Week 4 Reading: Blended Content and Assignments
How can specific technologies help you present content, provide meaningful experiences, and pitch integration to students in your blended course?
How can specific technologies help you present content, provide meaningful experiences, and pitch integration to students in your blended course?
As in any course, initiating and
maintaining student engagement is crucial and challenging. Leveraging your
Learning Management System (LMS) is probably your best bet. While numerous and sometimes sophisticated software may exist outside your LMS, keeping your students while
the LMS has many benefits. Building community and familiarity will help
facilitate learning and collaboration. Collaborative tools that you may
consider include your LMS inbuilt discussion board, messaging, and assessments.
External discussion board tools such as Piazza may be incorporated into your
LMS via building blocks or plugins. Video software may be used to create
student generated videos for assignments and video reflections. Tools such as
YouTube, Kaltura, and Panopto may help accomplish this.
In most cases, software selection may be
done prior to beginning the course. However, low-level software decisions may
be done together with the students. They are the ones who will be using the tools;
why not let them pick the tool? Tools with small learning curves, straight
forward navigation, and ease of use are most ideal. As with all technologies in
the classroom, the moment the students stop noticing the technology, the
emphasis will switch to teaching and learning.
By Charles Wachira
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