Week 3: Selecting technologies: what to look for and how to choose

Introduction

Figure 1 There are a range of tools that can be used in online teaching

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This is a drawing of a bingo card with the words ‘BUZZWORD’ and ‘BINGO’ written at the top. There are a series of boxes underneath which read ‘OER’ ‘WEBCAST’ ‘SOCIAL MEDIA’ ‘COLLECTIONG TOOLS’ ‘RLO’ ‘CREATIVE COMMONS’ ‘PLN’ ‘LMS’ ‘SIMULATION’ ‘E-LEARNING’ ‘SCREENCAST’ ‘APP’ ‘MESSAGING’ ‘WEB CONFERENCE’ ‘COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTS’ ‘VLE’ ‘BLOG’ ‘VIDEO’ ‘RSS FEED’ ‘FORMS’ ‘PRESENTATION’ ‘PODCAST’ ‘WIKI’ ‘MOBILE LEARNING’ Centrally positioned on the bingo card is the Open University’s logo.

Figure 1 There are a range of tools that can be used in online teaching

This week will give you an overview of the main types of tools available for use online, what they offer, and how you might use them in your online teaching. This section does not aim to be, and could never be, completely comprehensive, and we’ll show you a few online resources that you may find useful for further exploration. We present some categorisations of these tools as a way of helping you to understand the potential of some of the main types of tools for your own context. The internet is replete with blog posts, categorisations, discussions, and sales pitches about these tools. So what we want to do is give you a starting point to better navigate and use it to your advantage in your work.

A brief note on privacy and personal information, which is particularly relevant to this week and next week, where you may find yourself registering for and trying different tools. If you are concerned by the privacy implications of using some of the tools covered in this week’s materials, one approach is to use an alias when creating your account with them, and to create a separate email address (e.g. using Google’s Gmail) for the purpose of registering for the service instead of using your usual email address. However, this approach will not make your actions truly anonymous or private, e.g. the telecom service provider or your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will be able to identify that it is your computer or mobile accessing the service. It is possible to take further steps such as using a service to anonymise your computer (such as using a VPN or Virtual Private Network, which masks your location and your computer’s identity). However, discussion of the pros and cons of such techniques is beyond the scope of this course.

Teacher reflections

This is a fictional scenario, perhaps from a few years in the future.

“Hello, I am Dr Thuzar and I teach botany to first and second year undergraduates at my university – I am also involved in the TIDE project. Over the years I have found that the more variety I can introduce into my teaching, the better the students respond. For example, when learning plant names and taxonomy, I used to give lists to memorise. The students did not enjoy it, and results were mixed. Now, I give them word-matching exercises (I started by doing this with cards bearing names and illustrations of the plants, and now I do it online) and make it into a game. It is more fun, and the students’ performance has improved because they are more willing to repeat the exercise until the names have fixed in their brain.

When I am thinking about introducing a new activity into my lessons using a new technology or type of teaching, I make three considerations:

1. I consider the group of students I am working with for that particular course, and what skills do they need to develop? Can I, for example, find a way to teach them about the botany of the Irrawaddy Delta, whilst also teaching them how to share and receive information with online communities? Many of my students will find employment with forestry or rivers authorities, or in land management organisations, and these kinds of jobs almost always involve sharing and receiving information in partnership with other regions or states in Myanmar, and of course also our international neighbours. So whilst educating my students I must make them comfortable with sharing and collaboration.
2. Secondly I consider the topic and the context. Some botany topics simply do not lend themselves to a technology-based delivery and that is fine with me (for example it can be difficult to distinguish between species of lamu (mangrove) just by looking at pictures online, whereas if I can give the students pieces of the plant to hold in their hand, they can quickly learn how to tell different species apart). But the online medium can be very helpful – for example I can set each student a task to find out what is the distribution within Myanmar of a different species of plant. It is not important that they memorise the precise distribution of every species in Myanmar – but it is important that they know how to find out when they need to do so. Therefore botany graduates need to be comfortable in an online environment and familiar with searching for key information and handling both large data sources and potentially conflicting information.
3. Finally I consider which learning strategies I will use for teaching each topic, and then which tools I might use to do that. I have to consider the tool’s usability – there is no point asking students to use something that takes hours to learn how to use – and also its availability of free open access (I would never ask my students to pay for software, for example).

