I participated in an asynchronous webinar hosted by Cengage
Learning entitled Lessons Learned from Teaching in a Flipped
Classroom. I chose this webinar because it relates to my dissertation
topic and I thought I would kill two birds with one stone, so to say. However, the
webinar didn't provide me any new information related to the flipped classroom
method. I'm okay with that though. Hopefully it means I may finally have a
good grasp on the concept, which I need if I am going to do research on this topic.
However, I did learn about three new web-based services that
I find very exciting. The first one is called Present.me. This website offers a “free” service that
can create video presentations. The
steps include uploading your presentation, choosing whether you want to
include video of you speaking or just audio of you speaking, and hitting record. Video is recorded using your webcam. It was extremely easy to use. However, there was very little editing
capabilities which can be frustrating if you messed up your audio.
Also, the free version only allows you to upload to social media sites. The paid version is $16/month. This site may be good to use for student presentations
because they can use the free version.
Another site I learned about is called Thinglink.com (check out my EKG example). This site could be used by instructors to
create engaging content or by students for alternative format presentations. The premise is that you upload an image and
place hotspots on the image. You interact with the picture by clicking on icons placed on the image to learn things. Content placed on the images can include url links,
videos, documents, or text.
The last site I learned about is called Padlet.com. I find this one has the most potential for increasing engagement and collaboration in a class and is pretty darn fun to use. This site could be used for group discussions, group collaboration, post a “question of the day”, etc. You create a “wall”, post a comment on the wall, and share the site so that others can contribute to the conversation. You’ve got to check this one out. What else do you think you could do with this site? Share your ideas!
Connie -- I'm glad that you got something of value even though you didn't get new flipping content. These are three interesting new digital tools - and two that I didn't know. I've used padlet in a few webinars this month. But Thinglink and Present.me are newbies.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think about the Cengage webinar delivery system and process?
Overall, Cengage webinar delivery system is very easy to use and the webinars have been good quality, done well, easy to interact with. I have only viewed recorded webinars so not sure what the live version is like but it seems to be very, very similar to Collaborate.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this information, Connie. I love this project because I am learning about new technologies. I love your EKG example, that is so awesome. I used to have that on paper, now I can save some trees.
ReplyDelete