AnyMeeting, A Communication & Sharing Tool

Education Technologies, Hybrid and Blended Learning, Integration of Technology into Teaching, Online Teaching Practices, Reflective Teaching, Teaching Practices, Tech Tip, VLE 1comments

AnyMeeting,

A Communication & Sharing Tool

From social networking to video chat rooms, there is a wide-variety of web-based tools for communication available for instructors and learners. While many of these tools were never thought of for educational purposes, the fact is that teachers have found and will continue to find ways to use them meaningfully to enhance students’ learning experiences in VLEs or in F2F classrooms. AnyMeeting is one of those Web tools that probably was not thought of to be used in teaching contexts, but it is indeed useful when communication is needed among members of a community of learning.

AnyMeeting can be classified as a communication and sharing Web 2.0 tool. This platform allows instructors to hold webinar-like sessions with students and to hold virtual classes in which all participants can fully interact via video/audio or just audio, along with the use of a microphone. Another interesting fact about this Web 2.0 tool is that teachers can also project any kind of document via screen share, Youtube videos directly from http://www.youtube.com, etc. Additionally, speakers -during the session- can “switch” roles with participants by means of promoting them to speakers, especially if they have a question or want to voice an opinion or comment. Although this communication tool has been designed for small businesses to host online meetings for free, it can be definitely used as a powerful tool for eLearning within VLEs.

How can online / blended learning instructors envision their students using this kind of communication and sharing tool? As part of our extra class assignments, working students, as well as those living far away from college campus, can find a great help in AnyMeeting. On the one hand, learners can hold a six-partner conference-like meeting where they can use video and audio simultaneously just by using the free account the platform allows anyone to have. On the other hand, students can avoid having to commute to get together with peers in campus or elsewhere; they just need a device with a webcam [a smartphone, a tablet, a computer] and a good connection to the Internet to hold a meeting, share documents, presentations, and the like. If combined with Google Docs, all participants in the meeting can cooperatively work on the editing of a collective document.

As part of my teaching at the university level, I have personally used this tool with my Teaching Practicum students as a way to instruct them on course content and teaching practices. However, I have also encouraged them to use the tool to cooperatively work on their course projects. Since our Moodle platform does not allow users to hold live virtual classes, this free tool can be of great help. Students can perfectly be assessed on the use of AnyMeeting by checking their projects and by asking them to invite their instructor, as long as s/he is available, as a mere participant and listener. Understanding that it is difficult for many students to find time on their tight agendas or travel long distances to get together with peers on campus, why not to take advantage of a free and user-friendly tool ready to be used.

Sample Activity

Objective: After being trained on how to use AnyMeeting, students who need to work together on a course project will sign for an account to hold virtual meetings and to discuss, decide, and work on it with at least two to three virtual meetings.

Instructions. Understanding that you have to travel long distances or have a tight schedule, work with the communication platform along with Google Docs –if necessary- to produce a report after you have discussed the reading provided by your instructor.

Remember:

· There’ll be peer assessment to guarantee equal shares of work.

· You must include an invitation for your instructor so that s/he can hop in.

· Attendance is mandatory once you and your partners have agreed on a date and time for group’s meeting.

· A minute of your meeting has to be uploaded unto your class platform to be reviewed by your teacher.

Created by Prof. Jonathan Acuña, Universidad Latina, Costa Rica

E To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research and expand these areas:

1	Social networking in VLEs
2	Web-based tools for communication
3	Educational uses of non-educational web tools
4	Teaching students how to host virtual meetings
5	How to participate in virtual meetings

Professor Jonathan Acuña-Solano

ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica

NCTE - Costa Rica Affiliate

Resource Teacher at CCCN

Senior ELT Professor at Universidad Latina

Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America

For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:

@jonacuso – Twitter

jonacuso@gmail.com – Gmail

Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are:

1. Pronunciation 1	2. Readding Skills 1
3. Pronunciation 2	4. Computering Applications in Education

Get new ELT material and ideas by visiting my curated topics on http://paper.li/ and http://scoop.it/

TEFL Daily	English Language Teaching Journal
ELT Daily	Phonemics Daily
The Linguists: Linguistics News