I make sure that I have a ‘visible’ presence online so that my students can ‘follow’ me and learn from my example how online technologies can be useful to an academic and to a botanist. I have a Twitter profile that I use to share interesting papers, news articles and so on that are relevant to my field. I create collections on Pinterest so that when I see online an interesting picture or article featuring one of Myanmar’s 91 species of Ficus (fig), I click to add it to my Pinterest page “Thuzar’s Figs”. I can use this to illustrate to students the value of online technologies, and in online classes I also pull up similar collections belonging to colleagues elsewhere in the country, to show the power of sharing online.”

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

• describe some of the ways to categorise educational technologies for online teaching
• explain how some of the tools available might help with certain learning objectives
• start making informed decisions about which tools you might try in your own context.

1 Technologies for content creation

Figure 2 There are many resources online that can be used for creating learning resources – just be sure to check how you can use them

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A screenshot of the results of a Google Image Search on the term ‘daffodil’. The Usage Rights dropdown menu is open, and the menu item ‘Labelled for reuse’ has been highlighted in a red circle.

Figure 2 There are many resources online that can be used for creating learning resources – just be sure to check how you can use them...

There are so many technologies available that could be used for content creation, it is impossible to cover them all. New tools are produced regularly, and older ones disappear, so giving specific examples can be a tricky thing to do as tools can become outdated very quickly. Here we’ve provided an overview of the kinds of tools available and some brief guidance for things you should be aware of when using them.

1.1 Repurposing and extending slide presentations

Last week we touched on the idea of repurposing existing learning materials with some enhancements. Presentation tools like PowerPoint contain features for achieving such enhancement, for example, by adding narration to a slideshow, or adding sound clips to individual slides. These features can enable you to repurpose your classroom or synchronous online slideshow for an asynchronous online audience, giving that audience the benefit of your spoken accompaniment without you needing to be there. One advantage to adding individual sound clips to each slide is that the learner can choose when to begin listening – for example, they may wish to read the content of the slide first. Similarly, a vision-impaired student using a screen-reading program (more about these next week) can listen to the text being read aloud before selecting the audio clip. By contrast, a single narration file across the entire slideshow forces the learner to pause the narration if they cannot read and listen to everything in the time you allow before moving on, and the screen-reader user will hear the text being read aloud by their assistive technology at the same time as your narration, which can be incredibly confusing. If you are looking to share your presentations online it may be appropriate to look at services for this such as Slideshare.

1.2 Screencasting

This is a way of recording what you are doing on a computer screen, with a voiceover. It is ideal for demonstrations where learners benefit from seeing something being done. The learners can replay the screencast as often as they wish, and can pause and rewind. Applications of this kind of content creation tool include demonstrating how to use a certain software program or how to access a particular database (Peterson, 2007). Free screencasting tools, and free trials of paid-for tools, are available, although they may be limited in terms of the length of recording that can be produced, and sometimes the finished recordings contain a watermark ‘advertising’ the tool used. Paid-for tools offer a much greater range of features and flexibility in output. But you can try it out first and see if you or your institution considers it worthwhile to purchase a licence. Camtasia and Adobe Connect are examples of paid-for tools which offer a free trial at the time of writing. Google makes available for free web service of Google classroom and Google Meet. Wikipedia hosts a list of screencasting software that includes many free and paid-for tools.

1.3 Low-tech, low-complexity video recording

Figure 3 Creating resources doesn’t have to be complicated

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A photograph showing two people preparing to shoot a video. One man is seated on a bench among trees, holding his mobile phone in his hands, another man stands behind two video cameras on tripods, each shooting the man on the bench from a different angle.

Figure 3 Creating resources doesn’t have to be complicated

Whilst it can be valuable in some circumstances to utilise high quality video recording equipment and to create polished videos, often in online learning this degree of complexity is unnecessary and can even be detrimental to the learning process.

To demonstrate how uncomplicated, low-tech videos made at home with just regular webcams or phone cameras can be effective in online teaching, an example teaching video was made by one of the TIDE team, Yin Tun. The content of the video is not important here - what is important is that Yin just prepared a few notes of points she wanted to talk about, she set up her visual aid on the wall, and set up her phone at an appropriate height and distance. There was no greater expertise involved than that, and yet the video she produced is a great example of how home-made video (or audio) clips can help to deliver online teaching effectively. (Note, however, that the volume is a little low, so if Yin were to make another video for her students she would need to try to speak more loudly or perhaps even use a microphone of some kind - with each attempt at creating such videos you can improve upon the previous attempt).

