I tested PowToon this week. I enjoyed the software and its affordances; it’s a fun way to create animated, professional videos to introduce content to your students, create introductions, etc. Beyond using the program to create faculty-generated content, PowToon would also be great to offer as a presentation program alternative to PowerPoint, Prezi, emaze, iMovie, etc. I did, however, caution that (beyond the templates they offer) the technology would require a learning curve to create personalized presentations. Jim and I were able to have a good discussion around this point as he commented that the program had potential but seemed better suited to older students. I replied that, while I tended to agree, we should be careful making assumptions about the skills our students will come to us with as I’ve seen a four-year-old create short “videos” with the Sock Puppet app.

Jim and I also interacted around his testing and commentary on Dragon Dictate. While he was not sure he could see its uses in his classroom, I encouraged him to consider how it provides students with physical disabilities that prevent them from writing the ability to independently participate in this activity so many of us take for granted. Beyond that, I shared my experiences using Dragon Naturally Speaking to transcribe archival videos. I actually prefer Naturally Speaking for making transcripts as it doesn’t require you to say “Stop. New Sentence” after each sentence (which means you can’t make a transcript while recording a video).

As Rachelle’s Instructional Designer, she reached out to me at the beginning of the week for a recommendation on the technology she selected, as she wanted to test one that we use in our program but that would push her boundaries. I recommended, knowing she’s not used Google Drive much, that she try using one of the Google Apps for education. Although she was not fond of the inability to auto-grade, she created a Google Forms Quiz for her students. I recommended that she continue testing the software, particularly how the embed feature allows it to sync in our Blackboard courses. As I commented on her blog, I’m a huge fan of using an embedded Google Form to check for students’ prior knowledge before they begin the instructional materials and then embedding the results using Google Sheets to allow them to both assess their learning progression in the module and compare their responses to their peers.

Kendra and I interacted with questions around her testing of NearPod; I was interested to know if she saw relevance in the lessons to higher education, which she did not. I also asked, given that the lesson plans are created by others, if they allowed peers to review or rate the lesson plans to ensure quality prior to use. From what she was able to access in the peer version, they do not. I find this odd, given the movement of (free) open education resources (OER) to use peer rating and review systems to ensure and demonstrate quality – if a free resource includes this, you would assume a paid service would.

Finally, Gerald and I discussed the use of SPSS and SAS; I had specific questions about the free version and if there was a more advanced purchase option. He shared information relating to the capabilities of the software; as a result, I’ll definitely look into it as a viable alternative to SPSS when I’m statistically analyzing the data from my research.