Breeze
Today I went to an Instructional Consulting session on "Using Breeze to Connect with Students". It is presented by Dr. Roberto Garcia from Kelly School of Business. He introduced his experience with using Breeze in his online course.
I have used Breeze briefly when Skype failed to hold more than 4 people for an online conference. It is one of the best online communication tools I have used. Very easy to use (at least as a participant).
There are some fun episodes Dr. Roberto Garcia talked about. For example one student was able to view everything but to type in the chat. After many investigations it is found that it is all caused by the apostrophe in the student's log on name!
Another fun episode was about the social presence. While Dr. Garcia was lecturing in his home office with his camera, his wife and kids come in with a cake with candles on. It happened to be his birthday that day! Facing this surprise, he turned the camera to his kids and the cake for about five minutes and then turn back to class. And he got many birthday wishes... He commented that his students get to see that he is a real professor, having his own life.
There are some interesting uses that breeze allows. It is great to lecture and at the same time to show PowerPoint, or Videos. Polls is also a useful tool.
As to implementation of the tools, role play is an interesting one, where students can participate anonymously with thier assigned roles.
What struck me most and gave me some inspiration is the way he manage the chatting activity. Having chatted in an online conference, I know how messy it can be when multiple people are typing at the same time! After asking the students to poll for one case, he asked only students who polled for the first choice to type their thoughts. This is very good organizing strategy. I think in the Teaching Presence article, this is one type teaching presence. I would like to research on this to compare how different instructors manage chat in Breeze and to see their organizing strategies...It will be very interesting research!
Also related to chat is I have one idea. Since all the chats are recorded, it will be useful for either the instructor or the students to read back and summerize the main points. I bet not all students were able to read all the messages or respond to the message they want to, espeically when the chat is heated. This can be an interesting research, too.
I have used Breeze briefly when Skype failed to hold more than 4 people for an online conference. It is one of the best online communication tools I have used. Very easy to use (at least as a participant).
There are some fun episodes Dr. Roberto Garcia talked about. For example one student was able to view everything but to type in the chat. After many investigations it is found that it is all caused by the apostrophe in the student's log on name!
Another fun episode was about the social presence. While Dr. Garcia was lecturing in his home office with his camera, his wife and kids come in with a cake with candles on. It happened to be his birthday that day! Facing this surprise, he turned the camera to his kids and the cake for about five minutes and then turn back to class. And he got many birthday wishes... He commented that his students get to see that he is a real professor, having his own life.
There are some interesting uses that breeze allows. It is great to lecture and at the same time to show PowerPoint, or Videos. Polls is also a useful tool.
As to implementation of the tools, role play is an interesting one, where students can participate anonymously with thier assigned roles.
What struck me most and gave me some inspiration is the way he manage the chatting activity. Having chatted in an online conference, I know how messy it can be when multiple people are typing at the same time! After asking the students to poll for one case, he asked only students who polled for the first choice to type their thoughts. This is very good organizing strategy. I think in the Teaching Presence article, this is one type teaching presence. I would like to research on this to compare how different instructors manage chat in Breeze and to see their organizing strategies...It will be very interesting research!
Also related to chat is I have one idea. Since all the chats are recorded, it will be useful for either the instructor or the students to read back and summerize the main points. I bet not all students were able to read all the messages or respond to the message they want to, espeically when the chat is heated. This can be an interesting research, too.
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