Kat's Captivating Exciting Conference! - KSU University Rooms 1/12/2016

I am late on posting this, and I apologize for that! But, on January 12, Dr. Powell and I attended Coles College of Business's mini-conference on teaching techniques.

The Interactive Syllabus

Tammy Powell presented on the interactive syllabus, which she says it more appropriately called the "engaging syllabus." An interactive syllabus is a syllabus that provides course information so that it is more engaging and can be manipulated by the learner. 

So why use the interactive syllabus? Tammy says that they can grab your students' attention so that they are more likely to spend more time looking at the syllabus, which fosters student preparedness and success because they are more likely to remember the information on the syllabus. She also said that your students are more likely to be engaged with the course content because the interactive syllabus caught their attention, and the engagement encourages them to communicate with the instructor. 

In creating and implementing an interactive syllabus, you should use it in addition to, and not as a replacement for the traditional syllabus. You can use Publisher, InDesign, Populr, Smore, and other tools to put the content from your syllabus into the interactive syllabus, adding color, pictures, and interactive content along the way. 

Using Protocols to Structure Discussions

Julie Moore in Bagwell College of Education presented on protocols for structuring discussions in class. This is a technique that is very common in K-12 education because it structures conversation, is done in steps, is time-bounded, is focused on work and not person, and ensures equity of voice.

To better explain protocols, Julie had us participate in the following example:

In groups of three:

• Number off 1-3
• Question Posed
• 1 minute of think time
• 1 minute -- person #1 responds to question, others just listen
• 1 minute -- person #2 responds to question, others just listen
• 1 minute -- person #3 responds to question, others just listen
• 1 minute -- conversation/discussion
• Debrief

Silence is okay

Question: How do you use discussions in your teaching (face-to-face and/or online)? For what purposes? How are they different in face-to-face settings vs. online?

As you can see in the protocol above, they are very structured ways of having discussion. Julie's tips for protocols include:

• start with a simple protocol with few steps
• start with text-based protocols
• try it out with others before doing it in class (include debrief)
• experiment with a face-to-face small-group assignment
• observe others facilitating 
• look for protocols that serve your purpose
• double-check directions: be specific and detailed

Choosing Interaction Tools

Saurabh Gupta from Information Systems presented on choosing the appropriate interaction tools for your classes between wikis, blogs, and discussion boards. He gave us an evaluation of each type of tool:

• Wikis
• Communication support: medium
• Process structuring: low
• Information processing: high
• Blogs
• Communications support: low
• Process structuring: medium
• Information processing: low
• Discussion boards
• Communications support: medium
• Process structuring: low
• Information processing: low

Accessibility

Jim Cope from the Distance Learning Center gave 10 tips for creating accessible course content:

• Accessibility statements
• include the accessibility 508 compliance statement
• include disability accommodations statement
• include links to vendor accessibility information for all external tools in your courses
• Semantic structure (or styles)
• create your structure in Word, Open Office, HTML, etc. using the styles tags and functions for titles and headings
• use strong and emphasis tags for bold and italicized text
• if you use a table of contents, it should be based on the heading structure
• use a table of figures as needed
• Lists and tables
• use true list functions for bulleted and numbered lists
• use true tables and columns for appropriate information
• Readability
• divide large blocks of text into smaller and more manageable sections
• avoid complex sentences
• use sans-serif font at 12 points
• Text equivalents
• include alternative text for images, charts, graphs, or any other non-text element
• if alt text is not enough, include long description
• Avoid color coding -- do not use color as a way to convey meaning
• Sufficient color contrast
• make sure background and text have enough color contrast to be read easily
• make sure background colors and patterns do not overpower text
• Descriptive hyperlinks
• avoid vague descriptions like "click here" or "email me"
• avoid using the URL
• hyperlink text should describe the destination: website name, document name, or other resource
• Accessibility checkers
• use the software's built-in accessibility checker (Word, Open Office, Acrobat, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.)
• follow the repair recommendations provided by the accessibility checker to fix errors
• Multimedia
• for audio-only, provide a text transcript
• for video-only, provide a video description
• for audio and video, provide closed captions, text transcript, and/or a video description -- you can combine the text transcript and the video description into one file