Mid-semester Reflection

As I near the middle of the semester, I feel it's important to look back on what I've learned so far in my Face-to-face and Online Learning course.  In this post I'm going to first discuss how this course has inspired me as a teacher and second, I'll discuss some things that I've noticed about my  use of e-mail.

Online Learning as Inspiration

I will admit I was quite intimidated by this whole 'online learning' idea when this semester began. I've never been one to use a lot of technology, especially in the classroom (except for the occasional PowerPoint or video).  However, I've found that some educational software such as Wimba and Elluminate are pretty user-friendly and fun to use as well.  Most importantly, using this software has inspired me as a teacher.  I've already been trying to think of ways to use not only Wimba, but some of the other tools on Blackboard in the classroom.  I may never teach a course that is entirely online, but I think it will benefit me and my students if I start using these tools more.  Today's students are a lot different than students 10 years ago.  Teachers who have been teaching for quite awhile have a hard time understanding this fact.  They also have a hard time changing their methods of instruction because they are comfortable with traditional methods.  As instructors, we need to be open to new ideas and ways of teaching.   Since we are dealing with students that have grown up in a technology focused era, we should start using more technology in the classroom.  

 "Of course I know how to effectively use e-mail...err...maybe not so much..."

So, I will admit that I may e-mail a bit too often.  I can't help it, "My name is Katie Rasmussen and I'm addicted to e-mailing". I e-mail the students on my speech team at least once every other day (they include updates, reminder, etc.). Some people may not think that this is too much, but I also have to admit that my e-mails can be pretty long.  Since they are so long, I don't think my students read them, which is a problem since they contain really important information. Perhaps I need to make these e-mails less overwhelming and make them shorter. 

Also, I've come to the realization that I may need to work on my e-mail etiquette.  I don't think I'm horrible, but I noticed when I was working with Julie on our assignments how great she was with adding such an excited AND genuine tone to her messages (thanks, Julie!).  I'm always afraid of coming across as corny or fake - this is something I will be working on...

Elluminate Observations (for those wanting to read about my Wimba experience, it is posted below this one)

I've been quite busy this evening! I had my first online class using Wimba and then an hour later I had my first experience using Elluminate.  IVHS met on Elluminate for class this evening (the group I am F.I.T.-ing for).  Here are a few things I thought about/noticed during this session. 

1. Having a moderator AND a facilitator during a session seems to be very effective.   While the facilitator is speaking/lecturing the moderator can answer any questions the students are asking in the chat box.  This seems to save a lot of time.

2. Along with the above comment, when students ask a question in the chat box, another student can simply answer it instead of the facilitator having to stop and answer the question.  Again, this saves a lot of time. I'm sure it also makes the student feel good about themselves when they feel like they have helped out or contributed to the class in some way. 

3. It was interesting to see the students work on a problem together.  It took them awhile to start contributing/get organized, but in the end they came up with something together. It was just interesting observing the process of a group working together online.  

4. Jim (the facilitator) did a great job of getting the students back on track when they were starting to chat about random things in the chat box.  He simply told them that they needed to focus on the question at hand. This is something I didn't witness earlier this evening in my Wimba class (probably because the Wimba session was full of mature adults).

5.  I really liked how Jim asked the class to state one thing that they learned at the end of the class.  This is something I will definitely ask my students in the future.  

6. Finally, something else I noticed was when I said something to the class (at the end when class was over and everyone was just sticking around bantering back and forth) I noticed that the conversation kind of stopped for a bit.  It was as if the students were like "Who is this and why is she talking?"  However, I could be totally wrong about what their silence really meant. 

Overall, it was all very interesting.  

My First Online Class Session!

 I had a lot of fun this evening using Wimba for the first time. The session our IT 7130 class had with Dr. Keller (who did a fabulous job) was my first ever online class session.  I just wanted to take the time and note some things that struck me as interesting.  

1. I was really weary of typing anything in the chat box while Dr. Kellar was speaking.  I'm guessing that this is appropriate since others were doing this.  I guess I was apprehensive because I thought of it as interrupting the teacher or talking over the teacher while in a face-to-face setting.

2. I was worried about when people could see me on the video.  I figured out though, that unless you are set as the default speaker, you will not be seen by others. However, I'm still wondering if the instructor has the power to see you whenever they want. 

3. Since this was my first time in a real-time online class session, it took me awhile to get comfortable with it all.  For the first 10 minutes it was very hard to get into 'learning mode' since I'm in my living room.  This was unexpected.  I didn't think that was going to be as much of an issue as it was.  I'm sure that this will get easier the more I use Wimba or any other kind of synchronous learning.

