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.
Shifting Our Thinking
If we compare these factors on a coordinate plane with bandwidth on the vertical axis and immediacy on the horizontal axis, we can divide instructional technologies into four categories or “zones.” By reflecting on the unique pros and cons of each zone and the drawbacks that come with high-bandwidth/high-immediacy tools, we can identify ways to make our courses more flexible and accessible.
The Green Zone: Underappreciated Workhorses
Starting with the green zone in the lower left, we have readings with text and images. These types of assignments may not seem exciting, but sharing readings with students in a consistent and organized way provides your online course with a very practical, solid foundation. Email and discussion boards also belong in this quadrant.
Online instructors have been using these three tools—file sharing (for readings and such), email, and discussion boards—for decades. And while that might make them sound boring, you can create some fantastic instructional experiences with just these three tools.
The Blue Zone: Practical Immediacy
Moving over to the lower right, we have low-bandwidth tools that can add immediacy to student interactions. If you’ve used Microsoft Office 365 or Google Drive, you’re probably already familiar with some of the features and benefits of collaborative document editors. These tools allow multiple people to edit and comment on the same document, spreadsheet, or presentation slides. Depending on how you structure your assignments, students could collaborate over an extended period of time, or they could go online at the exact same time and write and edit each other’s work simultaneously.
When it comes to group chat/messaging, there are lots of free apps that can be useful in an educational setting. Slack and GroupMe are two popular examples. These mobile-friendly apps allow students to post text-based messages and images without requiring anyone in the group (including you!) to share their phone numbers. These tools allow students to communicate quickly and easily without scheduling an entire day around a formal video conference.
The Yellow Zone: Audio and Video on Demand
Many instructors like to move in-class lectures and demonstrations online by creating screencasts. Screencasting allows you to record what’s on your computer screen—from PowerPoint slides to math equations to works of art—and add audio narration as you record. Screencasting adds a human element to online courses because your voice creates a sense of presence that plain text can’t.
Learning how to create pre-recorded lectures can be intimidating, especially if you don’t have any experience with video production. It can also be challenging to create concise screencasts that keep students engaged. Students are more likely to watch a series of shorter videos than a single, longer video, which is why I recommend instructors try to divide long screencasts into five- to ten-minute segments (whenever possible).
If you’d like to explore a free screencasting tool on your own, Screencast-o-Matic is one that I’ve been fairly happy with. There are many other options available, so I’d recommend talking with the instructional technology specialists at your institution to see what they recommend. At DePaul, for example, we have detailed guides and trainings on Panopto, the screencasting tool and video-management platform integrated with our learning management system. It’s also worth noting that you can use a videoconferencing tool like Zoom to record slide narration even if you’re the only person in the meeting room. Once you’ve started a Zoom session, you can press record, share your screen, and voila! You now have a recording of you talking over your slides or whatever else you might show using the Share Screen feature. The only major disadvantage to this approach is that you’ll have to use a separate program if you want to edit your recording.
The right side of the yellow zone is home to asynchronous discussion with audio and video. If you’re not familiar with this concept, I’m referring to discussion tools that allow students to respond with audio and video instead of just text. One tool that’s been a leader for a long time in this multimedia discussion space is VoiceThread. While VoiceThread’s defining feature is its user-friendly approach to audio-based commenting, it can also be used to create narrated presentations with PowerPoints slides, images, and video. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the interface of a traditional screencasting tool, VoiceThread is worth exploring as a simpler way of recording online lectures and fostering discussions that go beyond plain text.
The Red Zone: Natural Conversations at a Cost
The upper-right quadrant is reserved for tools that require both high bandwidth and high immediacy, and the best examples of this are videoconferencing tools like Zoom or Skype. Videoconferencing is a great way to engage with students when they truly need to see and hear each other in real time. It can also be useful for online office hours, since it’s easier to feel connected and avoid misunderstandings when you have the benefit of tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language.
