The TWT FIG met on April 25th. We worked on an activity about how technology has changed education. TWT s18 worksheet how tech has changed ed
Technology has definitely impacted how we teach and students learn, both positively and negatively. These include:
- access to information: students are now able to access information at almost anytime and anywhere.
- assessment: instructors can use online quizzes and easily give students multiple opportunities to take quizzes. However, these quizzes to take time to set up in our lms.
- communication (between students and instructor; between students): using discussion boards, students are able to communicate their ideas and have time to think about what they want to post before making it available to others to read. Also, students that are more shy might find posting their thoughts less intimidating than speaking in class. For an instructor, reading all of the posts and commenting might take more time than an in-class discussion.
Thinking about email communication, sometimes students expect an instant response regardless of the day or time. To alleviate this issue, it’s important to be clear at the start of the class what a typical email response time will be. For example, the instructor checks twice a day on weekdays only and will send a response within 24 hours.
- accessibility: availability of all class materials to all learners is important. Videos with captions, word docs that use the heading features in word make your materials more accessible to all learners. The next TWT meeting will focus on accessibility.
- time: students and faculty are spending more time on classes that have less face to face time! Students have more reading to do and faculty are reading and grading/commenting on more student work. Thinking about the assignments and the amount of time it will take students to complete the work and faculty to grade it is an important consideration when developing your course.
