Week 4: Journal Reflection…..my classroom of “unsmart” technology

Prompt:  Hopefully, this week you have been into your classroom for the fall and have had a look at the technology available for you for your F2F+ course. Take some time to reflect on how you are anticipating the classroom experience and your teaching of your course.  Perhaps you have done a course like this already, in that room, and you are old hat at it; how are you thinking about your teaching now?  What challenges do you anticipate or what kind of practices are you becoming aware of that you would like to try?  Or maybe this is all new to you; how do you anticipate this modality affecting your classroom presence, approach, or management style?  We would just like you to reflect on your anticipated experience in your classroom as you set out into working with this new modality. 

Welcome to ASAC 214.  My classroom this coming fall for COM 1220 - Intro to Media & Communications.  This is actually a classroom I’m very familiar with…I’ve taught it in several times (which gives me an advantage in this case I guess).  

This is one of Lyndon’s newer classrooms, located in the Academic & Student Activities Center (I think I got that right).  

There are a few things I love about classrooms over here, and a few things I loathe.  Let’s start with the things I love.  For one, the tables move…they’re all on caster wheels and can be rearranged if I want them to.  I actually really like this particular rearrangement….but if I were doing group work, the students in the classroom could rearrange these tables to better suite group conversation.  The other thing I love about these classrooms is they are lighter and brighter than a lot of the classrooms in my building.  There are plenty of windows (which open…yay!…for airflow), the lights can be dimmed or shut off (oh so fancy), and there is plenty of space to move about (always a bonus).  

All of the “smart” classrooms in this building are pretty much equipped the same way (all but the telepresence room on the third floor).  Here’s what the setup looks like:

This is what I would call a pretty typical setup.  Computer monitor (with accoutrements) and the “hub” on the top shelf (more about that in a second), and the “guts” underneath….the brain of the computer, the audio controls for the room, and the BluRay player.  

Here’s the “hub” at a closer glance:

So you can plug in whatever you need — laptop, ipad, etc….and there are not always dongles for apple things there, but OIT is getting better about that.  This is also where you turn the projector on and off.  

And my favorite (insert sarcastic tone here) part about my “smart” classroom is the camera…..

Ok.  I should be happy there’s even a camera in the room.  Yes.  But this one is so not helpful in so many ways and is one of the things I loathe about these rooms as far as teaching goes.  They are one of the reasons I call this my unsmart smart classroom.  These cameras work, sure.  But they peg me up against a wall.  To move them, I swivel them manually.  

This camera is a challenge for me.  As I’ve mentioned previously in workshops, I like to move around and engage my students. This type of camera really prohibits me from doing that.  I can do nothing on the board unless I manage to find a way to swivel it and make it sort of visible to the people on zoom.  So instead, I’ve resorted to doing things in Google docs/Microsoft Word or directly into a Page in Canvas.  It’s clunky….and feels really detached….but it works.  There’s also no way for the zoomers to see the classroom unless I swivel the camera around.  So they can see me or they can see the room, but they cannot see both….and I cannot guarantee that they will see everyone in the room depending on where folks sit.  

The other challenge with this room is audio gets sucked into a black hole.  The mic for the computer is pointed at whoever is at the teacher station.  There are no pickups for anyone in the main body of the room.  So the only way I’ve been able to get things to be heard is to either a) constantly repeat what someone is saying so that the zoomers can hear it OR by having those students come to the teachers station to speak.  It is EXCEPTIONALLY clunky.  And this is why a one to one device option would be better….if we can figure out how to make it work without constant feedback when an ipad or laptop unmutes themselves.  We need to figure out how to make that work to make this classroom really work the way I want it to.  

I’m so hung up on using something like Nearpod because of the way these “smart” classrooms are setup.  I need technology tools that will allow me to gets students interacting with material that they can follow along with easily, without making those dialing in remotely feeling like they’re a hinderance.  I need to be able to engage, make sure students are soaking things up in the moment (and be able to assess that), and keep everyone feeling equal.  

I’m looking at integrating technology, like Nearpod, that makes this unsmart classroom feel smarter than it is.  That allows technology already in the students hand do the heavy lift so that the classroom tech limitations don’t hinder learning.  I have done this whole some in the classroom, some on zoom “thing”, and it has been OK….BUT…I don’t want OK.  I want to be better than OK.  I want those zoomers to feel like they’re in the classroom and just as important. And I think external tech is the better way to handle that along with Aps/programs that allow me to make those connections feel good.  

I’m still sort of in limbo on this implementation though.  If I am going to have to pay out of pocket for Nearpod, I will.  But I want to really start playing with it (with my actual PowerPoints…..modified to include some moments of interaction).  And right now I’m sort of sitting in neutral.  I’ll come up with some backup plans if I have to.  But it won’t achieve the level of F2F+ I am ready to make in my classroom…and that would really suck.  

Are there other things outside of the “smart” classroom that I’m working on too?  Oh, absolutely. I’m going to be putting some serious elbow grease into my canvas course setup.  But Canvas is the smallest piece of this puzzle….it’s really the forward facing component that I’m the most worried about being able to be pulled off.