A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?
As an instructional designer, there are some specific needs of the novice distance learning teacher in this scenario that should be addressed. First of all the fact that he or she is a novice indicates that the technology needs to be a simple and easy to understand application. Something a novice teacher can maneuver, but still look professional. Another key factor is the teacher wants his or her students interacting with each other and the museum curator. The technology tool needs to allow for such interaction where the students can also comment on various art works.
A technology tool that would provide the most effective learning would be the slide share tool. Slide share is an excellent technology tool to provide content that can reach students no matter where they are. Remember that is this teacher is a novice distance learning teacher and in not wanting to be overwhelming with the many possibilities available, PowerPoint is a very common tool used in presentation and will make the use of slide share very relatable. The basic slide share service is great for uploading a PowerPoint or other presentations, but for the need this novice teacher, the slide share pro would be the best option. Although there is a small fee for this service, the teacher is able to upload a virtual tour of the museum to share with his or her students. Students can also interact with the museum curators through instant messaging. According to, Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek (2012, pg. 275), “Instant messaging works well for individual interactions and has the added advantage of allowing several simultaneous conversations to occur, each a private exchange between the teacher and one student.” Wiki Classroom 2.0 (2012) states that Instant Messaging (IM) is a tool for connecting students/teachers in real time. It goes on to say IM uses any of a variety of freely available clients and servers from MSN Messenger, to AOL Instant Messenger, to Yahoo, to Skype (Wiki Classroom 2.0, 2012). Instant Messaging is a excellent for including student-to-student, student-to-teacher, or even teacher-to-teacher collaboration.
Skype is another interactive tool that can be used to make video calling of an engaging tour of the museum. According to Skype.com (2012), Skype is a free, downloadable software package that uses the internet to provide a real-time interactive environment designed for use in distance communication. The novice teacher and the students can Skype into video calling which can display a virtual tour of the museum narrated by the curator. Within Skype as stated before, students can use Instant Messaging to interact with the curator. Skype is easy to join and navigate; it is possible to video conference directly from Skype to Facebook.
A voice thread is another possible technology tool the novice teachers can use to connect collaboration between the students. Voice Thread.com (2012) states that with a VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. This can be done with no software to install. Also a VoiceThread is a multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam) (Voice Thread, 2012). The novice distance learning teacher can upload the various pieces of art to be evaluated by the students. Students are able to comment choosing one of the 5 ways mentioned.
References:
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
Skype.com, (2012), Group video calling, Retrieved on March 16, 2012, from http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/facebook/
Voice Thread (2012), Voice thread overview, Retrieved on March 17, 2012, from http://voicethread.com/about/features/
Wiki Classroom 2.0 (2012), Instant messaging, Retrieved on March 16, 2012, from http://wiki.classroom20.com/Instant+Messaging
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