Teaching and Learning Stories from the Field, a podcast from the Teaching & Learning Centre at Seneca College Episode 4: Educational Technology Tools to Improve Engagement, Creativity, and Inclusivity Transcript
Jennifer Peters 0:09
Hello and welcome to "Teaching and Learning Stories from the Field" from the Seneca Teaching & Learning Center. Today we will hear from Siobhan Bell. Siobhan will tell the story of how she is using a number of educational technology tools in her classes to increase engagement, encourage creativity and inclusivity. Siobhan is an experienced nurse and academic working in the community Long Term Care, critical care and now as a forensic nurse examiner for sexual assault, domestic violence and elder abuse has given Siobhan a health systems view of healthcare. She has held positions as a nursing professor at various post secondary institutions, as well as program coordinator for nursing and personal support worker programs. Within both academic and healthcare experience Siobhan is a self professed tech geek. She loves to learn about new technology that will help deliver education more inclusively, comprehensively and creatively. So without further ado, here is Siobhan's story.

Jennifer Peters 1:08
So welcome Siobhan. So glad to have you join us today. We also have Arushi Manners, joining us the co host of the Teaching and Learnings Stories from the Field podcast. So Siobhan, can you start by telling us a little bit about your current approach to teaching?

Siobhan Bell 1:24
Sure, thanks for

Siobhan Bell 1:25
having me. My teaching philosophy right now is sort of, I'd say in flux and that's because with COVID I've actually learned a lot not just about teaching and learning but also how I fit into that and and while I normally approach everything from a a very inclusive, universal design approach. Right now I'm really looking at things like radical and flux pedagogy, which seems to really fit with having sort of a constant state of reflection about what you're teaching and how students are interacting with that. And so that seems to be where I'm at right now. I think I call it radical pedagogy. With sort of a transformative teaching style.

Jennifer Peters 2:23
Sounds like it fits the times for sure. Yeah. And how do you how do you connect technology tools to that type of teaching? How does that become part of your approach?

Siobhan Bell 2:37
I think actually how I came to even learn about this was I was looking for a new technology to use for communicating kind of like a discussion post communication tool, but and I just happened to come across a blog post that talked about transforming teaching and how it's really constructive that students centered and relational and reflexive and within that, for me, that's the definition of technology. Because technology is about building, so it's constructivist, it's about building things to suit the learning needs of your current class, or the kind of course that you're teaching. I found it really helpful to connect the technology that I'm using in that specific course. Not necessarily the whole, the whole course but that specific cohort of students really looking at their teaching styles or learning styles, sorry. So when I first get to know the students, sometimes I have to swap out the tech tools that I'm using just because they're not student centered for those students. And I spend a lot of time getting to know my students and helping them to get to know my course and the technology within it. So that we're having hopefully as comprehensive of an experience as possible.

Jennifer Peters 4:14
And can you give us some examples of some of the tools that you're using and what for what kind of purposes?

Siobhan Bell 4:21
Sure. So

Siobhan Bell 4:22
my favourite one right now is Signal. It's an app that I suppose is similar to WhatsApp or a text based communication app. It's my favourite right now because the encryption algorithms on it are very strong. It's a not for profit, so they're not they're not looking to make money off of the app. And so a lot of tweaks and updates that they're doing within the app are very user centered. So when something's not working, they're sort of on top getting it fixed. The students really like it because they can express themselves in a way that's more authentic to them. So some of them prefer to use verbal, verbal chat so they might record a quick, verbal discussion about something that we're talking about and send that off. Some of them like to take pictures and share or my favourite one that's going around right now is the messy desk. pictures which it's them studying for my case studies. So the you know, it's funny to see all the pictures that they have up their various case study work laying all over the place, and just how they're sort of literally immersing themselves. I think it's a good outlet for them. And it helps me to sort of keep a pulse on how people are doing, not just, you know, with teaching and learning but also there's a lot of depression going on right now and stress and anxiety. So just let me pop in every once in a while. It's sort of a quick you guys are doing a great job, like, look, look at all the stuff that we've accomplished thus far and challenging them with ways that what they're doing is already making a difference. And how to see a lot of the course that I'm teaching right now is about how we see our patients with with the information that we've learned from other courses and so that's really cool because I can share stories. From the news, I can share stories, video clips, all sorts of things on on this app. And from from my style, it works because often throughout the week, I'll come across something that I think would be really interesting for them. I don't want to wait until you know my next class the next week when I need to try to squeeze it in between other learning objectives that we have. And so I can just send it out right away, and it gets a conversation going and it kind of lets me connect from the information from week to week with these little snippets of interesting tidbits they get to share with me too, which is also really cool.

