Hi, welcome back. Well today we are going to talk about Large Lecture formats again. this time from the perspective of technology and using technology, as many of us. Use large lecture formats sort of as our main way of teaching, so what we're going to try to do today is describe options for incorporating the technology into large lecture formats. We want to try, as always, to match our intended purpose of the lecture with the choice of technology. And then consider the advantages and disadvantages of the varying technology that exists. So, first things first, is always start with the end in mind, right? And so, what are we trying to do with large lectures, because that will help us figure out which, if any, technologies to incorporate. So the challenge, obviously, is that technology is always in flux. And so, probably, what we're using today will not be good in about a week, or there will be newer and faster Iterations of the same, you know, software that we're using. So it's really not about the technology tool per se, but what do we need the technology to do, what are the options available to us. So, one thing that we do with large lectures is just simply transferring information. And that can be a little bit of a passive format. And we talked before about trying to make the lectures all the more active and interactive. But sometimes you really just need to transfer a lot of information. So is there a way to engage technology to te, to help us do that? Sometimes, when you're having a large lecture, there's actually specific concepts or understandings that you want people to gain And so, by using technology, and interactive technology in a large lecture, you can actually asses how much people are understanding or capturing while you're talking. The good thing is that, you know, sitting in a large lecture format can be kind of boring and so engaging technology can encourage interaction, can actually make things a bit more fun and just encourage participation. So that's were sort of the active versus passive engagement comes in. Not only with the material but with other people in the room. So there's always a low fidelity option for technology in lecture and, you know, many of us Don't have the opportunity to have bells and whistles everywhere, or we don't want to spend the money to have you know bells and whistles. And so traditional sort of low fidelity items include things like whiteboards or chalkboards or blackboards, you can call them whatever you like. But actually physically writing on the board, whether you as the lecturer. Sure does, that. Or if you have students come up to answer questions or to work as a group and then create sort of a relic on the board can be helpful. The other thing that often works well, especially when you're travelling and maybe you don't want to carry so much technology, is you can carry index cards that can be numbered or lettered or color coded. And then ask the group questions or ask the group their opinions, or ask the group for feedback, and then individuals in the room can hold up those index cards that are item numbered or letter or color coded. Now I know what some of you are thinking, which is that, well I'm not going to raise my hand in a large class, so why would I hold up a color coded answer card? That may or may not indicate how much I do or don't know. And that's actually the biggest sort of ah,hold up with using index cards is that people may not feel comfortable holding up the answer or participating in that way. The old school way of doing things also with low-fidelity is with overhead transparencies. And I know some colleagues who actually travel with overhead transparencies of their PowerPoints just in case the PowerPoint doesn't work or there's some other computer issue. So again, it's technology, right? Because it's some sort of tool that helps us do something. and we get stuck, I think, in thinking about technology as something new or fancy or, or very expensive. But, just in case you really do want to be fancy and play with bells and whistles, there are definitely lots of high fidelity options and many people are familiar with classroom response system. You can call them lots of things. Some people call them clickers, individual smartphones, also have apps that you can download to help with classroom response systems. And basically what you're doing is during your lecture with classroom response systems, you can engage, individuals with multiple choice questions or with opinion questions, and place that in your lecture. And then the students can use their clickers or their smart phones to respond and then you can actually put the answers up on the board. So we're going to talk about that in just a minute. But the other options for high fidelity technology in lectures include interactive lecture software, that incorporate your PowerPoint slides but also have the capability of incorporating discussion or incorporating lecture notes. That individuals can take and again, I'll talk a little more about this in a moment. Then there's always the notion of using social networking and communication tools while you're actually giving a large lecture. Many of us are familiar with sort of this new use during Conferences and what not. But it would be interesting and perhaps novel to think of ways to use social networking and communication during your lectures and then capturing that information for later use. So let's go back for a second to classroom response systems, and basically what you need for classroom response system. Is you need some sort of software on your computer device and then the individuals in the lecture hall need some type of radio frequency device. So that's what I was talking about when I was talking about clickers, or some people can use their smart phones. Basically, the advantage is you can set up anonymous responses to a variety of questions that occur during your lecture, and the software actually takes those responses in And provides a bar graph with the distribution of the answers, which you then can view in real time. The advantage is that it gives both the students and the lecturer immediate feedback about understandings within the room or further questions or need for further explanations. So, the types of questions that you can ask when you're using a classroom response system, can vary all over the board. And you can use Bloom's Textotomy to help you write those types of questions. So, some people use the response systems for recall. Just straight did you come prepared to class, here are some ready preparedness assessment questions whatever you want to call them before we start class to prove that you actually read the material. You could write questions about sort of big concepts, so you could lecture and then assess people's understanding of the concepts. You could use application. You could use, like I said, readiness. The other thing is really getting people to think critically or to provide their perspective. Now, the challenge there is that especially if you're asking for opinions or, sort of stimulating controversial discussions, is being able to manage that discussion within the room. but, again, the advantage is that you can use the response systems anonymously, and so people will feel much more comfortable answering And then participate in your lecture. So