Reflections on Week 6/7

Assignment #5

The project for the last two weeks was to create a Web Quest. I initially had no idea what this was, so the resources that Dr. Yuen provided were really helpful. From there I learned that it is an inquiry-based activity that involves students completing a task using both online and offline resources. I initially had no clue about what to do. I then remembered that when I spent a semester abroad in Australia, the sponsoring university (in the U.S.) hosted a class on Australian culture. It was so helpful (I actually took it through distance learning!). So I thought of my trip to Italy and decided that a Web Quest about Italian culture made sense for students going there. I don’t teach that class just yet, but I would do it in a second!

I first broke down the major cultural areas into religion, art, history and architecture. I then decided that students would create a travel itinerary that incorporated places that fit their assigned cultural element. This was broken into an introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation, conclusion and teacher notes. The introduction and the task were easy. The process was a little more difficult for me. Thanks to my husband (the man with an Education degree), I understood that this had to spell out exactly what the students needed to do so they would know just how to proceed. I then applied the Rubric and created the conclusion and teaching tips.

The site itself was easy to use since we had already used Google Page Creator for a previous assignment. My biggest problem was getting my picture header to do what I wanted it to do! I did go back and find some of my old notes on HTML code and I was able to use them to add tags to all of the images, open the website in a new window and create the buttons down the left side (all comments that Dr. Yuen had made on my webpage). My only other problem was with the buttons. I entered the code linking them to the sections and they worked great. Then, all of a sudden, every single button pointed to the Task Page. I have no idea why. It did this to me twice. I then copied the code into word (in case it happened again, it would only take a few seconds to fix), but it never did. This was by far the most time-consuming project to this point. However, once I got going, I did not really notice how time flew.

I want to try to incorporate this into my writing class in the fall. Students often have such a hard time doing projects without step-by-step instructions as well as informational resources. I think that taking the time to construct a simple new site would save me a lot of question/answer and last minute panics and the students would ultimately learn more and create better projects.

Course Content of Week 6/7

Like the other course portions, much of my feelings were already well-shared on the discussion site (I am sorry I get a little long-winded!). Thus, I will keep this brief. I think both interactive compressed video and desktop video conferencing are great tools in the right environment. The big problem with desktop video conferencing is of course quality. I think if you are not trying to show anything too complex (essentially it’s a talking head) then the low 15fps would be ok. The other problem is of course audio. I think it is a great way to share resources amongst different schools, especially schools that may not have access otherwise. I also think it is a great chance for bringing in experts who might not be able to travel to the school or who might be too expensive to bring in person because of travel costs (like extremely high gas prices!!). It is also so much cheaper than some of the alternatives.

I think with the right codec, interactive compressed video can also be great. Again, it allows students access to resources and experts they might not otherwise be able to obtain. It also allows students to take classes without having a physical presence on campus. I think for smaller universities or universities with multiple campuses that this will save professors and students time and money. It could mean a class is only offered once instead of in multiple sections on different campuses. This would make the professors’ lives much easier.

The biggest problem for both is of course the fact that it is technology. It can certainly malfunction. Furthermore, training is essential but oftentimes overlooked. If a professor is spending too much time trying to get a system to work and not enough time teaching, everyone loses. If they give up on trying to get something to work, then any of the students not physically present are wasting their money and time and missing valuable information. Besides the quality issues, the other problem is maintaining everyone’s interest. As I already said in my post, I think it would be critical to have a proctor to keep the ‘distance’ students focused on the lesson. It would be way too easy to ignore an instructor who is not there. I also think that the age level and course content must be appropriate for this type of instruction. Classes that are really complex (advanced math) or highly technical in nature, or require hands on material, would be very difficult to conduct this way.

I think that as we develop faster and faster transmissions means and storage capacities continue to go up, this will become a very meaningful way to learn because the video/audio will not need to be as compressed (or compressed at all). I think the possibilities for this in the future are really exciting.