Choose Your Own Adventure in the Virtual World – Observatory of Educational Innovation

Image 4 shows a report with a fictitious example. Each of the concepts that appear represents skills that the teacher can define to evaluate throughout the course. In this way, you can customized partial and final reports like the example above as the subject progresses. The tool has a webpage and an app to install on the cellphone. (I want to clarify that Leonardo Di Caprio is not taking my course. It is a default name that appears in the tool.)

Between the in-person and virtual modalities, I noticed a critical change in the operation of one of my favorite tools, Google Classroom. In the face-to-face model, I used this tool as a virtual extension of the class. I configured it to be a place where one could consume a set of contents asynchronously and record some reflections or answers to questions specially designed to optimize learning the contents hosted in that tool.

When we all switched to the virtual modality in the first quarter of 2020, I continued to use Google Classroom, but it did not work the same way. The problem was that both the classes and the extension of the class were virtual, and this did not permit establishing the difference between "synchronous coursing" and doing the task "in a virtual space." It was all the same.

Also, it was difficult for students to manage the multi-channel, although it does not bother me. I had to restrict the communications media because too many were somewhat overwhelming. In the university, we have an official communications platform (which already existed and became relevant at the beginning of the pandemic). My tools for lecturing the virtual synchronous classes were Teams, Zoom, Jitsi, and Google Meet, etc. For asynchronous teaching, I used Google Classroom, and if that was not sufficient, I used Google Drive, Miro, and a WhatsApp group that I always create for every course I have.

Finally, I realized that the asynchronous activities were equivalent to the virtual classroom complementing face-to-face teaching. I then established the following strategy: for virtual and synchronous sessions, we carry out 100% collaborative activities and feedback, which I generally resolve with Miro; and for theory, which is basically to consume different types of content (texts, audios, and videos), we perform as asynchronous activities. The latter is a structure that aligns with Flipped Classroom since, in the synchronous part, they are used to perform activities, practices, experiments, and various dynamics where there is much participation among the students and them with the teacher. On the other hand, theory, which usually has different digital content (texts, photographs, videos, audios, etc.), is consumed by more passive student behavior. They do so as an asynchronous activity in their homes, choosing how they will consume them and the time according to their convenience.

I want to show you how I designed those asynchronous activities and resources in an upcoming article. My experience designing a partial home with PowerPoint aligned with the concept of "learning by doing," where I ask students to copy themselves!

Mavrommatis, Hernn, is Head of Chair of "Entrepreneurism and Innovation" and researcher at the National University of The Matanza. He is an adjunct professor of "Value Innovation" at UADE and a pioneer in lecturing on creativity in public bodies. He researches organizational creativity practices at the University of Buenos Aires. He has published more than a dozen articles on this subject and was a TEDxUNLaM speaker.

Edited by Rub Romn (rubi.roman@tec.mx) - Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

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Choose Your Own Adventure in the Virtual World - Observatory of Educational Innovation