What do you learn from this online class? Describe your learning experience briefly.
I really enjoy learning this course, and learned a lot of experiences. I like the content of the course, the content of the weekly reading materials combined with weekly questions for the discussion. Each question for discussion has practical meaning in teaching. I appreciate the blog feature of sharing. I will try to create my own teaching blog, use more educational technology tools to teach. In this course, I learned a lot of effective tools, such as Blackboard Collaborate, Seesaw and so on, practical techniques and useful experiences. I also learned how to design an online course and how to build a tutorial website. I continue to think about how to effectively apply the instructional technology to teaching. It has a great significance for my future study and work. I also like the teaching style in this course. We communicated with our group members for each discussion. In project one, we studied on the tools selected by others, and then we chose a new tool for our own study. By the end of the course, we can design and complete our own tutorial website and design our own online courses. This course allows me to have an in-depth understanding of the online curriculum and learning. By reading the learning materials, I recognized a lot of advanced educational concepts. For example, Flipped Classroom and the interactive thread learning. I will connect what I have learned with my own teaching experience, which let me have a further idea of teaching and learning. I am glad to have learned many effective tools and experiences in this course and met nice group members. I am happy to learn and communicate with them. What were your weak and strong points? Support your arguments with details. I think my advantage is that I can connect what I have learned with the teaching practice. Because I have three years of teaching experience, I always link reading materials and questions with my teaching experience. The purpose of learning is to apply it to practice. My weak point is obvious that this is my first time taking an online class and I have no experience of creating a website. I felt a little nervous when I have group work with group members in BB. Thanks to our group members who are very friendly and nice, which made me feel relaxed. Another weak point is that I can’t manage my time efficiently for commenting my group members’ posts timely. How did you like the interaction between you and your peers, you and instructor? Explain in detail. Provide examples if necessary. I think I had great interactions with my group members and my instructor. We had meetings with Blackboard Collaborate on a schedule that worked for each group member. Our group members are very nice so the discussions within our group were very harmonious. In addition to the discussion on the Blackboard Collaborate, we usually have real-time group chat with GroupMe in order to have more convenient and efficient discussion. We always sent reminders that we had updated our post. We reminded each other to submit and comment, and update the project process in the group. I enjoyed working with my group members. Dr. Wang sent weekly announcements about feedback on our assignments and the requirements for the next week, which made us have a clear weekly study. I usually send messages to ask Dr. Wang my questions, she always gives me timely and effective answers. Because I live close to campus, I can go to Dr. Wang's office to ask questions. Dr. Wang always answered me patiently. I really appreciate my instructor’s guidance and help on this course. Reflect on the communication tools used in this class: email, discussion board, chat room, Voice Board, living classroom, and blog. Which tool did you use most, why? From your experience, explain the advantages and disadvantages of each communication tool. Provide examples if necessary. Email: I didn’t have the habit of checking e-mail before I came to the United States. The teachers and friends around me used email to contact me. Therefore, I became used to checking email every day. Our instructor sent weekly announcement via email, and group members also sent the discussion points via email. I found that e-mail is a convenient asynchronous communication tool but it still has the disadvantage of asynchronous communication. For instance, if someone didn’t view the email timely, you will not get the feedback in time. Discussion board: The discussion board can save the published posts, which we can view and comment conveniently. But because I rarely used it for discussion, I did not view the information timely. It doesn’t allow real-time interaction. I also found that if I sent information via email I would get feedback more quickly than via discussion board. Blackboard Collaboration: This is the first time that I used Blackboard Collaboration and I really liked it. It is easy to use and has effective communication features. To solve the issue of physical distance, we can have video and audio conference with Blackboard Collaboration. Especially, I like the white board sharing feature, we can show our own screens to share resources. It is an efficient feature. Blog: We use blog to show our assignments, so classmates can view and comment on each other’s posts. Blog links can be convenient for us to access to others’ posts at any time. I think that blog plays a significant role in sharing information in this course. My most commonly used tool is email and blog. My favorite tool is the blog because every week on the blog we share the assignments, and comment on other members’ posts. I really like the blog sharing function. It gave me great inspiration to continue to build a blog about ideas of education, save more of my thinking and share them with others. How helpful did you think the group work in this class was? Explain why? I think the group work is helpful in this course, because all the questions need to be discussed in group in this course. Group members discuss and exchange ideas with each other in group. We communicate constantly to share experiences and ideas on researching a communication tool. From either project one or project two, each group member can learn five communication tools in the shortest time, which is the outcome of cooperation and group work. A group leader is important in a group. Our group leader, KC fully displayed his leadership ability. And we had joyful communication and cooperation in our group. The group work made me hear more different ideas and learn more useful tools. Suggestions for the instructor to consider in the future. I really like the design, the content and structural settings of this course. The contents and structure of the course are very effective. I have learned a lot of useful things in this course. My suggestion is to continue to maintain the resources and structure of this course.
