CONVEYING CONTENT

You can save precious synchronous class time by having students access most of the course content asynchronously online. This could involve presentations and other materials you created specifically for your students, or “published” multi-media content you selected for them.  Each of these options, as well as the specific media you choose, has its own advantages and disadvantages, which you need to consider when making decisions about the online resources you assign to your students.

• Freeing up class time for activities requiring synchronous interaction.
• Enhancing students’ understanding of the materials by providing them with the opportunity to review content at their own speed, interrupting and repeating as needed, stopping to take notes, and possibly using different modalities that may be more conducive to their learning preferences.
• Leveraging the unique affordances of different media to conveying content/information to students in the most effective way possible.
• Allowing for more choice and differentiation
• Preparing students to be life-long independent learners by empowering them to access content online on their own

• Long readings may be more intimidating/ less accessible than live presentations:
  • Use a variety of formats
  • Share with students techniques to more effectively read complex texts
• Preparing online materials can take a lot of time (and not be easy to create):
  • Limit the documents you have to create to a minimum
  • Develop an expectation that what you create is not “polished” as published materials
• Finding the “right” materials to include as online multi-media readings (as there are so many out there!):
  • Develop strategies to search for online content (including asking colleagues, join user groups, etc.)
  • Leverage your librarian’s expertise!
• When content is conveyed fully online, students do not have the immediate opportunity to ask clarifying questions to the instructor:
  • Provide students with opportunity to ask questions via email, discussion boards, chat, etc.

• Value of using a variety of media to engage students’ attention and appeal to diverse learning styles
• Power of giving students choices whenever possible
• Importance of “knowing your students”, so you can provide them with content of appropriate level of difficulty and quantity
• Quality of video or scanned text matters
• Value of “introducing” students to the online content you want them to engage in
• What you ask students to do with the online content will make a big difference!

1. Choose content of appropriate level of difficulty and quantity for your audience – and keep it short!
2. Use a variety of media to engage students’ attention and appeal to diverse learning styles
3. Give choices whenever possible
4. To save time, leverage published content so as to limit the documents you have to create
5. Think of ways to “introduce” students to the online content you want them to engage with
6. Ensure quality of video or scanned text, and easy online access to all materials
7. What you ask students to do with the online content will greatly affect their learning!

Even if your institution has not invested in a Learning Management System, there are stand-alone apps (such as Padlet and Flipgrid) that allow teachers to post digital content using a variety of media, in a way that can be easily accessed by every student.  Several of these apps allow to post not only written text, but also videos, digital photos, and even voice recordings.  It may be cumbersome, however, for both students and teachers to keep track of the digital content shared overtime.

Platforms like Zoom or Google Meet allow to convey content through live presentations from teacher, students and even outside experts willing to join in as guest speakers.  These presentations can be easily recorded and made available for future reference.

Software such as PowerPoint or Google Slides enable instructors – as well as students – to create valuable visuals to support either live or pre-recorded presentations, thus providing for a powerful way to convey content that is customized to a specific audience.

Today’s there are many easy-to-use video-recording tools that enable teachers and students to record presentations that can then be posted and made available through a Learning Management System or other “sharing” apps.  One of the easiest ways to record presentations is to use the recording capabilities built into synchronous session platforms like Zoom. There also easy-to-use video-editing tools, like Camtasia, that be used to enhance recorded presentations, so as to make them more effective.

• Easiest for students to annotate and revisit
• Can choose genre and level of difficulty most appropriate for the audience
• May turn off some students
• Specific reading strategies may need to be offered for struggling readers
• Less accessible for younger students

• Many students prefer this modality
• Can be more engaging
• Ideal to show phenomena and processes that cannot be replicated in the classroom
• Cannot be annotated or easily revisited

• Allows immediate and “organized” access to a combination of multimedia
• Easily allows for choice and differentiation
• Difficult to control students’ access if it is a public domain website
• May be confusing for young learners

• Most efficient, as it can be designed to specifically match specific goals and audience
• Can be deployed at the “right moment” within an activity
• Should be kept short, so as not to take up too much synch time
• Helps create “teaching presence” and personal connection with the teacher

• Can be designed to specifically match specific goals and audience
• Visuals in the slides can help highlight key points and hold students’ attention
• Can be revisited – with slides providing a visual to identify specific parts of the presentation
• A choice can be given to watch the video-recording and/or “read” the annotated Powerpoint version
• Can save precious synch time

• Enables students to learn from each other
• Helps create a learning community
• Students can easily annotate and revisit their classmates’ reports
• Some students may not like to have to read long written texts
• Can save precious synch time

• Enables students to learn from each other
• Helps create a learning community
• Students may be more interested in watching a short video than reading a report
• Can save precious synch time

• Easier to get the guest speaker’s commitment when travel is not involved!
• Brings in specialized expertise, with a personal dimension and opportunity to ask questions
• Brings in external credibility
• Teacher should prepare the guest speaker and the students in advance to make the most of it