Not Every Web 2.0 Tool is a Hammer

Jacob Aroz

Web 2.0 tools are valuable to the facilitation of online classes. While the value that they add is tremendous, without careful implementation, that value can be easily squandered. One of the more popular Web 2.0 tool among faculty at Grand Canyon University, is Loom. An application that enables the user to record their screen to provide quick presentations and demonstrations. In this presentation, we explore the targeted use of Loom to provide feedback to students. When used carefully, Loom can enhance the experience of students and instructors, and close the proximal gap that can exist in an online classroom.  

Connect with Tech

Elizabeth Larson and Samia Humphrey

In the digital classroom, technology has become a way for instructors to connect with students, provide resources, and aid in classroom instruction. Technology allows instructors the ability to personalize their online classroom space, giving a sense of their teaching personality.  The integration of technology also allows instructors to establish a social presence within the digital classroom.  Technology tools such as Google Slides, Loom, Genially, and Padlet can be personalized to fit the needs of the course, class, and even to the instructor’s preferred teaching method.  The acronym BEST (Be strategic, Explore new tech, Start small, and Tailor tech) can help instructors that are new to the digital classroom, to start integrating technology in an effective manner.

Web 2.0 Tools for Project-Based Learning

Jared Trask

Web 2.0 tools are often identified as tools that enable a project. This focus is on our organization that presents a highly professional manner of working through project-based learning, presenting the information in a visual organization that sets the tone and expectation that everything we do as a designer must have an aesthetic that strengthens the communication between the creator (the professor in this case) to the target audience (the student in this case).

The peer-to-peer critiques enabled using Basecamp build community among students, give them practice using their design vocabulary and ability to support and defend their projects. This tool facilitates easy peer-to-peer feedback when distance or remote learning is required. In a face-to-face class, this tool also enables the critique conversation to go on after the class, which extends the learning past class time.

With Notion, Jared has built daily classroom dashboards. These dashboards are built to accompany the Halo platform by building in more resources and instructions for his students. These daily dashboards are sent to the students prior to class, then the dashboard is projected as a classroom course walk for that class day.  If a student misses a class, has to leave early, or needs the information for some other reason, they can turn to these daily dashboards to find all the information required to continue being successful in the class. 

In addition to using these daily dashboards, Jared has built a superior lesson planning tool with Notion that is organized, efficient, and flexible. All were constructed to streamline teaching as a project-based instructor. 

Using LiveBinders in the Online Classroom

David Stuart & Robert Zuckerman

One challenge facing online instructors is ensuring that students are viewing course resources. While a well-designed LMS can help increase the likelihood that students see class content, the challenge of getting students to view instructor-created resources (i.e. extended assignment directions, helpful videos, templates, lectures, etc.) still exists. One way to combat this challenge is to introduce the use of a virtual "3-ring binder" tool called LiveBinder. With LiveBinder, instructors can create a virtual library of all instructor-created resources that can easily be shared in numerous ways with students and other stakeholders.