Lessons from On-line Learning for the Traditional Classroom
Cross-posted on Caves to Cathedrals.
Yesterday evening, I came across this post on 21st Century Teaching & Learning, a blog about “how to effectively integrate web 2.0 tools into instruction”. The blogger, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, teaches art history and, at least from my perspective, stands at the cutting edge of digital learning.
In this post, Dr. Pacansky-Brock shares a slideshow that she presented as part of a series on on-line teaching. I was most struck by slides 5 and 6 showing a traditional syllabus and a web-inspired syllabus. Although the more traditional among us may abhor such seeming frivolity or even pandering, looking at these two versions of a syllabus, I realized that the form of the traditional syllabus reflects the limitations of the technology of a different age. Why shouldn’t we take advantage of our technological capabilities in order to make syllabi, first, more visually appealing, and second, more interactive?
In this post, she also shares a VoiceThread from one of her classes (you may also discover other uses to which she has put VoiceThread). VoiceThread is not new to on-line educators, but it is new to me. VoiceThread amazes me, and I easily see its potential for the traditional classroom. The greatest struggle, I find, is to create autonomous learners. I ask students to spend time looking closely at works of art in order to prepare for class, but they seldom understand what this means. I also encourage them to form study groups to force them to articulate what they see; this they rarely do. The next time that I teach, I will use VoiceThread to guide the students preparation for class and to facilitate a conversation among the students about objects and monuments and thereby to train them to look at and talk about art. In turn, such preparation would permit greater depth and more meaningful discussion during class time.
June 27th, 2008 at 10.51
Hi Kirsten, I’m so pleased to hear my blog inspired some creative teaching ideas for you. The syllabus change has had quite an impact, i think. And if you’re interested in learning more about how I use VoiceThread for learning please let me know. I’d be happy to speak with you further. It’s quite a powerful and easy-to-use tool that I think has potential to really inspire students. I now use the webcam tool to leave comments for my students within a discussion so they now see me talking to them. I am at a point where i feel my on-ground students are getting less individual instruction than my online students. Best of luck to you. I’m so glad I connected with another art historian!
-Michelle