Published on September 26, 2013

Zirilli, D. AnyMeeting – Free Online Meeting Sofware Review (23/10/2012) Retrieved from http://youtu.be/v_7lczSnc9c

Get a copy of "AnyMeeting a Communication and Sharing Tool by Jonathan Acuña" over here.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Communicating in the LMS

Hybrid and Blended Learning, Integration of Technology into Teaching, Online Teaching Practices, Reflective Teaching, VLE 1comments

Communicating in the LMS

Regardless of the LMS platform one uses at one’s teaching institution, i.e. Moodle or Blackboard, communication is indeed an essential component of teaching and learning. In spite of its importance, communication can be challenging in an online or blended learning environment. Among the challenges instructors can face, technical difficulties and cultural differences may affect learners and teachers’ affective filters [levels of frustration and anxiety] are bound to appear. To palliate communication breakdowns and to enforce instructors’ social-teaching presence in their online courses, certain LMS tools can be used: Announcements, discussion boards, and email.

Let us analyze three LMS tools that can help instructors to ensure good quality in communication with their students:

Tool	Description	Challenge
Announcements	- This particular tool allows teachers to provide timely information along with deadlines to be met. - It can be used to display course or institutional information for both instructors and learners. - It can also be used as a way to remind students of course content, assignments, and the like.	a) To have students carefully read the information posted to keep current with the organization, their school, and their courses. b) To motivate to log in regularly to keep track of deadlines, homework, and assignments. c) To properly deal with technical issues beyond the teacher’s realm of action.[1]
Discussion Board	- It is a tool that allows learners and instructors to share information, thoughts, insights, criticism, and the like. - It allows users to create asynchronous discussions / forums through a link displayed on an individual week or learning module. - Instructors can assign each forum a specific topic or theme for students to reflect, share, and help one another to comprehend the course content. - Several threads of discussion can be created depending on the users’ interests and needs for the sake of the community of learning. - The instructor or a designated student can function as moderators and lead the discussion.	a) Student motivation to log in for class discussion is always a challenge. b) The need for exploiting student intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivation is a must within the discussion board. c) Accessibility can also be an issue for a minute number of students in one’s course. Some may have some restriction to use an Internet connection out of the university campus. d) LMS first-time users may need some sort of crash course to get the knack of how to use it appropriately. e) Teacher modeling could be necessary to guide students who may find themselves helpless while working within the LMS.[2]
Email	- Emailing students within the school’s LMS allows instructors to communicate with pupils without having to access external email servers. - Depending on the features one’s LMS has, private or group messages can be sent. - This system is quite useful especially when the teacher does not hold virtual student hours.	a) We have often found some sort of reticence among students to use the email provided by the university, and this can cause a severe communication breakdown since they do not check university email accounts. b) Prompting them to constantly check their university emails is indeed a challenge at our university.
*Prof. Jonathan Acuña, Universidad Latina, Costa Rica (2013)***

If tools have been also provided to achieve a great sense of community in learning, it is the instructors’ task to use them to guarantee quality in learning. However, let us also keep in mind that teachers are “handcuffed” if learners do not do what it is expected from them to ensure their own building of knowledge. Setting expectations from the very beginning, and reminding them of their compromise with themselves and their learning, is also necessary, and instructors must help on this issue.

[1] As a matter of exemplification, I had a student enrolled in my class, whose name was visible on the class roster but who wasn’t able to log in for course activity [forum, homework submission, wikis, etc.]. This sort of problem goes beyond the teacher’s realm of action, and it is TI Department the one that needs to provide an immediate solution for the student and the instructor.

[2] As part of my former training at the University of Oregon’s Distant Education program for ELT professional out of the US, Dr. Deborah Healey always stressed the importance of modeling and helping learners understand how a new tool, system, or platform is used. Krashen’s affective filter can be highly affected in the case of students in one’s F2F or Virtual classroom.