Jennifer Peters 7:21
Sounds like a great way to build community and stay in contact with your students to make them feel like they're not off learning just on their own.

Siobhan Bell 7:28
Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Peters 7:33
And is there is there a comparison between Signal and TEAMS at all? Is there any similarities?

Siobhan Bell 7:37
I think the chat section in TEAMS could be pretty similar. I think if that's something that you're really comfortable with. I know that some of my older students have found TEAMS to be sort of similar to sort of MSN chat way back in the day. So it was a little more comfortable for them when they're not as used to sort of a text based kind of like texting back and forth with friends and things like that, which I guess I wanna say younger, but we're still we're talking about you know, mid 20s to 30s generation is more used to. Personally my classes have just found TEAMS to be a bit clunky in comparison to an app that they can have on their phone or iPad or tablet. That's really seamless, really when they open it. It's right into a conversation. TEAMS has a lot of other things going on in the background and it's a little bit cumbersome. I finally don't use it as much as they do the app.

Jennifer Peters 8:53
And I know I use a Mac and I find that TEAMS it really bogs down my computer quite a bit.

Siobhan Bell 9:02
Yeah.

Jennifer Peters 9:03
So Oh, yes. opens everything down for me. So yeah, sometimes different. Different apps work better on different platforms.

Siobhan Bell 9:09
Right. Yeah.

Jennifer Peters 9:11
And other any other examples of your favourites right now?

Siobhan Bell 9:13
I think probably one of my longtime favourites. Seesaw and everyone laughs in class, whatever, because I usually use this in week one. It's my my intro I've got icebreakers on it. Because Seesaw was originally designed for elementary school. So they always laugh and they'll say, oh, I have this for my kids 'cause my kids school uses this and I'm like, Okay, well, it was designed for kids, but we can still use it. And the reason I kind of liked it is because the interface is very similar. to social media. So it's kind of like a Facebook but very controlled by the instructor. And I can post scavenger hunts my icebreakers which are interview questions to interview other students... things like that and they can respond back with video, with verbal with text, and it comes up in your feed kind of like social media and your classmates and instructor can comment, like, share, put an emoji on it. I guess it's very kind of like a social media stream that's, that's safe and encrypted. And it lets me assign them tasks which is my favourite thing to use it for. Often when we were on campus, I use it for library scavenger hunts where I would select you know, ten resources that were really good for that week and take pictures of them and have the students have to go and find them and take a picture of selfie of their team with that with that resource, and then posted on Seesaw the first one that finished got a Starbucks gift card. But so like it's just a really fun way to make something as boring sometimes as going to the library really fun

Jennifer Peters 11:25
Excellent. And I know you use different tools for assessments sometimes too. What types of novel ways do you use technology in your assessments?

11:34
So I really like Learnful right now. It's a hybrid. It's still in beta phase, but it's basically like the campuses H5P studio, except that it lets you build interactive lessons that you can do summative or formative assessments in. I like it just because it's a really clean interface. And it lets you embed your lesson or module or whatever your activity directly into Blackboard using your HTML HTML embed code. So very similar to using H5P studio, but it just looks very clean inside our Blackboard Shell. So I like using that one. The students find the assessment piece to be linked cleanly to what they're learning.