Unfortunately, videoconferencing is one of the most inflexible and bandwidth-intensive activities we can ask our students to do. Before you rely on it too heavily, look at the other quadrants and ask yourself if there’s any other way to accomplish your learning objectives without it.
Conclusions
I like to encourage faculty to start their online-course design process by imagining how they’d structure each week’s assignments and activities using only the tools in the green zone. Setting these types of strict limits at the start can make it easier to identify creative solutions. It also helps ensure that when you’re ready to consider tools in the other quadrants, you’re more conscious of the tradeoffs that come with moving from the lower left to the upper right areas of the chart.
None of this is to say that videoconferencing is inherently bad or that it has no place in an online course. It’s simply a reminder that seemingly small (and sometimes unconscious) choices about the technologies we use can have a big impact on how inclusive and effective our teaching is. The more aware we are of this, the more we can ensure we’re choosing the right tools for the right reasons.
Twitter: @dstanford LinkedIn: /dstanford
Thanks for such a kind, thoughtful comment. I’m glad you found the article helpful. You’re absolutely right that empathy is incredibly important right now, and we shouldn’t take it too personally if students are unable to attend meetings.
Thanks for sharing your quadrants. It is thought provoking.
This is spot on Daniel. I am sharing this with all of my colleagues who are trying to find a balanced approach balance in online teaching post COVID-19.
The article you’ve shared is very useful for us to discern that there are many things that we can use in teaching by knowing what materials to prioritize and which can be easily accessed by our students. Thank you sir for making me realize to be more knowledgeable in the different apps that we can use in making our teaching materials.
Thanks for this Daniel. The matrix helpfully clarifies and amplifies the interface between bandwidth and immediacy relating to videoconferencing. Certainly, in this time of emergency brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, your suggestion is the most pragmatic. The under-rated green zone can still be made to work just fine as long as the accompanying pedagogy is carefully thought through. Pursuing immediacy may even not be in the best interest of both instructors and learners in this time of trauma. All of us need more reflective working spaces than pressure-filled teaching and learning interactions.
Basically I learned that we have to chose technology and or apps as it applies to our specific need and situation.
Kudos on bringing clarity to the complex online ecosystem that so many students and teachers are wandering through. I recently published a post “How to Teach Online” that drew from our class collaboration in our WordPress site. https://peterpappas.com/2020/06/how-to-teach-online.html
With your matrix in hand, I’m going to suggest we were operating in the Green Zone – Asynchronous, low bandwidth, text and images, ability to leave comments on each other’s work. Heavy use of email. Plus with embeds we can foray into Blue (interactives like Google forms) and Yellow (videos).
I have 20 years of experience in distance education delivered over the internet. All of this reinforces the extremely good sense in the recommendations of this article. There are two adages that in my view we should keep in mind when transitioning to ‘e’. First, it is always best to ‘make haste slowly’ and, second, always remember that ‘the best is the enemy of the good’.
The color coding schematic provides a clear framework of level of connectivity and connectedness between students and the instructor.
It is definitely comforting to know what level of activity you are operating at any point in time in an online class (from the color shades) and to know that you are actually implementing a given structure. One of the concerns is that when you chose how you want to operate your course (tools to use), you may be unsure if you are doing enough or doing too much. I am happy to recogize where I am at a point in time and to move from one color shade to the next, knowing that I am following tried and tested templates. Thank you!
Thoughtful and insightful discussions and comments. It is important to utilize the zone of of underappreciated workhorses fully: Discussion Boards; Emails; File-Sharing; and Readings with Text and Images. Screencasting is useful but somewhat challenging. It seems to be a tool that could combine well with Zoom. The overall strategy seems to be one of minimizing immediacy and minimizing Bandwidth. Interesting how Immediacy is not mourned for as a “lost object”
I am really excited about trying to hangout in the green zone especially using readings with text/images. Thanks for another tool.
It’s great to receive tools that support distance learning. The green zone will definitely help kick start the year and help simplify this process.
