What’s New in the News?

Row of brightly colored newspaper boxes.At The Innovative Instructor, I follow other pedagogy blogs and publications, and have a few favorites that are frequently referenced in these pages, including Vanderbilt mathematics professor Derek Bruff’s Agile Learning (“educational technology, visual thinking, student motivation, faculty development, how people learn, social media, and more”), Faculty Focus (“higher education teaching strategies”), Pedagogy Unbound (“a place for college teachers to share practical strategies for today’s classrooms”), and Tomorrow’s Professor (“online faculty development 100 times per year”).

One old friend, ProfHacker, had been hosted since 2009 at the Chronicle of Higher Education, and is now becoming independent. Beginning Monday, October 1, 2018, you’ll find new posts, as well as archived material, at Profhacker.com. ProfHacker has long been a great resource for technology for instructors inside and outside of the classroom, including hacks for productivity and personal work as well as teaching and learning.

Another good blog retired last spring, but fortunately the posts are archived. Teaching Tidbits, hosted by the Mathematical Association of America, offered assistance with problems math instructors face, but many of the posts were relevant to all teaching faculty (e.g., 5 Ways to Respond When Students Offer Incorrect Answer, How Transparency Improves Learning).

Recently I have come across two new-to-me resources I’d like to share. The first is Mark Connolly’s (Associate Research Scientist, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin School of Education) STEM Professor Newsletter. This, like Tomorrow’s Professor, is an email subscription. Unlike Tomorrow’s Professor’s posts, back issues of the newsletter do not seem to be available online. You can see the first two issues on the website to get an idea of the content.

Second, the Chronicle of Higher Education now offers the Teaching Newsletter. The link will take you to a page where you can subscribe as well as see back editions with articles such as What Podcasts Can Teach Us About Teaching, When Your Course Suddenly Needs an Overhaul, How One Teaching Expert Activates Students’ Curiosity, and The 5 Tips for Student Success That a Longtime Instructor Swears By.

There’s lots of great advice, teaching strategies, and instructional resources offered in these blogs and publications. Now comes the challenge of finding time to read it all.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Pixabay.com

The New Google Sites

We’re always on the lookout for applications that instructors and their students can use to enhance course work. A previous post We Have a Solution for That: Student Presentations, Posters, and Websites (October 6, 2017) mentioned a new version of Google Sites as having potential as a presentation software that allows for easy collaboration among student team members. Today’s post will delve deeper into its possibilities and use. This post is also available in PDF format as part of The Innovative Instructor articles series.

Logo for Google SitesNew Google Sites is an online website creation platform. It doesn’t require web development or design experience to create sites that work well on mobile devices. The New Google Sites application is included with the creation tools offered in Google Drive, making it easier to share and integrate your Google Drive content.

In 2006 Google purchased JotSpot, a software company that had been creating social software for businesses. The software acquired from that purchase was used to create the first iteration of Google Sites, now known as Classic Google Sites. Ten years later, Google launched a completely rebuilt Google Sites, which is currently being referred to as New Google Sites.

New Google Sites hasn’t replaced Classic Google Sites so much as it offers a new and different experience. The focus of New Google Sites is to increase collaboration for all team members regardless of their web development experience. It is also integrated with Google Drive so that teams working within the Google apps environment can easily associate shared content.

This new iteration of Google Sites is designed with mobile devices in mind. Users are

Screenshot example of the New Google Sites editing interface.

Example of the New Google Sites editing interface.

not able to add special APIs (Application Programmable Interface, which extends functionality of an application) or edit HTML directly. This keeps the editing interface

and options simple to ensure that whatever you create will work consistently across all browsers and devices. While this may seem limiting, you still have the option to use Classic Google Sites if you want a higher level of control.

In a classroom setting, instructors are often cautious about assigning students projects that require them to learn new technical skills that aren’t directly relevant to the course content. Instructors must balance the time it will take students to achieve technical competency against the need to ensure that students achieve the course learning goals. With New Google Sites, students can focus on their content without being overwhelmed by the technology.

In addition to ease of use, collaborative features allow students to work in teams and share content. Group assignments can offer students a valuable learning experience by providing opportunities for inclusivity, exposure to diverse viewpoints, accountability through team roles, and improved project outcomes.

New Google Sites makes it easy for the causal user to disseminate new ideas, original research, and self-expression to a public audience. If the website isn’t ready to be open to the world, the site’s editor has the ability to keep it unpublished while still having the option to collaborate or share it with select people. This is an important feature as student work may not be ready for a public audience or there may be intellectual property rights issues that preclude public display.

