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Teachtech Wiki

at Regis College, Weston, MA

This Wiki is a new resource for teaching and learning with technology. It is primarily intended for Regis College faculty, students, and staff, and contains subsection articles on various applications of Web 2.0 that have been piloted over the last semester (FA06).

Try your hand at using the wiki. You can edit existing entries or add new ones. Eventually, the four subsection headings below will link to larger resources. A limited User's Guide for editors and readers is available, showing formatting tips and examples. We may find a more robust wiki tool to work with as we go.

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Podcasting

At Regis, we've just begun trying our hand at podcasting. We offered a pilot project in two courses: Intro to Psychology, where students interviewed various experts regarding a subject area in the class and then (with help) posted to a blog for the class, and Museum Studies, and students created a visitor guide/impressions related to an exhibit hanging in our the Carney Art Gallery on campus. These have not yet been posted to the Regis website because of upcoming revisions, but our hope is that students will continue to create this resource for visitors.

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Blogging

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Live Chat using Blackboard 6

by Mark Lewis

Most faculty at Regis have used Blackboard for:

Posting syllabi, handouts, and other documents
Conducting online discussions
Linking to other resources

But few have tried out the live chat capabilities inlcuded in the Virtual Classroom tool.

In classes where small group interaction can enhance student learning and allow for effective instructor feedback in a face-to-face setting, live chat presents a nice alternative.

Groups of 4-6 students must arrange a meeting time in advance, usually lasting 45 minutes. A lead-in question is one good way to get the discussion started. The question can draw on a reading assignment, and can be asked by either the instructor or a student facilitator.

As responses, comments, and follow-up questions appear on the screen, the instructor or student facilitator should intervene whenever necessary to try to keep everyone on track.

With larger classes, it may be necessary to schedule 3-4 different groups. If more than six students get online at once and attempt to both read and contribute information, it can very easily get out of hand.

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Quick Tips for using live chat include:

take your students into account when arranging a time to schedule live chat. For instance, do you have more commuters than not? Does everyone have access to a computer at the designated time?
chat times vary, but 30-45 minutes is typical for each session
arrange small groups of 4-6 students for each session
designate yourself or a student to facilitate, using a start-up question and the ability to interject additional follow-up questions as the session progresses, keeping it dynamic and on topic
summarize the main points of the session for the group, or for others not in the group
repeat this experiment if you didn't get it right the very first time--it gets easier with practice

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