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  • Writer's pictureKatie & Christa

A new experiment

I've now been teaching at McMaster for a full year. I still have so much to learn but I feel a new sense of confidence leading into my first semester with a course I've taught before.


So I'm going to try something new.


I've mentioned Echo360 a few times on this blog. It's a learning technology that allows you to record lectures with transcripts — who doesn't love that? But it also has a lot of interactive features. For instance, you can insert "activity slides" into your lectures. The activities can by multiple choice or short answers questions, or they can be images that invite students to identify a particular feature. You can track how students are interacting with the activities and whether they're answering the questions correctly. It seems like a great way to learn and I'm excited to try it out!


Echo360 also has a "confusion flag" that allows students to flag any lecture content that they don't understand. If I see a number of flags go up on my screen, I'll know to stop, go back and make sure everyone feels comfortable before moving on. There's also a discussion board where students can ask questions and respond to their peers.


McMaster Campus Classroom Technologies set me up with an Echo360 account to play around with, and Christa started an "Echo360 sandpit" for faculty interested in experimenting with the tool. We've had great support from Echo360 staff, including a few video conferences to answer questions and chat about ideas.


To get started in Echo360, I had to save all my slides as PDFs and upload them to my Echo360 library. This means I can't have any animations or videos in my slides, which is a little disappointing. There is a tool called the Powerpoint Ribbon that allows you to keep animations and videos, but it's only available for Windows at the moment. Fingers crossed they launch it for Mac, soon.


Campus Classroom Technologies set up all my students with Echo360 accounts. I plan to use the first class to walk students through the tool and carefully explain its features and how I'll be using Echo360n data in their assessments. Briefly, I plan to have 5 percent of their grade tied to their participation in Echo360 activities. Echo360 is connected to my course management system, Avenue to Learn, so I can easily export their participation grades.


It seems to me Echo360 is a great alternative to iClickers. First of all, it provides lecture replays with a transcript. This is such a valuable tool for students who require the help of a note taker. Echo360 also offers different kinds of activities, not just multiple choice questions. But I think the most important feature of Echo360 is that it's free. Students don't need to buy a remote or pay for a subscription — it's ready to use on the first day of class at no cost to them.


I'm excited to start this new experiment, and I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

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