How to Flip Your Classroom

Image from Edudemic

Hack Education lists "The Flipped Classroom" as one of the "Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2012", noting that "the practice became incredibly popular this year." In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dan Berrett says the Flipped Classroom "describes the inversion of expectations in the traditional college lecture. It takes many forms, including interactive engagement, just-in-time teaching (in which students respond to Web-based questions before class, and the professor uses this feedback to inform his or her teaching), and peer instruction." Generally, though, the model is that of taking the lecture out of the classroom and putting it online so that class (face-to-face) time is spent working with students on mastery. Here's one of the many available images that illustrate the "flip" -

 

From Deseret News

- and (if you're collecting them), here's an infographic from Edudemic that provides more details:

There are several ways you can flip your classroom. You can use a lecture capture utility. You can try Google Hangouts. One writer lists these tools as options: YouTube, Facebook, TED Ed, Khan Academy, Screencast-o-matic, Edmodo, Schoology, Spreaker, Podomatic, Audacity, Podbean, ShowMe, ScreenChomp, Explain Everything, Educreations, and ScreenCast Video Recorder.

Here at the California Community Colleges, we have our own classroom flipper: CCC Confer. With Confer, you can record your lectures anytime, from anywhere, and deliver them to live online students, face-to-face students, both at the same time, or to students who will view them at an unspecified time and date of your choosing. The archives can be accessed from anywhere at any time, and they can be made portable (i.e., as MP4s or uploaded to YouTube) if you choose.

Here's how easy it is:




You can discover more about how instructors like you are flipping with Confer archives here. By recording lectures, they're extending class time, providing options for students who miss class, providing for searchable content, accommodating diverse learning styles and abilities, and making it easier for students to apply themselves to learning and mastery, rather than to taking notes and interpreting.

Interested in more information about the flipped classroom? Try this link, which will take you to my curated articles on the subject.

Oh, the Places You Can Go with Web Conferencing!

Now that we've institutionalized Web conferencing, it's beginning to become apparent that this kind of collaboration can support many more kinds of learning and support than the traditional teacher-to-student interactions we originally envisioned. Even in the latter, of course, I've been constantly (and pleasantly) surprized by how innovative educators adapt the tools and their own approaches to instruction in order to create learning environments that make full use of the rich tools of the Confer classroom. But here are some examples that transcend the classroom and potentially open doors for students who might not otherwise be served.

Psychiatric Care. At the University of Rochester (NY) Strong Ties Community Support Program, members of the inpatient and outpatient teams have been meeting since 2010 using Web conferencing. Leslie Tomek and J. Stephen Lamberti, two of the psychiatrists, describe the use of this technology: "Initially it was peculiar speaking to a video monitor instead of face to face, but the monitor quickly seemed to disappear and we became one large team of clinicians working collectively to provide effective care for our most acute patients." Among the benefits they report from adopting this technology: better discussions of patients' progress; streamlined planning for discharges; enhanced follow-up decision-making. Web conferencing "allows large groups of people to communicate concurrently. We have also found that patients and their families are pleased to hear about our new form of communication." In higher education, one can imagine that regular Web conferences between physicians, counselors, nurses, and other health care providers would have similar benefits.

Psychotherapy Training. Allan Abbass et. al., in Web-conference supervision for advanced psychotherapy training: A practical guide, report that the "advent of readily accessible, inexpensive Web-conferencing applications has opened the door for distance psychotherapy supervision, using video recordings of treated clients. Although relatively new, this method of supervision is advantageous given the ease of use and low cost of various Internet applications. This method allows periodic supervision from point to point around the world, with no travel costs and no long gaps between direct training contacts. Web-conferencing permits face-to-face training so that the learner and supervisor can read each other's emotional responses while reviewing case material. It allows group learning from direct supervision to complement local peer-to-peer learning methods."

Language Instruction. Sng Bee Bee and David Gardner report in the International Journal of Web Based Communities on research they conducted to determine the viability of Web conferencing for language instruction. (I have reported elsewhere in this blog about California Community College instructors who have successfully taught Spanish and other languages using CCC Confer.) Two groups of learners, one Thai and one Vietnamese, were located in two different countries: Thailand and Singapore. They met by means of Web conferencing and - based on participants' feedback - concluded that this technology was effective in helping to accomplish the learning objectives.

