Jean-Claude Bradley presents on the use of smartphones, wikis and games for educational applications at a Drexel University Faculty Showcase on November 12, 2010.
Jean-Claude Bradley presents on the use of smartphones, wikis and games for educational applications at a Drexel University Faculty Showcase on November 12, 2010.
Smartphones wikis and games for educationPresentation Transcript
Using Smartphones, Wikis and Games for Teaching Jean-Claude Bradley E-Learning Coordinator College of Arts and Sciences Associate Professor of Chemistry Drexel University November 12, 2010 Drexel Faculty Technology Showcase 2010
So many tools … so little time blogs free online textbooks recorded lectures (e.g. podcasts, screencasts, videos) wikis CMS (e.g. Blackboard) free course content (e.g. OpenCourseWare) clickers games virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life)
Smartphones: the new “thing”
Smartphones are becoming popular
Smartphone Demographics
Smartphone Advantages for Education
Nearly ubiquitous access to the internet via 3G networks
Affordable unlimited data plans encourage experimentation
The most portable mobile device (pocket sized)
Smartphone Disadvantages for Education
Not all students currently carry them
Text-rich assignments are inconvenient
Whether an application will work on a specific smartphone is unpredictable (i.e. Flash, Java, etc.) – even YouTube videos don’t always display
Examples of Smartphone Educational Applications
Recorded Lectures
ChemTiles Game
What is the best use of your time as a teacher?
Lecturing?
Manual grading?
Discussion groups?
Posting to a blog?
Motivating?
What are your objectives?
Increasing the baseline understanding of the average student?
Helping the best students actualize their potential?
Screencasting: easy solution for recording lectures
CHEM 241 89 students CHEM 243 64 students Student Response to Screencasting: Attendance
Student Response to Screencasting: Usage Patterns
Some students get ahead and watch lectures several times
Some students wait for night before test and try to cram
Most students fall in between and appreciate a suggested timeline
Podcasting/vodcasting an archived course not convenient
I recommend downloading a zip of all recordings safest
However with smartphones on demand Flash may be best
Best use of Class Time Mainly repeating lectures Mainly workshops One-on-one mentoring Doing problems Games
Wikis A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.
Educational Uses of Wikis
Organizing course content
Student assignments
Student generated content
Easy to make content public and rapidly indexed on Google
Example: Chemical Information Retrieval FA09 (CHEM367/767)
Use of Web2.0 Tools for Sharing Recorded Lectures
Technical Note for Camtasia 7 and Web2.0 Hosting
For highest resolution and small file size select FLV – highest quality option at 3 fps (1 or 2 fps generates an error)
Most video hosting services do not accept FLV but SciVee does
For short recordings (<10 mins) other formats (m4v, AVI, etc.) are fine and can be uploaded to YouTube
Students participate to collect resources
Assignments
Article summaries on Web2.0 site
Student Research Logs: DMT
Green Tea Project
Chemistry of Chocolate
Students generate course content
SiteMeter to discover content use
Students curate data on ChemSpider
Five Sources for the solubility of EGCG
=2.3 g/L Students expose unreliability of “trusted sources”
The Chemical Information Validation Sheet
The Chemical Information Validation Explorer (Andrew Lang)
Student Response to Class Wikis
Some students do extra credit assignments (ChemSpider curation, multimedia component, Acawiki) and add resources
Some students do only the minimum required of assignments
Most students fall in between
Most students kept research logs and used feedback (reported progress/asked questions) Almost all students used their real names
Open Wikis in Laboratory Research
Motivation: Faster Science, Better Science
There are NO FACTS, only measurements embedded within assumptions Open Notebook Science maintains the integrity of data provenance by making assumptions explicit
Gideon Burton