Professors at here at Johns Hopkins have used New Google Sites for assignments. In the History of Science and Technology course, Man vs. Machine: Resistance to New Technology since the Industrial Revolution, Assistant Professor Joris Mercelis had students use New Google Sites for their final projects. Teams of two or three students were each asked to create a website to display an illustrated essay based on research they had conducted. Images and video were required to support their narrative arguments. Students had to provide proper citations for all materials. Mercelis wanted the students to focus on writing for a lay audience, an exercise that encouraged them to think broadly about the topics they were studying.

History of Art Professor Stephen Campbell used a single Google Site where student teams collaborated to produce an online exhibition, Exhibiting the Renaissance Nude: The Body Exposed. Each student group was responsible for supplying the materials for one of five topic pages. The content developed from this project was accessible only to the class.

In both cases, students reported needing very little assistance when editing their sites. Typically, giving an introductory demonstration and providing resources for where to find help are all students need to begin working.

Recently, Google has created the ability to allow other Google Drive content to be embedded in a site. This means that you can embed a form or a document on a web page to elicit responses/feedback from your audience without them having to leave the site. This level of integration further supports the collaborative nature of Google applications.

Currently, this iteration of Google Sites uses the New in its title. There may come a time when Google will drop the New or re-brand New Google Sites with a different name. There is no indication that Google will stop supporting Classic Google Sites with its more advanced features.

Use of both versions of Google Sites is free and accessible using your Google Account. You can create a new site by signing into Google and going to the New Google Sites page (link provided below). You can also create a site from Google Drive’s “New” button in the creation tools menu.

It is recommended that students create a new account for class work instead of us­ing their personal accounts. While this is an additional step, it ensures that they can keep their personal lives separated from their studies.

A Google Site as displayed on a desktop, tablet, and smartphone.

A Google Site as displayed on a desktop, tablet, and smartphone.

Additional Resources:

Reid Sczerba, Multimedia Developer
Center for Educational Resources

Image sources: Google Sites logo, screenshots

Quick Tips: Provide Your Students with a Roadmap for Class

This time of year is ripe for blog posts and articles on what to do on the first day of class. There is lots of good advice out there for easy picking. But I especially appreciate guidance that works for the whole semester—tips you can use for instruction in every class. An article in Faculty Focus by  Jennifer Garrett and Mary Clement Advice for the First Day of Class: Today We Will (August 23, 2018), meets the criterion.

Garrett and Clement advocate for building a positive classroom climate from the first moments of class so that students “feel welcome, comfortable, and engaged.” Making expectations clear can go a long way towards accomplishing that goal. Specifically, the authors recommend creating a “Today We Will” list on the first day of class and for every class session during the semester. This list should be on the board or screen or on a handout where you and the students can see it throughout the class.

Hands holding a folded paper road map.“The “Today We Will” list is a road map. It lets students know what will be covered that day. They can glance at it to check progress or to see if they missed any big concepts. The list also keeps instructors on task. As you move around your classroom teaching, the “Today We Will” list is a visual reminder of what you need to accomplish in that period. It ensures that you don’t skip any concepts that you want or need to cover, and it keeps you from veering too far off on tangents.”

For example, your “Today We Will” list might look something like this:

  • Beginning of class writing prompt on reading assignment (~5 minutes)
  • Share thoughts from prompt/reading assignment discussion (~15 minutes)
  • Lesson on [topic for session] (~10 minutes)
  • Activity in groups related to [topic for session] (~15 minutes)
  • Questions, wrap-up, preparation instructions/expectations for next class (~5 minutes).

While the authors don’t suggest putting in time approximations, you may find doing so will help set expectations for the students and keep you on track. On the other hand, the authors suggest that leaving some blanks on the list will allow for flexibility. The list should not be thought of as rigid. If you decide in the moment to spend more time on a stimulating discussion rather than cutting students off, you can remove something from the list. On the other hand, if you progress more quickly through an activity, you will want to have some items you can add to the day’s instruction.

Students should understand from day one that they are responsible for the material on the day’s list whether or not they attend class. As the instructor, you may wish to post the list on the course website before or after class so that students have a reminder of the important concepts covered.

Giving your students a roadmap in the form of a “Today We Will” list is an easy way to get yourself prepared, help your students stay organized, and create a positive classroom climate. You may be into your second or third week of teaching, but it’s not too late to start using this tip.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Pixabay.com