Research Guides: HCL Learning Objects Lab: . . . . . . . . . . . . Understand

LOL Guidelines

About Learning Objects Lab

Copyright

Obtaining Permissions

Pedagogy: Design Phases

Production and Support

Publication Options

Repurposing and Reuse

Suggest a Learning Object

Page Index

Browse by Goal: Understand

Help students grasp or comprehend a concept so thoroughly that they are able to explain it to someone else. “Understand” falls within the “comprehension” category of Bloom’s Cognitive Domain, is an example of “foundational knowledge” in Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning, and is germane to each of the five Information Literacy Competency Standards. See “Browse by Goal” for more information.

LIVE QUESTION TOOL

Live Question Tool is a web-based service that lets audience members at a presentation post questions for the speaker. As questions are added, other participants can submit comments and cast votes for the questions they hope to see answered first. To build your own, see HELPFUL TIPS, below. Also Try: http://www.tricider.com/ and http://atg.fas.harvard.edu/technology-categories/classroom-participation-and-polling
Example:

Type: Classroom Response System

Learning Goals: Especially recommended to help students anonymously ask questions during class (in hopes that they will receive answers that help them better understand the content), give feedback, and interact with the teacher and one another. Due to its novelty and interactivity, it also has special potential for helping students get excited about or value their learning, among other things. Caveat: Avoid usage when teaching material that requires focus and concentration or serious reflection.

Estimated Production Time: 10-15 min.

Recommended Software: No special software required. To create one, see the Live Question Tool Creation Area. See also: Piazza

Publication Options: N/A

Experts, Consultants, & Collaborators: TBA (For suggestions or questions from other colleagues, check for Comments at the bottom of this box, or add your own.)

HELPFUL TIPS:

Instructional Design Tips
more...less...
To begin, consult Pedagogy: Design Phases.

This learning object is most germane when:
- Checking for student comprehension is important.
- Students are not comfortable speaking up to ask questions.
- Knowledge is distributed unevenly across members of the class and that knowledge needs to be shared efficiently.
- Class content requires neither focused concentration nor deep reflection (due to the risk of divided attention/distraction).
Pedagogical Style Guide:
- Before using, ensure that all students have access to a device, with a keypad, that can access the Internet during class.
- It is most effective when used in a classroom that offers dual projection; one screen for your content and the other for the Live Question Tool backchannel.
- Invite a colleague into your class to monitor questions on the computer, which will free you up to teach.
- When possible, answer questions orally and ask your colleague who is monitoring questions to record the answers.
- Welcome any oral questions heartily, or students may assume they are allowed only to type their questions.
- Time permitting: After class, save the session as a PDF (from within Adobe Acrobat Professional), send a copy to the students, and answer their unanswered questions via e-mail.
- The anonymity of the tool encourages student participation. This is mainly good news, but there can be a dark side if real world "griefers" may be in your class. Thus, it's helpful to integrate it with care.
Resources:
- ELI, 2009. 7 Things You Should Know about Live Question Tool.
- EDUCAUSE, 2010. 7 Things You Should Know About Backchannel Communication .
Technical Development Tips

PREZI

A web-based presentation application and storytelling tool that uses a single canvas instead of traditional slides. Text, images, videos and other presentation objects are placed on the infinite canvas and grouped together in frames. The canvas allows users to create non-linear presentations, where they can zoom in and out of a visual map. To build your own, see HELPFUL TIPS, below.
Example:

Type: Slide Show

Learning Goals: Especially recommended to help students analyze or understand part-to-whole relationships. If used as an active-learning tool, Prezi can encourage interaction through its non-sequential display capabilities.

Estimated Production Time: 1-2 weeks

Recommended Software: No special software required (Use Prezi)

Publication Options: click to view

Experts, Consultants, & Collaborators: TBA (For suggestions or questions from other colleagues, check for Comments at the bottom of this box, or add your own.)

HELPFUL TIPS:

Instructional Design Tips
more...less...
To begin, consult Pedagogy: Design Phases.

This learning object is most germane when:
- You are teaching a concept that involves part-to-whole relationships, or when it's important that students understand how the details of smaller elements inform the big picture and vice-versa.
- Your students will be encouraged to participate throughout the lecture and presentation (sometimes making predictions, sometimes asking questions, sometimes stating a preference), requiring that your presentation can flow in a nonlinear sequence.
Pedagogical Style Guide:
- When laying out your canvas, arrange elements logically.
- Take advantage of Prezi's ability to surprise--plant rich details into small, but zoom-able, spaces.
- Anticipate as many possible reactions to your lesson content as you can imagine when designing the presentation. This will enrich the learning process.
- While Prezi lets you to create a (literal) storyline connecting sections of your presentation in sequence, you may digress from the path as appropriate during the presentation.
- Take care with the zooming features. Overuse can create a feeling of sea-sickness.
- Be aware and observant of copyright law and fair use guidelines when inserting content (like images). Creative Commons can be a terrific source.
- Avoid gratuitous use of Prezi; in other words, its novelty is probably not a sufficient rationale for using it.
Resources:
- EDUCAUSE, 2010. 7 Things You Should Know About Next-Generation Presentation Tools.
- Hill. Thoughts on Using Prezi as a Teaching Tool.
- MacNeill, 2009. Prezi, PowerPoint, multimodality and the 'logic of the image'.
Technical Development Tips

VOICETHREAD

A collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows students to navigate pages and leave comments. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies. To build your own, see HELPFUL TIPS, below.
Example:

Type: Slide Show

Learning Goals: Especially recommended to help students analyze, critically evaluate, understand, give feedback about, and use/search featured information resources, such as primary documents, images, videos, presentations, etc. VoiceThread may also encourage students to value or get excited about subject matter because it offers an opportunity to interact with content and with other students through webcam video, microphone, telephone, text, or image and through file uploads of their own.

Estimated Production Time: 2 weeks

Recommended Software: No special software required (Use VoiceThread)

HELPFUL TIPS:

Instructional Design Tips
more...less...
To begin, consult Pedagogy: Design Phases.

This learning object is most germane when:
- There is an opportunity to introduce students to relevant content or materials outside of class time, asynchronously.
- Students are likely to contribute.
- Featured content is intrinsically engaging or can be made engaging quickly through simple explication.
- You'd like to highlight something special.
Pedagogical Style Guide:
- Involve students as much as possible, both in the original presentation and in the commentary.
- Engage students aurally and visually.
- Create a VoiceThread or invite students to create their own.
- Consider highlighting special collections, award-winning research projects and papers, students' favorite library study spaces, etc.
- Keep presentations as succinct as possible.
Resources:
- Lofton, 2008. New Ideas Take Flight (discusses VoiceThread as a learning tool in libraries)
- Anderson, 2010. Expanding the Power of Primary Sources with Web 2.0 (discusses VoiceThread, among other tools).
- Andrew, 2010. Edutopia Back-to-School Guide, Digital Library additions
Technical Development Tips