Category Archives: Digital Living

Revamping Office Hours

I have a hard time getting students to come to my office hours. When I do have one-on-one conversations with students outside of class, they almost always feel like a breakthrough of some sort, especially when meeting with my online students that I rarely chat with synchronously. As I start to wrap up this quarter at DePaul and make my inevitable list of all the things I want to do differently next quarter, I’m looking for ways to see more students during my office hours. 

I’m not the only one trying to figure this out. Derek Bruff and Beckie Supiano reference the same study led by Jeremy L. Hsu at Chapman University. In Spring 2021, Hsu and his team surveyed 500+ STEM students and 28 instructors to figure out what they think about office hours. Students and instructors both identified “Ask questions or review material, including going more in depth into related concepts” as the top reason to use office hours. 

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Videoconferencing Alternatives: How Low-Bandwidth Teaching Will Save Us All

When we try to replicate classroom experiences in an online environment, it’s easy to think of video conferencing as our go-to tool for all sorts of learning objectives—and for good reason. Most of us have participated in a video conference at work or had a video chat with friends or family at some point. We like the idea of being able to see and hear our students while interacting with them in real time just like we do when teaching face to face. But there are two key factors that make this approach problematic. 

1. Bandwidth

High-bandwidth technologies work great for students who have newer computers, fast and reliable internet access at home, and unlimited data plans on their phones. For other students, courses that require frequent use of high-bandwidth technologies can limit their ability to fully participate in course activities. This can jeopardize their success in the course, create a sense of shame and anxiety, and leave them feeling like second-class citizens.   

2. Immediacy

The second factor, immediacy, refers to how quickly we expect our students to respond when interacting with us and with each other. Typically, we think of immediacy as a good thing. It’s baked into face-to-face learning, so it doesn’t feel like a limited resource. But one of the biggest advantages of online learning is that it can provide you and your students with more flexibility. When we require our students to be online at exactly the same time, we sacrifice one of the key benefits of online learning, and that can make an online course feel like more of a burden than it has to be.  Continue reading →

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Best Practices for Video Use in Instructional Design

“We can just record my existing PowerPoint slides.”

The phrase always sends shivers down my spine.  Not because recording PowerPoint slides isn’t effective, as in some situations it can still be useful, but because of the seemingly flippant attitude of the “just” part.  If only it were that easy, and a recorded PowerPoint was the end-all solution for online learning.

This is always where we start our conversation that, in essence, defines my ethics of video lectures in instructional design.  This is a very loose framework, and not necessarily based on any particular theory I’ve encountered, but rather through observations of multitudes of online courses using various approaches to content delivery and seeing what works based on the course and the context.  Simply deploying a “video” isn’t really that simple.

Recently, I heard a phrase that I think sums this up nicely: “You haven’t yet mastered a tool until you understand when not to use it.” Continue reading →

A Brief Look at Open Educational Resources (OER)

This summer, Pearson announced it will transition to a “digital-first” model where their future textbook releases will primarily be in continually-updating digital formats. On the heels of an announcement that McGraw-Hill and Cengage will merge, this decision highlighted a large problem for textbook providers: how to expand access and reduce costs.

Of course, it’s worth noting that while Pearson states they are “commitment to lowering the cost of higher education,” nearly two-thirds of their revenue now comes from digital products.

These decisions directly impact the two-thirds of faculty reported requiring textbooks (and nearly half requiring articles/case studies in their classes according to one study). So as faculty and students feel the pressure of skyrocketing textbook price inflation, the majority of students who do not have access to textbooks cannot do so because of cost. In fact, in one survey, 65% of students reported skipping buying a textbook because of costs.

While many faculty attempt to control costs by supporting used textbooks, rental programs, or placing copies on reserve, there is another option: Open Educational Resources (OER).

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Do You Speak My Design Language?

My wife and I recently returned from a two-week trip to Italy. It was my first time ever in the country and my first time to Europe in over a decade. We were hopping from AirBnB to AirBnB for over a week, living out of a carry-on-size bag each, before we stayed at a place that included a much-needed washing machine. But as we got ready to wash our clothes, there was a problem. We had no idea what the icons on the machine meant. 

A circular dial with small icons around the sides. Continue reading →

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Strategies for Revising Recorded Lectures

Few teaching tasks are as loathsome as re-recording videos for your online course. 

In fact, I’ve been trying to come up with potential comparisons for about 20 minutes, and the closest I’ve come is the sinking feeling in your stomach when you survey the stack of final papers/projects that loom before you during finals week. While a root canal might be preferable to re-recording course videos, here are two practical recommendations that helped me when I set out to complete this undesirable task: Continue reading →

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Changing Fate with a Screen: High School Live Cast in China

From MIT’s open courseware to the proliferation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), I have seen a lot efforts being taken towards blending advancements in technology with the goodwill of making knowledge accessible to all. As an online learning professional, I have been following reports and research on the impact of open education, but never before have I been so stunned by the results of a report. The report, originally published in the weekly edition of Chinese Youth newspaper in Dec 12, 2018, was about a program that provides a full-day live broadcast of a prestigious high school to 248 high schools in the rural areas of China.  

Instead of listening to their own instructors, students in the rural or “far-end” high schools watch a live broadcast of instruction from a high school in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province. According to the report, the launch of project faced strong resistance from teachers in these rural schools. They protested by tearing books apart. Some teachers even took a whole week off and left students “staring” at the screen by themselves.

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Augmented Reality, Korean Dramas, and Higher Education

You probably asking yourself what do augmented reality (AR)and Korean dramas have to do with each other? Well, in December 2018 Korea debuted a new drama on Netflix, Memories of Alhambra, which revolved around a groundbreaking AR game based on medieval battles in Alhambra. The main character of the drama, Yoo Jin Woo, is a CEO of an investment company that specializes in optical devices. One optical device he creates was a contact lens that allows users to interact with AR content. For Jin Woo, getting his hands on the next big AR game was imperative. This leads to a late night phone call from an AR game creator, Jung Se Joo, telling him they need to meet ASAP otherwise he might sell his game to Jin Woo’s competitor. This gets Jin Woo on plane to Granada, Spain, and thus begins his AR journey.

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Video Lecture Production Tip: Extracting Videos from PowerPoint

I frequently work with faculty who want to create a video lecture for an online course using the PowerPoint decks they present in the classroom.

I have misgivings about PowerPoint as a classroom presentation tool to start with (not the least of which is the problem of cognitive load [Mayer1]), but that’s a topic for another discussion. Faculty like them, and an instructional designer (like yours truly) learns to pick their battles.

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Review of the Best Free Quiz Games: Kahoot vs. Poll Everywhere Competitions

I’ve been using Kahoot for several years to create competitive quiz games like 21 blitz for my students. It’s a great tool for reviewing previously covered concepts and breaking up lectures with quick knowledge checks. So, when a colleague encouraged me to check out Poll Everywhere’s new Competitions feature, I was skeptical. I have students who literally cheer when I announce that it’s time for a Kahoot quiz. Even hard-to-impress faculty get caught up in the competition during workshops. They overthink their team names, agonize over answer choices, and trash talk their neighbors as points are tallied. I couldn’t possibly abandon Kahoot and run away with another quiz tool after everything we’ve been through, could I?

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