Several years ago a couple of our students initiated the idea of how to get more interaction going within a course and set up the company FeedbackFruits to develop this idea. Delft University of Technology is developing its online and blended education rapidly and in online teaching, student interaction is as important as teaching offline, and perhaps even more important. Together with our Education and Student Affairs, FeedbackFruits has developed a platform to help teachers activate their students by stimulating the discussion of course-related topics and files within the course. The Dialog and Share tool will help our teachers to interact more with their students. The share tool enables academics to share study material with like-minded people from around the world. With more and more useful study material becoming available online, the share tool can help facilitate a lively discussion about the material between the students and in turn helps them create an online study community. Users have the opportunity to see shared study material, rate and/or structure it and take part in the discussion. The share can be among students, but if the teacher joins the discussion, he can show students which information is useful for the course and which is not, or even which information is incorrect. The idea for this tool originated from a TU Delft student posting his class notes and summaries online, which in turn were getting many views from all over the world. His notes helped a lot of students passing courses on similar subjects. This motivated the student to improve his notes more and more. The Dialog tool streamlines and optimises communication between students and teachers. Students can easily ask questions, share compliments, complaints and suggestions on lectures in an open and transparent manner. Students can learn from each other’s questions and access a list of FAQs on the course. It also allows students to share their study experience, so teachers can easily find ways to improve their courses and thereby increase students’ engagement. The FeedbackFruits tools are available online and integrated in Blackboard by means of a Building Block. This Building Block shares your course enrollments through a secure connection so you can easily access the Share or Dialog page within the FeedbackFruits environment from your course. A reaction on the tool from one of our teachers involved with the pilot project: “FeedbackFruits is a very promising communication and exchange platform, which stimulates the interaction between teacher and students in and outside the classroom, and also between students themselves.” Dr.ir. Remon M. Rooij Assistant Professor, Delft University of Technology. We have received a lot of positive feedback on the tool from both students and teachers, and in our presentation we would like to share our experiences on using the FeedbackFruits tools in our online and campus education.

1. FeedbackFruits and
increasing student-teacher
interaction in your course
Klara Ashley Bonder
& Ellen Zillig-Straatman
Delft University of Technology

2. Ellen Zillig-Straatman MSc
Delft University of Technology
Shared Service Center ICT
Education Technology
– Functional System Administrator BB
– Project Leader Blackboard for Online
Education (BB4OE)
E.H.M.Zillig-Straatman@TUDelft.NL
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3. Klara Ashley Bonder MA
Delft University of Technology
Shared Service Center
Information Management -
Education and Student Affairs
– Functional System Administrator BB
K.A.Bonder@TUDelft.NL
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4. Outline
• How does you institute increase interaction between student-
teacher? (FBF LIVE)
• Didactic background & research
• FeedbackFruits: introduction & background
• Functionalities of FBF (screencast)
• Usage of FBF at the Delft University of Technology
– Thomas Klos
• Building block
• Other specifications
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5. Didactic background & research (1)
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• Typically a flipped classroom consists of 3 main elements:
– The teacher responds to questions that students still have after doing the homework.
– Students do concrete problem solving and decision making activities.
– Leverage the power of students teaching each other.
• The main in-class elements in the classroom are engaging activities.
– Using assistive technology to allow students to respond and give feedback instruction
sessions.
– maximizes available time with the instructor and focus on the higher order thinkingskills.
– Compare to a traditional setting in which students need time for note taking and
repeating information.
• An online setting changes student’s participation patterns.
– In face to face situations there are usually a few that dominate the discussion, while in an
online setting all peers contribute more equally to the discussion. (Zheng-Warschawer, p. 80)
– Dynamics shift from a teacher dominant discussion to one in which student-student
interaction is improved as they become constructors of knowledge. (Zheng-Warschawer, p. 85)

6. Didactic background & research (2)
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• Once students are familiar with the online setting, discussions between
peers –without the instructor's intervention-:
– can be just as complex and evolving,
– as multiple aspects are discussed as in depth,
– and can involve the same sustained attention to the discussion as in a face-to-face
situation can. (Park et.al., p.326-327)
• The teacher as an E-moderator:
– Teaching presence seems to be a significant determinate of student satisfaction.
– The instructor has a role as an expert answering questions, but also being ‘present’ and
responding to contributions.
– Even comments by that don’t seem to add value, will still show students that you are there
monitoring/guiding the discussion. (Salmon, ch.4)

7. FeedbackFruits: Introduction & Background
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8. 8

9. 9
"FeedbackFruits is a very promising communication and exchange platform, which
stimulates the interaction between teacher and students in and outside the class room,
and also between students themselves."
Dr.ir. Remon M. Rooij Assistant Professor, Delft University of Technology.

10. Functionalities of FBF
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11. Functionalities of FBF
Connect
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12. Functionalities of FBF
Dialog & Share
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13. Functionalities of FBF
Live
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14. Usage of FBF at the Delft University of Technology
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• New teachers receive
didactic training on
effectively implementing
FBF in their courses.
• One teacher charted exam
results for his courses with
and without the use of FBF

15. Thomas Klos Assistant professor Algorithmics
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16. Other specifications
• Usage specs.
– 80 courses at the TU Delft are using FBF
– 3500 students
– FBF has 1500 unique visitors each day
– 300 interactions with FBF per day
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17. Building Block
• First version
– Developed on our servers (BB 9.1 SP11)
– Link to FeedbackFruits in the course
– Courses created based on our Course Administration System
– New Courses added automatically when first visited from BB
• Current version (version 1.4.3)
– FeedbackFruits is embedded in the course
– Courses created with their unique ID, instead of the course name
– New Courses added automatically when first visited from BB
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18. Building Block (version 1.4.3)
• Installation is easy
– WAR file
– API Key
• Authentication via our University Login using SURF Connect
• Blackboard SSO
• All information is stored on the FBF servers, not in BB
• FBF does not send information back to BB
• We did a security check on the Building Block and the
connection is secure
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19. Building Block (version 1.4.3) – Shared Information
– Shared Information
• User information
• UserID
• Name
• E-Mail Address
– Enrolled Courses
• Course_id
• Course name
• Course Description
• Locale (language pack)
• Course start date
• Course end date
• Course role (of the user in that course)
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20. Do you have any questions?
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21. References
• Park, J.H., D.L. Schallert & et.al., “Does it matter if the teacher is there?: A teacher's
contribution to emerging patterns of interactions in online classroom discussions”,
Computers & Education, 82, March 2015, 315-328.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.11.019.
• Salmon, G. E-moderating (3rd. ed.). New York: Routledge, 2011.
• Zheng, B. & M. Warschauer, “Participation, interaction, and academic achievement in
an online discussion environment”, Computers & Education, 84, May 2015, 78-89.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.01.008.
• Graphics:
– ©FeedbackFruits, 2015.
– Screencasts made with Kaltura.
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22. Contact info
• Klara Ashley Bonder
– TU Delft/ Shared Service Centre Information Management - Education
and Student Affairs
 K.A.Bonder@tudelft.nl
• Ellen Zillig-Straatman
– TU Delft / Shared Service Centre ICT – Education Technology
 E.H.M.Zillig-Straatman@tudelft.nl
• For more information on FeedbackFruits, please talk to Casper
Hügel (casperhugel@feedbackfruits.com) here at the
conference, or email: we@feedbackfruits.com.
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