Using Clickers to Control Access to Online Recordings of In-Class Lectures How many of you use Blackboard? How many use clickers? How many of you like clickers or feel they are used well? Bob Armstrong Instructional Designer University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Overview Session Objectives Technologies & Innovation Outcomes

Session Objectives Identifying the Problem Applying a Solution Determining Outcomes Adapting Technologies Identifying the problem - What caused us to take a look at this process in the first place. Applying a solution Where the outcomes worth all the effort? What available technologies could we use to solve the problem?

About UMBC Founded in 1966 “Research Extensive university” Carnegie classification 12,268 Students - 9,612 undergrad - 2,656 grad 949 Faculty - 714 FT, 304 PT Selected Brags - One of 50 Best Colleges for Women - 1st in undergrad chemistry degrees awarded to African Americans - President Among Nation’s Best Leaders by U.S. News

Blackboard Growth Reflects individual course shells - sections enlarge the numbers Individual Course Shells only

Blackboard Course Biology 301 Ecology and Evolution Dr. Tamara Mendelson

Professor’s Problem Record AND publish lectures for review ONLY by students who attended class. Recording in-class lectures and posting to Bb - Make students accountable - Everything in lecture “fair game” - Will students still come to class? - Recording biology science classes at UMBC is a common practice - most are videos but expensive - Prof talks fast and hard to keep notes - Why record the classes? Review materials left up and make students accountable for content

Lecture Recording

Possible Solutions Students Record Lectures Themselves Prof encouraged this practice “Everything I say is fair game for a test” Manual Class Taping (send a field crew) Labor intensive that can’t scale Automated Class taping Expensive and can’t scale across campus - Students - Limits those that don’t have the resources - Manual is currently done in other courses but is expensive, time consuming, and requires resources - Automatic - have investigated but again resources 9

Solution “Record the lectures and post them in a Blackboard course utilizing clickers and “adaptive release” to control access.” - Instructor records and posts in the course with limitations

Process Record the lecture Ask at least one “clicker” question Process “clicker” grades into the Bb grade book Download lectures from recorder Upload lecture materials into Bb course Set-up adaptive release and make materials available Notify Students that recordings are “up” - Professor records lecture to make available to those with access - Students must have clicker in working order to participate - End of class clickers are processed into the course grade book - Adaptive release creates the rules for access based on the clicker response in the gradebook - Students notified in announcements when content is available.

Technologies - Digital Recorder Sony MP3 IC Recorder Inexpensive Digital Recording Easy to download - Cost about $99 - Has own file structure for organization - Creates MP3 file that posts directly 12

Recordings

Technologies - Clickers UMBC uses CPS RF clickers from eInstruction.com - Students buy we set up computers. Cost $21.50 initially to buy and then $13/semester max $39.00

Clicker Usage 24 20 18

CPS Clickers Blackboard Grade book

Technologies - Blackboard CMS

Technologies - Blackboard CMS Recordings posted in a content area Access governed by adaptive release rules based on CPS clicker responses

Issues No clicker question, no restrictions on recordings Clicker responses not always recorded Extra work to post and set up Mediation done by TA Potential for sharing (academic violation) 19

Was it Successful? 51% of students rated it extremely successful 19% said they could “take it or leave it” Will do it again in future semesters 20

Lessons Learned Students can still share lectures with others who didn’t attend. Consider making this a violation of academic integrity. Depends on multiple technologies working together Clicker malfunctions early semester required manual input of attendance. 21

Questions? Bob Armstrong New Media Teaching & Learning University of Maryland, Baltimore County rarmstro@umbc.edu "Copyright 2008 Bob Armstrong, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author."

What did you think? Your input is important to us! Click on “Evaluate This Session” on the Mid-Atlantic Regional program page.