I think if there’s anything enduring to say about online teaching–given that the technologies themselves are sometimes impermanent–it’s maybe that online instruction is most engaging when modalities are mixed, when interfaces are intuitive, when the tool is configured as essential for class and facilitates the levels of interaction we might expect in face-to-face (F2F) discussions. (As a side-note, many of these tools also work well as a supplement to F2F instruction, and as workarounds for students who face difficulty in participating in class extemporaneously.)
Here’s a short list of some of the tools I’ve used most frequently in my classrooms:
Descriptions of each tool (rated 0-3 stars each) and how I use them after the jump.
Slack (★★★). As a writing instructor, I take real issue with most LMSes. The interfaces through which we write change how we approach writing, and quick, mobile media can often remind students that all writing is writing. I’ve used Slack to varying success across classes, but I find it to be a reliable tool, even in fully face-to-face classes, for backchannel full-class discussion in and out of class, collaborative note-taking in class, memeing, student crowdsourcing, and even DM discussions and virtual office hours. It has the added benefit of working beautifully on mobile devices, which helps if you’re a road warrior like me, teaching asynchronous hybrid or online classes, or work well with swift mobile communication. I also use Slack as an alternate form of participation for students who have difficulty participating in class on-the-fly; they use anonymous screennames and post responses to the backchannel, so I can see they’re present and actively engaged. Even when Slack doesn’t work for everyone in my classrooms, it works so well for some that I have a hard time not giving it a high rating. (3/3 stars)
Flipgrid (★★). Flipgrid facilitates face-to-face presence in fully online or hybrid classes, though in my experience it seems to work best in fully online courses where students seem to naturally feel more of a need to “speak” face-to-face. Instructors can set discussion topics and students can respond by recording video/audio responses. They can use emojis to react to their peers’ responses and can reply to each other with more videos or with typed comments. Because the format imitates Vine’s, with short videos that can be looped, some of my students made creative use of the platform, and referenced each other’s videos regularly. Flipgrid is also a useful tool for in-class activities that involve sending students out of the classroom or gathering quick 30-60 second responses, in a way intended to make them comfortable with the way they speak and how they write. Flipgrid is also easily used on a mobile phone, encouraging walk-and-talk responses and reminding viewers (and speakers) that learning occurs outside of the classroom too. (2/3 stars)
Twine (★★★ ). Twine is an interactive fiction program that doesn’t require a complex understanding of code. Best used as a local installation (students who use the online version often lose their work when they close a window or shut down their computer), Twine allows you to write branching stories with multiple connections and outcomes. In more than a few classes, I scrapped the notion of final papers and had students write interactive fiction instead, sometimes creating a situation to which the “player-character” had to deal with, sometimes using it to write experimental narratives about their own lived experience, such as making invisible chronic illness visible. You can see sample work I wrote and use to teach here, and student work here. (3/3 stars)
Hypothes.is (★). Hypothes.is is a collaborative annotation tool, where the instructor can upload a document to a Hypothes.is group that students access in order to read the document and mark it up with highlights, comments, and replies to their peers’ comments. I love the idea in theory, but in practice it ended up being difficult to work alongside some PDFs that weren’t originally produced through OCR. There’s a way for administrators to add Hypothes.is to an LMS, but it was difficult for me to figure out how to get the key working with my PDFs. My sense is Hypothes.is would have worked better in my classes if it had been integrated into the LMS, rather than acting as yet another account students needed to sign up for. One semi-elegant workaround might be to have students sign up for Hypothes.is and authorize their Google accounts to use Hypothes.is, and then drag-and-drop the files in question into the open-source DocDrop. You can authorize Google to use Hypothes.is directly from that link. (1/3 stars)
Yellowdig ( ★ ★). Yellowdig operates like a Pinterest clone, allowing the instructor to invite groups of students to a particular board and have them “pin” relevant or interesting material throughout the class. I like the idea: that students are always running across artifacts relevant to class that they might prefer to talk about, in addition to or in place of existing material; a platform like Yellowdig gives them some agency in the curriculum, allowing them to “curate” a stream of media. LMSes are often text-heavy and don’t encourage students to be curious learners—that is, once an assignment is submitted on Blackboard or Canvas, the student no longer needs to engage with that unit’s materials. By contrast, the “curation” mentality encouraged by Yellowdig invites students to engage with a unit repeatedly, locate case studies and share or apply their thinking to them. I will say, though, that after using it in 3 classes, only one class took to it in a way that felt organic, without reminders from me or extra incentives; the other two read my pins but required repeated prompting to submit their own. (2/3 stars)
Of course, these aren’t the only tools I use, and not the only ones I recommend, but they’re good staples of a hybrid or online classroom. I’ve successfully used the augmented reality app Aurasma (now rebranded as HP Reveal) in essay progressions about public/hidden transcripts and embodiment. In 2008, I used Ning (when it was free, now $25/mo minimum) to restyle my courses as social, collaborative learning environments instead of relying on Blackboard. It’s no secret I don’t like Blackboard, or several other LMSes–Canvas seemed the most intuitive to me, but even that has flaws. Blackboard has its uses. I use it as a document repository, and a place where students can easily submit their work and I can easily collect it. Just not as a writing space, as I do believe the environments in which we write structure how and whatwe write.
So, to end this post, a short list of fun (or at least different) online writing environments:
- Write or Die (v2) (Dr. Wicked): For timed exercises and the task of producing words, whatever the quality, this website offers a countdown clock and a word goal, the choice of consequences and rewards, and for the more competitive among us, comes with a leaderboard.
- editMinion (Dr. Wicked): This requires double-checking at times, but this site aids in copy-editing. Students can paste in a block of text and toggle choices like “Passive Voice” or “Weak Words” to see what the editing minion highlights. (If/when patterns occur across a class, it also makes for a good starting point for discussions of grammar and mechanics.)
- Etherpad: I have a local installation but don’t have much time for setting it up these days, so in the meantime, I work from other public installations. The above links to the master list, but I like one hosted at Mozilla (students recognize the name as “official”) and one titled Notes (students don’t feel as pressured if all they’re writing is “notes”). Regardless of where you do it, Etherpad allows for collaborative writing and editing without the hassle of emailing documents to each other or sharing permissions with Google Docs. Inefficient for commenting, but efficient for peer review, especially if followed by peer-aided revision.
- Twitter: With 240 characters and ability to thread tweets, students can publicly brainstorm their way through a subject, using course hashtags and hashtags of their own invention, live-tweet assigned videos or other activities, or participate in online RPG-style exercises (like discussing selfies and surveillance, or fact-finding through crowdsourcing simulations). Additionally, writing in social media environments immediately implies multiple, unpredictable audiences, leading to fruitful discussions of the rhetorical situation. (It’s worth saying that when writing in open digital environments, though, a discussion of digital ethics and safety is a must.)
- Flickgame: This is a fun little tool for storyboarding as a precursor to drafting, and can also serve as a gateway into discussions about multimodal composing and interactive fiction.
