A couple of dispatches from the digital frontier

A couple weeks ago I had students in one class use stixy.com to post their weekly "muddiest point" assignment, in which they identify points in the class materials they'd like to discuss in class.  I had set up weekly threads in Blackboard's discussion forum for this assignment, but when I started investigating online bulletin boards, I asked the students to try it out.  Today in class I held a vote, asking the students which they preferred.  The overwhelming choice was Stixy.  The main reason given was the graphic nature of the program, making it easy to see other students' posts as a group, rather than as single posts.  I did have one student who was unable to post to the class board, and I'm not sure why.  So we're going to try it again this week, and see how it goes.  I actually like Lino.com better, but since I started with Stixy, I'm going to stick with it in this class, to avoid bombarding the students with yet another system.

Another system I'm experimenting with is using Jing.com and Screencast.com to record video responses to my students' blogs. I find that especially in online classes where students don't get any face time with their instructor, they really respond well to a short video in which I talk to them about their blogs and explain how their grade was determined.  I've gotten quite a bit of unsolicited positive feedback from students on this, including this message I received this morning.

Ms. Waldenberger,

So I just finished listening to your response and justification for grading my blog assignment #1.

I don't want to sound like a (pardon my french) kiss ass, but I think that everything about how this online class is being brought together is exciting, and really awesome. The voice thread response, and all the blog postings, I think is great way to get people involved, and still maintain that personal voice-to-voice contact.

Great Job!

I don't mean to toot my own horn on this, because I don't think it is my teaching or grading that is generating the praise but the formats that I'm using to communicate with students and deliver feedback.  Jing is just so dead simple that it essentially disappears, and students get an experience that feels closer to a one-on-one conversation that even a F2F class can provide.

I just record myself commenting on each student's blog, while capturing whatever is on the computer screen.  So I can alternate between the blog itself and the grading rubric to explain how I am evaluating the assignment.  I can also demonstrate how, for instance, to add links to a Blogger.com blog, which is something that I require in their blog posts but which many students neglect in their first post.  Here is the feedback that prompted the fulsome praise I posted above.  (I don't think I'm violating any FERPA regulations here, since the student isn't identified except by first name and the link to his blog is never shown...)



Clearly I have to work on my "ums!"

There are some downsides to using Jing.  One is the upload time.  I have a pro account rather than the free one ($15 a year), and so I can save the files in more compact formats, but it still takes two to three minutes to upload each file to Screencast.  I use that time to read the next blog to be graded, so it isn't wasted, but I'm not the most accomplished multi-tasker in the world and I find it a little stressful to be keeping track of one file while starting to work on the next.

The other downside is storage space.  A free Screencast account offers 2 gigabites of storage, and I just about maxed that out with one semester's grading, even though I only used Jing videos for about half the assignments last fall.  I've had to download each of those video files to store elsewhere, in order to have room to start saving new files for this semester.  That takes a long time, since you have to download each file individually, and I have to find storage space elsewhere to keep them for my records.  Removing them from Screencast also means that my fall students can no longer access the video, though I'm not sure if any of them would want to!  I'm seeing that I'll have to get a pro Screencast account soon, and that's another $99 that either I or my division will have to come up with.  Wouldn't it be great if Blackboard had a system to allow for video grading, or the college offered server space where students could access the videos?

Anyway, those are just a couple of recent experiences I've had with various tech experiments in class.