Category: General

While I think educator interest in Twitter chats has waned, I find an occasional group that has maintained interest in this approach and chat activity may pick up when we get past the pandemic and worrying about just getting through tomorrow. My issue with Twitter chats (ed chats) was what I would describe as inefficiency – too much time to get anything accomplished if the goal was to offer educators a personal learning network. My suggests have been focused on things like asking participants to read a common resource each week or come prepared to share a link related to the topic of the week.

Keeler is capable of deep dives on technology topics and often combines detailed knowledge of how to accomplish technical hacks with different tools with related ideas for the classroom. Her recent post and sharing of a chat template is a good example.

The template is based in a spreadsheet and includes cells set aside for the questions to be asked during a chat, cells for responses to these questions, and a cell to be used for the hashtag that keeps all chat participated connected during a chat (the first part of the Keeler post explains the basics of a chat process and so does my post on Twitter chats).

The advantage I see in Keeler’s use of a template for an educational chat would be the time saved in generating the questions (by the moderator) and responses. Too many chats (in my opinion) are seat of the pants sessions with little or no preparation and educators responding on the fly. Everyone types at the same time to generate responses with little back and forth. I assume Keeler’s proposal is that the template for a given chat be shared (the questions) and participants then prepare their initial responses. As the series of questions and responses were then relayed via Twitter during an actual chat, participants can focus more on reading the responses offered by other participants and commenting on these responses. Efficiency, preparation, and greater consideration of ideas offered by others would be the benefits.

I was curious about Keeler’s approach. She made use of a web function – =hyperlink and Twitter capabilities I was unfamiliar with (intents). As I understand a major reason for the intent capabilities, Twitter capabilities can be added in other contexts such as a web page. So, for example, I would create a URL including the intent command here that should bring up your Twitter and include a tweet. You would then send the tweet if you wanted.

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Hello%20World

You can examine what your own tweets would look like when coverted to a similar format. After you have generated a tweet, you should see the tweet contains a V shaped symbol in the upper right-hand corner. One of the options under this drop down is Embed Tweet. Twitter will generate the embed for you.

So what Keeler has done is create a script using the hyperlink function to pull data from the spreadsheet (there are some columns you will have to reveal to understand the script).

=hyperlink(“https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Q”&E3&”:”&”%20″&B3&”%20″&$G$2,”Q”&E3)

When instantiated with content from filled cells might the URL might look something like this.

https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Q1:%20Do%20you%20find%20Twitter%20chats%20to%20be%20an%20efficient%20way%20to%20learn%20new%20things?%20%23TestChat

This is an interesting approach that solves a practical problem.

Google has a new experimental service called Google Keen. It has been described as Google’s version of Pinterest. It is a way to fashion a collection of resources and then this collection. Here is a quick demonstration. If you are Pinterest user, you probably understand it is a very versatile service resulting in recipe collections, photo collections, etc. Keen appears to offer the same flexibility. Google experiments always make be nervous because offerings I think are interesting sometimes just disappear. Experiment now. Invest heavily with caution.

My demo which is available at the end is based on a trip we were able to take nearly exactly a year ago to southern Africa. The small selection of photos shown here were from the Chobi River region.

The Keen dashboard looks like this. After connecting to Keen, I get this display after naming my creation. Google will use what I call my Keen and the description I add to offer suggestions for elements I might include. These will be displayed under Explore.

With the ADD button, I can contribute resources myself. These can be links, photos, and other types of content. For this demo, I uploaded a few images from my collection.

The collection looks something like this.

The Share button from the dashboard offers several options. I used the URL for this collection to link from the My Demo you see below.

My demo

Richard Mayer has long applied the careful rigor of experimental design to the study of multimedia instructional variables. Some of his recent research has centered on video presentation and seems well suited to informing the presentation component of online instruction. Mayer and colleagues have pulled together several specific tactics that should be helpful.

1. Dynamic drawing effect

This suggestion is focused on situations in which an instructor is demonstrating a procedure. The easiest example is probably the solution to a math problem. The research contrasts approaches in which the instructor draws on a whiteboard while explaining vs. instructor points to drawing completed before explanation. Mayer’s analysis of the research indicates it is more productive to display the process step by step rather than display the entire series of steps and then explain the entire process. I would be tempted to propose that this might also inform the display of bullet points in a PowerPoint-type presentation, but some other interesting research suggests this is different. This related research shows the instructor as he/she works through a problem, shows the instructor’s hand as the problem is solved, or reveals the steps only. It appears that the hand vs. no hand difference is meaningful and Mayer uses this difference to criticize the Sal Kahn style videos.

