perjantai 19. lokakuuta 2012

Chair group's and chairperson's report of VS2


Team Mars chaired the VS2 on Oct 9. I chaired one breakout with Deepak. We shared the task so that each chaired one full presentation with discussion and we split the tasks in the third presentation. Overall, this went very smoothly. We received good feedback from our role and we were able to keep the timing.

The teams were able to construct the 40 minutes freely in terms of length and order of the presentation, activities, and discussion, and it worked well with the topics. Teams have adopted new learning tools, e.g. Popplet, from EduTech course, and it was fun testing them, even if it may work better in a different context. Technically things went very smoothly compared to the first time, and communication was good (e.g. if everyone are around etc). Generally there was little time for discussion, but we heard interesting comments and ideas. Some teams sent part of their materials, questions, and video links very late, after the deadline, and some other requests were also made very late. This makes it difficult for the chair group to adjust them at last minute.

Deepak pointed out that the presentations were more interactive than the previous session. The bonus was that the various methods used required active participation. Time management was appropriate and the rules for video was really a good idea to use. It prevented using long videos. In order to use various tools during the presentation, discussions in between were also effective. The different AC sessions proved to be more effective than breakouts. There were hardly any technical problems throughout the session.

The idea of using Popplet was a courageous one. It is indeed a helpful tool but there was uncertainty in our breakout as to know exactly we were supposed to do. Instructions were not very clear. Everyone was wondering for the first few minutes, and after a while we discovered we were supposed to put any thoughts we would like to discuss. Everybody started putting their random thoughts and one Popplet was hidden under the other. It was hard to follow any discussion trail, but the comments were interesting. Overall, the session was productive and seems that we all are learning to apply various methods and teaching styles.

On Teemu's opinion, the sessions used much more creative methods – joint working, collaboration and open discussion. This was very fruitful, much more than in session #1. I think it is great to see people experimenting with different methods. The presenters had taken time to connect their topics into real life examples. This was very useful and helped comprehension substantially. There were some technical issues: e.g. some slides had very small font. It would be beneficial to have everything in sufficiently large font. Also, it was sometimes a little confusing as the presenters did not always explain what the next stage of collaboration was to be. The tutor and one participant did not have access to the Popplet. We solved this by sharing the screen so they could at least see what was going on.

Beside some individual computer problems it was satisfying to observe how the groups had made the presentations. They were all interactive and involved us in the same level, contrary to the last time. For the next sessions we should cooperate more with other groups in order to not present the same issue, since Jupiter and Earth had the same picture and almost the same issue which they discussed. Sandra suggested that we should also avoid writing the answers for the discussion on chat box since it takes time to write and may be confusing. The chairperson has to follow the ongoing chat while while the group i s presenting. Video can be watched beforehand, but the other preliminary material, such as videos, pdf's, links for blogs, should be delivered to the people at least one week before the presentation. One day or night before is way too late. Beside this, the teams put together inspiring and interesting presentations. As Teemu mentioned, using a common examples helped a lot.

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