I’m an Experimenter – Reflection
To do:
Prepare a detailed written reflection that includes responses to the questions below.
- Which three experimenter activities did you choose to complete and why? Include the links to your Activity Bank responses.
The three activities I selected were Mentimeter, Quizlet, and Canva. I picked these activities because they were most suited for the course and subject I teach.
https://bank.ecampusontario.ca/response/experimenter-1-surveying/
The Mentimeter poll is helpful for engaging with students in real-time during a course. It can be used to test their understanding of core concepts, pose open ended questions for them to reflect on, or use certain slides, such as word clouds, to help generate user-created content on the spot.
https://bank.ecampusontario.ca/response/experimenter-2-quizlet/
The Quizlet activity is helpful for generating study cards for students to quickly test their knowledge and understanding of course concepts. One thing I noticed is that if you enter key phrases, the website autogenerates a definition. This can be helpful and time efficient for instructors. But it can also be an opportunity to let students analyze and dissect the definition to see if it is accurate.
https://bank.ecampusontario.ca/response/experimenter-3-canva/
The Canva infographic can be helpful after a lecture or posted on a LMS to give students an opportunity to reflect on the core concepts learned in class. It is helpful for summarizing the main points I want to highlight and it gives students a quick snapshot or overview of the topic at hand.
- Identify and explain three overall lessons learned from experimenting with these three activities. How might you use these activities going forward in your teaching practice?
After experimenting with these activities, I found that 1) learning new technologies is not that difficult 2) technologies can work as a way to support learning inside and outside the classroom and 3) technology can facilitate interaction for students.
I outlined the reasons and ways I might use the activities going forward in my teaching above. That being said, I am uncertain as to whether the kinds of technologies presented in the module will have any significant impact on the learning experience for students. Specifically, I am still wondering if the kinds of technologies listed here have any significant benefits over more familiar technologies, such as Word, PowerPoint, etc. for conveying course information to students. The technologies may be used in the curriculum design portion of teaching, but I think that it is important to not rely too heavily on technologies if they become a substitute in the classroom.
- You were asked to complete at least one experimenter activity on a tablet or a smartphone.
- Identify the activity completed and on what type of mobile device?
- Identify and explain the advantages and challenges of using this technology tool on a mobile device.
- Comment on how you might plan for an upcoming assignment to be completed on a tablet or a smartphone.
- Explain the steps you might take in making access to these devices available to all students.
I used a smartphone on Mentimeter because it was the only one that allowed interaction between the technology and the student. The advantage of this technology is it gives students a chance to participate with their phones and there is no need to buy something expensive like an iClicker. The challenges is that not everyone may have smartphone (and even the question prompt itself presumes that all instructors have access to technology like this which is problematic). To avoid issues like this in the future, I would have students work in pairs to answer questions or polls in class. This way no student is singled out if they do not have access to a device. Alternatively, students can raise their hand or I would offer some alternative and accessible substitution so that students can participate in any way they chose. For those reasons, I probably would not use Mentimeter for an assignment per se. But as an interactive tool to break up a lecture, or to give students a chance to contribute to the discussion, then I can see some of the benefits.
“Using a mobile device, camera, or screencasting software highlighted in the Online lecture toolkit to create a short 2-3 minute video of yourself illustrating how, when designing learning experiences in the future, you will use the technologies, ideas, formats, and/or approaches that you experimented with in this module.”
The Online lecture toolkit URL is no longer active and I do not have access to additional software. My written reflection outlines everything I need to say (if I was able to make a video, it would be quite repetitive)
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