Download this video clip.Video player: yin-homemade-video-lesson-example-june-2020.mp4

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1.4 Image manipulation

Images can be used to great effect in online learning – to illustrate a concept, provide emotional impact, reinforce learning, or simply add visual decoration. Rather than only including images in their original form, try using free graphics software to manipulate and annotate images. For example, a teacher could digitally alter one image and post it side by side with the original, asking learners to ‘spot the differences’, or the teacher could obscure elements of the image and ask students to predict what is hidden (this method works especially well with mathematical or chemical equations).

1.5 Small interactive tools with big impact

Tools that enable you to add interactive items to web pages, such as word clouds, quizzes, and drag and drop exercises are all freely available on the internet. If you have an idea for an online teaching technique that you’d like to try with your learners, the chances are that there will be a tool somewhere to help you to achieve it.

Figure 4 A screenshot of a tutorial using a web conferencing platform

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A screenshot from an online tutorial. A slide is shown, upon which participants have drawn ticks to indicate their areas of interest. Panels to the side show a list of participants (with names obscured) and a chat pane (names similarly obscured)

Figure 4 A screenshot of a tutorial using a web conferencing platform

1.6 E-learning development tools

Creating engaging teaching content using the tools outlined in this section should be within the capability of most computer-literate teachers. However, there are more complex tools available which can help you to generate comprehensive, multimedia, interactive online teaching materials. If you are interested in immersing yourself in new tools and techniques for content creation, you might try one of the following authoring tools. A web search for ‘e-learning authoring tools’ will bring up a range of current technologies you could try. At the time of writing, popular tools included Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Articulate Rise, Xerte Online Toolkits (free), Elucidant, iSpring, Camtasia,Canva, OpenLearn Create (free), and more – new tools emerge every year.

1.7 Web conferencing platforms

You may have heard of web conferencing platforms such as Adobe Connect and Blackboard Collaborate but there are many similar products available, including tools designed for individual use such as Skype, Zoom or Google Hangouts (or the newer Google Meet). These platforms provide the online teacher with opportunities for online classroom-like teaching scenarios, as well as offering opportunities for screensharing, group work, peer review and more. The greatest strengths of platforms like this tend to be in synchronous learning, although they can also be readily combined with tools like discussion forums to broaden the impact to asynchronous environments (Çakiroglu et al., 2016, Guo and Möllering, 2016, Kear et al., 2012). These tools can be used for replicating a seminar environment by wrapping synchronous discussion tools around a central presentation or video with voiceover.

1.8 Plagiarism detection

Plagiarism detection software is perhaps not a technology you would immediately think of as an online teaching aid. However, plagiarism prevention tools (which automatically compare assignments from students with each other, and with content found online) can be used quite successfully in meeting certain learning objectives in an online environment. Many institutions in the UK now provide staff and students with access to a plagiarism detection service. This can be employed to illustrate to learners how to write or compile assessment material in an appropriate manner, how to build on (rather than repeat) previous work, and how to reference and quote appropriately. In this way, these tools can be used to offer formative feedback rather than just being used to identify problematic assessment submissions. If you would like to know more then the first step could be to find out whether there are tools already in use at your institution, but Wikipedia also hosts a list of plagiarism detection software.

2 Personalisation with tools for learning

Figure 5 Personalisation

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An image of a young woman typing on the keyboard of a laptop. Behind her is a blackboard with the words ‘Hello’ ‘Hallo’ ‘Hola’ ‘Bonjour’ ‘Olá’

Figure 5 Personalisation

Personalisation is the tailoring of teaching and teaching materials (and the environment in which they are delivered) to suit the needs and preferences of a range of learners. It links closely to accessibility for learners with disabilities, and we shall examine this aspect in more detail next week. This week, however, we are considering how technology can be used to support the whole range of learners, whatever their needs or preferences.

Online teaching usually has more opportunities for personalisation than face-to-face teaching, simply because it is easier for learners to use the available technology to modify their learning environment to suit their needs. (Imagine, for example, the ease of dimming a computer screen, compared to the difficulties in dimming a classroom environment without inconveniencing other learners.)

