OTN @ CIT

We had a gathering for CITFLN at Reid campus on Friday with a number of things on our agenda, some of which we didn’t get to as time ticked away from us!

One highlight was a demonstration by Moir of a digital graphics pen which Moir has trialled with her Physics students (most of whom work in the AFP) in a tutorial fashion online.

Moir showed the pen in action and then showed an online whiteboard through which she encourages students to interact (if you have no pen you can still use a mouse apparently). The service is partly free and is called Skrbl. The possibilities for such interactions are endless – you could develop a floor plan with interior design students, map out an orienteering course for sports students, annotate images and graphs (as Moir does) – even animated gifs work on the whiteboard too! In fact, Michael Coghlan also blogged about a similar setup recently.

The bringing together of virtual and physical activities is the real key here. Connecting students with one another is one aspect, but connecting students to ideas and support is entirely different. Engaging in practice is paramount for students who are isolated from a classroom setting where a teacher is on-hand to offer timely pedagogical support. The interface between teacher-student communication and the ability to interact in the way the pen and online whiteboard show, affords much in terms of hands-on activities that at one time many said couldn’t be done online!