Tag: Multimedia

Padlet, What is It, and How It Will Improve Student Engagement?

Ari Crossby

Decorative

Have you worked within a discussion board and wished it was more engaging? Hoped for a platform that had a visually appealing user experience? Have you longed for an intuitive space that allowed intuitive posting across all devices? Padlet may be the tool you are looking for.

Padlet is a digital notice board that allows users to post media, documents and links and collaborate with a “wall” based environment. An online platform that describes itself as “somewhere between a doc and a full-fledged website builder”, Padlet allows open dialogue from all users, instructors or students.

The interactive nature of Padlet is generally described as easy to use and engaging. Users can collaborate on real-time, shared boards by adding and editing posts. Users can add rich multimedia, such as images, links, and documents. Posts can be arranged in various formats to best suit the content, including whiteboards, grids, timelines, and maps. Padlet offers a range of interactive features such as anonymous contributions, comments, and reactions.

An example of how a Padlet wall can be organized.

 

Padlet is a highly versatile tool, limited only by our imagination. Some of the benefits of using Padlet to improve student engagement include:

  • Allows brainstorming and live question bank.
  • Ease of collaboration and organization.
  • Create a gallery of student work.
  • Get feedback from students with exit tickets.
  • Anonymous posting allows for inclusive participation and can empower students to share ideas.
  • Makes learning visible to the instructor and the students.
  • Allows the instructor to adjust their level of instruction to fit with students’ current level of learning.
  • Responses remain on the Padlet board for future reference while being shared in real-time with the whole class.
  • The Padlet walls can be embedded into the Langara learning management system (Brightspace).
Screenshot of a Padlet wall embedded within a Brightspace course.

Padlet can be used to:

  • Assess
  • Collaborate
  • Communicate
  • Create
  • Engage
  • Reflect

We will explore specific features of Padlet in future posts. If you are interested in triallingPadlet, please email EdTech to request a license. Afterwards, visit the Langara Padlet login page to login with your Langara account. This tool is centrally supported by Langara EdTech, and detailed help is available on our EdTech website or through the Padlet Help website.

Primary photograph by Keira Burton from Pexels used under Pexels License.

References and Additional Reading

Edwards, L. (2020, October 19). What is Padlet and how does it work for education? Retrieved January 11, 2022, from Tech Teaching website.

Meyer, K. A. (2014). Student engagement in online learning: What works and why. In Student Engagement Online: What Works and Why (pp. 1–14). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI link.

Norman, M. (2017). Synchronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students. Faculty Focus. Faculty Focus website.

Padlet Features. (n.d.). Retrieved January 1, 2022, from https://padlet.com/features.

Simon, E. (2018). 10 Tips for Effective Online Discussions. EDUCAUSE Review. EduCause website.

Stake, J. (2021, January 22). Padlet For teachers: The best tips, tricks, and ideas for your classroom. We Are Teachers. We Are Teachers website.

Do more with video: Four great features of the new Kaltura

Ari Crossby

Kaltura (Langara’s multimedia streaming platform) is about to be upgraded. As well as continuing to provide an easily accessible way for instructors and students to upload video and audio content to D2L courses, Kaltura is introducing a number of new features. Here we highlight four that we are excited about – and we hope you will be too.

1. Kaltura MediaSpace

It has always been possible to upload videos to Kaltura in D2L. However, instructors have been asking us for a while whether there is a more user-friendly and visually appealing way to search, watch, upload and share their videos. Kaltura MediaSpace will bring a YouTube-like video portal to Langara with granular user controls over the management of videos, screencasts, audio and other content, including student content. All data is stored in Canada on UBC’s servers and all content uploaded to MediaSpace is private by default.

MediaSpace at Michigan State U

2. Closed Captioning

The Canadian Association of the Deaf have long advocated for the high quality captioning of all video for accessibility purposes. Closed captions in Kaltura are not a new feature – they have been available for a while. The upgraded version enables all users to upload SRT and other closed caption files rather than have Ed Tech do this for you. We are also currently evaluating the use of external video captioning services that integrate with Kaltura.

3. CaptureSpace

At Langara ‘Video Screen Capture’ (i.e Screencasting) is very popular with instructors who use it for a variety of purposes – whether that be providing audio and visual feedback on papers to students in the LEAP program, assisting a flipped classroom model or creating software walk-throughs. Up to now we have recommended and supported instructors in the use of a tool called Screencast-o-matic that we subscribe to for creating video screen captures. The upgraded version of Kaltura brings a new application called CaptureSpace that will be available to download for Windows and Mac computers. CaptureSpace allows you to capture your screen, screen and webcam, webcam only or voice. It also integrates nicely with Microsoft Powerpoint so allows instructors (and students) to easily create slides with narration.

Quizzing in Kaltura

4. Interactive Video Quizzing

Have we saved the best until last? The interactive video quizzing feature in the new Kaltura enables the embedding of multi-choice questions at any point in a video. This is a great way to improve engagement, interactivity and assess understanding. This feature will be available later in the year.

For more information on the Kaltura upgrade please contact Julian, Heidi or Ari in Ed Tech (edtech@langara.ca).

Video and Multimedia in Education

Ari Crossby
Back in 2008 the NMC/Educause Horizon Report stated “video is everywhere”1 in recognition of the transformative effects that the availability of relatively cheap and easy to use tools to edit and create video were having on teaching and learning. Fast forward seven years and we are continuing to witness the rapid growth of video and interactive multimedia in higher education as the success of platforms such as iTunes U, Khan Academy, Lynda.com and TEDx demonstrates. Our students—labelled by some the “Netflix generation” 2—are coming to Langara with heightened expectations of the role that multimedia should play in the learning lifecycle, from recruitment and course design to content delivery, assessment and feedback. They are equally aware that to succeed in the digital economy they need to demonstrate competence in using multimedia to communicate and collaborate effectively. Being digitally literate requires much more than simply being able to use a word processor or a spreadsheet programme.

This presents new challenges to instructors who perhaps are not always as comfortable as students are working with digital media. They may be understandably sceptical of the idea that binge-watching Netflix translates particularly well to the higher education environment where academic rigor, critical thinking and deep learning are prerequisites for student success. Even if instructors are convinced of the potential of video to enhance student engagement they may have questions about what makes for a compelling video, what the optimum length of a video should be, or how best to distribute it to their students.

In my role as Educational Technology Advisor (Multimedia Specialist) I work with instructors to help answer these questions and assist them in developing the confidence to use, create and share multimedia in their teaching. Using multimedia effectively requires careful planning, an understanding of the importance of accessibility and an awareness of the myriad ways that it can support academic innovation. My job is to help instructors navigate through the potentially bewildering array of applications of multimedia to learning, whether that be screencasting, podcasting, video editing, audio feedback, digital storytelling or flipped learning. Our common aim is to stimulate the appetite of our students for engaging and meaningful learning by harnessing the potential of multimedia to improve learning outcomes.

Julian Prior

Educational Technology

 2016-03-10_16-11-38
  1. https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD5320.pdf
  2. https://bit.ly/1RaJl43