Instructor Narratives
Share your pedagogical use cases and valuable experiences with teaching technologies. Contribute new ideas to inspire others in the advancement of technology-enriched teaching and learning.
Share your pedagogical use cases and valuable experiences with teaching technologies. Contribute new ideas to inspire others in the advancement of technology-enriched teaching and learning.
Heather Hunt
Using VoiceThread for Student Presentations to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Engagement
When I moved my engineering graduate course fully online, I had to decide how to handle my students' presentations. My course has a term-long project, that can be done individually or in pairs, that results in a portfolio that includes a technical report and a 20-minute presentation to the class on the materials characterization tool their project focused on (it's theory, working principle, operation, instrumentation, etc.). These presentations had always been done in class before, with students required to attend and to ask (and answer) questions for each presentation. The presentations often led to engaging discussions and sometimes debates about the best tool for a given task, arguments over theory interpretation, etc. But I've noticed over the years that, of all the activities we did, this (and not the exam) was what caused students the most anxiety. Students who knew their material inside and out would be so anxious that it negatively impacted their performance - their ability to answer questions, their ability to relay the information, etc. How would I shift this to online, while maintaining the engaging aspect, but allowing them to also give a performance worthy of their portfolio? How would I allow them to get past the anxiety and shine?
I reviewed the tools I knew we had: Zoom, Panopto, Kaltura, VoiceThread, and even discussion boards on Canvas, where students could video themselves inside the post/response box. I wanted something that was already supported and integrated into Canvas with the following features:
If you are trying to compare tools, I also highly recommend:
Choosing Lecture or Presentation Tools
https://keeplearning.umsystem.edu/support/solutions/articles/11000083770-choosing-lecture-or-presentation-tools