The 2016 Academic Technology Expo (ATXpo) offered educators from across the Bay Area the opportunity to share their innovative ideas about teaching with technology to their colleagues. With events ranging from a keynote talk to a student panel, participants thought throughout the day about the future of higher education and the ways that technology plays a role in student learning. PWR lecturers John Peterson, Norah Fahim, and Jenne Stonaker, along with PWR Academic Technology Specialist Jenae Cohn, PWR participated in the digital pedagogy poster sessions, called the IdeaLab, where they shared their work on collaborative writing and ePortfolio development.
John, Norah, and Jenae presented together on "Promoting and Scaffolding Collaborative Writing Assignments with Google Docs." In their presentation, they discussed the benefits of using Google Docs as a way to scaffold higher-stakes collaborative writing assignments. They explained how collaborative writing can help students develop team-based skills and habits of mind, and gave some examples of low-stakes collaborative writing activities that can be conducted within the Google Docs platform.
Jenne presented on "Spotlight: A Flexible, Intuitive Platform for Building ePortfolios" along with programmers Stuart Snydman and Gary Geisler, and librarian Sarah Lester. In their presentation, Jenne and her colleagues described how they adopted Spotlight, a Stanford-developed website creation tool, from a resource for librarian use to an ePortfolio platform. They showed some examples of the work students created and discussed the benefits of an ePortfolio model for student learning.
A highlight of the event included a panel of undergraduate and graduate student speakers weighing in on their experiences using technology in their classes. Panelists came from a variety of different disciplines, ranging from geology to engineering and history. The student panelists expressed gratitude for instructors who carefully scaffolded assignments using technology; they appreciated instructors who offered clear explanations for why technology got used in their class in a certain way and what purpose the technology served for the students' learning. While student opinions were divided on the utility of tools like clickers, most students agreed that they appreciated opportunities to collaborate using digital tools, ranging from Google Docs to Facebook. Some students voiced concern that if instructors did not specify how they wanted students to use technology, students would get distracted; however, other students suggested that as long as instructors offered clear guidelines for technology use, then students welcomed the opportunity to use technology in their classes. The panel revealed that there remained many questions to explore about how undergraduates perceive of technology use in their classes, yet the panelists each offered the instructors a helpful start in considering what mindsets, assumptions, and ideas students bring about learning with technology in their classes.
All four PWR participants had an enriching, thought-provoking experience that sparked powerful conversations about effective ways to use technology to enhance student learning!