E To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research and expand these areas:

1	Delivering announcements within an LMS
2	Challenging students to keep current with announcements
3	Effective board discussion within an LMS
4	Forum first-time users: How to help them
5	Emailing students as part of an LMS platform

Professor Jonathan Acuña-Solano

ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica

NCTE - Costa Rica Affiliate

Resource Teacher at CCCN

Senior ELT Professor at Universidad Latina

Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America

For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:

@jonacuso – Twitter

jonacuso@gmail.com – Gmail

Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are:

1. Pronunciation 1	2. Readding Skills 1
3. Pronunciation 2	4. Computering Applications in Education

Get new ELT material and ideas by visiting my curated topics on http://paper.li/ and http://scoop.it/

TEFL Daily	English Language Teaching Journal
ELT Daily	Phonemics Daily
The Linguists: Linguistics News

Published on September 26, 2013

Efficiency Training – What’s an LMS? (07/02/2013) Oriole TV Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ5kkSN1KXY

Get a copy of "Communicating in the LMS by Jonathan Acuña" right here.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Online Teaching: Sentiments & Feelings

Hybrid and Blended Learning, Online Teaching Practices, Reflective Teaching, VLE 0 comments

Online Teaching: Sentiments & Feelings

As one develops more knowledge about teaching online, perhaps one’s sentiments and feelings toward this way of learning process changes. As time goes by, one develops more skills and tactics to deal with VLEs and online teaching platforms. Let me reflect on how I feel about this now that I am more into the blended learning trend of education at my university.

At this point of my hybrid, blended, and online learning training, how do I feel about becoming an outline instructor? I wouldn’t say that I have second thoughts about the whole experience, but I must say that, by trying out little tips one is provided along the training, I wish I had the chance to transform one of my courses at Universidad Latina into a real 100% online course to see how students react and learn and how I would react when issues arise. I know that time will come, and with the experience I get to accumulate, I will be able to deal with it quite objectively, professionally, and promptly.

Am I excited or do I feel overwhelmed by shifting my way of teaching? I have to say that I do not feel overwhelmed or anxious for a change in my teaching; little by little –in the last three years- I have become aware of the need to keep current with the trends in education and the professional need to be prepared for the change. At this very point of my training, I feel much more engaged in online learning than I was some months ago. There is some sort of excitement in my teaching atmosphere for fully or partially moving into a virtual learning environment in which I can create a learning community with my students, a sort of community of practice with them as well, and a path for my professional development within ELT.

How has the answer to the above questions chanced since the beginning or my pursuit of this Hybrid, Blended, and Online Learning Certificate? I must admit that the answer remains the same from the very start; as a teaching professional in the field of language learning and teaching, I want to go beyond the classroom with my social presence and create an online teaching and cognitive presence among my students. I tried it before, with no former training, to engage my students in blended learning language activities to reinforce and consolidate their learning in my classes at the university. I feel now better prepared and with a clearer understanding of what it is expected from me and from my students.

What remaining questions about teaching online do I still have? My sole concern at this point is if the university will allow me to modify a F2F course to –first- transform it into a hybrid one to prepare students for the transition to a VLE and –second- create content for a fully online course in one of the content classes the English Teaching major has. How long will the wait last? I can’t really tell, but I would be more than interested in giving the try once the certificate is finished and courses on online design are also taken.

E To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research and expand these areas:

1	Conducting effective online discussions
2	Why is online learning important?
3	Managing your time when teaching online
4	Integrating online resources into your teaching
5	Using a learning management system

Professor Jonathan Acuña-Solano

ELT Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica

NCTE - Costa Rica Affiliate

Resource Teacher at CCCN

Senior ELT Professor at Universidad Latina

Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America

For further comments or suggestions, reach me at:

@jonacuso – Twitter

jonacuso@gmail.com – Gmail

Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at the university are:

1. Pronunciation 1	2. Readding Skills 1
3. Pronunciation 2	4. Computering Applications in Education

Get new ELT material and ideas by visiting my curated topics on http://paper.li/ and http://scoop.it/

TEFL Daily	English Language Teaching Journal
ELT Daily	Phonemics Daily
The Linguists: Linguistics News

Published on September 23, 2013

Learning to Teach Online Episodes (01/09/2009) University of New South Wales from http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/ltto-episodes

Get a copy of [Online Teaching Sentiments and Feelings by Jonathan Acuña[ right here.

Monday, September 23, 2013