Experimenter Reflection

A response to the I’m an Experimenter! Activity
created by Rachel Boorsma (@Rachel Boorsma)

Number of views: 127

  1. I chose to complete the Going Interactive with H5P, Information as a Graphic, and Surveying activities. I chose these because I have seen most of these used before in my institution and know that there is support for them, so they’re a great place to start. For going interactive, I was able to create an interactive set of questions for my students about muscle tissue to help them review this. For Information as a graphic, I used Canva to create an infographic for a process that we follow in tutorials. And in Surveying, I used Microsoft Forms to survey my colleagues about different types of technology use in the classroom.
  2. My 3 overall lessons are:
    1. You don’t have to start with a blank slate. In Canva, there are pre-made templates that can be used. In H5P, there are examples that can be reviewed, and even copied, to help start your own activity. And in Microsoft Forms, you can also copy forms, or use pre-made templates or suggested questions to get you going.
    2. Don’t overcomplicate it. I noticed that I tended towards over-crowding or overcomplicating the resources I was making. I would make them with lots of drop zones (H5P) or with lots of text (Canva) and wondered if 5 questions was enough (survey). But when I stopped and looked at them, I noticed that 5 questions did capture what I wanted to know, 6 drop zones was likely more than enough for my students in a single activity, and there was way too much text and not enough photos on my info graphic (so I cleaned it up).
    3. Feedback is/will be key. I also have to remind myself that the first iteration of something won’t be perfect. I can experiment with something that my students or colleagues might love, or might hate. Each term it is used, individuals will have ideas for how to make it better, and feedback on what confused them or didn’t make sense. I need to be open and amenable to feedback so that these can be the best they can, and not just will them to be perfect at the outset.
  3. Viewing the infographic is the easiest activity of the 3 that can be done on a phone or tablet. It allows the user to zoom in/out on different aspects, and be able to have a “pocket guide” of the information. What’s difficult is that it is really small on a phone screen, so without zooming in/out it can be hard to read. I do have Canva installed on my phone to try to create on my phone, but again, it’s small and a bit hard to work with, so I made the activity on my laptop. I love that my students have the option of using a phone, tablet, or computer to access this though! In the future, it may be helpful to make a slide deck of the points on the infographic so that it is more accessible to phone users.
  4. Video included above.

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