Cross Current Are the students even listening? Engagement, learning and the implications of student’s use of student response systems. Monday morning, about five hundred students shuffle into the seats of the lecture hall. Talking to students about their weekends, I garner a few responses, but communication drops further in lecture when asking for feedback or examples. Instructor-student communication is vital in the learning process. However, student participation is often problematic and instructors need a viable classroom solution.
In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Tierney joked that lecture halls remain the first form of distance learning. It is important for instructors to be able to communicate with students in their classrooms regardless of the size. In large lectures, students often feel like passive observers, rather than active learners, as faculty are both physically and affectively removed.
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Using Skype to Teach Videoconferencing Skills in Class About
13.2 million people made a video call in 2011 according to an
article in USA Today. The prevalence of video conferencing and its wide
range of uses mean that students must develop fluency in this technology. There
may be a tendency to assume all students are familiar with applications such as
Skype, but making that
assumption would be a mistake. Instead, teachers need to focus on teaching all
students how to use videoconferencing
tools, the advantages and disadvantages of videoconferencing, and potential
unintended consequences that may accompany it. One way to accomplish that is to
use videoconferencing as part of classroom activities. This essay describes such
an activity designed to familiarize students with and to encourage them to think
critically about Skype, a popular videoconferencing tool.
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Mediated April Fools’ Day April 1st, or April Fools’ Day, has become an annual celebration of pranks and hoaxes designed to amuse and delight both the joker and those upon whom the joke is perpetrated. Mediated communication has often served as the vehicle by which such jests are delivered. In honor of the light-hearted spirit of the holiday, we offer the following for your April Fools’ Day enjoyment….
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| Communicating About Alzheimer’s Disease Alzheimer’s disease by its very nature makes communication difficult. For patients, never knowing what you will remember, or not knowing what you don’t remember, is frustrating.
Learn more>How (Not) to Govern Women: Congress, the Policy-Making Process, and Women’s Empowerment Congress is at the epicenter of democratic politics; yet, the messages that Congress sends through its policies and deliberations rarely reflect fully the public opinions on the issues. Such divergence is not only due to the sheer diversity of the American electorate; it is also rooted in the institutionally-specific communication practices that move the policy making process.
Learn more>Questioning the Common Sense of Global Health Campaigns Communication scholars interrogate the inherent meanings, assumptions and implications of global health policies. While global health interventions claim to be based on principles of participation, co-operation and empowerment, we argue that such interventions perpetuate unequal power relationships between the developed and developing world.
Learn more>Efficient Campaign EvaluationEfficacious communication campaigns require
exposure to the campaign’s messages and messages that work.
Knowing what messages can be effective
without actually running the campaign is an important shortcut to an efficient
use of resources.
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