At the LiU Medical Faculty we were discussing and planing some labs for medical students. As usually, the time spent was a concern and also the amount of people involved in every teaching moment. Nobody has time! I think that quality and the end result should also be a matter of concern and that we cannot rush the students through downsized lab moments and lectures just because of this lack of time.
However, in this context technology applied to education has something to say. We can help ourselves by blending some courses. For example, we could prime the students with some materials prior to labs and lectures. This will motivate them, engage them and make the actual meeting between teacher and student more fruitful.
Students will have the possibility to review in advance certain course materials and they will hopefully come up with deeper questions to the lectures and labs. Technology in this case will not replace the physical meeting between students and educators but it will pride our courses with flexibility and innovation. Moreover, the created material may not be restricted to LiU students allowing for more openness in the course.
For instance, the free Chrome extension Screencastify will allow the teacher to record what’s going on in the computer screen. In this way the teacher can demonstrate how to use programs or webpages or to share drawings and presentations. Screencastify allows you to record your own voice while browsing through the open tabs or to show your own talking-persona in some screen corner (I did that because I like personal engagement). This extension can be applied for bioinformatic lessons among other things.
In order to test this application I first watched this tutorial and wrote some notes using google drawings so I could read it while recording my screen. Then I recorded my screen several times and deleted the video whenever I didn’t like it. Finally, I recognized that I didn’t have much more time myself and shared this recording on youtube. My purpose here is to show you that if I did it you can also do it and have the same fun!
Good luck!
The feature image is from Pixabay