Watching the content unfold is important, but it also seems that the connection to the human is important.

2. Gaze guidance principle

The gaze guidance principle concerns the visibility of the focus of the instructor’s attention – on the audience, on the content, or switching between. Mayer summarizes the research to conclude that visible switching is important. Thinking about the way I taught in a large lecture situation, this would argue I did it wrong. I faced the students with large projected displays appearing behind me. I would see the content of the display on the computer screen in front of me, but students would not see me switch my gaze because I did not have to do this.

3. Generativity principle

This one does not surprise me. Video presentations should be accompanied by student actions – taking notes, writing summaries, attempts to duplicate an action that has been demonstrated.

4. Perspective principle

Imagine a cooking show or a demonstration of a similar type that might be generated by the instructor. Where is the best location for the camera – over the shoulder of the presenter (first person) or facing the instructor (third person). It appears that the over the shoulder shot is most effective.

I would describe Mayer’s approach as atheoretical. He starts with the examination of a logical and scientifically careful comparison of two alternatives. Determines if the alternatives produce reliable differences in learning. If so, he then tries to propose a theoretical model to explain the outcome. I tend to think in terms of cognitive explanations and motivational explanations. Mayer seems to identify what might be described as a social explanation for some of these principles which might have cognitive or motivational benefits. 

A focus on data-based practice is widely proposed as the ideal way to select instructional strategies. Instructional tactics have been studied greater detail than most educators likely realize. The environment necessary to establish significant differences in impact must be controlled carefully to eliminate alternative suggestions in this research. The transition from such research to the messiness and variability of the classroom can be problematic. For example, whatever content is used as the focus on learning experiences and how understanding, retention, and application of this learning creates a complexity of application that is probably impossible to understand completely. Even if an advantage of method A over method B can be established, it is not clear if a continuous diet of method A would lose its advantage for what would commonly be described as boredom (a motivational construct). Still, it would seem valuable to identify specific practices that work in controlled settings and at least emphasize these tactics in practice.

Mayer, R. E., Fiorella, L., & Stull, A. (2020). Five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video. Educational Technology Research and Development, 1-16.

Google Jamboard is an online, interactive whiteboard available from Google and integrated with other Google services (i.e., Drive). My tutorial explains the basics of use and offers some general ideas for classroom (online) use. I would suggest you click on the video and watch it in a larger size.

Educators have developed creative ways to use this service. If you find my tutorial helpful, search for Jamboard and you should be able to locate plenty of ideas.

Exploring social media I happened across this post describing a service called ClassroomQ. The idea makes a great deal of sense for the time we are in and the challenges educators must address. The idea is simple, but meets an obvious need. ClassroomQ provides students, say students in a hybrid every other day approach to reduce face to face class size, a way to get the attention of teachers when the students are working at home. The service adds a button that the students click and the service adds the student’s name to a cue. The teacher consults this cue when time allows and the teacher then knows who has been waiting the longest to have an issue addressed.

I decided to see if I could create my own version, but I should say ClassroomQ has a free version and I don’t want to demo my version without giving credit.

I was able to produce an alternative to this service using Google Forms and Sheets. The process was straightforward. Here is a quick version of how I did it. I started in Google Sheets to create a new sheet with three identified columns – name, email, and request (column attribute needs to be set to the type of data collected – text). A menu option in Sheets allows the Sheet to generate a Form. I then opened the form to add an image (the student raising her/his hand) and to make small adjustments in appearance. This form could be made available in multiple ways. As a demonstration, I am providing it as a URL (below). The idea is that you could create a similar setup and offer the URL or an embed code to your students.

The form as displayed for the student looks like this.

The following link shows the entire form.

https://forms.gle/8o3ecfr3oVYp99nh

After the form has been created, I returned to the form and added a column of checkboxes. Adding this after the form allows something in the sheet that is not in the form. The idea is that the teacher would use this form to identify the students who have requested assistance and check off the student when the teacher has responded. Educators probably don’t need student emails so this column may not be required.