Hello!! It has been like ages since I last put up something to continue this series on "Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade". So much has happened in that time and space and I don't even know where to begin.
Well, let me try to pick up and start with Part 8 so here it goes. I have joined the Center for Learning & Teaching, Divine Word University as the Director and this will be my second year in this office. Last year was an exciting year and so is this year 2022 as we embark on new learning experiences and try to share as much as we can to build our community of practice at DWU.
One of the things we have embarked on this year as a Centre is to create short informational videos as part of our Academic Policy Awareness drive or campaign. I purchased personal individual licenses for two additional software I am adding to my arsenal; Wondershare Filmora and Doodly.
I decided to try a number of the informational videos with Doodly and so far I think Doodly's worked well for me with the intention and the kind of message I envision to bring across to the audience with it.
Here's two videos I have done so far with Doodly,
Let me share with you for the third video the process I follow to produce these kind of videos.
Embarking on studying a course whether it be a short course or a diploma or degree part-time online is a tough decision to make and should not be taken lightly. It requires dedication and commitment on your end to begin, progress, and eventually complete the course.
There are so many online courses and a wide variety of platforms from which you can register and take a course. Online courses are inexpensive; some are free while others may cost a few dollars up to a hundred or even a thousand. This usually depends on the level of qualification you're studying for.
Where to begin? Free courses are great, to begin with. Several reasons why I say this:
To familiarize yourself with the online learning environment or community.
A free course could give you an opportunity to find your natural aptitude for learning. Are you a self-learner, are you someone who needs guidance? Can you easily progress at your own pace?
You begin to learn about your own learning style by participating in a free course and this will be very helpful when selecting courses.
You may also learn how much time (hours) you can be able to commit during your working week once you begin doing the online course. It's easier said than done as things can get overwhelmingly difficult as time goes on.
It is not to say that free courses have no value in them and are only good for trying out online courses. No! In fact, many of the courses I have taken in the past years have all been free courses and I can honestly say I learned so much about my preferred learning style and also learned new skills for free. These free courses I have taken have added some skills that I am able to apply in my work or even help me learn a new thing.
Tinkering thoughts shares from time to time links to free courses on this blog and also on the Facebook page.
Have you ever seen some whiteboard animated videos that bring the message intended to come alive simply by using animation? I used to be fascinated at how they are able to do this and what skill level it would require to even do one. Well guess what, over the years, various tools and apps have been developed that anybody these days could come up with cool whiteboard animations all with the click of a button. Easier said than done as it really does take a bit of time and practice.
Here is several proprietary whiteboard animation software that you may find on the market.
While millennials were introduced to technology relatively early on in their lives, Gen Z don’t know life without it. Since social media and Google have been at their fingertips, students are used to instant information and teaching themselves anything they want to know with YouTube.
With that in mind, students often expect instant results from teachers and find it much easier to learn from video than they do books. While this shift might take a bit of adjustment, it’s a great opportunity for teachers and students to develop their video skills.(2020, Educator’s guide to using animated video in and out of the classroom)
What is VideoScribe?
VideoScribe is the name of the software for creating whiteboard animations automatically.
It is easy (trust me after several attempts), quick, and pretty inexpensive also for a very powerful and resource-rich tool. It was launched in 2012 by UK company Sparkol. After only two years on the market, it had more than 250,000 users in 135 countries around the world. It has remained since as a very popular whiteboard animation tool that is used for instructional videos to advertisements.
I first downloaded a trial copy of this application back in 2016 and have been teaching myself how to use it by watching tutorials online and of course trying my hands at making short instructional videos. It really does require a bit of practice for those without any previous knowledge of using similar tools.
Here is the link to download a 1 week free trial. You may purchase the single user license for $14/month (approx. K50 monthly). Best option would be to get a team license (in an educational setting) as more members would mean less cost.
Since then I have learnt a few things about the tool and have managed to create a few short whiteboard animations to explain some basic concepts for my classes.
The fun part is the learning process. I've learnt to create a script first, organize what I like to call assets (images, text, transition, timing etc) in the script. Once you have this laid out then you can record and do the voice-over.
Here are some sample videos I have created. (Please note they are the results of my 'learn-driving' this application :). I am still learning to do this properly.)
The first video was probably my first explaining the different route types.
An explanation on the purpose of DHCP. (You can hear the famous Madang Flying Foxes chirping away in the background. DWU is home to many of these flying foxes)
Quick introductory to EtherChannels
The purpose of PPP
Hope this will inspire you to try out VideoScribe or even the other apps listed above.
Comment below if you use a different tool that achieves a similar or better result. Also let me know if you would like me to do a video tutorial on VideoScribe.
Use Lesson Activity together with audio, short video and quiz.
A tutorial I created initially for colleagues in the Information Systems department, DWU but I would like to share it here on my blog as the 4th sequel to the Evolving as a digital teacher series.
This tutorial is based on the use of Lesson Activity which is an activity tool in Moodle.
Part 1 Lesson Plan. Create a lesson plan based on the topic you are going to cover for that week.
