EDUC 730 - Interactivity and Engagement Blog

Hello, fellow secondary teachers. You all know me as Corinne Blake or the AP Physics teacher. I am writing this blog for you today to give you some educational technology tools to keep in your toolkit to make your online class more interactive and engaging for students.

Why?

Everyone was thrown into distance learning at one point, but we have chosen to stay as online educators for the district. This has proven to be a great need as the enrollment here has more than quadrupled since the district resumed back to in-person learning and is still growing. Being an online teacher requires a different skill set than face-to-face teachers, and the opportunities provided for learning in the course should allow students to interact and collaborate (Stone & Springer, 2019). Therefore, we must be mindful of our course design and include components in our curriculum that allow for interactivity and engagement. Interactivity involves interacting with other students, their teachers, and the learning materials (Yan et al., 2022). So, what opportunities are we providing our students to do these things? Are there projects included in the course, discussion boards, or live sessions? Are the students participating in those opportunities? Participation is just one type of engagement the student can have within your course. There are three types of engagement: behavioral (participation), cognitive (self-regulation), and emotional or affective (positive interactions), and it is important to design a learning environment to include all three (Bond & Bedenlier, 2019). As an instructor, we can choose what goes into our courses to aim to engage our students in all of these ways. Yan et al. (2022) found a direct connection between the online classroom's interactivity and student engagement. Therefore, let us improve our interactivity with these educational tools to increase student engagement behaviorally, cognitively, and emotionally.

(University of Waterloo, 2020)

Advantages & Disadvantages

There is no denying that technology has opened doors in the world of education. There are many educational tools that can be utilized within the classroom to help students be engaged and learn. Besides creating more learning opportunities, edtech tools allow students to be more involved in their learning and pique their interests (Sujatha & Rajasekaran, 2022). However, this would require a sense of digital literacy for the student. Many argue that since students today have access to technology and grew up with it, they are proficient in the use of technology. However, this is untrue, and students need to be taught how to use technology effectively, just like educators. As we teach students how to use these educational tools, they will become better candidates for the future workforce. Educators must ensure students still utilize their critical thinking skills rather than just being trained to adapt (Sancho-Gil et al., 2019). Another advantage is that students who participate in computer-based instruction have higher test achievement levels and a more positive perception of learning (Gashi Shatri, 2020). Having a positive attitude can lead to an increase in affective engagement.

Some disadvantages of using educational tools are the lack of cultural connection, contributing to the laziness of the learner, and there could be misinformation involved that could harm a student’s understanding instead of fostering it (Gashi Shatri, 2020). Educational tools are sometimes designed with a one-size-fits-all mentality. Culturally responsive teaching has also been proven to increase student engagement (Abacioglu et al., 2020). Laziness could result when the student allows the technology to do the work for them. ChatGBT is a hot topic that educators are battling as the AI program will write for the student instead of making them responsible for their own writing. In addition, if the program was not designed by the teacher or specifically for their state standard, there could be information that is not needed or even wrong information, depending on how credible the edtech tool is. Therefore, educators need to vet the programs they are utilizing ahead of time.

During online learning, students find it most challenging to interact with their teachers (Yan et al., 2022). A teacher can be more involved in the course by participating in class discussions, timely communication and feedback with students, and purposeful lesson design in which time is needed for a teacher to implement (Stone & Springer, 2019). As we all know, time is often the setback that keeps us from accomplishing the goals that we want to achieve in our online learning environments. Hopefully, these educational technology tools I introduce will prove to be a time saver. I believe they will help increase the interactivity in your online classroom and provide ways for students to be more engaged.

Top 3 Edtech Tools

I would like to share my top 3 educational technology tools with you today: Thinglink, Quizizz, and Padlet.

Thinglink

Thinglink is a digital tool that allows an educator or student to create interactive visual media. It allows the creator to use pictures, videos, or 3D objects to create links to interactions for learning. This tool is user-friendly and allows you to create content in minutes. A free version allows you to get to know the program, but you will have to upgrade to a professional version if you want to share your creations. It would cost a teacher $60/year, a school license is $2/seat, and at $9/seat, you would get unlimited access to all of its features. The interactivity of this program is the student interacting with the learning material. If your student creates one to show understanding, you can use a peer review format to get some student-student interaction or give feedback for teacher-student interaction. Still, the actual program does not have these aspects built in. The share feature allows it to be easily distributed through an embed code, share the link, direct link, inserted into a PowerPoint, and even viewable in VR. When setting up a Thinglink, when you select the media you would like to make interactive, there are introduction videos built to help you along the way. There is also an entire YouTube channel the company put together with helpful tips and tricks. There is a help feature, report a bug, and form to fill out for additional support from their team available directly in the program. Thinglink is available on your desktop in common browsers like Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox but can also be accessed through an iOS or Android app. Thinglink does have an LTI tool that can be integrated into Canvas. With Thinglink, the interactivity for your students to engage themself in adding text, videos, music, etc., is endless. And we can’t forget that Thinglink is also compatible with an immersive reader. Take a second to click the link at the top of this section and explore all the engaging possibilities.

