McLuhan's+Tetrad

Kelley Straight's Summary

I chose the Student Response System because our school has recently begun to integrate this into our classes. I have seen noticeable benefits in the few times that I have used them and appreciate the ability for the teacher and student to get immediate feedback to help guide learning. In addition to this, the students are participating more because of the interaction as well as the fear of giving the wrong answer has been eliminated due to the results being anonymous. I was able to locate two different studies that had similar conclusions to mine.

As far as McLuhan’s Tetrad, I noted that the Student Response System enhances the way that teachers can assess learning, provide feedback, and identify student misconceptions. I determined that it obsoletes getting the answer from one student during class questioning or take a poll by asking the students to raise their hands when asked a question. I also added that it could eliminate some pencil and paper work. I was not able to identify a similar technology that was used in the past, but I did mention this type of assessment was either paper/pencil or the quick poll I mentioned previously. As far as reversal, I believe that the implications for the future include increased participation and engagement, which will hopefully lead to better test scores.

Comment by Margaret Ridgeway on Kelley Straight's summary: Kelley, I have also used a Student Response System in my class, including my midterms. Most students preferred this to the regular paper and pencil test. I used both T/F and multiple choice questions. Since I had some inclusion students in my classes, I read the questions (and possible answers on multiple choice) as they were displayed on the smart board. I also have several students below level in reading, so many of the students indicated this helped them to better focus on what the question was asking. Except for one or two students, they all showed a preference for using the Student Response System.

Margaret Ridgeway's Summary The technology I chose to review is the webcam. I have one on my laptop and a mobile one for use with other computers, however, I have not had a chance to use it. Each time I have scheduled an activity for it, we have had some technical difficulties that prevented using it. Even so, in my analysis, I found that the webcam enhances online communication and makes obsolete other synchronomous, online communications, such a chat rooms and conference rooms.

==== A webcam allows the user to communicate using a live audio/video stream, which retrieves the face to face communication that many may see as having been discarded due to the advent of chat rooms, Facebook and other social websites that are limited to written language. The beauty of the webcam is that it opens the door to allow more traditional teaching methods within the online classroom. This means that in areas where funding and staffing may be limited, schools do not have to limit course offerings as they have in the past, but can give students much more variety. ====

Kelley's Response to Margaret:
==== I like the idea of using a webcam for the face to face interaction. If my students are working from home then we message each other using the messaging system located within our Moodle page. I find it to be very difficult at times explaining things through writing, so using something such as a webcam could be a great alternative. I can relate to the technical difficulties associated with it. I bought one for my father so we could video message throughout the week and he always seems to have problems. Mine is built in on my laptop, so I do not have the difficulties. ====