Sharing & Feedback

I love these ideas - especially how easily they can be adapted for online, face-to-face, and blended classes.

I'm curious how you will you identify the top ten images, and how you'd do the voting in a fully online class. If it would be helpful to you, you are welcome to demo it with our group. :)

And... your #studyselfie inspired me to seed the social forum in my asynchronous, online class. We had our first snow of the season in Whitehorse today, so I've started a #firstsnowselfie feed - just for fun - I'll let you know how it goes. 

Thanks for getting the ball rolling on the inspiration! 

Hi Tara,

It was great to read about your "Midterm Motivation" activity. I think you and your class could have some fun with this one. I, too, was wondering about participation, but if you make it engaging then I think people will get on board.

A riff on this activity could be to ask them to create/find an animated gif as an alternative to the image to share. It wouldn't be easy to print on the exam, but it might be also engaging to the students. (Not sure if gifs can be added to Padlet though, you'd have to check.) Another tool that could help this happen would be Instagram. At RRU we have had courses which have embedded Instagram feeds (using hashtags I think) into their Moodle courses, just an FYI.

If you went the gif route, an alternative 'ask' could be to 'find a gif that will give your fellow students motivation to rock that exam!' or something to that effect, rather than something that describes what the class has meant to them. For me, there might be a difference between your ask of 'summarize what the class will mean to you going forward' and the hashtag which calls it 'motivation'. Is it the same thing? I'm not sure. One might help them figure out how they feel about the usefulness of the course, the other might help them find the energy - and inspire others - to keep going. Both are great...just looking at clarity here.

Were you thinking that you'd ask the students to also include why they chose that image or what it meant to them using text along with the image, or just the image itself?

Looking forward to where your thinking goes from here!

Beth

Tara, looks like your community-building activity is generating plenty of interest!

Another tweak you might consider (if looking for a lower-tech option) is to have people post that 'perfect image' as you describe, & then get the class (the student who posted the image and/or the rest of the class) to suggest captions. I've seen similar exercises in the past & they've added considerable humour to the activity.

Great activity!  It is short, fun, creative and would most likely provide some very useful feedback to you, the instructor.  A visual representation of where students are at is very cool!  I wonder what my students would post for the courses I am teaching right now (Business Communications and Theories of Communications).  I am super interested to find out.  I just might try this activity out with my students!  Thanks for the great idea!

Hi Tara,

What a great idea and thank you for sharing!!

Do you ever have learners who are uncomfortable with or fearful of technology, don't use twitter/padlet, or other issues? If so, do you have any recommendations about the 'easiest' tools to integrate for learners, especially if the f2f or distance course is very new to them and they have limited experience...

thanks again,

Janna

 I'm sharing an image that summarizes what this course has meant to me and will mean going forward. Thank you for the inspiration, Tara!

I feel like I've come across a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. So many good ideas shared! And they just kept flo(w)ing over the waterfall. Going forward I plan to use them, of course!

Sorasak