Engaging Students Through Technology
Opening Day F’19 - Zack De Piero ([email protected])
Background info about the video projects in my courses:
- Courses: ENGL 202A Writing in the Social Sciences + ENGL 211 Intro to Writing Studies
- The videos are essentially a multimediated "IMRaD" research report: Intro, (Lit Review,) Methods, Analysis, and Discussion. In groups (usually), students engage in the social science research process: develop a research question, examine relevant scholarship, seek out data, analyze the results, formulate new questions, etc.
Examples of my former students’ video projects:
- Narrative Storytelling in the Sciences - iMovie (4:35 - 5:36)
- L2 Students and Participation - some iMovie, mostly PowToon (start to 1:50)
What’s to like about these video projects?
- Inquiry about a topic/question that interests them
- Humanizes research: both the participants and the student-researchers
- Heightened audience engagement
- Working in a group: learning with and from each other
- Digital literacy ~~> demonstrable skills to include in a professional portfolio
- More affordances for using language/ experimenting with rhetoric
- New learning experience
Challenges and considerations?
- Working in + communicating with a group: timeliness, negotiating disagreement, pulling weight, tasking
- Grades: 1 grade for the whole group and/vs. individual accountability Hands-on support: scheduling ample in-class time for groups to get together and meet with me
Support for your courses: PSU’s Media Commons Team
- Carla Seward ([email protected]) was my Media Commons consultant. The Media Commons team offers a few different plans for working with instructors and their students
Other Resources for Ed Tech:
- Video projects: iMovie, PowToon, Biteable
- Audio projects/podcasts: Garageband
- E-portfolios: Weebly, Wordpress, a PSU portfolio resource (Canvas + Sites)
- Presentations: Prezi, PechaKucha (20 images x 20 seconds each), Google Slides
- Collaborative writing: Google Docs (via Gmail)
- Quizzes: Quizlet