Library Research Skills Instruction. Sheila Bonnard and Mary Anne Hansen of Montana State University report that they have successfully taught library research skills to online students in real time for the last two and a half years. Their article, "From Two Dot to Turkey", provides tips and lessons learned, along with amusing anecdotes about the rural communities (including Two Dot) served.

Tutoring. Karen Kear et. al.from the Open University describe a Web tutoring pilot that involved about 140 tutor groups and report that "tutors and students reacted positively to the opportunities Web conferencing provides for interactive learning and teaching." They also stress the need for prior preparation and "real-time improvisation" in this environment, along with the challenges of establishing social presence and avoiding cognitive overload. (As with language instruction, I have written elsewhere in this blog about successful tutoring efforts using CCC Confer).

Research and Data Collection. David M. Glassmeyer and Rebecca-Anne Dibbs describe in "Researching from a Distance" how geographically separated learners can use Web conferencing software to collect qualitative interview data by conducting interviews in an online graduate education course. And Yang et. al. describe "Use of Webinar and Web Meeting to Support Research Collaboration Between Italy and China" in the 2012 Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications.





How to Look Good on Web Cam

You Confer sessions have a prominent portion of screen real estate devoted to video, and it's a great tool for social presence, building social capital with your audience, and reinforcing the feeling that computer-mediated meetings are still first and fundamentally human interactions. But there are good ways to use the video window and decidedly bad ways that will embarrass at best and interfere with your mission at worst. Here are some tips to steer you toward the first group.

1. Look and dress the part. Get ready for a Web conference session the same way you prepare to meet or teach in face-to-face settings: after all, with the camera, you are face-to-face. Wear professional or appropriate attire (top to bottom, since you don't know whether or not you're going to stand up on camera), shave or groom as you normally would, and check yourself out before you broadcast to the world. Worried about color? Blue or green are especially good on camera, and choose solid colors: stripes, polka dots, and weird patterns won't decompress well at the other end. You may want to forego jewelry as well: a necklace can clash with a microphone or make noise as you move.

2. Clean up the background. Your camera picks up more than just your face. Make sure what your audience is seeing isn't upsetting (e.g., your messy bed) or confusing ("What is that in the wastebasket? Pantyhose?"). You're best off if you choose a neutral, clean, orderly background to sit or stand in front of when you present. Get the dog or cat or kids out, and keep them out. The focus should be on you, not your surroundings.

3. Control your body language. Eating or chewing gum are out, as are yawning, grimacing, nose or tooth picking, staring out of the window, rolling your eyes, rocking in your chair, scratching, fixing your hair, and anything else that is likely to distract your viewers. Pretend your mom is watching! Don't move too fast or the audience will catch pixellated "stop-jerk" motions that aren't pretty. Sit up straight in your chair: slouching is impolite.

4. Get the right camera angle. We want to see your face, not your bellybutton. Center the frame on your face and upper body, and it's generally best if the camera is a little higher than your eyes: if you're looking up, your double chin disappers and we may not be staring at nose hairs.

5. Adjust the lighting. Natural light is better than flourescent, and lamps are very handy. You want ambient lighting, and you want the lighting to be IN FRONT OF YOU, not coming from behind. Come out of the shadows unless you're trying to scare your audience. Never sit with your back to a window.

6. Look at the camera. This is harder than it sounds. Practice looking at the camera, not at yourself on the computer. Squinting is a no-no (see #3). Of course, you'll have to look away while you multi-task, but don't forget to look directly at your audience often during the session. Staring at the screen without interruption distances you from the audience. A smile doesn't hurt a bit, either: it conveys confidence and reassurance.

7. Control outside sounds if possible. I know: this isn't about video, but audio will affect your looks unless you control it. Open windows will pick up sirens, honking cars, barking dogs, etc.: close them for your session.