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Reflect your learning experiences on creating your tutorial course site This is my first time to create a tutorial site. I really like this type of project. It will stimulate me to get more in-depth understanding of the tool I studied and gained a lot of experience in creating website. Because I use Weebly in my blog, this time I want to use a different site. I choose Wix site, whose function is very similar to Weebly site. I choose WeChat as the tool researched on. It is a free and efficient synchronous communication tool. My site mainly used green and white colors, which is the theme color of WeChat. Whether it is from the layout design or text description, I try to design it in a useful and clear way, and convenient to view. So that we can quickly find the information we want to search on my website. In the process of making WeChat tutorial website, I did a lot of research to understand its functions. Although I use WeChat every day, but I also found some new features of WeChat that I didn’t know before. For example, use video and voice chat in a group chat, which is not in the version of WeChat that I used but in the latest version. The app is constantly being updated, so we should not stay with the previous version forever. If you update the app timely you will be surprised by the new features. However, I did encounter some issues in the process of making my website. My group leader has recommended me an efficient computer screen recording software. But I found that the functions of computer version WeChat are not as powerful as mobile phone version. So, I decided to record the mobile version. I have never recorded video tutorial on my phone. There are a lot of screen recording software can be used directly in Android system, but not as much free apps on the IOS platform. I find the solutions by searching online and find that it can be downloaded by safari search engine. In addition, recording video need to be uploaded to YouTube and then linked to my website, but YouTube has time limit on the length of video being uploaded. Therefore, long video cannot upload directly. I found this problem can be solved after verifying my account with my email address. I don’t know whether you have encountered the similar problems, but I hope that can give you some tips about these problems. In general, the process of creating my website is relatively smooth. Creating a website need to do a lot of preparation work, I gained a lot of experiences and skills from designing my tutorial site. WeChat tutorial site:
yanqingliu2017.wixsite.com/it648wechat In my opinion, designing online courses require doing much more things than traditional courses do. Teachers need to consider a lot of things. In the online teaching environment, teachers and students have geographical distance. As instructor, the teacher will distribute the learning resources to students, optimize the process of students' self-learning, and increase the depth and width of students’ thinking.
