Hi all,
Back from a long (summer) hiatus: with an impending academic year comes new thoughts and perspectives about how to use tablet computers in the classroom. I enjoyed a number of opportunities over the summer to think broadly and deeply about the role of technology in the classroom. I participated in a professional development faculty summer institute, hosted by our campus NSF WIDER grant on evidence-based STEM education reform. I also attended and presented a research poster on tablet pedagogy at the Gordon Research Meeting on Undergraduate Biology Education Reform. This was the inaugural meeting of this topic, and it was a hit! I highly suggest attending a future conference.
Finally, I had some great conversations about pedagogy with my father (as I always do), who has now been a community college biology instructor for over 45 years.
So, this term I have a suite of new topics, and updates, to share with you, including:
- Regular updates and newly discovered best practices as I teach upper-division genetics to 75 students with tablets this term
- Employing qualtrics surveys for class assessment
- Google apps and workflows
- Designing cheat-proof exams
But first, I'd like to start with a forward-looking topic: curating digital course materials. I come to this topic from two directions.
First, after my first round of teaching genetics as a tablet course last fall, I realized that I should have been more proactive at cataloging what topics I covered in each of the pre-lecture videos I created, as well as in every other video (lecture-capture, office-hour-capture, exercise- and exam-key-capture) I made that term. This semester, I'm making the deliberate effort to be much more organized in that regard, and I'll share my discoveries with you.
Second, I recently attended a Fresno State workshop on how to caption videos. The main point of today's post is to make you aware of the need to inquire about accessibility requirements that your school might have on any videos you distribute. I have mixed feelings about this requirement surrounding the usual tug-of-war of intent vs. practicality.
I absolutely support the production of materials that are accessible to students with disabilities, including hard-of-hearing students who need videos to be captioned to fully benefit from the resource.
However, when it was made clear that captioning a video might take three to five minutes of work per minute of video (a gross estimate), I quickly did some mental math that made my head spin. If I don't want to get in trouble (academic and/or legal), and if I lecture capture fifty minutes of class three times a week for a semester, plus office hours and exam revision sessions and exercise and exam keys…
Process of captioning
The bulk of the time spent in our captioning workshop was learning about a few different mechanisms for generating captions for videos. For videos uploaded to YouTube, there is automatic captioning that occurs (at some point after upload). However, the quality isn't great, especially if any of the audio isn't of good quality, or if there is some instructor mumbling that occurs. Likewise, YouTube probably doesn't know how to spell "deoxyribonucleic acid" when I speak it. Thus, we were suggested to use the manual captioning tools built into YouTube. I must say, they are more elegant than I had imagined they might be, but I can still see how it would take a long time to hand-type the transcript of a video into a web browser window. The gist is, on one side of your YouTube web browser window, your video is playing; on the other side, you type what is being said. There are keystroke shortcuts to pause and also to rewind in few-second increments, which could improve efficiency, but the process of captioning is essentially what you would predict it would be. There is also an option for uploading a text file containing a transcript of the video, but if you're doing any real instruction, you're not coming to class with a prepared fifty-minute speech you can upload to YouTube.
Possible Immediate Solutions for Captioning
So, the big question now is: do I continue what my data have revealed is one of the most powerful uses for tablet technology in the classroom that I've found so far? Should I keep lecture capturing and posting those resources on YouTube – and sacrifice sleeping for producing quality video captions? Or should I just stop recording anything because making that content accessible just isn't feasible. Or, hopefully, maybe there is a happy medium?
Here are my immediate thoughts about solutions (which are my own, not endorsed by my university). These approaches might or might not strike the appropriate balance. Please give me your perspectives by commenting below!
If I have an enrolled student who I know requires support for an auditory disability (e.g. a student brings an American Sign Language interpreter to class the first day), then I'll do my best to caption every video I produce. This is, I reason, a reasonable investment in time, because then I'll have well-captioned videos that I can leverage for any future uses. I'll adopt different strategies for different types of video:
1) Short videos I require students to watch before coming to class
These are usually short (3-5 minute) videos that are at least loosely based on a script (or outline) I produce before recording. Thus, these should be relatively easy to caption as I proceed through the term.
2) Exam and exercise keys
I can either not perform voiceover (i.e., if one student can't access the audio content, nobody can) and simply work the problems silently and post that video, or I can caption this content as well. Again, with exams, there are few enough during the semester that I might reasonably be able to spend the time captioning the videos - and perhaps I can recombine those segments of captioned video if/when I re-use the underlying questions on future exams. Exercise keys might require short enough videos that I can keep up with the captioning of this content as well.
3) Exam review sessions and office hours
I might just have to stop recording these, even though they're incredibly useful to students.