other technologies like I mentioned include something called the interactive lecture software. Now here at the University of Michigan, one of our professors here, Dr. Samson, actually developed something called lecture tools. And basically what the software is, is incorporating lecture slides. And using in-lecture questions, either using words or images. So he actually, teaches an atmospheric, sciences course, so, weather basically, and he uses and incorporates, images into his lectures to help Stimulate understanding. The students can use the software to use real time note taking. They also can ask real time questions or participate in discussions during the lecture. The other very interesting thing about this software is that it actually captures the lecture. Together with the students' notes. And then those can be sort of downloaded, distributed or printed later on. There are lots of software tools out there. Many people are familiar with Adobe. I have no financial connection to either of those. but again, the technology will change over and over. But what we do with the technology can really be helpful. And so this interactive software Really engages people and has them bring their computers to class and actually sort of be more engaged with the lecture. in the syllabus I included his article describing his course and what the results were from that course so you can look into the syllabus for that. Now there's another way of communicating during a large lecture format that most sorry, that many people are familiar with and that's sort of what I was talking about before when I was talking about being in a conference or something. And people talk about back channel communication. So while people are lecturing there's actually sort of thoughts and chatter, if you will, going on in a back channel. So either people can be instant messaging or emailing but in some way, shape or form there's actually communication going on. About the real time lecture. And, so wouldn't it be neat, or useful, or exciting if you could actually capture those discussions, or use those discussions to help guide your lecture, or add to the richness of the discussion that occurs during your lecture So again, lots of software opportunities there. Many people are using Twitter with specific hashtags for the discussion that they're having. Google moderator has options there. You could use chat rooms. I'll be very interested to hear from you guys about any other back channels or software that you're used to using, or that you incorporate to look for. A little sort of side bar about that in are ah,chat room as well. The really important thing though about back channels, and I really recommend this is to always make sure this that discussion is monitored. So you as the lecturer really. I mean you could. But it would be very distracting to always be checking, you know, your Twitter to see what came in. So you want someone who knows the material and who is, you know, actively engaged in the lecture to monitor the discussion. The helpful thing there is that they can sort of accumulate the discussions that are occurring and during a question and answer phase of the lecture or at a pause in the lecture. You can actually bring up those questions that people are having. so again a very sort of rich and very sort of complex way to engage your audience. So let's talk about the advantages because they're really are some advantages [LAUGH] to a tech lecture. We talked about engagement with the material, you know, I often will sit in the back of a classroom and sort of watch what my students do with the PowerPoint presentations or How they engage with taking notes or just you know, actually accessing the internet to get further clarification about something that someone may have said. So it's very intriguing how people sort of solve their curiosity within the lecture. By using classroom response system, or using those software tools where people sort of feel safer having. You know, discussion you can engage more quiet individuals. Look, I've said a bunch of times. I actually use it to adjust the lecture, to make sure that people are understanding and that I'm actually being clear. There is evidence of improved learning and performance when people use technology or classroom response systems. Again, it's getting more towards the deeper learning and the deeper understanding. As opposed to the surface learning, right. So many of us have had the experience of sitting in front of a television perhaps and not really hearing what happens or not really listening and sort of just using it as background noise. So sadly many of our lectures are actually background noise for people and if you can engage them by using technology Then there attention and cognitive activity is actually engaged in the learning that occurs during the lecture, particularly if your lecture is interactive or if it poses questions as opposed to a list of bullet points. Okay, now, challenges. I'm sure that you during this lecture have started a whole list of the yeah, but's. This is, it doesn't work, or it's too hard. And that's the truth. I mean the technology can be difficult. There are needs for software. There are hardware needs. There are network needs. The Internet goes down all the time or somehow because we don't understand how to use the software well. We've created something that just makes it too difficult. Or we're actually asking our learners to engage in software that they're not familiar with. So it requires that all of us have some sort of technological savvy. Either with computers, or with software, or with engagement or you know, some people like to Skype. There's all sorts of opportunities. And so when you're using technology in a lecture. You do need to build in a little bit of run up in terms of teaching people how to use the technology that you want to employ. I don't know about you, but when I have the internet available to me and my computer and the lecture might get a little boring or slow I am easily distractable, and so people, you know, are just human, and they go looking for other things to do. And in some of the literature there is actually, you know, an explanation that, yep the students do go look at Facebook or they do play games or the person in front of me who was playing Wordle, actually was very distracting because I was trying to take notes. but many students feel like they can manage that and personally, when I'm teaching I feel like I'm teaching adults so that's the choice that people can make. The other challenge of a tech lecture, particularly if you're allowing anonymous comments or Twitter feeds or something of that nature, so there's no accountability, there's no necessary way to sort of track someone. Is the potential for inappropriate comments or just you know things that just aren't appropriate for that space and time. Unprofessional comments or unkind comments. And so again, the importance of having something monitored, having ground rules for discussion would be very important as well. So those are just a few ideas of how you can incorporate technology into your large lecture formats. I know there are lots of options and lots of opportunities, but I wanted to cover a few. hopefully I've presented you with some novel ideas that you're willing to try. Okay. See you next time. Thanks.