Figure 6 Learners can adapt online lessons to suit their own needs

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Figure 6 Learners can adapt online lessons to suit their own needs

Asynchronous online learning usually has more opportunities for personalisation than synchronous learning because it gives the learners flexibility in terms of when and where they access the learning materials.

The ideal way to optimise personalisation in online teaching has two elements:

• Design teaching materials that will meet a wide group of needs and preferences, utilising a variety of media and teaching techniques.
• Put control in the hands of each learner, allowing them to adjust the materials to suit themselves.

2.1 Serving diverse audiences

It is worthwhile designing materials and utilising technologies with as broad a range of learners as possible in mind. By doing this, your materials are ready to reuse in later years or different contexts. This section delivers some general points, so that you may start to think about how these considerations would be applied to your own move into online teaching. Next week we cover this area in greater detail.

2.2 Giving control to learners

It may sound like a complicated process, but there are several ways of giving control to learners that involve little extra work on the part of the teacher.

3 Technologies for social communication

Figure 7 Manage the introduction of social media into your online lessons

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A cartoon of a woman pointing to a chalkboard, upon which are the words ‘Social media’ and a variety of associated icons such as those commonly used for email, Wi-Fi and a camera.

Figure 7 Manage the introduction of social media into your online lessons

As you saw in the Week 1 section on backchannels, and the discussion of connectivism in Week 2, social media can have an important role in online teaching. There are a variety of social communication tools that can be employed in online teaching, each with its own potential advantages (and sometimes drawbacks too).

There sometimes needs to be a phased approach to the use of social media tools in online teaching. Skills in providing constructive feedback perhaps need to be honed in a relatively closed environment (such as a discussion forum, commenting first on a teacher-provided item, and later on each other’s contributions) before being moved to a more public arena (Jones and Gallen, 2016). Twitter and YouTube can both be used to great effect in demonstrating how public commenting can easily move away from ‘constructive’ and in an unhealthy direction.

If you wish to read more about the positive and negative effects of using social media in teaching, Haylett (2016) gathers together a variety of literature on the subject and draws the conclusion that there appears to be a significant effect on student engagement from the use of social media. However, there may potentially be negative effects on student attainment.

3.1 Social technologies for promoting community

Figure 8 Social media tools can give learners an easy way to communicate with each other

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A picture of a desktop computer which has an image on the screen of a sphere being held up by a hand. The sphere has the words ‘SOCIAL MEDIA’ written across the middle, at an angle. In addition, there are various social media icons and symbols spread around the sphere.

Figure 8 Social media tools can give learners an easy way to communicate with each other

Some social media tools can be used to enhance communication and cohesion among your group of online learners. ‘Collecting’ tools such as Pinterest can help learners discover a topic collectively and share their findings or ideas. Social bookmarking tools such as Diigo can aid in broadening learners’ research skills, connecting them with resources they hadn’t previously discovered. Of course, simply using the right technologies will not force a sense of community and shared learning to develop in any given cohort, but it will give it a chance of happening. If all members of your cohort are using Facebook, the creation of a class Facebook group can give learners an easy way to communicate with each other, as well as providing the teacher with an opportunity to provide prompt scheduling reminders, and to share relevant resources. Coughlan and Perryman (2015) have written about the use of student-led Facebook groups and their role in facilitating learning and achieving educational inclusion.

3.2 Social technologies for enhancing presence

Some social media tools can be utilised in online teaching to help the learners develop a sense of place within the ‘wider world’ and to start enhancing their online profile (Veletsianos, 2016). Blogs can be used to help learners become used to critically reflecting on a given topic, to become familiar with expressing themselves in a ‘public’ arena, to enable the teacher to put explanatory text alongside class materials to allow absentees greater context when catching up. Twitter can be used to demonstrate the power of the collective, to share discovered resources, to seek feedback, and to contact ‘experts’ in a given subject area.

4 Dealing with change in the technology sector

Change is an ever-present topic of conversation in education, and particularly with respect to technology.

Figure 9 Technology changes rapidly across all sectors, including education

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A tablet resting on a wooden surface. The screen shows a word cloud in which the most prominent word is Change, with Something, Different, Process and Become also prominent to a lesser degree.

