You don’t have to be sick in order to use technology for teaching.
This summer I’ve been involved in planning for how we’ll continue teaching in the event of a large outbreak of H1N1 – the dreaded Swine Flu. I’ve been asked to document how teachers can use technology as a substitute for some of the activities that would otherwise be carried out in the classroom.
It’s no surprise that most of the technologies (and the pedagogies behind them) that we’re recommending are the very same things we already advocate as effective ways to enhance teaching. You can see a summary of these recommendations on the SAS Computing web site at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/teaching_resources/flu
Hopefully, we won’t face a true emergency situation this fall. But I am hoping that the threat of a flu outbreak will motivate more instructors to take advantage of services that are already available, and get them interested in new ways to engage with their students.
Many of the technologies we recommend are very basic, such as using Blackboard to make announcements, distribute documents or collect assignments. Others involve more creativity, such as using discussion boards, wikis or collaboration tools. Blackboard is the obvious first place to turn since it’s already tied into Penn’s registration systems and we’ve got good support systems in place.
But I’ll take this opportunity to put in a plug for one of my favorite technologies which is rarely used but could be enormously useful – even when everyone is healthy. That is, creating “screencast” movies to record basic lecture materials or technical demonstrations.
By moving some lectures outside of the classroom instructorss can free up more time for discussion and problem solving. Those using special software such as Matlab or SPSS in their classes can record tutorials on how to perform important functions. Screencast movies can demonstrate how to use Library resources for research. Basically, if you can do it on a computer, you can make it into a movie. Details are explained at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/teaching_resources/record_lecture
