STUDENT ENGAGEMENT IN A MOBILE/WIRELESS CLASSROOM:

Lessons Learned Teaching English and Mathematics

Carol Carruthers &

Irene Kanurkas

Faculty ForumsMay 3, 2011

Presentation Outline

• The power of the internet http://neoformix.com/Projects/TwitterStreamGraphs/view.php

• How we got here – grants, support, research • Why pen-based tablet pc’s?• Why DyKnow software/mobile/wireless?• How tablets/DyKnow has changed our teaching

practice and student response• How could this technology be used in your

classroom?

2008 Higher Education HP Teaching for Technology Grant

• Seneca selected from 44 higher education institutions (370 applicants world wide)

• The $84K grant - 21 HP CompaqTablet PC’s, Microsoft® operating system, accessories

• HP Teaching for Technology Grant• Seneca HP site

2010 HEQCO Grant

• Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario grant: The Impact of Tablets on Writing Skills in College Remedial English

• Goal: to document and assess the use of tablet technology and interactive communication software to engage students placed in developmental/remedial English to improve their core writing and reading skills.

• Value of grant: approx. $26K

DyKnow Software

• “DyKnow Vision software is an interactive teaching tool used to maximize class time, foster collaborative learning and promote effective studying”

• Funding by FASET and Academic Computing Services (ACS)

• A 2010 Post Secondary DyKnow Collaborative Software Grant recipient (55 licenses)

2011 Seneca Innovative Project Funding

• Enhancing Student Success and Faculty Innovation in Developmental Mathematics using College Classroom Technology – a Continuing Investigation

• Goal: To determine the impact of using tablet PC/DyKnow technology in a larger classroom

• Teach Math With Tech Blog https://teachmathwithtech.wordpress.com/

Why a Pen-Based Tablet PC? Write Here…

Why a Pen for Teaching Math/Science?

Why a Pen for Teaching English?

Bertrand Russell, "What I Have Lived For"

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness -- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what -- at last -- I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.http://www.zimbio.com/Philosophy/articles/78/Bertrand+Russell+Lived

2. Sample Intro. and Thesis - be sure your thesis expresses the main topic of your essay and contains a controlling idea.

Marking with a Pen

An English teacher’s best friend and a student’s worst enemy

Stylus allows you to• change colours easily and often• highlight• erase with ease• return student work electronically • save trees

The Pen and the Writing Process: Closing the Circle

• Prewriting • Developing/drafting • Revising

Brainstorming/Clustering

Generating and Organizing Ideas

The Final Product : Submitted and Returned

Pen Colour Matters…

The purple phantom:

White Pen: Seeing Is Believing

To Type – In DyKnow, Insert a Text Box

Why use the Keyboard for Math/Science?

Send us Your Ideas of How You Could use a Tablet PC in your Classroom? Pen/Type?(home>submit panel>ok)

Why DyKnow Software/Mobile/Wireless?

An Evolution in Teaching - Math

1) Interactive focus activityhttp://www.freerice.com/categoryhttp://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com/http://www.mathsisfun.com/2) Concept development -note framework, internet at fingertips3) Collaborative practice (next slides)4) Application5) Reflection of learning

Instructor example:Explain to partner (View > REPLAY)

Write your own question:

Order of operations: Simplify using BEDMAS

Skill-Testing Question

Students Become the Temporary Teacher (Share Control)/Modeling

Private Notes – Study Summary

An Evolution in Teaching – EnglishTake Note! (Inter)active Learning

A Private Tutor for Every Student

Active Learning Through Polls

Polling – Your Opinion Matters to Us!

How do you think this technology could be used in your classroom?

a) I don’t think it would have any application.b) I think it could have some application I could

use in my teaching.c) I think tablets have many applications I could

use in my teaching.d) I don’t have an opinion at this time.

Technological Hurdles

• Tablet PCs • Consistent wireless internet connection• Time constraints• Stylus vs. pen and virtual binder vs. paper• “…they (tablets) could be a very distracting

because it (takes) your mind away off lectures…when lectures becomes boring I tend to go on websites which is the worst thing I can do …”

Student Response (math)“…I actually did my work and it was done right and

organized which helped for studying.”“…because it’s more convenient and accessible to

everyone”“…Makes me perform better since it is a new and

interesting way to approach classes. I tend to pay attention more thus doing better in work and tests”

“…Helped me, as I haven’t had a mark higher than B in a math class since grade 8, yet I am getting A’s here …”

Student Response (cont)

“…students can share answers anonymously, we can correct each other’s work.”

“Assignments and homework were easy on the tablet because it was all saved to the server, your notes are available all the time…”

“It influences you because you’re seeing not only your answers but others … as well and it enables you to discuss different methods of solving problems.”

Student Response (cont)

“…I found that the shy students were more comfortable participating through the tablet and shared control in dyknow than standing up and speaking”.

“The tablets were useful because I can see what the teacher is writing, students can share answers anonymously, we can correct each others work. Also be being able to access Dyknow at home and at school I did not have to worry about taking notes [on paper] because they were all saved…”

Student opinion – Tablets/DyKnow

• AST students won 1st prize ($3000) for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il-k65CFqpE

• AST students won 2nd prize (50 DyKnow licenses) for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd7BsEF1x6g

• Special thanks to Ewan Gibson (AVS) Seneca Libraries

There’s more…Request Status – Anonymous Feedback

Chat - Collaboration

Special Thanks To:• The Applied Science and Technology Fundamentals (AST), MTH 148 and EAC149

students • Laurel Schollen – Associate Vice President Academic - Educational Excellence• James Humphreys– Chair SBSAC and Andrew Schmidtz- Chair ELS• Hassan Assiri – Director, Enterprise Services Management• Gino Franceschetti – ACS• Ewan Gibson - AVS • SBSAC, FIAT and FASET Faculty

Supported by a 2008 Higher Education HP Technology for Teaching Grant,a 2010 Post Secondary DyKnow Collaborative Software Grant, HEQCO, and by Seneca FASET and ACS