FIT Grant Project

Cheryl Rules

Purpose

Explore technology to assist with on-line student support such as tutoring

Develop both synchronous and asynchronous teaching methods

Keep the technology simple so the focus is on the content and not the equipment

Create permanent recordings for students to view as often as they wish

TOOLS

Adobe Pro Meeting Room Telephone connections for live

interaction Bamboo pad for writing and drawing Screenrs Camtasia

ADOBE CONNECT PRO

Adobe is a meeting room. The moderator sends out a URL address which students simply click on to access

The link was loaded into the Bb shell as “Adobe Link”

A free trial can be obtained at;http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/trial/

ADOBE CONNECT PRO (cont)

Students could communicate via the chat feature

Students could also call into a phone line which allowed for live questions and feedback

Specified time for student tutoring for 543-109 was established

Sessions were easily taped- for sample session;

http://breeze.fvtc.edu/p60793005/

ADOBE CONNECT PRO (cont)

Excellent live student attendance Those who could not attend live

loved the ability to review the taped session-many did both

Technology was simple to use, accommodated a large number of learners and had excellent student feedback

BAMBOO PAD

http://wacom.com/bamboo/bamboo_pen_touch.php

BAMBOO PAD (cont)

The Bamboo pad is like a white board. Although Adobe has the ability to allow writing, the pad has a pen and writing is much easier, although you will note from the Adobe tape it is not perfect.

The pad and pen supports the ability to write content and draw pictures/diagrams as needed

SCREENRS Screenrs are five-minute podcasts that

anyone can create quite simply. Sign up for a Twitter account at

http://twitter.com/ Go to http://www.screenr.com/ Screenrs are simple to record; click on

record now and center box over PPT or other content on desktop. Click record, and using mic simply cover five minutes of content. Then give your screenr a name, click ‘publish’ and you will be given a unique URL. Copy and paste this URL into Bb for students to access

SCREENR (cont)

Sample of actual screenr in course. This was created with the Bamboo pad:

http://screenr.com/Lhf Over one hundred five minute podcasts

have been created and loaded into the Bb shell. There is a plan to place them into a universal Bb site for all students to utilize. There have been some minor issues with sound for the screenrs over time. They may also be saved as MP3 files

CAMTASIA

Camtasia is another program that moves beyond that of Adobe Pro to allow for creation of media from the desktop to supplement learning activities. Use of this product has been delayed due to learning the other features and will be explored further

CONCLUSION

The technology was presented at a faculty council meeting and many faculty were interested. Feedback to Anne Wilkinson has been excellent and students are asking why other instructors do not have the same resources available. I plan to buy my own Bamboo Pad and hope to continue to offer live Adobe tutoring sessions, create more screenrs, and explore Camtasia