4) In-class lecture capture
First, what if I do have students with auditory disabilities, but they have already received accommodation from the University by having an interpreter in class? If I record the class content as I deliver it (i.e. with visual and auditory information: I speak and I write on a tablet), then how is it different if I post a video, which captures both of those types of information as I delivered them in class, on the internet without captions? In other words, if I, as the instructor, am not providing the accommodation in class, then can the University demand that I be responsible for making my video accessible, or can I demand that the University provide more resources to caption such videos?
The Future for Lecture Capture and Captioning
If that isn't provocative enough, then here's a slippery slope argument: what equivalent accommodations are made for visually impaired students? That is, what's the approved equivalent accommodation for video content? We must tread carefully here, for the University should support technologies that advance and support student learning, but not at the expense of certain student populations. We need to continue this conversation on our campuses to proceed together with administration and students to ensure we're all meeting each other's needs.
Finally, here's what I consider to be the real gray area: if class is intended for enrolled students only, and if I have no enrolled students with declared auditory disabilities, then do I still have to caption the in-class content? (and, yes: if a tree falls over and rots in the woods and nobody is there to smell it, does the tree create an odor?)
This is, perhaps, a crude manner of thinking of an intricate topic, but I hope to learn more and think more broadly about this topic based partly on your comments! I certainly hope that we can achieve a moderate solution that addresses that desirable balance between intent and practicality.
For the last half-year or so, I've been telling everybody I can at Fresno State about how useful it would be to suggest that faculty deploy their tablets in their offices, during office hours! Most recently, I spoke about how this could work at the Fresno State Student Success Summit and then again at the President's Showcase of Excellence (a PDF of the DISCOVERe tablet poster I presented should appear here in the near future).
Here's how it works: much of the improvement of student success I saw in my first term teaching with tablets centered around students accessing tablet-recorded class material (in various forms) distributed as videos:
Much of my assessment data (see my tablet poster, link above) points to students really appreciating having all of these resources available for studying. Student quotes from my assessments talk about how it was helpful to be able to pause, rewind, and look up topics in their textbook while reviewing in-class activities and how it was helpful to be able to listen to the class content while commuting. From students and faculty I've spoken with, it has to be incredibly beneficial for English as a Second Language (ESL) students to have the recorded lectures available. Video analytics also suggest that students really value and actually use these instructor-generated resources (especially just before exams!)
So, I figured: why not leverage the tablet in the instructor office during office hours? You know how it goes: one student shows up at the start of your office hour, and, for some reason, unlike when you were in front of your class, you are now extremely lucid and give an amazing explanation of the most intricate concept. Then you're done. Then three more students show up and ask essentially the same question! Wouldn't it be nice if you could just hit "rewind" and play the previous encounter back to these students? Of course you can!
To enable office hour screen capture, my ideal situation (which I initially pitched to the campus) involved my having an AppleTV installed in my office, connected to a large flatscreen monitor on my office wall. That way I could wireless project to the flatscreen, and students in my office could see what I was doing on the tablet, making the flatscreen monitor my digital whiteboard. I would then use ExplainEverything, as I do in class, to capture and record the audio and video. A quick upload to YouTube then distributes the Q&A session attended by one or a few students (let's face it: my office can't hold all sixty plus of my genetics students, anyway) to every student in the class. They all benefit from the questions of their peers - especially those who can't attend my regular scheduled office hours because of course conflicts!
While I'm still waiting to find out if campus might be willing to pony up some resources to outfit my office with a flatscreen TV (and to pay the union guys to come bolt it to the wall), here's the less-outrageous alternative:
The two monitors at left are my two computer monitors, facing my chair. Where I was sitting when I took this picture was in the student seat (their typical "office hour" view). I've used an HDMI cord and adapter to plug my iPad straight into the third monitor (right) where you see the Hall of Mirrors effect. This monitor is large enough for one or two students to see comfortably during office hours. We talk, they ask questions, I draw responses on my iPad using ExplainEverything, and the students see my sketches and diagrams on this monitor. I upload the video afterward, and, presumably, other students benefit!
Here's the proof of principle: I used this process for the first time three days ago (my final office hour before a class exam). Three students were present in my office hour, and I recorded this office hour capture video and posted it to YouTube. I hadn't told the other students in the class that I would be doing this, but I immediately posted the video link to our class website. I had 53 views (637 minutes viewed) in the two days before the class exam! If those are unique students, then over half of my class looked at this video. Students want to take advantage of these resources!
It only takes faculty a few extra minutes (mostly the exporting the video file and uploading it) to take a resource they have already created - by simply talking to students during an office hour - and make it available to all of their students! Let's make this idea take hold!
One of the discussions I most frequently have about the Fresno State DISCOVERe initiative of introducing tablet computers to the college classroom centers on the choice of technology. Although I didn't make this decision for our campus, I'll offer some of my most common responses.