4. Trying to type out my questions got me a little anxious.  I knew that I could hit the 'talk' button instead and just say the question, but I was really nervous about doing that with this being my first time.  I typed one question for Dr. Keller in the chat box, but after I wrote it I found that I didn't really care for the question.  I think I should have phrased it as a rhetorical question instead.  

5. Adding on to number 4, when Dr. Keller asked a question it made me think about Dr. Barbour and how he stressed the importance of giving enough time for students to respond.  It took me awhile to come up with even my poorly phrased question.  

In general, using Wimba was a lot of fun.  I'm wondering if the Communication Department would allow me to set up a class for our Speech Team on Blackboard so that we can use Wimba to our advantage.  We have students who live 20 - 30 minutes away and I think it would be great to use this for mini-coaching sessions.  For instance, when I'm trying to walk them through the speech writing process.  

So, I think my first online class was a success! Anyone else want to share any thoughts about how the session went?

Thinking about Keller's ARCS Model

The first time I heard about Keller's ARCS Model was actually 3 or 4 weeks ago in my Strategies for Teaching Higher Education class.  While most Education or IT folks might think that the fact that I had never heard of this until then is crazy, please remember that I'm a Communication student.  

The woman in my class gave a brief teaching demonstration about the ARCS model and as an in-class exercise did a quick analysis of my students' motivation in my Intro to Public Speaking class and demonstrated where they likely fell on the model/scale(?).  The results were quite depressing.  Since my class is a required class, many of my students who major in anything dealing with science, math or computers have a hard time believing that my class is relevant to them.  Also, their confidence is rather low (or for some, non-existent).  As you can imagine, public speaking scares most students.  As Jerry Seinfeld once stated, "People would rather be the one dead than the one giving the eulogy".  Many students feel like they have nothing important to say, that other people will think they are stupid, or that they will just plain forget what they were going to talk about.   Satisfaction seems to be low as well.  It is hard for my students to have positive feelings about learning how to speak publicly when many of them feel like they have to throw up when they stand in front of everyone.  As the instructor, I feel like any kind of positive reinforcement I give to them after they perform is canceled out by the negative psychological feelings or physiological pain they are enduring when they are performing. So, since many of my students don't see how the class is relevant, have low confidence in doing well and feel little satisfaction from the course, I feel my ability to gain their attention or to get them excited about an assignment is hindered.  

One of the questions I asked Dr. Keller dealt with the issues I presented above.  I basically asked him: What if the reasons for a student not being motivated are out of the instructors control?  

Tonight we will be meeting with Dr. Keller online and maybe he will address my question.  I will make sure to give an update on his presentation as well as how I felt using WIMBA for the first time! Wish me luck!

Critical Pedagogy and Online Learning: Reflections on My Facilitation

This week I got to facilitate on Critical Pedagogy and Online Learning.  I'm quite familiar with critical pedagogy, but I'm still trying to learn more about online learning in general. So I figured I would combine something I knew pretty well with something I don't and see what happens.  

Doing this presentation really made me think of the benefits and problems online learning could introduce.  Something I didn't get a chance to mention was the fact that there are still people who do not have access to computers.  This can be problematic for those who are in classes where the instructor requires them to do certain assignments online or are required to take an online class in order to complete their degree.  While more and more people own computers and most libraries allow free public access to computer labs, this is not the case everywhere.  So, as Holt (1998) pointed out, that there are economic and structural factors that we need to consider.  People who adhere to critical pedagogy do not want to see lower-income folks left in the dark (even more so than right now).  However, this is not to say that we should just do away with online learning, but we need more funding for public libraries for computer labs and so that they can update the technology/software for these computers.  

I think overall, the facilitation went okay.  However, I think that my topic was difficult to cover in 15 - 20 minutes (I'm taking into consideration that the activity was 10 - 15 minutes long).  However (yes, there is a 'however' to my other 'however'), I think that everyone should be introduced to critical pedagogy and that was really my main goal.  If I were to do this again though I would have done more research on andragogy.  Perhaps critical pedagogy scholars should consider 'critical andragogy' instead, since most of what I've read has discussed college students and critical pedagogy.  Obviously college students are adult learners.  Something else I could have worked on was asking the students questions during my presentation, but this was difficult to do because there was a lot of material I wanted to cover before moving into my activity.  I will say that I think I did a good job of presenting on something new and different, something that not everyone has heard/read about.  

I look forward to the rest of the presentations this semester.  I've learned a lot so far.  I already have some ideas of how to 'spice up' my public speaking class the next time I teach it and other classes that I might get a chance to teach later on  (for instance, Small Group Theory).