How can educators deliver lectures without putting their students to sleep? With so many technologies readily available to make your classes more enjoyable and interesting, it is hard to choose which to implement. Delivering your lectures via the Internet makes for a more interesting outcome, specifically through your own website or facebook.com (one of the most popular social networking program online).
When making your own website, you should check with your school’s Webmaster to see if they offer teachers free web space through the school’s server. Then you will have to figure out what you want included in your website, the layout, color scheme, text designs, etc... Because you are building the website, you decide what to include and not to include, it is teacher-centered; thus, social presence. On the other hand, media richness can be increased by including images, audio and videos to deliver your lecture.
Another way to deliver your lectures can be done through facebook: http://www.edumorphology.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/fb_classroom1.pdf. You can create a teacher account (http://apps.facebook.com/courses) and add the courses application. You can create your own course, post assignments, start a discussion, make announcements, etc...
How can educators deliver lectures without putting their students to sleep? With so many technologies readily available to make your classes more enjoyable and interesting, it is hard to choose which to implement. Delivering your lectures via the Internet makes for a more interesting outcome, specifically through your own website or facebook.com (one of the most popular social networking program online).
When making your own website, you should check with your school’s Webmaster to see if they offer teachers free web space through the school’s server. Then you will have to figure out what you want included in your website, the layout, color scheme, text designs, etc... Because you are building the website, you decide what to include and not to include, it is teacher-centered; thus, social presence. On the other hand, media richness can be increased by including images, audio and videos to deliver your lecture.
Another way to deliver your lectures can be done through facebook: http://www.edumorphology.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/fb_classroom1.pdf. You can create a teacher account (http://apps.facebook.com/courses) and add the courses application. You can create your own course, post assignments, start a discussion, make announcements, etc...
The best thing about facebook is you can invite all your students to join your class and change the setting to make it only viewable to people on your contact list.
With your students as members of your course, they will be able to leave comments, upload pictures or videos related to the class to share with other students, read your posts/lectures, contribute to the discussion board and check what is due, increasing media richness and social presence (Distance Education; May2008, Vol. 29 Issue 1, p89-106, 18p).
There are some strengths and weaknesses associated with these two technologies. When building your own website, there are many things you have to consider: how much is it going to cost? Do you need to hire someone to make it for you or do you know how to make a website yourself? Who is going to maintain the website? On the plus side, you have control over what is on your website. You do not need to worry about your students adding inappropriate things to your site.
Facebook, in my opinion, is a much better choice because of the student-teacher interaction involved. Even though you still have to learn the technology, it is much easier than building your own website. You students may need some assistance learning how to navigate around facebook, but you can help by providing a small tutorial of the basic things that needs to be done.
Both building your own website and signing up for facebook fulfills the task of delivering lectures. The decisions you will have to make are how much time, money and effort do you want to invest in delivering your lecture?
All in all I have learned that even web services initially developed for online social networking can be use for educational purposes. Also, building your own website for your class can be really complicated and cumbersome to implement. Learning how to use technologies that is readily available can save you a lot of time, money and stress.
The best thing about facebook is you can invite all your students to join your class and change the setting to make it only viewable to people on your contact list.
With your students as members of your course, they will be able to leave comments, upload pictures or videos related to the class to share with other students, read your posts/lectures, contribute to the discussion board and check what is due, increasing media richness and social presence (Distance Education; May2008, Vol. 29 Issue 1, p89-106, 18p).
There are some strengths and weaknesses associated with these two technologies. When building your own website, there are many things you have to consider: how much is it going to cost? Do you need to hire someone to make it for you or do you know how to make a website yourself? Who is going to maintain the website? On the plus side, you have control over what is on your website. You do not need to worry about your students adding inappropriate things to your site.
Facebook, in my opinion, is a much better choice because of the student-teacher interaction involved. Even though you still have to learn the technology, it is much easier than building your own website. You students may need some assistance learning how to navigate around facebook, but you can help by providing a small tutorial of the basic things that needs to be done.
Both building your own website and signing up for facebook fulfills the task of delivering lectures. The decisions you will have to make are how much time, money and effort do you want to invest in delivering your lecture?
All in all I have learned that even web services initially developed for online social networking can be use for educational purposes. Also, building your own website for your class can be really complicated and cumbersome to implement. Learning how to use technologies that is readily available can save you a lot of time, money and stress.
What a great idea to use Facebook. I had never even thought about that. With the proliferation of college-aged Facebook users, it makes incredible sense though. Great post!
ReplyDeleteGrace it looks like you tapped into a valuable undiscovered teaching resource!
ReplyDelete"Learning how to use technologies that is readily available can save you a lot of time, money and stress."
Very well done, informative and clear material.
mckinley