My most recent blog focused on how to foster interactivity in synchronous instruction sessions (such as in zoom lessons.) Here I’ll extend that theme of interactivity in two other areas: Collaborative asynchronous content delivery (via ThingLink) and collaborative group activities (via EdPuzzle).
How do we give students an opportunity to collaborate when they are not physically together? Here are a couple of ways.
ThingLink
With ThingLink you can post a photograph, a drawing, a video, or even a 360º image, and make it interactive. By clicking around the image of video, students can see text that you have added to describe a certain item, your voice describing that item, links to other resources, and more. A classic example would be posting a diagram of a cell in a biology classroom with the various parts of the cell described in various ways. Mighty Mitochondria FTW!
That’s great, useful, and instructionally sound. But, that’s not exactly collaborative.
Which leads to another feature of ThingLink. Not only can teachers create this content to share with students, but students can create content to share with teachers and fellow students!
So in our “parts of the cell” example, why not have students work in teams (remotely) to develop an interactive image describing the various parts of a cell?
One way to go about this would be to assign certain parts of the cell to different groups in the class. Create a hyperdoc that leads students through acquiring the information they need about their assigned cell parts. And in collaborative groups they could then create an interactive image that would teach other groups about those parts.
Obviously this could be extended to pretty much any subject area you can imagine: the elements of a comparison-contrast essay, the factors leading to the civil war, color symbolism in cinema. You name it!
EdPuzzle
EdPuzzle has a lot of similarities to ThingLink, and ThingLink could certainly be used for the activities I’m proposing here. However, EdPuzzle’s niche is in creating quizzes from videos. This is most often used by teachers to deliver content to students or (even more common) to test students’ understanding on a topic.
The teacher either creates a YouTube video that delivers content to students, or locates a pre-existing video that delivers that content. Then the teacher uses EdPuzzle to add questions to the video so that when students arrive at certain points, the video pauses, students are asked a multiple-choice or short-answer question, and the video continues.
But, just as with ThingLink, the creation of EdPuzzle content can be placed in students’ hands. This could be especially powerful if used in connection with the content-delivery strategy mentioned above.
After students receive the content through the virtual jigsaw method mentioned above, the student groups could then create an EdPuzzle quiz for a section of content — either the section that was assigned to them, or for an additional challenge, a section that was not. This activity forces students to engage in the content more deeply. And in the end you have a fun competition opportunity: Which group can perform best on the EdPuzzle quizzes created by all the other groups?
Aaron Johnson from Excellent Online Teaching presents several research-based tips on how to make collaborative activities more effective in a virtual setting. One tip that is particularly relevant here is providing students with examples of what you expect them to be doing. The research he references was specifically directed at online discussions, but the need for examples is necessary across the board.
We understand the need for exemplars in face-to-face instruction. It is important to remember that they are at least as important in a new setting, such as virtual instruction.
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ReferenceJohnson, A. (2020, June 27). Protocols = Better Online Discussions. Excellent Online Teaching. https://excellentonlineteaching.com/protocols-better-online-discussions/