Your recommendations are great. I will consider them this school year.
Clear and insightful comments that help in understanding the online environment. When I started online teaching a few months ago, I felt like driving through a fog , but this information is clearing up the fog.
Really educative enough in strive to belong to the online ecosystem both vertical and horizontal. Very helpful for me to appreciate what my instructors do and also guiding me to make informed decision in my online course design.
Really educative enough in strive to belong to the online ecosystem both vertical and horizontal. Very helpful for me to appreciate what my instructors do and also guiding me to make informed decision in my online course design.
Thanks, Daniel! This is a great resource to help our faculty think through their choices of technology tools.
Thanks, This is a great resource to help our faculty think through their choices of technology tools. We will implement them in our lesson plans
Thanks, this is superb resource to help us to choose the technology tools.
Learnt that we can choose technology tools to get benifits. It’s really helpful.
Thanks 😊
Your recommendations are great. I will consider them this school year.
Really it’s useful.
Thank you so much for sharing such an amazing article.
Thanks a lot first of all for reminding us that keep in mind that only teachers can approach students in any unusual circumstances and they should as education is also a basic right of those students also who do not have enough resources. secondly for providing various ideas other than video conferencing to continue effective teaching and learning.
This is a great resaurce for us to think through our choices of technology tools
Thanks. The read was a refresher plus a great resource to help us.
Thanks Daniel, we can implement many of these ideas into our classrooms
Thank you for providing good idea with 4 Quadrants. It is very informative article
Thanks a lot, green zone is interesting and i will share it with my colleagues in school.
Thank you for giving our thoughts a new direction.
As a person with sub-par internet quality in a rural setting and who attends many online classes and trainings, I am grateful for this article. I will share it with trainers who are tasked with making instruction accessible. It will be interesting to see if any take the challenge.
Very informative
This article gave me a new and fresh perspective and is really helpful. Thanks a lot for sharing.
This is really helpful and encouraging especially for us. Not only our students are struggling with internet access and limited data but our facilitators too. It is comforting to see the value and relevance of the green zone in an online platform endorsed so eloquently.
It seems to be a tool that could combine well with Zoom. The overall strategy seems to be one of minimizing immediacy and minimizing Bandwidth. Interesting how Immediacy is not mourned for as a “lost object”
I found this article interesting and, in general, agree with the categorizations presented in it.
Great visual and clear categorization of e-learning activities, thanks for sharing!
This is really good and helpful for us.our students and teachers are facing Internet problems. I like e-learning activities. Thanks
It’s great to get the tools that support distance learning. All stuff will help kick start the year and help alot.
Thank so much for this Daniel. The slide is very clear and simple to use – I have based a number of learning sessions at the college I work at, linking all available technologies that support these quadrants. With our locality ( in the Highlands of Scotland) bandwidth can be a real issue, that and digital poverty. Not all students have access to WIFI, and with colleges teaching face to face at a minimum now – and apprentices only starting to go back to work. There will be those that have lost access to the life line of a desk top computer/printer and using a phone now instead to view presentations/VC’s for learning. Not a great experience for anyone, this can help focus alternatives when creating VLE spaces and communicating with students.
Taught provoking and innovative thinking. Thanks for sharing. Looking at learning from different lenses certainly enhances the delivery of online learning and the impact it creates.
Thanks for sharing. Looking at learning from different lenses certainly enhances the delivery of online learning and the impact it creates.
Thanks for sharing. Looking at learning from different lenses certainly enhances the delivery of online learning
Thanks for sharing. The disparities of low versus high bandwidth certainly calls for reflection.
The disparities of low versus high bandwidth certainly calls for reflection.
Reduces cognitive dissonance around online delivery.
Thank you, Sir Daniel for this amazing article. I totally agree with the fact that the more aware we are of our choices of technology, the more we can ensure we’re choosing the right tools for the right reasons and ensure inclusive and effective teaching.