Teaching Hacks

Owned by Matt Clare
Last updated: Jun 04, 2013
8 min read

A collection of teaching hacks, started from Matt Clare's 2013 Apereo Conference presentation http://lanyrd.com/2013/apereo/schttt/

What are Teaching Hacks:

Tricks involving technology that likely aren’t using technology as it was intended.  Hack as used originally by the MIT crowd, not malicious our black-hat hackers.
Teaching hacks add pedagogy to technology to cleverly improve teaching.

Hopefully these hacks are well-founded in  Chickering, A. and Gamson, Z. (1987). Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. AAHE Bulletin, 39(7), 3-7. See the Website: www.tltgroup.org/programs/seven.html for Chickering, A. and Ehrmann, S. (1996). “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever.”

A growing collection of hacks in no particular order.

Please share your “hacks” too!  Press Edit and add whatever you can, we'll sort out the formatting later.

Start of Class Quizzes

Simple, "open computer", quiz on the previous class' content has a number of benefits 

It encourages students to pay attention in class, knowing that there is a quiz next class
Forces students to reflect and apply learning from previous class within a few days of learning it, helping knowledge make it into student's long-term memory
The results of the quiz give students a gauge of how a student is doing in the class and identifies areas in which the student needs to study more
Encourages students to attend class, as quizzes are given a small weighting in the final mark

What to cover today 

A one question quiz asking what to cover today -- if not topic then order.
This will give a less-than-perfect record of who was present.

Check-in / Check-Out 

At the start of class ask questions to reflect on what they've learned so far: hi-lights, insights, outstanding questions or similar questions at the end.
These test results or assignment submissions not only let the instructor know who is in the room but they also let the instructor know where to focus their teaching.
 

Quiz + Selective Release

Course Outline Quiz 

Configure the course Resources to contain only the course outline and a quiz on the course outline when student first access the site.
The rest of the course Resources will only be revealed once the student has taken the quiz. 
If the quiz on the course outline is sent to the Gradebook then all of the Resources can have a conditional release based on the course outline quiz's results for each student.



Learning About Your Students

Entrance Quiz on "How I Learn Best"

Profile your learners about how they learn, what their preferences are, what helps them best understand complex topics and what their experience with learning [online] might be.
You could ask specific questions or quickly get students to select from a quick multiple choice question about classic learning styles from KOLB or VAK or to identify with a set of fictional learner profiles.

Learning Student's Names & Introductions: Roster

Roster Tool

Tools like the Roster tool can help. The Pictures view can be particularly useful if your institution populates rosters with pictures or has students actively using the profile tool.
One can always offer to friend-back anyone who friends the instructor with their picture added - and perhaps add a funny joke or fact in your own profile notes. Matt Clare has offered donuts in exchange for images uploading, with a 50% success rate.

Assessment

Ask students to submit a quiz or Assignment about themselves, potentially with a picture attached.

Introductions in Blog or Forums 

Ask students to introduce themselves in the blog or forums tools. Instructors should provide either a model posting or some suggestions for what is relevant and/or acceptable.
In some cases, a URL might be all that is needed - such as Facebook URLs or Twitter
 

Forums/Discussions

Student Questions Forum 

An instructor can create a forum topic named "course questions" that students can use to both post their question and scan for responses from the instructor, TAs or other students. 
Questions with answers in the course outline can be answered ASAP by anyone, deeper questions can be answered by the instructors once and for all.

Discussion Boards/Forums as File Revision Tracking 

Forums can be used as a file versioning and storage system. This will allow students to access their files and share others' through a central location and maintain a conical file.
The Wiki tool can be used as a revision control system, however only for simple text, and the interface is not very intuitive.

Forums can be configured to work like a blog 

Permissions can be designed to allow one canonical post, and then only responses, much like a blog

Peer Review

Use the grading feature in the Sakai Forums tool to assess.  Give permissions as appropriate.

 

Embedding Content

Watch out for the mixed content warning!

Advices changes between FCKEditor ( <= Sakai CLE 2.8) and the CKEditor (>= Sakai CLE 2.8).

Presentations

Google Docs: Presentations
One of the most faithful ways to transfer a PowerPoint presentation to the web is through Google Docs or other sites that allow you to embed actual slides with with animations, etc.
Services include:
http://docs.google.com
http://slideshare.com

Forms

Google Docs: Forms
Small forms can be embed in may places inside your course to seek student feedback.
Audio (and some linked video)

 

Audio Playback

Yahoo's Media player http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/ can be added wherever the <script> tag is allowed. Once the script is added any links to an MP3 file, etc are playable on the web page.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://webplayer.yahooapis.com/player.js"></script>

Note: This won't work in an https context!