Jennifer Peters 12:35
Is it connected to grade book at all grade center at all?

Siobhan Bell 12:37
It's not unfortunately. So that's the that's the bad way that you have to take all of your marks and put those in. I tend to only use it for things that are team based because then of course, it's a lot less work than doing individual. VoiceThread is another one that I've been really enjoying and that one is connected to Blackboard Grade Center. That one I found really helpful for discussions. Keeping an ongoing discussion board using VoiceThread is much, much more interactive I found and then using the discussion board itself within Blackboard. So that's another one that I like to use. And of course, there's G Suite. So using a lot of I use sites, Google Sites a lot to build content, and then embedding forms as quizzes and things like that in and of course that's not connected to Blackboard but I can export that into an Excel spreadsheet, format it for Blackboard, which then lets me just upload it into my gradebook. So that's another easy way to get around it. Not a lot of things are connected to our Blackboard center. I find that I will do a lot of things outside of Blackboard and then use the Blackboard Assignment portal as a way to connect. So for instance, there's I built like case studies and things like that where they have to work through questions and reflective pieces pieces and I have the H5P module that lets them build the doc a document based on all of the questions and reflections that they've done throughout that learning module and then that H5P module will export it as a Word document with everything saved and accomplished. And then I just have to upload that into the Blackboard Assignment portal for marking so it still lets me use those outside technologies but connected.

Jennifer Peters 15:03
You have some like nice work arounds to allow you to use these different types of tools without having too too much extra work to get. We'll be back right after this.

Jennifer Peters 15:13
Seneca's Teaching & Learning Center hosts Teaching & Learning Days three times a year, usually on the Monday of the fall and winter study weeks, as well as between the winter and summer semesters. Teaching and Learning days offer a variety of topics centered around the theme, keynote speakers from all over North America, skills based workshops and a chance to learn from your colleagues. Attendees can earn a badge for each Teaching and Learning day. And if you earn three T& L day badges in one academic year, you will earn the conferencer milestone badge. Our next Teaching and Learning day takes place on May the 3rd, 2021 and is focused on Show and Tell. If you would like to submit a proposal, the form is open until April 16 on the Teaching and Learning website at Bit.ly/tldays.

Jennifer Peters 16:03
So when you're sort of designing or thinking about something that you're teaching, and you're looking for a new strategy or looking for a new tool, what's the process that you usually go through about um I want to accomplish this. And then thinking about what tool you could use?

Siobhan Bell 16:22
Well, we've gotten lots of really cool tech tool library so to speak like with the Center of Teaching and Learning having that interactive tech tool library where you can go and peruse a bunch of different things. Same with eCampusOntario and places like that. Generally, for me because I've played with a lot of tools, I usually start the process by thinking about how I would want to learn it and how best I'm able to, to teach it so where my strengths lie and start from that that perspective and then I look for a tool that's going to complement that. I like to use a lot of diagrams and a lot of pictures. But I've been finding it really difficult to find pictures that explain specifically what I meaning and so I've been doing a lot of creating my own pictures now which has been new for me using Canva and stuff so it lets me use the creative side of my teaching. And then from there I'll look at is this something I want to present as a case? Is it something that I want to have an assessment piece linked to it? Is this something that I want there to be video or verbal or written component? So I'm looking at all the different components that I want to have in it and those come out of by reflection on my learning outcomes. So what is it exactly that I'm trying to accomplish here? Usually, if it's learning content, that's week by week, then I know that what I'm looking for is something for them to read, something for them to watch, something for them to hear and then something for them to do. And so I'm looking for something that's going to complement that. Sometimes it's a combination of a bunch of different things. And sometimes I'm lucky that I can use one. One tool to do all of it. Things like using Adobe Spark, if I'm looking to create something, sort of a short clip, something for them to watch and something for them to hear. That will let me do that. If I'm looking for something that I want them to work through as a case then generally I go to Learnful now from looking for interaction with a video that I look at things like Edpuzzle or H5P or Learnful. So it's just really about deciding from my learning objectives what it is that I'm trying to accomplish, where my strengths lie in delivering that and what the output is going be to get what I need from the students and then picking a tool or tools that will help meet that. Sometimes I just go to Google