Does Web Conferencing Work in Education? (Research Results)

"Basic research is like shooting an arrow into the air and, where it lands,
painting a target."  -- Homer Burton Adkins

 

I've done a little digging to see what educational researchers and writers have been finding about the use of Web conferencing for instruction. Here's a sampling:

 

Best Practices to Promote Learning Through Web Conferencing: Resources, Tools and Teaching Methods. Eastern Kentucky University educators Paula Jones, MaryAnn Kolloff, and Fred Kolloff summarize five best practices associated with best teaching practices using Web conferencing: (1) Prepare content beforehand; (2) Plan a practice session; (3) Have an assistant on hand; (4) Before the first meeting, plan for accessibility, record the session, prepare participants, have a plan for emergencies, take care of audio problems, greet participants; (5) During the session, interact with students, prepare for delayed reactions, plan for scheduled breaks, reduce visual clutter.

 

Georgetown University: Web Conferencing—A Critical Skill for the Connected World. Pablo Molina shares that Georgetown University undertook a campus-wide adoption of Web conferencing services "as part of its planning for the possible consequences of a swine flu epidemic." Although the flu didn't end up disrupting classes as expected, it gained some converts, and the author was among them. He describes how he used the technology to teach his classes and the successful results he observed, and concludes: "The pedagogical use of web conferencing technologies also targets the ability to make informative and convincing presentations online. For this to happen, web conferencing must be pervasively built into the curriculum. Presently, student web conferencing is only built into a few core courses (in addition to the capstone course required of students to complete their Master of Professional Studies in Technology Management degree). Beyond this program and this institution, there is great potential for extending this practice to other programs and to other educational institutions."

 

An Institutional Evaluation of Web-Conferencing and its Impact on Learning and Teaching Processes. Researchers at the University of Aveiro in Portugal evaluated the use of Web-conferencing for several courses. "The overwhelming majority of students and teachers agreed that Web-conferencing was able to improve access to learning and increase the level of interactivity experienced... Teachers found the workload associated with teaching using Web-conferencing was manageable, and nearly 80% of students indicated that they would be more likely to choose subjects that used Web conferencing."

 

Reflections in Cyberspace: Web-Conferencing for Language Teacher Education. New Zealand researchers report on an in-depth evaluation of an Applied Linguistics course which utilized Web-conferencing for instruction and delivery. They determined that "inclusion of students' voices enriched what could be learned."

 

Taking the Classical Large Audience University Lecture Online Using Tablet Computer and Webconferencing Facilities. At Technical University of Denmark, the author took lectures for "Introduction to Statistics for Engineering Students" (which average 250+ students) online using Web conferencing. "A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the course evaluations are given that documents that students reacted positive [sic] to the initative."

 

Web-Conferencing Based Education: An Empirical Comparison with Face-to-Face Education. University of Nebraska researchers concluded that, for interactive instructional strategy, "students in a Web-conferencing based learning environment experienced a higher level of classroom interactivity than those in a face-to-face classroom environment. Also, in the interactive instructional sessions, students in the Web-conferencing based learning environment experienced higher perceived learning and satisfaction than those in the face-to-face learning environment." They conclude that "educators need to focus on designing interactive education that can leverage the new technologies supported by Web-conferencing" and "maximize the use of video/audio/instant messaging and other visual tools" in their use of the technology.

Have a Voice, Make a Choice: Vote!

It's an election year, and the campaigns are in full swing, urging the electorate to exercise their power by voting to ensure the future. Voting is, according to Thomas Jefferson, "The rational and peacable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people." Lyndon Johnson added, "The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” And Henry Louis Mencken provided this reason for the importance of this option: "Voting is simply a way of determining which side is the stronger without putting it to the test of fighting.”

In the Confer classroom, voting (or polling) can be a powerful instructional tool. It encourages active student participation, gives learners an opportunity to apply or test their learning, and lets the instructor discover quickly how well students are following or understanding the materials or concepts being taught. A quick spot poll spices up a class session, providing a break in your content presentation and there is ample research evidence that student response systems ("clickers") in face-to-face educational settings are effective and can improve student learning.

The "clicker" in the Confer classroom is the Polling tool. This video shows how easily it can be set up and how you can decide to show results to students.



