LearningTimes Green Room

In this podcast, Susan and Dan take a serious look at the use of humor in online learning. What styles of humor work online, and what do not? Why can humor be controversial? Listen in and share your thoughts: this episode *is* a laughing matter.

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Show Notes:

Dan and Susan seriously look at why humor is controversial in online learning. Susan’s recent class took up the topic as a discussion about whether humor does, in fact have a place in online learning.

First, they clarify different styles of humor. For example, Susan doesn’t tell jokes, but she laughs a lot and sometimes her interpretations of why something is funny become funnier in and of themselves. Dan’s style is top crack a joke when no one expects it. Does that work online?

This leads to a discussion of the importance of letting one’s authenticity show when teaching online.

Making sure instructors know the boundaries: class, gender, race, (show an awareness of and sensitivity to) and sarcasm — probably never appropriate.

Dan looked into the pedagogical value of humor. Don’t just use it to be funny. Humor can help learners see something from a different perspective. It can help them relax.

You can ask students to find examples, with moderation.

Humor can also be a saying or proverb or images. Dan shares the example of a quote from Flannery O’Conner.

Dan references the research in this article, “Bringing Life to Online Instruction with Humor”.

Susan plays devils advocate and asks if students in a more humorous class learn more than those in a not-as-funny version. Dan thinks they do because they’re more engaged emotionally.

Dan and Susan would like to hear stories of successful use of humor — and a couple failures.

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

Dan and Susan examine how people are using audio when teaching online, and ask listeners to share how voice figures into their own online courses.

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Show Notes:

Adding Audio to Your Online Course:

Topic is revisited from more than 2 years ago. Dan and Susan look at how universal voice is when teaching online. Are people using voice and if so, how?

At the time of recording, Susan was taking a class with Norm Garrett (former guest) on podcasting and the issue of voice came up for discussion, specifically the explaining voice as described in this article [PDF] by Gardner Campbell Susan gives her two cents. Well, she explains her point.

Not to get too tied to podcasting, you can have audio without subscription and RSS and have it in many form. Live chat could be one option. Giving feedback in audio is another form. It could be adding contextual information that supports what else is happening. It could be announcements or an introduction at the beginning of a unit or a summary at the dn. Lots of possibilities where you might introduce voice in place of text.

Dan asks is Susan hears other voices … a very funny moment.

The serious point is that Dan asks if there are different tones you would want to take depending on your purpose for using voice.

Is there a pedagogical reason to use a different voice depending on where you are in the course? Susan doesn’t have an answer. She goes on to say that putting one’s voice into the course personalizes the message in a way that the written word generally doesn’t.

Susan and Dan reference research done by Jeff Sommers on audio feedback.

Jeff Sommer’s webpage about audio commentary.

Research on student preferences for audio commentary on their papers done by Dr. Sue Sipple with Jeff Sommers

Jeff’s recommendations on tools for recording audio commentary.

What does it take to add audio? You could set up a microphone, use Audacity to record and encode and email the file. Or you can use a portable player like an iRiver mp3 player, which encodes automatically when you take the file off the little machine. Warning: check with your institution to see if emailing this feedback would violate FERPA.

You could even add voice comments to documents within Microsoft Word. Susan knows people who tried that and complained of huge file sizes, but are they bigger than a lengthy mp3?

Many of the newer course management systems support audio, too.

Dan and Susan would like to hear from people using voice in their courses. They’d also like to hear from those who are not … why not?

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!

In this episode, Susan and Dan learn how the Smithsonian is using real-time online interaction to prepare for a new Ocean Portal exhibit, and get a first-hand account of the synchronous certification program offered by LearningTimes on leading effective online events.

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Show Notes:

Stephanie Eskins joins us from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where she works as a consultant on the Ocean Portal, an upcoming online electronic outreach arm that will help the public learn about aspects of the ocean. This portal coincides with a new exhibit that will open in September 2008. You can learn more about this and increase your “ocean literacy” at http://ocean.si.edu/

Stephanie enrolled in the Certified Synchronous Training Program (CSTP) through LearningTimes based on the expertise of the instructor (Jonathan Finkelstein) and his book. We asked her about her experiences.

Great, practical advice came from the book! Through the learning community, Stephanie was able to see alternative approaches. Used real examples from work.

Stephanie took the most creative examples and created a personal toolkit for future use.

The team of Smithsonian staff, NOOA staff, and leading oceanographic institutions come together regularly via synchronous online meetings, so she has been able to incorporate at least one activity per meeting. Eventually this might be applied to real people, too, as the general public interacts with the site and experts.

What was it like to return to the learner’s chair? Stephanie reflected on how enjoyable Jonathan and the other learners made the program. The two key points she took from the course: 1) Focus on active learning and not just presenting; and 2) learning to adjust the complexity or level of the material on the fly. Great skills!

We’d like to know from listeners whether they’d go to an online portal and how do they interact with natural history museums?

You can respond using the “Comments” link below or talk to us in LearningTimes. Or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada). Join us!