First of all, teachers should determine the syllabus. To outline the content, system, scope and testing standards of the course. Course syllabus provides the course goals and the course content which provides an important basis for the preparation of online courses. And then the teacher can decide the specific teaching content and activity according to the syllabus. It is helpful for students to understand the entire course setting. Teaching content adopts text, sound, images, video and other forms of expression, such as text description, audio and teaching video. Course content should be designed to integrate the interactive teaching to stimulate students in the learning process to participate and think actively. For the more difficult knowledge point, teachers can take fully advantage of multimedia to keep students interested in learning, to facilitate students’ better understanding. Teachers also can provide relevant referential materials links to broaden the knowledge of students. Teachers can adjust teaching activities and testing standards based on the implementation of multimedia. Because teachers understand the course content better. Teachers should know what problems that beginners are likely to encounter in the learning process. Therefore, teachers should list those questions and their answers in the Q & A section. In this way, when learners encounter similar problems they can get quick answers from the Q & A section, which will eliminate many obstacles in the learning process, and reduce the amount of work that teachers need to answer questions in the teaching process. I believe this will effectively reduce the time for students to get answers. Besides, it is necessary to continuous update the curriculum, to develop a complete unit, a series of tests, and to optimize the curriculum design based on users’ experience. Because of the huge amount of information in online courses, it is necessary to design clear and effective navigation system to guide students to learn effectively. The major components, I believe, of a good online course platform is very important. Platforms such as blackboard is very helpful. In addition, a clear home page design is easier for students to browse the course resources. The course resource folder, discussion board, assignments folder and announcements which provide teacher’s feedback are also indispensable part of the online course. Of course, this also requires a complete evaluation system and Q & A section. I think Web 2.0 tools play an important role in the design of online courses. I will use web 2.0 tools in my online course. I will use blog as a platform for discussion, such as Weebly and other free websites. Students will experience a positive communication during learning. Blackboard collaboration is an excellent choice for online course design. It is a powerful online course design platform. It has a lot of handy features for students to have interactive learning. In addition, I will choose WeChat instant messaging tool as my optional online course tool. I believe that utilizing both asynchronous and synchronous communication tools can promote the communication and interactive learning among students. Based on your own experiences of using different Web 2.0 tools in the past few weeks, describe the common features of Web 2.0 tools, how you can integrate them into your teaching area so as to create a friendly online learning environment, help online content delivery and assessment.
Web 2.0 tools are easy to use. Web 2.0 website content is usually released by individual users, which provide users with more opportunities. It can provide users with content collection, creation, distribution, sharing and cooperation and other functions of the platform. These human-oriented designs make the operation more handy. In addition, Web 2.0 is more interactive. For instance, blog, wiki and other tools can have a positive effect in the interaction between teachers and students. The Web 2.0 interaction is not only reflected in the interaction between the network servers, but also in the interaction among different users on the same website, as well as in the exchange of information between different sites, which makes the learning more interactive. Web 2.0 tools focus on the exchange of learning among users to promote their learning motivation, so as to cultivate them to become active learners. We 2.0 tools have the characteristics of collaboration and communication, which is convenient for user-friendly cooperation. For example, many web 2.0 tools that we have learned to use have instant communication function. The integration of web 2.0 into teaching can provide an effective communication platform for teaching. It can break the restriction of time and location, change the traditional face-to-face communication model, so that the communication among students and that between students and teachers can happen without such limitation. Thus, it will greatly promote students' interactive learning and active learning. For example, when we are conducting a group discussion we do not have to meet in person to discuss and cooperate on the assignment. Students can use different Web 2.0 communication tools for team cooperative learning. Teachers can use blogs and other tools to integrate learning resources to facilitate students to learn, so that students avoid wandering around during the search process. The integration of web 2.0 in education can promote the learning model of distance education, which is of great significance to the teaching model. Web 2.0 has made the traditional Internet become more automated and humanized, at the same time it brings a new way of thinking and a means of change to our teaching practices. I have chosen WeChat as my free online communication tool. WeChat is the most popular messaging and social medium app in China, which