Out-of-Class Content

Currently reading, Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning by Jose Antonio Bowen, for PIDP 3240. Bowen's essential argument is that with "an expanding global market for online learning" that "the value of a bricks-and-mortar university will remain in its face-to-face (i.e., naked) interacting between faculty and staff" (ix). To this end, Bowen suggests numerous ways to use technology to increase the value of the time spent in the classroom.

This is an interesting idea especially as I am planning the course content for teaching ENGL 170. With class time, actual interaction with the students, so valuable how is it best spent? Bowen suggests focus on "what you do best and link to the rest" (125). He offers a number of suggestions about where to find online course content as well as tips on creating your own.

The idea of making the most of class time resonated with me. The course objective for ENGL 170: Writing and Communication is to help students to become better academic writers. The course usually includes mostly first year students and often several English as a Second Language (ESL) students. It covers a great deal of content and frankly, some of it is a bit dry, such as grammar and punctuation. While I agree that good grammar and punctuation are important for clear, concise writing, I believe that you become a better writer, academic and otherwise, by writing and by reading good writing. Therefore, my ideal class would include an opportunity to write during every class. I also feel strongly in the importance of feedback, both giving and getting constructive, positive feedback. So being able to use class time for the students to practice giving and receiving feedback and leaving some of the grammar and punctuation content to be learned online appealed to me. Additionally, I agree with Bowen and others, that valuable class time should be used to practice skills and those higher-order processing tasks such as applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Therefore accepting Bowen's challenge to fully utilize the face-to-face class time, I sought to find "out-of-class content" (103) to supplement or replace some of the lessons with online content.

Bowen's chapter, "Technology for Information Delivery," offers a number of sources for finding what he terms as "out-of-class" content. A few of the ones he lists include:

• Educator
• Google
• iTunes U
• Khan Academy
• Merlot
• MIT
• Open Education Consortium
• The Open University
• Scribendi
• TED
• Utubersity
• Yale
• YouTube

Alternatively, as Bowen suggests that you can create your own podcasts. I have had a bit of experience creating podcasts. I've done a few video lectures for other courses in the PIDP program but I really hate being on camera so I usually just record a voiceover on a PowerPoint presentation. While, I try to use engaging graphics, I'm not sure if this is much better than recording one's self lecturing in front of the class, which unless it is done really well, can be truly horrible.

In my hunt for grammar and punctuation online content, I found a number of sites directed at learning to speak English as a foreign language speaker which didn't really meet my needs. I did find some useful content created by the English Department of the University of Calgary. There were some YouTube videos by EnglishLessons4U, which seemed quite engaging but did seem to be targeted more for ESL students (which could prove helpful for my ESL students). I struck pay dirt on the Educator site with English Grammar with Rebekah Hendershot. The lectures are in video format and pairs Hendershot with a nice interactive visual. The lecture has a number of useful options. Not only is there a table of contents for the course but each lecture is listed in table of contents order as well with the time noted - this makes it very easy for learners to go back and repeat sections. The lectures are broken into nice short chunks which don't feel overwhelming to the learner. Learners have the option of being able to download the lecture slides as well as just the notes under the tab Quick Notes. Hendershot, who incidentally is a professor with the University of California, has a very comprehensive course BUT only part of it is free. The majority of this beautiful content is available only through a subscription, which at its most basic is $25.00 per month. For some learners, especially those on learning on their own, $300.00 is pretty keep tuition considering this opens the whole world of Educator to you at your fingertips but for students already paying for a course this is too much to ask.

So what's my take-away? Am I conceding defeat to Bowen's challenge? I vow to use what content I can find and then work at creating the content I still need keeping in mind the model set out by Educator and Hendershot. I'll keep you posted.

PS. I will license my content under Creative Commons and open it for all to use.