Author Archives: Kris McElroy

Designing an Online Course with Brandon Strathmann – Part 1

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Brandon Strathmann

Note: Below you’ll find Brandon Strathmann’s description of his experience working with eLIS to develop his first online class.

First let me commend all of you who contribute to this blog for the excellent variety and quality of content posted on it. It’s a great reflection of the dynamic and growing world of online teaching. I’m glad to have been introduced to such a useful resource.

I’d like to share my positive experience building an online class with all of you. I’m an Associate Professor of Animation and Motion Media Art at LUCAD (Lesley University College of Art and Design) who learned about the opportunity to design an online class at a Faculty Development Day event last Fall of 2012. I spent the past few months building an all-new “Advanced Character Design” class. It is designed to provide artists the chance to improve their skills of perception and rendering of caricatured humans and animals. I delve into the psychology of how humans are manipulated by the things they see. Artists learn to play around with the physical traits that viewers make conscious and unconscious judgments of when they look at a character. They end the class with a portfolio of the art they have done.

I entered this online academic realm with some practical computer and programming skills, hoping to expand the sort of content I could offer to students. I have seen technology innovate and improve the field of animation and video games during my own career, and learned that it’s always good to be one of the earlier practitioners of a trade to adopt advancing technology. Technology isn’t so much of an inevitability as it is an opportunity.

The training process for this class took two stages, that eased me into the unique methodology required in designing an online class. Part one was an online group class where participants learned how to modify existing classes to work in an internet-connected environment. This stage was challenging for me since I was designing a new class that had to be an advanced part two to an existing class that also needed to exist as a stand-alone graduate class. I was introduced to the various online tools to instill knowledge and skills in my students through four weeks of challenges and exercises done independently and in groups. The class ends with a complex final project testing the skill accumulation along with the creativity of the student.

The second part of this training was getting to work one-on-one with a Senior Learning Technologies Designer to build the written framework for this class. My course needed a customized format to provide a rich environment for students to learn in online. There was some trial and error in designing this since I was becoming better at understanding how the online teaching tools worked. I had to write a few drafts of my weekly course modules, honing in on how I might best communicate with online students as part of this learning process. It took me a while to learn what tool would be best for addressing various lesson plans but luckily my trainer was very patient and helpful.

I think it helps to be an experienced teacher when you design one of these non-traditional online courses. You need to really understand the specific challenges that your students face based off of your personal mastery of their educational medium. Art courses rely upon a lot of creative energy in a student’s learning environment to keep them interested and passionate about the material. I felt very challenged having to come up with an advanced class in character design as an online class. When I first embarked on this creative journey I felt that this would just be a correspondence course, something where I would provide instructional videos and provide written critiques about the work my students turned in.

Most of what a character designer does is hands-on and experiential in nature, these artistic factors are complicated visual elements that were challenging to translate into a written format. I designed symbolic language that my students could use as a guide to envision and review the topics covered in the lessons. Taking lessons that are primarily hands on and instead building them as systematic, written steps required me to predict how students would experience each portion of the designing process.

Early in the process I saw that I would need to plan out my lessons from the start to the finish for each of these class sessions, and that these lessons would have to planned out in a written form. Writing provided me with powerful tools to summarize my lessons. I’ve learned that I form ideas and describe them differently when I use the written as opposed to the spoken word. I enjoy getting feedback from my pupils and had to envision how students working in my class would react and feel about the lessons they are taking in class. So my pedagogical approach had to be modified to one where I was entirely reliant upon my existing understanding of student behavior in the classroom. This required me to research online content delivery methods and the educational philosophies of many other teachers to see what educational techniques I might use.

Click here for Part 2 of Brandon’s story…

Note: Image orignally published on aquariumofthepacific.org

STEM + Art = STEAM

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What is STEAM?
Over the last several years there has been a renewed push towards STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education with the goal of increasing student performance in these areas. In 2009, the Obama Administration launched the Educate to Innovate initiative “to move American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade” and ensure a strong workforce with 21st century skills. As these initiatives grow, several advocates have started to believe that there’s a key piece missing: art and design.

Why STEAM?
The integration of art and design with science and technology promotes new ways of thinking. Right-brain thinking developed through the arts leads to innovation and creative problem solving. Arts education allows you to see the world differently and according to Stephen Lane, CEO and Co-Founder, Ximedica, design-based thinking enables STEM to succeed. John Maeda, President of RISD, has launched http://stemtosteam.org/ because “Design creates the innovative products and solutions that will propel our economy forward, and artists ask the deep questions about humanity that reveal which way forward actually is.” Artists observe and question the world around them and so do scientists.

Women are especially underrepresented in fast-growing, high-wage STEM fields. They make up only 25 percent of the workforce and study STEM subjects in college at a lower rate than men. The White House wants to increase the number of women and minority women in STEM fields. The integration of art is a way to make STEM subjects more engaging to a wider audience that may have traditionally avoided these areas such as girls and students who don’t learn linearly. Jennifer Burg uses music-making to teach computer science to her Wake Forest University students. Music is the vehicle, but programming and understanding technology is the goal.

How is It Being Done?
The key is integration rather than art, science, and math taught separately. Check out a few of the examples below for inspiration.

[Logo image via StageNotes.net]

Advice for Your First Web Conference

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Advice for your first web conference
The first time your class meets virtually can be daunting. If you’re not practiced at web conferencing, it may feel awkward and foreign. You probably felt pretty nervous the first time you walked in front of a classroom of students, too. Here are a few tips to turn you into a web conferencing pro:

Create a sketch of the session
List your main goals and how you hope to accomplish them. Create an outline or “storyboard” of your session. Consider what features of the web conferencing software you will use and make note of any additional resources you will need such as links to websites, images, etc.

Keep it simple
Don’t try to use everything. You don’t need to use every tool in the software. Pick a few key ones and then focus on the content and communication. You don’t want your meeting to be about the tool. Don’t try to do too much in one session. If it’s your first online class meeting, your students may need to adjust to a different way of interacting. Keep your main goal in mind.

Include interaction
You may not be in the same room with your participants, but you can still interact with them. Consider including an icebreaker activity at the beginning of the session. If the group is small, give everyone a chance to introduce themselves. Ask them questions. If there’s a polling tool or emoticons, use it to get quick feedback. Avoid too much text and use graphics that work with your content.

Managing participation
Plan in advance how you will manage questions or comments from participants. Is there a “Raise Hand“ to request the microphone or get your attention? Will they type in the chat window? Send you a private chat message? Let participants know how they are expected to participate at the outset of the session. Being clear will help ease any confusion.

Practice, Practice, Practice
Do a dry run of your session using all the tools you will use in the real session. Treat it like a dress rehearsal. Invite a friend or colleague to be your “student.” The more comfortable you are with the virtual space and its tools, the less you have to think about them. This allows you to focus on your students and the presentation material.

Self-evaluate
Do a little self-reflection after the session. What worked? What didn’t? Why? What might you want to do differently next time? It’s easy to skip this important step, but don’t. Review while the session is still fresh in your mind.