But first, I should acknowledge that I'm going to grossly (for the moment) set aside an even bigger question: is there a place for any technology in the modern classroom at all? What about students goofing off? What about cheating? Briefly, there are at least a few reasons to think we should have technology in the classroom.
First, many employers expect students to be able to use technology, so why wouldn't we incorporate it into our training? I'd like to advocate for my own personal philosophy on goofing off and cheating: there is a proud tradition of students doing both that goes back well before transistors were invented. Frankly, on balance I'll be happier if students are either goofing off or cheating as long as they're doing it while demonstrating proficiency with a modern technological tool.
Beyond the miscreants, what about the potential positive benefits of technology in the classroom? The widely-cited American Association of Colleges & Universities' 2013 Employer Survey revealed the following statistic: 95% of employers "prioritize hiring college graduates with skills that will help them contribute to innovation in the workplace." Let's have students who are preparing to enter (or re-enter) the workforce do so with a solid grasp on technologies that will help them help their profession innovate!
Also, "teamwork skills," which in today's marketplace often involves digital teamwork skills (remote meetings, collaborative digital work, etc.), is listed in the top two "Intellectual and Practical Skills" sought by employers, along with oral communication. Having faculty incorporate technology in the classroom through group exercises, in order to foster digital interactions, will be a great help to students who will need to be familiar with excel at digital collaboration to succeed in their jobs. This is one of the reasons that I've asked students to work on collaborative digital projects, like generating group vocabulary definitions or performing group data analyses.
So yes, technology has a useful and valid role to play in the classroom. Without a doubt, the focal question of this post ("Why tablets?") often comes from individuals who would prefer a laptop in the classroom. Or, perhaps a smartphone. An important balance to consider here is cost vs. capability. Although smartphones are relatively inexpensive, many (most?) are impractical for use in the classroom, partly because of limiting keyboard and interactive functionality. Smartphones definitely have a use in the classroom - I've had students use them to great success in many situations (like responding to multiple-choice surveys), but they're not particularly flexible in the tasks they can perform.
On the other end of the spectrum, laptops have a clear benefit: power and flexibility. They can run all of the computer programs that have, well, been designed to run on computers. They have lots of memory and fast processors. Most now have wireless internet cards built-in. For most brands, they're significantly more expensive than tablets. Employers expect students to use them! They have full keyboards and a trackpad for input. Most have built-in cameras.
Tablets sit in a useful middle ground: they're relatively inexpensive, but not very powerful. They can all access the internet, and all are relatively small and lightweight. They fit nicely on a variety of college classroom desks or can be hand-held. Bluetooth or connected keyboards are available and inexpensive for those who don't like to use a touchscreen keyboard. Critically, they can access the internet via cellular service, so they're vastly more useful for students who need internet access off campus (e.g. while commuting or at home). Although some tablet brands don't run commercially available "programs," many apps are free or relatively low cost.
Ultimately, integrating technology into the classroom should be a response to addressing existing issues with the best possible tool. In some cases, that tool might be a smartphone, tablet, or computer. All of these technologies can make important steps in the classroom. For example, incorporating tablets in the classroom has helped me go green (with less paper used for assessment).
A clear benefit unique to the tablet is the touchscreen, which enables me to receive student feedback during class in useful ways that were not possible with laptops or with paper. This often takes place as a PDF annotation exercise: I distribute a blank PDF (almost-blank, anyway: usually containing the date and the course number), and then ask each student to draw or diagram something I'm assessing their understanding of. For example, once this was a drawing of the student's family tree. I have never asked students with laptops to do this exercise because it seems like it would take longer, but with a tablet, drawing something with a fingertip is so easy to do. Students then send me their creations in class, where I can collect them, digitally flip through them, and determine whether there are concepts (or, rather, alternative concepts) that I need to address on the spot. This also works very well for concept maps. Below is an example of an extensively-annotated PDF exercise I distributed in one of my classes, where I provided the DNA sequence of a model gene and the students needed to understand how to find various elements of that gene.
Although I did already say that laptops do have built-in cameras, the ones on tablets are just so much more useful! Tablets in the classroom means additional ways to engage students. In my current tablet class, Applied Bioethics, we have two case studies we discuss each week. To help students understand various points of view, each week the student groups who present the case studies have to solicit the opinions of faculty. With tablets, instead of just having groups read the written responses of faculty, we've had some faculty video interviews presented to us during class.
With the integration of built-in cameras, tablets are also really useful in the classroom when in the hands of faculty as well. This is how I'm able to record and post the in-class content I deliver as YouTube videos, which my data suggest is really improving student outcomes in the classroom. It just wouldn't be feasible to walk around the classroom holding a laptop and using it to record my voice while controlling an on-screen presentation. Tablets have the right blend of portability and power; form and flexibility; cost and capability. If it absolutely has to be one-size-fits-all, I'll take a tablet.