Figure 9 Technology changes rapidly across all sectors, including education

The rapid and constant evolution of technology means that some of the tools you read about today will have disappeared in a year, while new ones will become available. Hopefully, however, the principles will remain and you will be able to view the changed landscape with the ability to select the tools that help you to achieve your objectives in online teaching.

Before making substantial use of a tool, or committing to purchasing it, you may want to consider aspects such as whether it has a substantial user base, or what the developer or supplier’s model for sustainability, support or improvement is.

The next section provides some guidance on how to make choices, even if the tools we have mentioned in this course are no longer available or suitable.

5 How to choose

Figure 10 Choosing the right tool

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A drawing of four tools positioned left, and on the right is a large bolt. Words across the image read: ‘Choosing the RIGHT TOOL’

Figure 10 Choosing the right tool

How you choose which technology to use can depend on a number of factors (Watson, 2011) such as:

• The intended learning outcomes for the course. Technology must serve the pedagogical outcomes, not determine them.
• The students’ situation (location, access to internet, number of students in the class, etc. This reflects the issues covered in Section 2 of this week).
• The activities or technical requirements of the course content (e.g. inclusion of large graphic files, collaborative tools, live chat features, external guest lecturer access, file sharing, discussions, etc.).
• The breadth and depth of the teacher’s previous online experience. While it is tempting to use every new tool and feature in your teaching, it is better to start slowly and build up your experience and confidence. Introduce one component, use it appropriately, evaluate its success, and then adjust your teaching where necessary. Slowly introduce more components once you and/or the students are more comfortable with the technology.
• The requirements or policies of the institution regarding the use of different online technologies.
• Whether a centralised learning management system (LMS) or free, open web technology is available or preferable.
• Cost, to yourself or your organisation, both directly in purchase costs and indirectly in the amount of time needed to become competent in its usage.

If you would like to read more about technology and tools for online learning, JISC (2016) have created a resource combining guidance with case studies, and including a useful checklist.

5.1 Linking learning outcomes, activities and tools

The University of New South Wales Sydney (2017) provide a very useful table grouping together common themes of learning outcomes, the kinds of activities often used with learners to achieve those outcomes, and some potentially useful online technologies for each. An edited version of this table forms the basis for Activity 5 below.

6 This week’s quiz

Check what you’ve learned this week by taking the end-of-week quiz.

Week 3 quiz

Open the quiz in a new window or tab then come back here when you’re done.

Summary

This week you have learned about a lot of different tools and technologies, including social media, that can be used in online teaching. You have learned how to choose the right tool for each task, beginning with the learning outcomes you want learners to achieve.

Next week we will be looking at another side to social media’s role in taking your teaching online – the role of facilitating the creation and development of your own networks.

While you contemplate all of the tools and technologies that you’ve been made aware of this week, let’s see how Rita’s been coping with all this useful information.

Download this video clip.Video player: tto_1_week3_vid5_animation.mp4

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Transcript

Rita

I must admit that I am a little bit daunted by all of the different tools out there. But I am also quite excited at the prospect of doing some very different things with my teaching than what I have been used to doing. I think I’ll experiment with a few different tools first. Start with small steps and work up from there.

I really like the idea of screencasting – that looks very effective, both for demonstrating techniques and showing learners how to navigate my course materials. I am going to investigate the tools that are out there over the next couple of days.

I have already been thinking about repurposing my slide presentations, so that was already on my ‘To Do’ list. I think I might also try recording some short video clips, just using my phone or maybe my webcam, so the learners get a more ‘personal touch’ – they will know what I look like, they will hear my voice, so it will be less strange for them if they have not worked online before.

Next, what I want to do is work through the table of technologies that might be used for various learning outcomes. Please bear with me for a while …

[CLOCK TICKING]

… Hello again! I am delighted that you’re still there! I’m really pleased that I tried to use that table of technologies, it has proved to be a very helpful exercise for me. My learning outcomes for this course are a mixture of self-directed learning, co-learning, giving and receiving feedback, collaboration, and oral presentation and communication skills. So I can see from the table a range of relevant activities I could try, and tools that I might use.

Although there are a lot of options, I feel less overwhelmed than I did, and I can start investigating some of the possibilities now.

End transcript

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You can now go to Week 4.