[]1Today I attended my first [UTS
Flipped Learning Action Group (FLAG) meeting]2. These monthly
meetings bring any interested UTS academic staff together to “develop
innovative teaching, learning and assessment practices that use the
strengths of flipped learning.” It’s an exciting area, and UTS is doing
a huge amount (best way I can collate so far is a [site:google for
flipped learning]3). This meeting involved IML Learning
Technologists introducing some technologies they have made use of,
categorised as: * Encouraging active learning and student engagement *
Effective uses of the online space * Alternative uses of video *
Synchronous online learning Very brief overview, people talked about: 1.
UTS is a google domain institution, so using google docs is easy,
integrated, familiar and feature rich. You can set up google communities
through this (or join existing ones) 2. [Verso]4 is an app that
allows you to post resources, and set a question or comment to accompany
the resource – really quick and simple tool to e.g. set a reading/video
and ask a simple question for feedback 3. Producing attractive course
outlines and materials using UTS Online 4. Eportfolios for the
submission of reflective writing; digital submission makes it much
easier to track participation, and gives a gradebook for the
tutor/student as well as a portfolio of work that students can present
externally (with visually pleasing outputs from both) 5. Use of
Blackboard Wiki and Spark (peer assessment tool), e.g. using feedback
from spark peer assessment in group work to motivate exploration of
Wiki-analytics (e.g., seeing whether it is in fact the case that someone
in a group-work assignment didn’t really contribute much). Looks
interesting, would want to explore what data can be pulled out (at the
moment I think it’s number of words modified and pages edited).
[Blackboard’s description of these participation analytics is
online]5. 6. Use of youtube to support sharing videos of students
and experienced nurses talking about reflective practice 7. Richer
notions of video engagement and analytics (beyond clicking on it) toward
that. So eg YouTube let’s you view dropoff rates. Taking it to the next
level, [Zaption]6 analytics let’s you ask questions at particular
stages of a video and gather analytics on these (with full LMS/VLE
integration, and embedability). ([Edpuzzle]7 looks similar and is
completely free) 8. Vlogging and online presentation making with the use
of feedback and discussion boards to build conversation around improving
their videos. 9. Video conferencing, using a Logitech camera that tracks
who’s speaking and moves to focus on them during a Skype/Hangout, etc.
call 10. Moot trail facilitation (in a legal context), and use of
[Appear.in]8 (or similar) simple and free tools to do this. Fun
stuff and great to see the sort of things going on, and the scale of
‘improving things we’re already using’, to one-off or smaller-scale
innovations, and new projects yet to be trialed. I’m particularly
looking forward to exploring the Wiki analytics a bit more (as I’ve
sketched about [before]9), and the Zaption/EdPuzzle potential!
Footnotes
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/static/2015/10/inspiration.jpg ↩
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https://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22flipped+learning%22+site:uts.edu.au ↩
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https://en-us.help.blackboard.com/Learn/9.1_2014_04/Instructor/080_Collaboration/020_Wikis/040_Grading_Wikis ↩
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http://sjgknight.com/finding-knowledge/2013/01/mediawiki-for-learning-analytics/ ↩