In my online classroom, I would try to find spots where the students and I could be a little more lighthearted. Because content of a course can seem dry at times in spite of the different tools for delivery, it's important for a teacher to use some humor to relate to the students and break up any monotony that may build as a student works through the coursework. One area where a teacher can introduce more lighthearted or humorous approaches is through news reminders. I personally enjoy photos and meme generators for delivering information. Using the creative commons search tool on Flickr, I can find photos that are no longer protected by copyright and then add text to those photos using Picasa. I can then post the reminders to my online bulletin board, copy them to the body of an email, post the pictures on a class blog, or email the photo attachment. The humorous (yet professional) approach to the photos may even help to make the reminders more memorable.
Another item that I would like to include in my news updates would be brief (yet hopefully fun) review items. I love using the Jeopardy! clue generator to create these items, and the students seem to appreciate having information delivered to them in a different fashion, and the clue generator is simple enough for me to use that it doesn't waste much time. A teacher could even do a daily Jeopardy! clue and have a game with students to challenge students to be the first to submit the correct question.
No comments:
Post a Comment