Studio Press

1. Introduction

2. What is Web 2.0 / Education 2.0
- Student makes video of measuring height of building



- Students create anatomy wiki

- Increase student participation. Younger students (millennials or young and wireless) want this



- The Stanford MIT trap



3. My concerns

4. Research

5. Test Design

I set out to find a way to gather some data about the impact of Web 2.0 in the classroom. The simple way to gather data would be to find a class where I taught multiple sessions in the same quarter. For example, at our college we have 4 or 5 sections of our beginning computer programming class taught every quarter. I could use some aspect of Web 2.0 in one session, but not in another and then compare results. I could use an assessment such as a test to see if the students who used Web 2.0 learned any more than those that did not. To handle the fact that there are different students in each class, I could use a norming assessment at the start of the quarter.

The only problem was that I personally never teach more than one section of any class each quarter. I started to recruit some other instructors to help, but decided to try another method first. I wanted to have some objective positive proof before I asked anyone else to do any extra work.

The methodology I finally came up with can be used in a single class with the same students. The process I used was to teach the class as I normally do and then give the students an assessment that not only checks for comprehension but is also timed. I then had the students use a Web 2.0 tool and do a participatory exercise, and then repeat the timed assessment. I then compared both comprehension and elapsed time to see if there was any improvement after the students used the Web 2.0 tools.

I first used this test methodology in my Digital Graphics and Design I class, which mainly teaches Adobe PhotoShop. PhotoShop is one of those programs that requires clicking and selecting on many different toolbars and menus to accomplish most tasks, and the students can easily get lost trying to remember the various "click-throughs". In particular, if the students try to click along as I demonstrate, they can usually follow the first two clicks, but it's hard to keep up and sooner or later they miss a click and then get frustrated and upset as they are now lost. My typical way of handling this in a class is to demonstrate the process 3 times. I ask them to only watch what I do and not try and follow along on their own computers. Sometimes I even ask them to hold both hands up in the air, as there are always a couple of student who can't resist the temptation. The first two times I show them the clicks-throughs for the process, explaining each step as we go along. The third time I have them tell me where to click and explain why. After that, I let them repeat the process as many times as they need to and help them on a one-on-one basis.

For my Web 2.0 test, I demonstrated creating a text layer and then using it as a layer mask. I demonstrated this three times as I normally do. I also used Camtasia to capture and make a short movie of the process. Camtasia is a program from TechSmith that does screen-capture. It allows me to make a movie of my screen along with an audio recording of my explanation of the process.

As an assessment, I then asked the students to repeat the process and use a text layer to create a layer mask. They were given written instructions for both the text layer mask process and the assessment. I allowed them to watch the Camtasia movie as many times as they wanted if they had trouble remembering the steps, although none of them did. I also checked the wall clock time when they started and when they finished, and recorded the times to the nearest 5 seconds. (I actually had our department secretary record the times to make sure I wasn't fudging the data.) I cut the time off at 20 minutes, and assumed that if they hadn't finished in that amount of time then they were lost.

I then added the Web 2.0 participatory phase to the class. The next day I had the students create their own Camtasia videos that demonstrated the steps in the process. They either worked off the written instructions I had previously provided, or they received help from me or one of the other students.

After they had all created their videos, I had them repeat the timed assessment. Their times, shown in Table 1, showed that all of the students improved their times, and everyone now understood all of the steps for the process as no one came even close to the 20 minute cut off time.

	Time Before (Average)	Time After (Average)
Trial 1	15.07	3.28
Trial 2	15.08	3.17
Trial 3	16.13	4.39

Based on these preliminary test results I feel very comfortable stating that using Web 2.0 tools has improved student participation and learning.




6. Test Results