Example: I want to cover a topic on VPN & IPsec concepts. This topic is part of a module that is already divided into three subtopics with clear objectives for each section. If you're using a text reference as a guide you may want to follow the text layout for each chapter.
Here are the key objectives for each section of the topic.
Lesson 8.1 VPN Technology - describe benefits of VPN technology.
Lesson 8.2 Types of VPNs - describe different types of VPNs.
Lesson 8.3 IPsec - explain how the IPsec framework is used to secure network traffic.
What I usually do is to identify what technique I want to use to cover each section and what tool will help me achieve that.
Lesson 8.1 - Use Moodle's lesson activity to cover it.
Lesson 8.2 - Post discussion points on Moodle and get students to post replies and contribute to the discussion. Creating the task as a Q&A forum and setting the options to allow students to post feedback to a discussion question which can then be rated using a rubric.
Lesson 8.3 - Invite students to a 25 minutes Zoom or Webex online meeting/discussion.
For this tutorial, I will focus on Lesson 8.1 and demonstrate step-by-step on how to setup the Lesson activity.
Part 2 Creating the Lesson Creating the lesson will include an audio intro, a 30 minute pre-recorded video lecture followed by check your understanding quiz at the end of the lesson. (This is how I approach my lesson activity, you may have your style or method. Use what method works for you.)
1. Adding the Lesson activity
Click on Add an activity or resource and select Lesson.
Add a Name and Description. I'll leave out the other important details about a lesson activity like the Grade and Flow Control until the end of this tutorial. I'll go ahead and create the lesson.
Here at DWU, we have talked about online learning for several years now. Several workshops and seminars were conducted all in an effort to upskill academics in the area of online learning. One of the workshops I remember attending was with A/Professor Dr. Susan Crichton from University of British Columbia (UBC) back in 2015. There were quite a number of tools introduced during the week-long session.
Since then we've had lengthy discussions and musings over the pros and cons of online teaching among other things e-learning. Discussions continue to evolve on our university broadcast surrounding this topic as several staff already using various tools share through blog posts (like this post itself) and Youtube videos such as this and others shared by Bernard Yegiora (a DWU staff who also shares some digital teaching tutorials on his blog). We even had a separate Moodle site set up by ICT to experiment with online learning. This site unfortunately has been decommissioned recently this year. Initially not many were keen on taking on the idea of online teaching. In fact only two or three people used the DMS Moodle
platform setup specifically for online learning. Reasons as to why
academics did not take the challenge to at least offer a unit online are
unknown.
DWU however does have a well established e-learning environment using Moodle established several years ago which has gone through various updates with one done recently beginning of this year adding additional features and plugins to allow for more functionality. This university-wide learning platform has been used for both its undergraduate programs and flexible mode programs. Use of Moodle in this case has been mainly for blended learning where lecturers upload resources and post assignments for student to access and for students to post task submissions for feedback. It was not used for full online learning programs. The traditional approach of face-to-face classroom style seminars and lectures is still the norm for most of our programs.
The idea of online teaching using video,web and audio conferencing tools for remote learning was there but somewhat shelved every time it came up in discussions for various reasons.
Anyhow, it now seems the COVID-19 may well 'force' academics to start using the vast array of tools online that allow for remote learning. At least that is the approach taken now in many universities across the globe given the outbreak of this pandemic as this article suggests among many other similar articles.
This post will not talk about how you can move your classroom online, an expert at HarvardBusiness School has done that already and is sharing his expertise and experience by hosting several webinars like this one which you can sign up to attend or download recordings. Harvard Business Publishing also share some great resources on Moving Your Classroom Online.
In this post, I share with you briefly three online delivery options I have been using and which I am familiar with. I use all three of these tools at various times in the Graduate Certificate in Data Networking program that I teach for 14 weeks fully online (remotely) and 1 week face-to-face on campus.
I recently published an article co-authored with Dr. Peter Anderson in the DWU Journal on Cisco Packet Tracer as a teaching and learning tool in DWU. This paper was basically a reflection on my teaching experiences with Packet tracer for the networking courses.
Here is the introduction.
Computer networks have become a fundamental tool of today's corporate environment. “Computer networks consist of devices that provide communication paths between electronic machines to create local networks inside buildings as well as the interconnection of networks in such structures as campuses and the Internet”
(Frezzo, Behrens et al. 2010).
As Lammle (2010) suggests, “computers have become invaluable to us personally and professionally. Our society has become highly dependent on these resources and on sharing them with each other. The ability to communicate with those we need to whether they’re in the same building or in some far-away land completely hinges on our capacity to create and maintain solid, dependable networks” (Lammle, 2010). To have such skills that will enable an IT professional to create and maintain networks requires rigorous training. It is a demanding field of expertise since the efficient operation of many business organizations today rely upon the smooth operation of its computer network.
Was doing some reading and research online about doing MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) studies and stumbled upon this site. A very useful site indeed that lists all the MOOCs around the globe all in one page. Awesome stuff! I seriously do not like opening hundreds of pages to find what I am looking for.
Here's a screenshot of the category list that you can search. Thought I should share it here for those interested in doing something.
Here is the link to the site again. Please do check it out! MOOC List
