Are you looking for a
new interactive way of presenting your lessons in class? Then LectureTools, a web-based
application for creating interactive presentations in classroom is a great
idea.
What makes LectureTools
different? Let’s have a look at its special features:
- Robust: Using LectureTools, you cannot only import your PowerPoint presentations but also incorporate multiple-choice, short-answer or ordering questions, as well as images and videos onto slides.
- Interactive: The Presentation Dashboard offers a place for teacher-students and students-students interaction just as texting via Facebook. Here the students can post questions (they can decide to show their name or not) and follow the class discussions to facilitate understanding. This function helps to encourage questions during class; especially it is helpful to some shy students. It is perfectly done especially in a classroom with teaching assistant who is there. In addition, because the program is web-based, the questions and answers are automatically saved and can be retrieved later.
- Flexible: Students can control the view of their individual screens, take notes on slides, mark slides as confusing, bookmark slides to review later and direct questions to instructors by typing inquiries into a comment box. Or if they want to study from a distance, it is just possible.
- Classroom management support: Teacher can review the quality of their teaching and student performance in the lecture by downloading the data about classroom interactions as a whole class or a particular student after class.
Source: Retrieved from http://www.lecturetools.com/student-ipad-app
How to organize
and attend such a lecture? There are two conditions: internet connection and a
laptop, or a tablet or a smartphone on the part of the student. Regarding the
fee, it is free for teachers but students are charged a flat $15 fee at the
beginning of the semester.
In my
opinion, LectureTools is what we all expect how information technology can
support the teaching and learning process. It combines all the features of the most
ideal classroom at present: each student with a laptop coming to classroom, working
together on the e-platform, feeling free to answer questions and having more
opportunities to get the best support from the teachers and the classmates.
However, one
big head-aching question is the likelihood of the students to get distracted while
they are online because the teacher cannot monitor their screen. Second is the financial
problem as not all students can afford a laptop. Therefore, the implementation of
this new tool seems to be far-reaching on a large-scale, especially in disadvantaged
schools. Given that you are a teacher who is teaching in the school where One
Laptop per Child is running (OLPC); would you give it a try? Personally, I
would.
The
original article can be retrieved at: https://blogs.elon.edu/technology/lecturetools-an-engaging-presentation-tool-to-use-in-the-classroom/
More
information about LectureTools can be found at: http://www.lecturetools.com/lecture-engagement-system
ReplyDeleteThis could be a teaching tool that gives a great support inside the classroom of content, management, assessment methods, etc.. turning teaching sessions more interactive and attractive. On the other hand it is also a learning tool and study for the student himself.
As mentioned in this post "LectureTools is what we all expect how information technology can support the teaching and learning process."
However some disadvantages may jeopardize the full use of this tool accessible and appropriate in any context. Also referred to by the author of this post there are disadvantages, but these are not only the question of the rate of use by the student, the potential distraction in the classroom or even the impossibility of using this tool in disadvantaged schools but also is important to consider other characteristics, such as:
- most of the students are using their own computers but very few use the LectureTool as a "space" to take notes during the lecture sessions, others are using other programmes to do it or still some of them writing notes in the paper (Effectively Using Laptops in Classrooms: Lessons From a Study of Lecture Tools" - Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, 2011)
- Lack of interaction from teacher to students.\
- Distraction by students who use computers in the classroom. The student with Internet access and having to use a tool online classroom will tend to surf the internet on subjects / webpages that are not in accordance with the content being taught.
- We can not use it without internet access
- Still we are not allowed to save the contents in this tool in any document on the PC. However in the article “LectureTools gets mixed reviews ” (Zena Davé, 2012) we con find “One (idea) is simply a button where at the end of class you can save everything as a PDF, so you can have your slides and your notes and you can download them to your computer, and when you don’t have Internet connection you can study offline” (Davé, 2012, p.1). On the same article is mentioned that “Samson added that another idea to provide students with offline access to notes would involve giving professors the option of automatically e-mailing a PDF file complete with slides and notes to the class for future reference”(Davé, 2012, p.2).
So depending on the timming we need to use this tool is also important to make sure if we can save what we need from that or if we have internet access.
Read more about this on the following Documents (check the links in the references):
- "Effectively Using Laptops in Classrooms: Lessons From a Study of Lecture Tools" from the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (2011): http://www.slideshare.net/LectureTools/university-of-michigan-crlt-study-of-lecturetools-and-laptop-use-in-class
- ”'U' releases new version of LectureTools”, (Hannahan, 2011): http://www.michigandaily.com/news/u-embraces-use-lecture-tools
- “LectureTools gets mixed reviews”, (Davé, 2012): http://www.michigandaily.com/news/professors-utilize-lecturetools?page=0,1
References:
- Davé, Z. (February, 2012). “LectureTools gets mixed reviews”. The Michigan Daily. Retrieved from http://www.michigandaily.com/news/professors-utilize-lecturetools
- Hannahan, M. (September, 2011). ”'U' releases new version of LectureTools. The Michigan Daily. Retrieved from http://www.michigandaily.com/news/u-embraces-use-lecture-tools
- Bergom I., Dershimer, C., Zhu, E. & Samson, P. (July, 2013). "Effectively Using Laptops in Classrooms: Lessons From a Study of Lecture Tools", Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. Retrieved from: http://www.slideshare.net/LectureTools/university-of-michigan-crlt-study-of-lecturetools-and-laptop-use-in-class
Dear Madalena,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your sharing of an empirical study on the use of the LectureTools in classroom. I totally agree that distractions when laptops with Internet connection are present in the classrooms. However, it is commonplace that in classrooms without the use of Lecturetools, we are still using laptops for taking notes. Therefore, the problem of distraction happens in today classrooms and we as teachers and students should work more on it, hence Lecturetools is not a major contributing factor. In terms of interaction between teacher and students, I think this is a strength of the tools as students are more encouraged to raise questions as it is done anonymously, what do you think?