How might you use this? Typically, according to Caldwell's research on instructors' use of student response systems, instructors prepare PowerPoint slides in advance with between two and five questions per class session. The questions are used to:

• begin or focus discussion
• require interaction with peers
• collect votes following a debate
• assess student preparation
• survey students's opinions, attitudes, reactions
• practice problems
• guide thinking (e.g., "Which step comes next?")
• conduct experiments or illustrate human responses (especially in the social sciences)
• have fun

It should be noted that students in the Confer classrooms have other response/feedback options. They can use emoticons, for example, to indicate confusion or even signal when the instructor is going too fast or needs to speed things up. Private or public chat can be used, and (as in the physical classroom), hands can be raised.

But voting with one's peers is powerful. The student who makes a choice on-screen has become an "investor" in the answer and will generally pay attention to the poll results. These results can be reassuring whether they reflect agreement or confusion: the student has peers who agree and are either right or similarly confused. Using the polling tool is an effective way to keep students in your class accountable: if they know they'll be required to answer questions, they're more likely to come to your class prepared. And, as Rebecca Gomez of Cypress College describes below, polling can be used to give (or remove) students class participation credit.



Like a general election, getting out the vote takes some prep work. Prepare your questions in advance, and use this tool frequently in your early lectures so that students  become familiar and comfortable with it. You may have to work on your timing as you collect student responses so that you don't jump to results before they're fully collected. It's also a good idea to poll your students about the polling process itself: are they comfortable with it? Once you've grown comfortable with the polling tools, you'll want to build a collection of polls you can insert into any lecture: if you do, consider sharing this with colleagues who are getting started with Confer.

Getting out the vote in your classroom can improve your students' success. It can help to add stimulation, engagement, understanding, and active learning to your online lectures. And, once you've got the knack of it, it's fun!

Do you agree?

The Key to Lively, Productive Meetings

We've spent a lot of time and energy working with our users and vendor to make Confer a great tool for online instructors, with good results. The Confer classroom is equipped with assessment tools, interactive tools for collaboration, and terrific content presentation options. You can teach comfortably and effectively with this toolset, and I'm happy to report that they're getting better as we listen to and respond to your feedback.

At about this time last year, though, I started thinking about how CCC Confer is used by our community (myself included) when students aren't involved. Half of our business comes from Meet & Confer and Call Confer sessions. What have we done to make their meetings more effective? Are there tools we should be adding that will make life easier for those of us who meet regularly online? Is it possible to use technology to enhance meetings, inspire creative idea sharing, sort shared ideas, move people toward consensus, produce action plans, and record proceedings? Can we do for online meeting facilitators what we've managed to do for online instructors: make their jobs easier and more productive?

We think so. We've just added a new tool - CCC Brainstorm - to bolster our online meeting tools. Here's a short (one minute) introduction:



The software is powered by FacilitatePro and licensed to the California Community Colleges through an agreement with CCC Confer. You can use it online or face-to-face, synchronously or asynchronously, according to your meeting needs and circumstances. You can learn more about Facilitate by downloading this document, but I'll summarize some key features here.

Shared Agenda. Brainstorm lets everyone see the agenda you've prepared from a Web browser. The advantage here is that the agenda is interactive: by clicking on each agenda item, they can view the ideas that have been shared, react to them, and add their own.

Brainstorming. Everyone in the meeting can add ideas - at the same time - without raising their hands or waiting for anyone else to finish. The ideas dynamically appear on the screen as they are added and generate a sense of collaboration and interaction that is often difficult to produce in overly structured group meetings.

Expansion and Elaboration. As ideas are added, meeting participants can add their own comments and explain, enlarge, or develop those ideas with comments that are added in line with the original ideas. Imagine trying to do this with a standard flip chart! The ideas might end up on a separate page or "shrink-written" on the margins, with the predictable and all-too-common result of being incomprehensible to anyone trying to make sense of it later.

Sorting into Categories. An active and engaged meeting can generate a lot of ideas. These can be sorted into categories as they are added or later, allowing the participants to recognize emerging themes or to distinguish and appreciate how the ideas fit into possible solutions.