Jennifer Peters 19:27
That content centered approach where you're you're thinking, Okay, this is what I want to accomplish. And now I have to find a tool to accomplish that instead of a tool coming across your lap and saying, Oh, I really want to use this tool in my class and then trying to find a way to jam it in. So I think that's a really brilliant approach.

Siobhan Bell 19:45
Yeah, I think when I first started out, I probably went the other direction, because everything was new. And it's like, Oh, that's really cool. I just want to try that. But that's how you learn how things fit into your your context, right?

Jennifer Peters 19:58
Yeah,

Jennifer Peters 20:01
for sure. And in terms of, you know, that kind of like checklists that you might have in your head when you're assessing a new tool you've never used before. Is there any sort of checks that you do? Innately with those?


Siobhan Bell 20:14
Yes, definitely. So the first one is usability. You know, if it's difficult for me to figure out how to use it, then automatically it falls off the list. Because I don't have time to learn something new. It's going to be a small tool. I don't have time to spend a lot of time learning it. And so it needs to be really user friendly. And then it has to have an output that's going to fit within how I delivering content. So because we're using Blackboard, I have to have a way to be able to link it. So whether that's using a link that they have to click on that takes them outside of our learning environment, which is generally not something I liked to use a lot of so I tend to keep those for last resort. If it has the ability to be embedded with an HTML code, then that is automatically going to go up higher on my list because I know it will fit in my my learning environment better. And then I'm looking at encryption. So how is it going to hold my content? Do I still own it? Is somebody else going to own it? I look at shareability so can I collaborate on things with other people? Can I share my process with other professors so that they can use it? Looking at licensing is another one. I like to make sure that I get sort of a say in how whatever I create is going to be licensed to the world. Because I like to use Creative Commons licensing for everything. And if they don't allow that generally that is down to the bottom of my list, and then I look for how it's gunna look on the other end. So especially things that have a way for you to view it from the user. So for instance, how Blackboard lets us see things from the student view. If a tool has the ability to let me see what it's going to look like, on the user's end. That's a big bonus for me because I want to be able to tweak things to enable it to be used simply. That's pretty much the top things that I would look for.

Jennifer Peters 22:39
And it seems like a lot, but it's also seems as though the more you do that kind of analysis yourself the quicker it might get when you're just sort of running through all these different things.

Siobhan Bell 22:49
For sure. I used to have a written list a couple of years ago that I think somebody gave me at a conference I went to on tech tools once and it was basically everything I just said but in a simplified format. And I think when you're first starting out, looking at tech tools, it's probably important to have a list that sort of keeps you on track with what's important to you and what's important to your program or your course.

Jennifer Peters 23:20
Absolutely. And using all these different tools. I know that one of the questions I get from faculty is I don't... how do I not overburden my students learning new tools, you know, they go to these different classes, they may be using different tools in different classes. So how has the reception from your students been?

