Web 2.0 apps for online instructors

[John Thompson]

A colleague recently inquired about using Web 2.0 applications in online learning. My mind starting racing with the possibilities. IMHO, almost all Web 2.0 apps could be used in teaching online.

But what do you think? Are there Web 2.0 apps that have particular relevance/use for online instructors? Could be as a utitility for the instructors or as a teaching tool.

Let's see if there are Web 2.0 apps specifically geared for use by online instructors.

[Britt Watwood]

Here is a presentation I did at eLearning 2008 on using social bookmarking instructionally. I have also used Google Docs for collaborative work.

I agree with you - you are only limited by your imagination. I (so far) do not believe in "requiring" blogging but blog myself and see lots of potential there as well.

[John Thompson]

Thanks, Britt. Great presentation on using social bookmarking. Makes it really clear to newbies and gives new ideas to veterans.

[Randy Meredith]

John,

I have to agree - most Web 2.0 apps could be used for online learning. Our university uses Blackboard, which has a fairly robust tool set, including a blog, wiki, and Blackboard Scholar (Bb's social bookmarking tool). There are so many Web 2.0 apps, but I am not sure what else I could meaningfully add to the collection.

Here's a related questions for you: Is it a big complication to require students to use a Web 2.0 tool outside the course management system? By complication, I am referring to assessment, course navigation, etc.
I've kind of steered away from them for courses hosted in Blackboard, but wonder if I am making a wise choice.

[John Thompson]

Good question, Randy. I don't think going "outside" a CMS/LMS (I use ANGEL but have used Bb and eCollege ) would cause any problems. In fact, maybe the students would appreciate the variation. The problem might be more for you in tracking, assessing, and grading (and getting the grade into your CMS's gradebook) the Web 2.0 assignments.

[Randy Meredith]

John,
I think you are right on regarding the tracking/grading. We already have that problem with tect book publisher's course cartridges for Bb (leave Bb, go to publisher course site, take test, grade does not come back to Bb).

I think the bottom line is choosing an instructional strategy that best supports state learning outcomes, while keeping in mind the potential impact a given strategy will have on course/student management.

[John Thompson]

Coincidentally, I just gave an assignment "outside" my ANGEL course. The students had to go to http://www.blogger.com and start a blog. They had to do their first post, then submit an assignment response in an associated ANGEL assignment dropbox, including their blog's URL so I could go post a reply comment. Then I went back to the dropbox and evaluated the assignment. Not cumbersome at all.

[Stephanie Cheney]

Some of our faculty require students to have a blog outside blackboard but the instructor creates a file w/links to all student blogs-part of the assignments include going to classmates' blogs and commenting. It is easy for the students to access other student's blogs b/c the links are w/in blackboard.

[Alexandra M. Pickett]

Hi Randy:

I taught an online master's level course this summer in moodle with several aspects of the course resiging "outside" the course management system. I purposefuly chose to use tools external to the CMS for a couple of reasons.
1. because i want students to have permanent access to the content they generate.
2. a blog is not authentic if it is locked behind a password, with access only to a class, and that goes away at the end of the term...
here are my more complete thoughts on this in a blog post. I invite any comments on my thoughts : )

I did not have ANY problems in requiring or directing students to these external tools. In fact the majority of the technical issues and support were specific to the use of moodle. Also, moodle allows for easy embedding of external tools that i am not sure is as easy in commercial tools like ANGEL or BB. I was able to directly embed almost the tools i used directly into moodle. One of the coolest was the diigo link roll - which allowed for a dynamically updated list of links to my class diigo group to be able to be directly embedded in my moodle course. ...very cool. The list below are links to almost all the external tools i used in the course... again... all these tools were embedded or linked to directly from within the course. (i used youtube, meebome and some others too fyi.)

Here is a tour of my course which shows several of the external web tools.

Some of the tools used in the course are: (all the activities were required and interaction graded.)
http://twitter.com/etap687- for course announcements
http://voicethread.com/share/38310/ - an audio/video/text ice breaking activity
http://groups.diigo.com/groups/ETAP687 - shared references and resources that persist beyond the end of the term for student access.
http://www.screencast.com/users/alexandrapickett/folders/Jing - instructions and audio feedback
http://etap687.edublogs.org - instructor and student metacognitive journaling activities and descriptive feedback - student blogs.
http://tinyurl.com/5vd8hc - podcasted interviews with online exemplar courses and faculty.

would love to share experiences with others. FYI - there is a very interesting discussion going on here http://www.hastac.org/scholars/forum/8-25-08Rheingold-participatory... that you may also be interested. Video discussion in seesmic and for text disucssion scroll way down...

Alejandra

[Stephanie Cheney]

Wikis are a great tool for peer review. Some of our faculty have students respond to writing w/in the same course but outside of their "section". This creates some critical distance and allows students to be more honest in their feedback.

Google Docs/Zoho would also work for this purpose. My department uses GD as an access point for work we're collaborating on. It prevents all the different versions/revisions that get e-mailed around and confused.

Voice Thread is also a cool tool-post a video or photo or slide show (ppt) and narrate it and have others add their unique perspective or ideas. I think that using Blackboard or similar CMS to provide a central location for all these web 2.0 apps makes a lot of sense-from the instructor standpoint, it minimizes the work, and from the student perspective, it means they go to one place (initially) to access all the course materials.

[Britt Watwood]

Great point, Stephanie. The CMS is simply a portal out to lots of applications. I have used Blackboard to jump out to Google Docs, SlideShare, YouTube, delicious, and blogs. Blackboard is beginning to add some of these capabilities (like Scholar)...but I feel I have a more robust network outside Blackboard than inside, so see little reason to restrict myself to Scholar.

[Randy Meredith]

Britt,

I too prefer other social bookmarking tools over Scholar, although it isn't bad. My preference is del.icio.us because of it's simplicity.

[Randy Meredith]

Stephanie,
Have you (or someone you know) created a narrated PPT using Voice Thread? It just so happens we (my staff and I) were having a great discussion about the possibility of employing a Web 2.0 tool like Voice Thread to enable students to do narrated PPT presentations.

I am curious how well it works from the student perspective, and how easy it is for faculty to assess presentations made in Voice Thread.