A New Teaching Experience

Morgane and eCommunications: Describe and assess a technology (with Powerpoint)

2006-08-27T14:08:00.000+10:00

Morgane and eCommunications: Describe and assess a technology (with Powerpoint)

This a very constructive and comprehensive post, Morgane. Well thought through and very considered. To answer the question you put to me on Saturday, it is certainly worth publishing in The Power of eCommunication. With a long post such as this, with interesting insights and reflections, it is worthwhile publishing in the more public blog as well. You may get interesting comments not only from the class but also from other people.
The point you make about the overload of information is a very common problem and I think everyone can relate to it; I experience this myself everytime I have to finalise the content of a seminar or other activity, it seems you reach a point where it becomes difficult to stay focused on the objective of the task. It is a lot easier to keep accumulating content and avoid making a selection. I myself always attempt to cover too much in seminars and it is not easy to limit yourself to a manageable amount of materials. But the value is in the selection so it is worth going through the agony...

Regarding the recording of the commentary, having a script helps structure content however you can't be slave to the script and, as you said, reading the script results in a boring delivery with flat and unnatural intonation. I believe the answer is in the middle ground: it's better to have a script containing only the key points and then formulate your sentences on the fly; the flow is then natural and the audience feels you are talking to them.

The short youTube video on blogs and BBC News article are very relevant resources for presenting, and reflecting on, blogs. The BBC article especially would make a great post on The Power of eCommunication.

Comment on Leo's post "Sth abt the Web2.0"

2006-08-27T07:51:00.000+10:00

Leo's sPaCe: Sth abt the Web2.0

Thank you for your post, Leo. Don't worry too much about the last seminar. I hope watching the recording helped, if you have any question about what was discussed in the seminar, ask me and/or the class in your blog or Moodle. I am looking forward to your presentation next Wednesday on Flickr and youTube. Your reference to how you use Flickr to share photos with your girlfriend is a great example that gives a real life dimension to the technology. Are you going to show the class how you can publish photos privately? I am sure everyone will be interested in this feature of Flickr.

I have chosen to comment on your post from within my blog, just to show how links can be developed between blogs (use the 'BlogThis!' button, see http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41469). I will also post a comment in your blog that will refer to this entry, just to complete the loop...

Online presentations & third seminar on August 16th

2006-08-17T21:01:00.000+10:00

Your online presentations, Morgane, Emilio and Indri, were good.

It is not easy to create an interesting and informative presentation with only a few slides and a voice commentary on a screen, but the combination can be a powerful tool.

Structure is essential. Because it really is a short 'film', with a screen and an audience, it needs to be planned and in some way scripted (especially when you only have three slides to play with). Each slide should have a "theme", such as 'setting the scene/describing the main function and features', giving examples/illustration, and finally 'assessing the value/social impact', and you all did this, each of your slides had a clear purpose.

The other essential element, when you describe something online, is to incorporate visuals so that viewers can understand the concept and follow the verbal explanation. Text and speech will not be enough to contextualise unknown and/or complex tools or concepts; screenshots showing the tool/environment are necessary for people to fully understand the commentary.

Appealing examples also give substance to the presentation and help create understanding and interest in the topic; Morgane's example of the young Iraki woman's blog was a great example that gave reality to the concept of blog and illustrated the social dimension of blogs.

Finally it is better to have minimum text on the slides and just highlight the main ideas with the text on the page so that the structure of the presentation is clear but viewers are not divided between reading and listening to the commentary. Details can be given orally around the points listed on the page.

These, for me, would be the major points to concentrate on. Let me know if you agree/disagree and which other points you would also emphasize.

That was a great first effort, which will be a really useful experience for your future podcast creation.

Regarding the seminar, I agree with you, Emilio, that it was too heavy in terms of number of presentations and technologies presented. My aim was to get everyone started with 'online media production' and the experience of an online presentation before the workshop and the first podcast production. I will make sure that the next seminars are not so busy in content, and more paced.

Please give me more feedback, it is extremely useful to me; ultimately this is what the course is about: to find the best way to discover eCommunication technologies through the process of using these technologies to communicate and share understandings and reflections.

Teaching synchronously

2006-08-05T19:15:00.000+10:00

I am using Breeze to give real-time seminars in a course about the use of e-communications in education. This is a new experience and I feel both lecturers and students have a lot to learn when using these new ways of teaching and learning. The potential for remote and mobile learning is enormous.

What I have learnt from this experience so far:

1. In the first seminar, I expected that the synchronous session would be a verbal 'interaction'. I made the mistake of wanting everyone to have the possibility of speaking at any time, which meant that I gave everyone the status of 'presenter'. As a consequence I was expecting feedback from students, so I asked questions and waited for answers, which resulted in long pauses, and a 'broken rhythm'.

2. I now think that everyone should remain a 'participant' (ie. without speaking input and screen control) during the times where content is presented. Students can be elevated to 'presenter' when a precise task requiring verbal input and/or screen control has been set. Ideally tasks should be prepared in advance so students are ready to contribute.

2. The chat should be used for input from the class; this should be the main way for students to reply to questions, or ask questions. The presenter should acknowledge students' input in the chat and verbally address the chat content. This doesn't mean that all chat postings need to be acknowledged by the presenter, students should be allowed to have conversations between themselves and the presenter should let them know that from the start.

3. The presentation should be broken down into small activities, such as polls, quizzes, short student presentations, to create a vibrant succession of formal presentation and student activities.

4. I need to script the presentation a lot more closely so there is no dead times. This means that the sessions will be highly structured, and they may feel a bit contrived, and could lack spontaneity.

In the following weeks, I will consider the best ways to make students act as 'presenters' and organise group activities on-line. The challenge is to have a rich and varied session, with everyone's input, but still highly structured and without too many pauses or slow times.

For this approach to succeed I will need students' full involvement and engagement, and I am very interested in their reactions and comments on the seminars, and potential improvements to them.