Organizing Online

When it comes to teaching and tutoring, I'm pretty old-fashioned. I make good use of whiteboards, chalkboards, pads of paper, anything I can use to write, doodle, and demonstrate my way through a lesson. I heavily rely on PowerPoint to show pictures and animations, and occasionally will use YouTube clips. It was effective, but if I had to make slides from scratch, like I did when teaching community college, it could be a real pain to gather the necessary sources (pictures, text, video) and put them in a logical order.

I've never even heard of Blendspace until last week, when I had to do a small presentation on it and how I could use it in my future classroom. I could upload files from my computer onto the site (called a "canvas"), or I could drag and drop videos, links, photos, and other resources straight from the web, which meant no more opening a gazillion windows trying to gather all the necessary media. Furthermore, since I synced Blendspace with my Google and DropBox accounts, I could drag and drop files from my Google Drive/DropBox onto the canvas. It also meant I could watch YouTube clips right on the canvas, instead of clicking on a link and getting transported to a new window. Much easier.

Blendspace also has an assessment feature, which allows instructors to make multiple choice questions right on the canvas. Although I would not substitute this feature for written exams and quizzes, I think it would be an excellent way to poll students' understanding during class, like many of my college professors did.

That being said, Blendspace can also be used to goof off. When toggling around with mine, I uploaded a presentation on cell respiration and then proceeded to fill the rest of the canvas with video clips from the Dark Knight trilogy and Season 4 of Archer.

I will admit that Blendspace definitely breaks up the monotony of a chalk talk.