This summer I abandoned Blackboard and taught an online graduate
class entirely using Google tools and Twitter. We built collaborative docs for
our discussion, posted journals that encouraged the free exchange of ideas,
and, best of all, created a robust and lively online writing workshop. While no
relationship is entirely free from challenges, I was in love with Google docs
and wanted everyone to know about it (read more in “Teaching With Google Docs”).
Still caught up in the heady rush of a young love affair,
I leapt into using Google for my online writing classes in the fall semester
and abandoned my long-time practice of using Twitter for Google+. I knew there
would be challenges. I was now teaching much larger sections and working with
undergraduate rather than graduate students as well as all the baggage that
accompanies students who are taking a required class rather than an option or
elective. However, I was sure that the good would outweigh the bad and that we
could work through whatever ugliness Murphy’s Law threw in our path. Now in the
final days of the semester I can look back at such naiveté and laugh. It wasn’t
a complete disaster and certainly some good things happened this semester, but
in the spring semester I will move the bulk of my class activities back to
Blackboard.
Better Communication
Using Google opened up an additional channel of
communication that Blackboard just can’t match and for that reason alone I will
continue to use Google in some way. The chat option cannot be matched for an
online class because I have my Gmail window open most of the day so students
can usually catch me for some quick help. I wanted to use Hangout as well but
it seemed most were just as comfortable using Chat and perhaps using the other
features in Google docs made Hangout extraneous for them. I do love having that
as an option though. I also like Google+. I love Twitter and continue to use it
outside the classroom but I like the ability to separate groups in Google+ and
I like the posting/commenting features better for the purposes of classroom
communication and community building. Right now I plan to continue requiring
students create a Google account (if they don’t already have one) and we will
use Google+ as our social media and community building tool.Messy and Distracted
I still love the idea of creating discussion documents
and journals in Google rather than Blackboard as they are much more
collaborative and organic than any options available in Blackboard but they are
also messy and because they are removed from Blackboard I think for many
students it seemed to be a case of out-of-sight then out-of-mind. I suspect
part of the problem is that it was just one more place to check in and so
students would simply forgot about it or put it off. It seemed to me that discussion
participation was down (which did solve one of my initial worries about the
number of people who could collaborate on a document without it spinning out of
control) as the semester progressed. Journal posts also seemed to drop off. We
can never know all the reasons why students don’t do their work for a class,
but I suspect that in this case another channel created more problems and
interference. Of course, it did not help that in the middle of the semester we
were all forced to switch to Drive and I really don’t like Drive as much as I
liked Docs (but that is another post). We had a number of problems with
disappearing posts and folders. I expected some of that but it certainly contributed
to student dissatisfaction and lack of engagement (understandably). Logistics
was also an issue for me. With a full undergraduate class (rather than a small
graduate seminar) it was often difficult to keep track of participation in
discussion and while it was easier with journals I still had to do a lot of
clicking. This was made even more complicated by the fact that some students
did not follow naming conventions and did not always properly use folders. Of
course these things happen in Blackboard too.
My New Plan
While I will continue to use Google for the chat and
social media features, I plan to move journals and discussion back to
Blackboard. However, this time around I am going to experiment with using the Blog
tool for our weekly topic discussions and reflections. While it may not be as
organic as a Google doc I think it will be more so than the discussion board
and it will be less messy (and therefore better for logistics) than Google. I
also hope that by keeping discussion and reflection in Blackboard so that
students are not switching back and forth between tools will remove one
obstacle to student participation.
I have not yet decided what to do about writing workshop.
I still love the options that Google offers for this and as students will have
Google accounts I can reserve that option. Traditionally, we don’t start off
with workshop so I will have some weeks to ponder our options and perhaps by
the time it becomes an issue students will be ready to make the leap with me or
I will know that this specific group of students is not ready to use a new
tool.
Once again I am reinventing my online classroom. Is all this innovation a good thing? Some days I wonder. Which Blackboard and Google tools do you recommend for
fostering class discussion, reflection, interaction, and workshop?
No comments:
Post a Comment