Building Consensus. It's easy to take a list of brainstormed ideas and ask meeting participants to "vote" on them or rate them according to some criterion. For example, you can ask them to indicate their degree of agreement about a proposed strategy, and even to comment about why or why not this idea makes sense. This happens in seconds: it's amazing how quickly the software allows a group to recognize its own voice and come to agreement about the issues being discussed.

The result can be graphed - again, instantly - and shared in real time with the group. This is far more effective than the Confer polling tool, which is great for impromptu questions. This tool actually presents a detailed vote breakdown, statistical results, and graphs for your entire list of ideas. The summary table shows overall votes, weighted averages, and standard deviations.

Action Planning. As great as it is to generate ideas and come to consensus, a good meeting isn't complete unless it results in action. The CCC Brainstorm software includes an on-screen action planner, which makes it easy to set goals, give them start and finish dates, assign them to individuals or groups, and display the action plan in a time chart. The software includes standard project management features: responsibility, start and end dates, status information for each item, and a graphical time chart display. It's not meant to replace project management software, but it will export your action plan into those applications once you've got the group to focus on next steps.

Complete Meeting Report. No need to take minutes or transcode illegible flip charts! With this tool, you - or anyone in the meeting - can instantly print a report that will include, in an attractive package, tabulated results and every one of the ideas and plans your group has produced. It's also possible to import this report into a word processor so it can be incorporated into a larger document.

We're just getting started on the video tutorials for this product, but you'll find enough to get started on our YouTube playlist.

Meanwhile, here's wishing you better meetings this year!

CCC Confer: Where Do I Start?

Another semester and you're still not ready for online real-time interaction with your students? It's not that hard! You can do it! Let's get you started with some simple suggestions.

1. Try It Out! You don't have to start blind with your students or anyone else. There's a simple way to get your feet (or at least your toes) wet without having to feel embarrassed or under pressure. Try our practice rooms for free. You can sign into the rooms any time, from anywhere, and see how this thing works. Try the whiteboard, upload a PowerPoint or some image files, share your desktop applications, go on a Web tour. No one will see you making mistakes, and you'll soon discover exactly which tools make you comfortable and which you might want to practice with more before using them with students.

2. Get Some Training. You can get live online training from our expert (and oh-so-understanding and patient) Client Services team, or you can choose recorded training or self-paced instruction. It's a painless way to pick up the tips and techniques that will make it possible for you to be successful online with your students.

3. Sign up for an Account. If you're an instructor in the California Community Colleges (any of them), you're eligible for a free account. Follow this link to register for a MyConfer account, which will make it possible for you to schedule classes, office hours, conferences, etc. whenever you like. With this account, all of your meetings and archives will be available to you when you login.

4. Review our Videos. The "Two Minutes to Better Confer Meetings" series provides quick reminders and tips for the most common Confer uses: application sharing, file sharing, polls, privacy settings, recurring meetings, the timer, uploading PowerPoint and image files, Voice Over IP, Web cameras, Web tour, and the whiteboard. And our Confer channel features real instructors (like you) demonstrating and explaining how and why they use CCC Confer in their online classrooms.

5. Record a Trial Session. Before you schedule a live session with your students, schedule a session without an audience. Get everything ready in advance (PowerPoints, activities, polls, Web sites, and so on), login to your session, and press the "Record" button. Deliver your lecture or presentation as if you were doing it with a live audience, pacing yourself and pausing in appropriate spots for student feedback, and stop the recording when you're through. When the archive becomes available (generally in a few hours), look at it critically for mistakes or things you'll want to change the next time. This is an excellent way to improve your online teaching skills: see yourself as your students will. You may want to repeat this step a few times, and even to allow students or colleagues to view the archive and give you constructive criticism or feedback.

6. You're Ready: Schedule Your Class. If you've taken these five steps, you're ready to "go live" online with your students. Does that mean your first class will go smoothly, without a hitch? Maybe and maybe not. I belive, however the first class goes, that it guarantees you'll know what to do when the unexpected happens, and that you're likely to keep going despite minor setbacks.

Be sure to let us know how things go!