Siobhan Bell 23:39
I think there's a real key to doing this I found. If I was to introduce new tools, sort of, you know, in week 4 or week 6 or week 10 or something like that. The reception is less enthusiastic because they've got a process already. They're already figured out how they're going to study your course material. But if I figure out at the beginning of the semester, the tools that I think I'm going to use over the course of the semester and I take the time, so I never scheduled content in my first week. The full first week of my courses are always just about playing with the BlackBoard shell and learning the tools that we're going to use. So I spend a lot of time creating icebreaker tool icebreakers for the apps that I think or the software that I think I'm going to use for that semester. And then I have them play with that in the first week with me, so that I know that they're familiar with it and that we've had a chance to have fun with it before I start assigning any kind of learning content to it. And I make sure I guess the other thing that always is in the back of my mind is equity, ensuring that students have the ability to access these tools and so I want to make their first introduction to the tool and environment where they can easily and comfortably say to me either via email or through our question and answer discussion board or something like that, that you know what I don't have a smartphone so I can't download this app, or something along that line and then I always make sure that there's another workaround. So you know what Signal it can be accessed via a web page, with Seesaw access via web page. So I try to make sure that there's other ways for people to access it other than having to use another device. When I do that I have no complaints for the whole semester. Generally I have more complaints about not using it enough. They want it to be used, you know every week. But if I try to introduce something new in the middle of the semester, I definitely hear some push back about it.

Jennifer Peters 26:05
Sort of deciding at the beginning. These are the tools we're going to be using, spending the time teaching the students how to use them, ensuring that there's flexible access to them, and then using them for the whole semester.

Siobhan Bell 26:17
Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Peters 26:22
And do you find your colleagues are using these tools? The same tools that you're using? Are they using different tools?

Siobhan Bell 26:28
I think I have a few colleagues that are using some of the same tools. Learnful definitely, Seesaw a few people have reached out to ask about and I know some of them are using VoiceThread. I've think I've heard more using things like Mentimeter, Kahoot, quizzes, sort of Socrative those sorts of things for a class, question and survey and things like that. Not as much embedded in the actual course delivery. I think that's still new in my area with a lot of my colleagues.

Jennifer Peters 27:12
And if if there were faculty that were interested in starting along this path of integrating tools and would you have any kind of top recommendations for them or top tips for them from lessons learned?

Siobhan Bell 27:22
I think my top lesson is to play with it yourself. So just create a, you know, a play account, build an assignment just to play with yourself, find a colleague to to be the student and get comfortable with it before implementing it. I think sometimes we push ourselves to implement new things and we're just not quite ready and when that happens, then the students don't have a great experience. You don't have a great experience and then you never want to do it again. And so I think being an explorer and checking it all out, or implementing it into your course is important and seeking somebody to be your mentor and support during the first time that you deploy it. I think it's also really important.

Jennifer Peters 28:13
And I think I agree with that approach that sort of what we do in the Teaching & Learning Centre to where when we want to teach a new tool. I would prefer to sort of stress test it for a semester before I actually use it to make sure that it's something we actually want to use, because you never know certain things it's just like, Oh, I didn't know this was gunna happen. So yeah, that's great advice. Are there any sort of favourite anecdotes or any specific story that has emerged from this type of practice?

Siobhan Bell 28:45
Well, I think my favourite so far is that I have students who have long graduated, who are now alumni who will reach out and say, remember that time in class when we played with this thing? What was that? How do I find it because I have something I need to teach to my colleagues or something I need to put together for something else, a presentation. I'd really like to use it. That to me is always sort of a you know, a grateful moment that something as simple as a tool a tech tool, made such an impact on what they were learning that they still remember it years later. That to me is probably my favourite anecdote over the years.

Jennifer Peters 29:34
That's amazing because it means that they had a good experience and it was something that was memorable to them and something they'd like to share with other people to that same sort of strategy or tool. Awesome. Well, is there anything else you wanted to add or Arushi anything else you wanted to ask?

Arushi Manners 29:54
To be honest, I found that really interesting. A lot of it went over my head and tools tools I haven't heard about before, but very excited to delve into especially sort of how you're using Signal and Seesaw so yeah, thanks for sharing Siobhan

Siobhan Bell 30:11
Anytime

Jennifer Peters 30:12
I am interested in looking at Signal and Learnful, so yeah, those give me some things to look into for sure. Well, thank you so much for joining us Siobhan today, and thanks for sharing your story with us. This has been amazing. I think you've you've given us a ton of stuff to look into.

Siobhan Bell 30:30
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
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