is like Facebook or WhatsApp in America. The users can use e-mail account, QQ account or mobile phone number to register WeChat account. After registration, if you synchronize your mobile phone number you can find your friends who use the WeChat to add s/he as friends in WeChat. In addition, you can also scan other's WeChat QR code or search WeChat account to add friends. WeChat has two methods of logging in: mobile version and web version. Web version need mobile phones to scan QR code to log in. WeChat has very powerful functions. As long as you have access to Wi-Fi or data, you can have all of these features: voice chat, group chat, Moments, free voice call and video call. You can send text message, voice message and video message to your friends for free. Every user of WeChat has a profile page (Moments), you can show text, photos, videos and links of posts or videos on it and you also can comment others'. I have had the experience of using WeChat in my class, which I have mentioned in my blog in Week 4 post. WeChat can be used in classroom in many ways. Firstly, WeChat can create group chat with people who are not even your friends. Teachers can create class group to share useful learning material resources with WeChat. Students can create different team group chat. They could discuss in the group chat by text, audio and video messages. It facilitated the emotional communication with each other. Parents also can create a group chat. It is convenient to communicate with teachers and parents and get the notification and announcements from school. WeChat can better connect students, teachers and parents. Secondly, WeChat can add different official accounts. For instance, when students search Education in the search box, there will be a lot of official accounts about education. Then, students can focus on one of the official accounts that they are interested in. Teachers also can recommend some useful official accounts to students. Thirdly, teachers use group chat or Moments to publish preview tasks and learning instruction. Students can get learning content in advance to make a preview through the group chat or Moments, so that students learn the knowledge better. WeChat Can further promote the flipped classroom. Fourth, after class, each group learns the task and creates their own group, and can invite the teacher into the group to detect students learning problems timely. Teachers can appropriately answer the questions of learning. Fifth, the Moments is like a personal display platform. Students can post their own learning works. Teachers and students can comment and give feedback. The Moment has a sharing function, teachers can share learning resources through the Moment, which can facilitate the students to view at any time. I choose WeChat because that it is a powerful instant messaging tool and has a strong user population. WeChat is particularly suitable for interactive learning. Due to the faster pace of life, neither students nor teachers can have a continuous schedule for one-to-one communication and learning. The free instant messaging provided by the WeChat are especially suitable for learners to ask questions and get timely feedback from the teacher. Students and teachers can create a one-to-one real-time communication environment through WeChat, without the need for special appointments and arrangements. This is a great experience of working with our group members to complete project 1. I really enjoyed it. The effective cooperation of our team makes the project complete smoothly. This is a pleasant and positive learning experience. We have had several group meetings with Blackboard Collaborate (BB) to discuss the communication tools, such as BB, Blackboard Instant, Schoology, Edomodo, ProBoard and Seesaw. We have analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of these tools and also discussed various useful teaching strategies. These are very effective and practical tools to be used in education. Each group member played their own role in the group. We also used GroupMe to communicate with each other daily. We have used Google Docs to write the final paper. Every member can post and edit their own part of the project and can also view others'. Through the learning and discussion, I learnt several useful communication tools, which I never aware of. To me, I really like Blackboard Collaborate, because we can have video and audio conferences. Especially, the function of sharing screen is very convenient. I also prefer using Seesaw in my classroom, which is a beneficial tool to students. Schoology allows students and teachers to share resources and also provides a good learning opportunity for students. Our group members actively participated in the discussion and published their own opinion, which brings me a lot of enlightenment in my learning and teaching. Education is a process of continuous innovation and improvement. The application of education technology added more energy to learning and teaching.
1.Online Interaction