Quizizz

Quizizz is game-based learning at its finest. It can be used for practice work like bellringers, instructional purposes, and assessments. It has a library of resources made by others that you can utilize, or you can create your own. When you go to create, you have to choose between a quiz or a lesson. For a lesson, the program will also allow you to import content from Google Slides that are already created. When creating a quiz, there are many different options to choose from. The free options are multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, draw, open-ended, poll, and slide. If you upgrade from the free account to a premium account, such as an individual plan that is $12/month, you can access question types like matching, drag and drop, math response, reorder, drop down, video response, and audio response. There are school and district plans available that would offer integration into Canvas. The program is easy to use to create quiz questions, but if you have some already created in Google Forms or a Spreadsheet the program allows you to upload your questions without having to retype. Besides the interactivity options available in the question types, once a quiz is made, the teacher can play a live quiz or assign it as “homework” for asynchronous learning. Students do not need an account to play and would use the PIN or URL to access. When playing the quiz together in a live session, your device will display the leaderboard, which can help bring the competition to the classroom and increase engagement. The players would have the questions and answers available on their own devices. The teacher can also choose between a classic game where the students move at their own pace or an instructor-paced one where everyone moves together. This can be great if you have students with accommodations that may require more time. Again, the interactivity for this program is students with the learning system but has features like memes and music to increase engagement. Quizizz can be played through a web browser on any device and will give you a breakdown of each student's score and which questions they got right or wrong. This report can only be shared on the premium version. If you want to know more about Quizizz, the company has a YouTube with instructional videos, so take a second and click the link above to explore Quizizz and let the fun begin.

Padlet

Padlet creates a space that is a fun environment to collaborate and contribute. It allows interactivity in all three ways. Students can interact with other students, their teachers, and the learning material. The student can choose from various features such as uploading, links, camera, video recorder, audio recorder, screen recorder, drawing, image search, gif, YouTube, Spotify, and Web Search to enhance their learning experience. Setting up a Padlet only takes seconds, and the platform is user-friendly. When you select Make a Padlet, you get an option of how you want it to look. I personally enjoy the Wall or Grid options. Once you select it, the Padlet is practically created for you. You will add a title, write a description, add an icon, choose your wallpaper, pick a color scheme, and select a font. Some other features that are nice to set are the Padlet’s ability to display the name of who wrote it. Hence, you know who contributes. There is an ability to allow reactions and comments, which can increase interaction and engagement. Some reactions include liking, voting on posts, giving 1-5 stars, and even grading with points being able to be set. You can even filter out profanity if you have a student feeling feisty. Once this is created, you just share the link with your students, and they will double-click to add content anywhere on the page. If link sharing isn’t your thing, then Padlet also has a way for you to share via QR code, embed, email, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Classroom. The Padlet can also be exported when finished as an image, PDF, CSV, or Excel spreadsheet file. Padlet is free however you can get a school account to integrate it into Canvas for $1000. There is a way to contact Padlet directly for help, but again, they have a helpful YouTube channel with videos to assist you. Padlet can be run on various browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Samsung Internet. It is also compatible with Android and iOS devices. 

I would love to share examples of how I have used this tool in the past: Example 1 and Example 2. 

I invite you to participate in one: Engage and Interact with Padlet. Let your imagination run wild. Feel free to use any of the features for your post and enjoy being immersed in the engagement that is Padlet.

Closing

Don’t worry; even with all of this great educational technology available today, teachers aren’t being replaced. Besides having a course design that includes engaging ideas, students want their teacher to have a solid presence in the class by participating with the students (Stone & Springer, 2019). This human connection cannot be replaced by technology. Technology won’t be able to get to know the student on a personal level or be able to show care and empathy towards them. However, technology can assist teachers in using their limited time to make the best decisions for their students and make a bigger impact (Arnett, 2019). To be most effective, Fairlie & Loyalka (2020) determined that there needed to be a balance between educational technology and other instructional formats. As online secondary teachers, we are called to use our teaching strategies to engage and create opportunities for interactivity for our students. Next time you plan a lesson or unit, consider what interactivity levels you have integrated. Can the students interact with you, their peers, or the learning materials you provide to engage in their understanding on a deeper level? It is challenging for educators to establish effective online interactions (Yan et al., 2022) so let’s try out best to break the mold.

References

Abacioglu, C. S., Volman, M., & Fischer, A. H. (2019). Teachers’ multicultural attitudes and perspective taking abilities as factors in culturally responsive teaching. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(3), 736–752. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12328

Arnett, T. (2019). Tech unlocks ueachers' capacity: Software Is a teaching tool, not a teacher replacement. Learning Professional, 40(4), 32–35. (EJ1230128). ERIC. https://learningforward.org/journal/personalizing-learning/tech-unlocks-teachers-capacity/

Bond, M., & Bedenlier, S. (2019). Facilitating student engagement through educational technology: Towards a conceptual framework. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2019(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.528

Fairlie, R., & Loyalka, P. (2020). Schooling and covid-19: Lessons from recent research on EdTech. Npj Science of Learning, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00072-6

Gashi Shatri, Z. (2020). Advantages and disadvantages of using information technology in learning process of students. Journal of Turkish Science Education, 17(3), 420–428. https://doi.org/10.36681/tused.2020.36

Sancho-Gil, J. M., Rivera-Vargas, P., & Miño-Puigcercós, R. (2019). Moving beyond the predictable failure of Ed-Tech Initiatives. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 61–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1666873

Stone, C., & Springer, M. (2019). Interactivity, connectedness and ‘teacher-presence': Engaging and retaining students online. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 59(2), 146–169. (EJ1235966). ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1235966.pdf

Sujatha, U., & Rajasekaran, V. (2022). Myth and reality of online tools in education. Language in India, 22(11), 91–97.

Teng, Y., & Wang, X. (2021). The effect of two educational technology tools on student engagement in Chinese EFL Courses. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00263-0

University of Waterloo. (2020). The three types of engagement [Online image]. 2a. The importance of student engagement. .https://contensis.uwaterloo.ca/sites/open/courses/FEFOCHE/toc/unit- 2/2a.aspx

Yan, H., Zhang, H., & Lam, J. F. I. (2022). A qualitative study on the model of factors influencing online interactivity and student learning engagement in the post-pandemic era. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 22(17), 66–83. https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v22i17.5657