Part D - Findings and Implications

As we wrap up the end of the WPP project I am pleased to say that I have found a tool to help with the lack of classroom participation and discussion.  The use of Poll Everywhere in the classroom helped to spark interest in classroom discussions and also helped with the percentage of students participating in discussions.  I will definitely continue to use Poll Everywhere as a tool to help improve classroom discussions and get immediate feedback from the students.

Overall, the project was implemented as planned and the findings were similar to what I had hoped for.  As I have stated, I hoped that using Poll Everywhere would help to increase participation and get immediate feedback from the students in classroom discussions.  I found this tool to be successful in meeting its goal because nearly every student in class was participating in providing thoughtful feedback to the discussion questions.  Below I have embedded a screenshot of a classroom discussion using poll everywhere that shows evidence of the projects success.

There are certainly other problems that occur in the classroom that I could address as a teacher in a similar type of project.  After having completed this project I think one thing that I may approach differently as a teacher with other problems in the classroom is to research technological tools and resources that may prove to be beneficial in these other situations.  I learned some valuable lessons in this project with using technology to improve discussions.  Of course, I would let others know about the awesome capabilities of using classroom polls to improve discussion and get immediate feedback.  Another thing I might let other teachers know about is how the students are able to answer questions anonymously using this technology.  As a result, I think I would tell them that it may be something worth addressing before using the technology.  If I were to use this resource in class again I think that I would point out the importance of having real, quality responses to the discussion questions as a way of improving everyone's understanding.  I definitely will continue to use Poll Everywhere as a resource in the classroom and I think I will explore some other online polling programs as well to continue to improve classroom discussion and feedback.

Data Visualization and Mobile Learning Lab

Poll Everywhere
I have used Poll Everywhere a few times in class now.  I have used the questions to survey project ideas and to use as a way to informally assess the students.  The best part about it is that the students enjoy using it to participate in class.  Below you can see a screenshot of one of my classroom polls using Poll Everywhere.  

Classroom 2.0

This is another great resource to explore the ideas and learn from other teachers that are using web 2.0 technology in their classrooms.  I found it useful to learn tips from other teachers about using cell phones in the classroom.  Below you can see a screenshot of me joining the classroom 2.0 group.  

Part B - Storyboard and Script

Here is a link to our Storyboard and Script for the course management system, Moodle.  We used Google Presentations to make the storyboard and we used the "Speaker Notes" feature to add the script to the presentation.  We also added the script in a separate Google Doc.

I chose to focus my part of the storyboard on how using Moodle is different than using website builders like Google Sites and Foxbright.  Primarily, it gives teachers the option to have students upload their assignments.  Essentially, Moodle is a lot like the course management system we use at MSU, Angel.

The work on our final product will be much easier as we already have a detailed script.  We are going to adding to our focus and using a collaborative tool, such as Prezi, for our product.

Part C - Implementation

Here is a link to my podcast discussing the implementation of my WPP.

http://www.msu.edu/~whymerky/Podcasts/WPPImplementationPodcast.mp3    


Here are a couple of screenshots of the responses to the poll questions.  

Web-Conferencing

For our group project Marcus and I had a web conference using Vyew.  The web conference was good for meeting and discussing our project but we also encountered some problems.  One of those problems is that Vyew does not have a recording function.  As a result, we used Jing to record the web conference.  This was also a problem because it only picked up my voice.  I am not quite sure why my voice was the only one that was recorded.  However, this is a major issue if you want to record a web conference.  Next time I think I would try something like Skype and try to record the web conference using Camtasia.

Vyew did have some cool features, such as the ability to edit the screen, and upload images.  I've added a screenshot of our conference below that shows some of those features.

As you can see, I uploaded an image for Moodle and added some text on the same screen that Marcus had already added some text.  You can also see that we were able to use the chat feature as well.  That came in handy for us when the discussion audio and video were freezing and lagging.

This could be useful in my class as a way to have students be able to respond through the chat while I use the editing functions.

Part B - Application of TPACK

TPACK is the combination of technology, content and pedagogical aspects of a lesson.  It focuses on the importance of using all aspects of these to create the most quality lessons.  For example, just adding technology to a lesson for the sake of adding technology without focusing on necessary content knowledge is ineffective lesson planning.  With that in mind, the focus of my WPP is driven in all aspects of TPACK, without just focusing on using this new technology option. 