Based on this week’s readings and your own online learning experiences, discuss what the major problems for online interactions are and how to solve these problems. Online interaction is very important for students who have online classes, which can solve the problem of location and distance and provide a chance of education to the students who have no time to have face-to-face classes. However, there are also certain problems for online interactions. Not all people are comfortable with online course. Some students don't like online learning, they will be anxious in online courses. Also because of the reason that some students have low level familiarity of technology, their online interaction effectiveness is hindered. Synchronous communication requires all participants to join in the online session at the same time, however, not everyone has the same schedule. For example, sometimes there may be some emergency situations where they can not participate in online interaction. These issues may cause certain class members to miss the online class or online group meeting, which is a drawback of synchronous communication. Sometimes students need to use email to share important learning ideas and information. But the problem of email is that students may not respond the email immediately, which makes the online interaction process inefficient. Meanwhile, there is also an issue of accuracy among communication through email that students who received the email might misunderstand the student who sent the email because s/he doesn't get the clue from other's nonverbal information. For example, a joke might be taken seriously by other students which could cause misunderstanding, whereas such issue could be avoided in face-to-face communication. I still remember our first meeting in my group, I felt a little nervous because I wasn't familiar with everybody. Our group leader sent email to us for the meeting time according to our own schedule, but I didn't have the habit of checking the message on blackboard, so I didn't get the information in time. Then we created a group on GroupMe and after that we can communicate efficiently. Just like a group of people who communicate with us, we can share information about the discussion there. After communication in the group, we became familiar with each other and had better communication. Therefore, I think a great online interaction need both synchronous communication and asynchronous communication. 2.Banning Cell Phone in School Should cell phone use in schools be banned or limited in their use? Why or why not? Should simple rules of etiquette for cell phone use be more publicized or enforced? Why or why not? We cannot denied that cell phone has a lot of benefits, which provides us with a lot of convenience for our lives. For students, sometimes the phone may be distracting students from their study, especially during class period apps on mobile phone will keep students from concentrating on study. However, every coin has two sides. The mobile phone can be a useful tool for after-class study. Also, mobile phones allows students to keep in touch with their parents in time. So, I also think that the students can be guided appropriately to use their mobile phones in school. For example, during class time, students should be required to put their phone in their own cabinet and kept powered off. In the school where I previously worked, the teacher is not allowed to bring mobile phone into the classroom during the forty-minute class period. Allow students to use the phone at the right time, such as during breaks between classes, students can use their phone shortly. Students can use this chance to contact their parents with their phone if they need to. At the same time, the politeness and rules of using mobile phone is necessary, which should be promoted. For example, some public places are not allowed to use mobile phone, and loudly answering the phone is actually disturbing other people's business, which makes people feel very rude. 3.Net Censoring The Internet has a valuable and convenient learning resources, the students have a great help to their learning. However, we can not deny the fact that the Internet at the same time contains some risks, especially for self-protection awareness of students who is not self-disciplined. There are resources that are not appropriate for students to browse on some websites. These websites should be restricted to certain age group or be blocked, otherwise, it will be detrimental to the student's learning and growth. Network monitoring and assessment is very necessary. This will effectively protect students from bad information. If I use the Internet in my class, I think it is a good idea to choose some safe and appropriate website links and resource lists. Students can only open these websites and get resources relevant to learning. At the same time, these links and resources should be sent to parents for review, parents can be assured and supervise students to use the network. So in this way students can receive more effective learning resources and meanwhile students will be also protected appropriately from the risky and inappropriate factors on the internet. This Wednesday we had the second meeting in our group. We have discussed five communication tools, including IM talked by KC, Edomodo chosen by Brain, Schoology discussed by Michelle, ProBoard talked by John and Seesaw discussed by me.
1. Blackboard (BB) Instant Messenger (IM): Pros: IM is a synchronous communication tool which provides students and instructors constant communication. I like the function of sharing screen with others, which really facilitates talking. The users can establish web conference and also can send conference invitation and collaboration invitation. The users can create a group by themselves and also can have video or audio meeting. We can use whiteboard to share ideas or something else. Cons: We have to download the application before logging in. We also have to create an account to use it. Sometimes students may not have the access to it, which I have mentioned in my last post. Strategies: We can use it to have group audio or video conference, just like our Wednesday meeting in this week. I think it is a great way to promote group discussion and effectively solve the problem of location limit. Similarly, students can use this tool to discuss project after class. 