are no direct disadvantages to the use of technology in the project, I wonder if it could have gone further. Having the ability to view a lecture is a helpful course supplement, yet this feature has little additional merit. I would much rather have the students use Camtasia to create their own learning projects.
10. What types of effective instructional strategies are included
This case study outlines four pedagogical practices that aided the learning process:
- Continuous connections over the entire semester. Teachers were able to better connect each class period with the previous and following classes due to the recorded classes.
- Teachers were able to take more interest in student learning than in previous settings. The addition of technology allowed for an enhanced interest in the student learning process. Concepts that were unclear could be tackled practically immediately; this resulted in an increase in teacher motivation.
- The use of real world situations. Quizzes and tests took on the role of reinforcing the learning process through the application of class topics presented in real world situations. Teachers were no longer testing knowledge, but actual application of that knowledge.
- The teacher became a dynamic performer. Under this technology teachers were finding that they had to deliberately and consciously perform to the topic. By this, they realized that their voiced inflections and physical actions were just as important as what they were saying.
