Professor (Ranjan) R. Sri Ranjan demonstrates how an iPad turns his courses into a "smart classroom".
Tech-savvy teaching
“Never use technology for technology’s sake. Always use it because there’s a pedagogical reason to use the technology. Have a look at your pedagogical need, and what is the best tool to use to support that pedagogical need.”
That’s the advice Colleen Webb, Senior Team Lead – Development and Consultation, at The Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning has for faculty who’d like to enhance their teaching with technology.
“Enhance” is a word that Webb is clear to use while emphasizing the fact that technology is a tool that plays a supportive role in education.
During the pandemic, technology became a necessity as educators had to find ways to incorporate it when in-person learning was not an option. Those circumstances sparked a curiosity that continues today.
“Now that instructors have had the chance to use technologies and are comfortable with it, many want to take their teaching with technology to the next level,” explains Sol Chu, Team Lead – Learning Technologies and Solutions at The Centre, who consults on UM’s learning management system as part of his role. “We’re getting more requests from instructors for analytics from UM Learn so they can see how students are actually doing in their class. ‘Where are the students not meeting the minimum grade? Where am I not reaching the students?’ They’re trying to connect the dots and then create the relationships between the content they’re teaching and where students are feeling disconnected.”
The pervasiveness of generative AI has also made its way into the classroom, with some faculty using it to help students understand foundational mathematical concepts or practice their communication skills as future healthcare professionals. Exploring other tools, the College of Nursing has integrated virtual reality into its training to build confidence and competence.
Synchronous tools have also become popular with the return to in-person learning, explains Jonathan Kennedy, Team Lead – Flexible Learning Support, The Centre.
“Prior to the pandemic, our online platforms were primarily being used in an asynchronous manner, and that was really putting materials up and students would consume them later. Now, the big growth is around augmenting traditional methods with synchronous tools. Because we acquired some of these tools during the pandemic – Zoom, WebEx – there’s an expectation around a seamless end-to-end experience as opposed to separate tooling. To be able to arrive in one place and have it connected.”
Kennedy sites engagement tools like Mentimeter and iClicker which can help guide instruction in real-time based on students’ feedback.
Professor (Ranjan) R. Sri Ranjan has been using synchronous technology in his classes for years and now teaches workshops through The Centre for faculty. His primary tool is an iPad, which he calls the “Swiss army knife of teaching technology” that helps transform his courses into a “smart classroom.”
By connecting it to a data projector, he can turn any classroom on campus into a multimedia experience for students using a variety of third-party apps. The effect is a seamless integration that replaces several classroom technologies such as a slide projector, whiteboard, multimedia player and document camera.
“My subject material covers irrigation systems, canals, dams and other structures. I use the Google Earth app to “fly” my students to different parts of the world to zoom in and show these different systems,” he explains.
“I use an Apple Pencil digital stylus with the Notes Plus app as my whiteboard to draw in multiple colours and elaborate on the bullet points in the slides. These handwritten notes can be converted to text instantly and can also be electronically searched. The notes for the day can be exported as an image or PDF file and uploaded to the course website for access by students. There is also the ability to audio-record these notes within the Notes Plus app while the class is in progress.”
As technology evolves, and instructors seek to engage with the technology for teaching, UM continues to support its use in the classroom. Webb anticipates faculty will continue to focus on using tools that are valuable in the context of their own teaching and learning environments, rather than adopting tools because they are trendy.
Kennedy adds that with more learning interaction data becoming available, he expects this will support personalized learning journeys so educators can meet students where they are even more.
This article is part of the university’s ongoing efforts to develop our shared UM digital future, as part of the university’s digital strategy. Those interested in learning more about digital technology in the education environment can check out the following resources:
Workshops at The Centre
Manitoba Flexible Learning Hub
LOD Courses: practical, hands-on training for M365, accessibility tools and more.
Digital Community of Practice: a forum to promote best practices and build common capabilities across UM in digital technology.
Power Platform Community of Practice: a place for citizen developers using Microsoft’s Power Platform suite of tools to come together and share ideas, projects, and best practices.