2. Edmodo: Pros: Edmodo is a learning management system. It is a good choice for K-12 class. It is free to teacher, parents and students. Firstly, the app makes it easy to grade students' works. Secondly, it allows instructors to archive documents. Thirdly, Edmodo enables instructors to control and arrange course content in a unique way. Another advantage of this tool is that it is very safe to use, because students and their parents will need the instructor to give them an access code to be able to sign in and that is the only way to log in. Lastly, the library of this tool give teachers and students a great platform to locate and store documents. It is very convenient for students to find and use these materials. Cons: The app needs to be improved in its interface because it looks like Facebook, which is a challenge of organizing the classroom into distinctive folders. What's more, the customizability of the interface is very limited. Strategies: Brian mentioned that Edmodo is a great tool to help flipped classroom. Teachers can post the videos and materials on it, so students can view and study before the class and deepen the understanding in class. I agree with his points, that's a good method. 3. Schoology: Pros: Schoology is a free learning management system, which is similar to Blackboard and Edmodo. Michelle mentioned that Schoology is a powerful tool for digital classroom. Firstly, it allows students to work independently at their own pace. Secondly, students can interact with the instructor individually. Thirdly, students can demonstrate their work with digital portfolios. Fourthly, instructors can bring text and video directly into their online discussions. It can also be used for student assessments. Cons: The learning curve to learn how to use this tool is very deep, even though the website provides lots of tutorials and a user forum to help users to solve the problem of using this tool. Strategies: One example of using this tool Michelle mentioned is that she linked the external website of Gram Stain tutorial to her fictional Microbiology Accessioning class. She felt it is an efficient tool to link her previously designed course. 4. ProBoard Pros: ProBoard is an asynchronous communication tool that is a free forum hosting service for discussions on the Internet. It is easy to create forums for discussion. You can view the content at anytime of your convenience. There is no size limits for file uploading. It can be used with mobile devices. A variety of files can be uploaded. YouTube video links can be embedded on message boards. Cons: The search engine has limited effectiveness. In addition, the users have to pay for upgraded service to stop the advertisements on the forum. This tool is more suitable for adults rather than K-12 setting because it requires the users to get parents' permission. The users must be past 13 years old, however, the tool will not verify the age of the users. Strategies: The teachers can use the forum feature to create a discussion on certain topics and students can share their opinions and get more ideas. Teachers also can provide more videos and links to add to the variety of learning materials. 5. Seesaw: Seesaw is a synchronous online communication tool which allows teachers to connect themselves with students and parents. Seesaw is a great tool to assist learning and facilitate teachers and students. Seesaw is similar to Edmodo, which fits better for students who are studying in K-12 period. Pros: 1. Free. The basic version of Seesaw is free to teachers, parents and students.Seesaw is available online, on Android, Chromebook and IOS and in variety of languages. 2. Convenient to log in. There are two way of logging in the app. One is through email which works better for elder students. The other way is by scanning a QR code and choose their name from the list, which is easier for the younger kids. 3. Parents involvement. Parents will be notified immediately when their kids upload their works to seesaw. Parents can easily view their kids’ works whenever and wherever as long as they are connected to internet. They can also leave their own comments to encourage the kids. 4. Great visual design and easy to use. The app has a great visual appeal and easy enough for even a kindergartener to understand. 5. Stimulate students’ learning motivation. I think the students who are going to show their works to all of the people will work harder on their work than they do to only show their works to the teacher. They also can get more ideas from commenting the other student’ works. Besides, Seesaw also can encourage the students who dare not hands up to share their works to class. 6. Class blog. Seesaw enables teacher to create a class blog where students can interact further, sharing information, and even lead discussion. 7. Store students’ works. Seesaw enables the teachers to save students’ works for future data analysis and lesson planning. Cons: 1. If students log in seesaw through QR, they cannot delete or edit the original post they made. This requires an extra step from the teacher as she needs to go in and delete the unwanted post. 2. Students scan QR code and choose their name from the list to access to seesaw. Some students might play a prank on their students by posting something with selecting another student’s name. Although, all the comments need to get the “Approval” from teachers, teacher can only judge the content of comment. The teacher also cannot know who is the real author. Therefore, teachers should strengthen the guide to students in class. Students should only be allowed to choose their own name. Strategies: 1. Because the parents of the students can view the works of the students, the teacher can involve the parents by asking them to give feedback to their children's assignments, which enables the parents to communicate with their children and learn about their children's learning process. 