Embed YouTube video

  • Watch out for  https
  • Probably want to un-check "Show suggested videos when the video finishes"
  • Example for CKEditor (>= Sakai 2.8)

 

Files and other items

  • Box.net can host files of all types and provides a very nice viewer
  • The embed view of a box.net folder and be added to any HTML file, and can then be linked to with a Web Content tool to potentially replace the Resource tool

 

Simple Student Showcases and Spaces for Collaboration

General Student Folder

  • Instructors can create a folder for
students to upload items to the 
Resources tool. This can be a 
useful way for students to share 
their work with others in the site. Any regular folder in the Resources tool can be modified to allow
  • students to add items to it by editing the folder permissions. Folders can also be limited to only allow access to individuals in specific groups set-up through Manage Groups.

  • This approach creates a showcase of student work that students can update or remove AND respects students willingness to share with just their peers or the whole internet.
    More information https://kumu.brocku.ca/sakai/Student_Folder

Copyright/Public Release

  • Add a question or item to assignment or tests and quizzes that asks for permission for content to be shared with the rest of the class, institution or the rest of the internet.
    • Potential students and recruiters agree that the ability to see current student work is a big factor in using a school.
    • Works with FIPPA, what about FERPA? 
    • Students may appreciate that opportunity to indicate that they would like to review the item first, place a condition on the grade received or have the ability to make revisions.
    • Students should always be given the opportunity to change their mind.

Track Usage: Site Stats and others

  • If you do anything innovative track it.  Turn on site states.
  • Plan your work and where you invest extra work around what students are making use of - remove your efforts from areas that students are not making use of an refocus.

  • Track either with Site Stats or embed something from another site or service like sitemeter.com that monitors traffic (keeping in mind your local privacy regime).  Build reports!

Explain how your course site works

  • Take a moment to explain in video or in text how the course site works and place it in a prominent location, such as the home page or the announcements area when the students first gain access.
  • Explain both how each to works and more importantly how you expect students to use it. 
  • Not all instructors or students conceive of tools like the Gradebook or the wiki the same way. 
  • Clear expectations help everyone.
  • You can record your screen with Snagit, Jing, or Camtasia, Google Hangouts (which can go to YouTube) or other local tools

 

RSS/News Tool

Published Feeds

  •  Link the course blog with the “official” course site
  •  Publishers feeds..
    •  Journals...
    •  News sites...
    •  Stock Information...

Social Bookmarking

  • While it still exists, http://del.icio.us can be used for groups to bookmark urls and tag them. Instructors could ask students to tag URL with very unique tags,
    for example a course code. 
  • From the http://del.icio.us web page you can go to the tags section http://www.delicious.com/tag and search the tag and find the RSS link at the bottom of the page.

IFTTT can help

  •  To protect their resources many web sites have ceased to provide RSS versions of their content, and instead have moved to APIs -- with credentials
  •  IFTTT is a great way to both interpret RSS and bridge authenticated APIs into RSS

Yahoo Pipes

Grades and Spreadsheets

Dropping the Lowest Item (In the Sakai CLE 2.9 Gradebook!)

  •  A good approach is to create a new column and apply a formula that will SUM all of the items and subtract the MIN of those items.
  •  The best approach is to confirm that the student completed all of the items thus accounting for the distinction between a null/exemption value and a score of zero.
  •  =IF(COUNT(B2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2)=6,SUM(B2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2)-MIN(B2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2),SUM(B2,C2,D2,E2,F2,G2))

Low Grade Alerts: Visual Alerts

  •  In MS Excel or Google Sheets select the relevant column (such as final grade), choose from the "Format" menu "Conditional Formatting", click to add a rule, choose one of the colour options and add it.
  •  You will then get colour based alerts behind the students relevant column.

Turning usernames into E-Mail Addresses

  •  In many institutions (including Brock University) the "Student ID" field only has usernames, not the full E-Mail address with the @ and domain.
  •  One way to add the @ and domain is to add a column beside "Student ID" and paste into the cells a formula like =A2&"@brocku.ca" -- in this case adding @brocku.ca to the usernames/Student IDs.

Low Grade Alerts: E-Mail Students

  •  Sort the grades by the final grade (or other relevant column). Choose your braking point and then copy and paste the the "Student ID" column into your E-Mail clients BCC filed and send off a generic alert to students. 

Hide the Resources Tool

Hiding the Resources tool (in Site Info > Page Order) can allow instructors to control the presentation of content better, and especially improve the presentation of HTML files with other assesses like .js or image files

Each folder in Resources has a Web address (URL) in the Edit Details area.  Linking to this area through a Web Content tool can make a prettier/simpler view of Resources content.


Spell Checker in CKEditor

The CKEditor "grabs" the right mouse click and can prevent correcting red-underline incorrect spellings.

  • Pressing ctrl + click (command + click on the mac) restores the browser's right click menu
  • The Edit menu in Chrome has a Spelling and Crammer to trigger the spelling dialogue

Sakai home page hack

A great way to replace the home page of a Sakai site with public facing web content.

Described by Chris Clark here https://ltlatnd.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/sakai-home-page-hack/