The technology that I have chosen to use is a classroom polling program called Poll Everywhere.  With Poll Everwhere I can set up poll questions that students can answer by texting from their cell phones or by using computers with internet access.  The goal is to use this technology to enhance my pedagogical strategies in the classroom.  The pedagogical strategies are active classroom discussion and informal assessment.  A large part of my teaching strategy is having active classroom discussions and getting feedback in the form of informal assessments.  Typically, in my Advanced Web Publishing class, I will only get feedback from a few of the students.  As a result, I know what those students know about the content, but what about the other 28 students in class.  I think that by having some of these discussion questions on Poll Everywhere then more students will feel free to respond to questions because they won't have to talk in front of the class and because they may be motivated to use technology in this way.

This technology also plays an important role with the content that I am teaching.  It could be used for a variety of topics and content.  For my web publishing class, it could be a great tool to have students brainstorm and post their thoughts for web publishing ideas.  This could help students facilitate one another with ideas that they could use on their own web projects.  Discussing, sharing ideas, and reflecting is something that must be done to further understand any content and this technology helps to facilitate that.

Like I mentioned above, discussions and reflections are an important pedagogical approach to understanding content.  For this, students will reflect on their own knowledge of the content and also be able to learn from others through the live online discussion created on Poll Everywhere.  This students will be able to experience the content by through many different types of questions posed through this resource.

Part A - Brainstorm Session

For our Group Leadership Project we are exploring course managment systems.  In particular, we are focusing on Moodle and its capabilities.  As a group, we have met in an online meeting forum called Vyew to discuss our project and the timeline for completion.  Here is a link to the screencast that we created using Jing. 

Again, our group met on the online conferencing forum called Vyew.  Vyew is a free web based meeting forum that allows users to share screens, chat through text, and upload on and edit the screen.  The catch is that it is add supported, although that did not bother me much. 

Vyew has its advantages and disadvantages.  Some of those advantages include the ability to share screens, chat, upload images and documents, and a page that is editable.  However, it is not without its problems or disadvantages.  One disadvantage that we encountered was that it froze or had a lag on a couple different occasions. 

Part A - Description of Need or Opportunity

For this Wicked Problem Project I am going to attempt to tackle the common classroom problem of getting limited discussion or feedback on questions directed to the class.  In my years of teaching science, and now as a web publishing teacher, I have had trouble getting a wide variety of students to share their thoughts in classroom discussion.  It always seems like a limited few are answering all the questions.  What are the other students thinking during the discussion?  Do they know the answer to the proposed question and they are too shy or lacking the confidence to respond?  Or, are the lost entirely, or just not paying attention?

Regardless of the reasons for the problem, I feel like I have a potential solution.  I think that using classroom polls and surveys will help to get the active feedback that is essential in classroom discussion and in my ability to informally assess the students' understanding in a more complete fashion.  One way I plan on accomplishing this is by using www.polleverywhere.com.  With this, students can answer questions using their cell phones or by using the polleverywhere website URL address.  By using this service, the students can respond to my discussion questions without having to speak to the whole class.

I plan on introducing this to the class in the daily bell question.  The questions would be used to get students to review something we have learned in a previous class, or to think about what they will be doing for the day.  I will give the students the first 5-10 minutes of class to respond to the question, and I will be able to track how many of the students have responded to the question.

I have found a couple different examples of this service as an educational tool.  In this blog by digital teach, I saw a quick video of this being used in a science classroom.  Another article discusses the uses of polleverywhere in the classroom and includes some details about how to set up and use the service.  I particularly like how it includes benefits of the service including, "increasing classroom participation and attentiveness".  

I plan to implement this immediately in my web publishing class.  As I discussed, I will be using it for a bell activity a few times a week to start.  If successful, I plan on using it in future classes, including my science classes.  An indication of success would be all of the students in the class responding to the prompting questions in thoughtful ways.  This should also boost student attentiveness during discussions and increase motivation as they get to use their mobile phones in class.

Video Bio

Here is a link to my video bio on screencast.com.

http://screencast.com/t/9JvLvHFYnD7