2. By clicking the name of the students, the users can view all works of the student whom they chose so the teacher can create a group workshop of reviewing and commenting other's works. This is my first semester of using Blackboard Collaborate and Instant Message (IM), so I did not have enough experience of using these tools. On Wednesday evening, our group had the first meeting with Blackboard Collaborate. We also created a group with GroupMe to allow us to communicate after the group meeting. I really like my group-mates. From this meeting and using these tools, I find some pros and cons based on my understanding. Blackboard Collaborate: Pros: Although I have only a few experiences of using Blackboard, I really like this tool. It has lots of features, which are convenient and easy to use. Firstly, anyone can write or post something on the whiteboard, which can be viewed by everybody. Secondly, we can have audio or video chat with this tool. When we have meeting, anyone can hand up to speak, and we also can see who is talking on the screen. That is interesting, because it feels like we are all in a physical classroom. What's more, the text box is useful. When a person is talking, other people who wants to comment can send message in the text box without interrupting the speaker. When somebody cannot talk or video chat through the microphone, they can still participate by texting. This feature facilities the communication during the meeting. Cons: Firstly, before each meeting, we have to download the launcher every time we enter the room. Secondly, during our Wednesday meeting, our group leader wanted to share his screen with us, but it was not enable in our meeting. Thirdly, same as all synchronous communication tools, its stability depends on the quality of the network. IM: Pros: The users can create a group by themselves and also can have video or audio meeting. From the page, I find the users can share their screen to others that cannot be used in Blackboard Collaborate. I will continue to use this tool to find more advantage to the teaching. Cons: We have to download the software when we use it. I want to share my experience of using the tool. When I downloaded the software, I found the question that there is no resource. Then I asked for help, the customer service said there is no link in my blackboard. I am not sure whether it is the reason that I registered late or not. So, I asked Dr. Wang, she set another link of IM which can be used. But users should pay attention to the firewall or other conflicting software that is running background because they will automatically intercept the popup window. That makes the tool cannot run effectively. 1. Audio and video conference for classroom
Based on these articles and your experiences of using video chat in Gmail and blackboard collaborate in WebCT, discuss the pros and cons of using instructional televisions, asynchronous video, and video conference in classroom. This is my first time of using blackboard collaborate in WebCT, I think it is a very practical and effective instructional tool. From the reading, I understand these tools play a great role in classroom, such as the using of instructional television and video in flipped classroom. These tools have undeniable advantages. They can solve the problem of geographical restriction. Because there is no requirement in terms of location, students can take the course located in different places that they like. For instance, in this class, although we are in different locations, we can take the same course by seeing and discussing with each other via blackboard video. This reduces the distance between us and promotes the communication. What's more, video and audio conference can make students study in a comfortable environment and feel relaxed. Besides, if someone didn't attend the class because of illness or other things, the asynchronous video also can be saved to see in a fit time. In addition, students can watch the video on their own, pause or replay in any time. It is better for them to get the knowledge. However, these tools also have some disadvantages. If we want to take advantage of the tools, we must have the devices and network. This may not be implemented in all places. It is also important to consider the stability of the network. It will affect the stability and fluency of the video. 2. Instant messages Instant message(IM) is widely used in our lives. We tend to use it to communicate with friends and relatives every day. I usually use it to communicate with my parents and friends in China. It is convenient for people to communicate with each other. In fact, to take fully advantage of instant messaging software can make it become a kind of simple and effective instructional tool for teaching and a tool for communicating with students. I used to use IM into my classroom to serve for teaching. I used an application in teaching called WeChat, which is an instant message software. I set up a group of the class for convenience to assign homework, such as some reading material and assign the class activities. Students also could post their assignments on it and share some learning method. I could give online tutorial with WeChat, students could ask question via WeChat after school. The important point is that I divided the class into different groups, then I assigned different projects. They could discuss in the group by text, audio and video messages. It facilitated the emotional communication with each other. Of course, there are something that are worthy of our attention in practice. For instance, it has the convenience of real-time communication, but if students read it later, it also become asynchronous communication, it depends on the user's time. But this doesn't affect students to see the message, the messages will be saved. Because it is a chat tool, we should pay attention to guidance for teaching purpose. Otherwise, it will become purely a chat tool. In my opinion, IM is a good tool to use in teaching. |
Yanqing Liu
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