I picked up a new toy this weekend. (If you want to cut to the chase and see what I’ve been doing with it, please head straight to the end of the post).
I’m fascinated by the combination of old tech (essentially “chalk and talk”) and new media that Sal Kahn has been successfully using to teach mathematics and science on-line. The basic approach he uses of writing and drawing while talking is as old as the hills. But he successfully enhances this through “debundling” topics (breaking things down into small digestible chunks) and making his digitized chalk and talk lessons freely available as short online videos.
Chalk and talk is a way of teaching I still find effective, as it forces me to develop ideas at a measured pace, while allowing my students to follow the thought process and take notes. But it’s an approach that is increasingly out of vogue as educators feel they have to pander to today’s tech-savvy and social media-immersed students. So inspired by Sol Kahn, I’ve been looking at ways of combining this approach with new online tools to provide teaching resources that extend what can be achieved in the classroom.
My first approach was to look at Kahn’s setup – essentially using a drawing tablet and software as a digital blackboard, and recording short videos to teach specific concepts and skills. But after just a few minutes, I realized that this was a learning curve that was too steep for me (put it down to age!) – tablets have a remarkable ability to make everything look like it was drawn by a 3 year old, until you get the hang of it!
Then I came across pencasts.
Imagine working through a maths or science problem with a student, and sketching out your workings on a sheet of paper as you do. Now imagine that you can give that student a digital document that replays your scribbles and your verbal commentary on their computer in real time. And finally, imagine that the student can skip to any part of the document to see and hear how a particular step was developed, and replay this until they get it.
This is a pencast. Using a Livescribe Smartpen and a dedicated notebook, it’s possible to develop concepts or work through problems using pen and paper, and then to create a dynamic digital document from this that replays the pen strokes and the accompanying commentary. The resulting pencasts can be viewed online. But the real beauty is that they can saved as PDFs, and replayed using the latest version of Adobe Acrobat – so, for instance, it’s possible to email someone a solution to a maths problem as a PDF that takes them through it step by step, as if they were working through it with you by their side – apart that they can rewind and repeat the hard bits.
I was intrigued – is this the ideal combination of old tech “chalk and talk” with new tech “digital replay”? To explore further, I grabbed myself a Smartpen and started to play.
My first attempts at using the technology are basic to say the least (see below). But the learning curve is shallow compared to using tablets and YouTube videos, and the resulting file format potentially much more versatile. Having got to grips with some of the possibilities and limitations (the software for pencasts only works effectively on PC’s at the moment for instance, and the audio quality isn’t that great), I think I will be experimenting with augmenting next semester’s lectures with pencast documents.
But in the meantime, I would be extremely interested in comments and feedback on the technology.
Nanomaterial specific surface area and number concentration – three crude explorations of using pencasts to explain concepts
To play each pencast, simply click on the “play” button. They typically look better displayed full screen. By default, you can see all of the material on the page but it is greyed out until those pen strokes are reached. When in full screen mode though, you can choose to hide stuff until the pen strokes are reached, using the button in the bottom left hand corner.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Andrew
I am a teaching PhD student in the Social Sciences at a Business School in the UK and specialise in innovation in high tech enterprise. I am also doing an MEd concurrently. I have been experimenting with different teaching techniques to try and better engage the undergraduate and post graduate students I am teaching. I had started to realise that the students respond better and with more focus and concentration where methods employing digital media are involved. Today, it has been very useful to learn about our own experiments with Pencasts. I have been employing something similar but not with quite the same repeatability. Experimenting with this will be very interesting. Thank you. Lorraine Morley
I’ll be brief as I have little time to spare. Wacom, a company you are likely familiar with that is known for their top-of-the-line tablets such as the Intuos4, Cintiq, & their more basic Bamboo line, has recently released a very similar product that has been said to be an advancement in the “Livescribe” type technology that you have, as you wrote, utilized in the past. Of course, it is not as if there are many, if any at all, alternatives to the Livescribe Smartpen until now. It is called the Wacom Inkling. Considering I use various Wacom products & absolutely cannot imagine working without either one of the expressive tools, I would (and I have) consider looking into the “Inkling.” However, I might be a bit biased as I intend to purchase one myself after doing a bit of online research & arriving at the conclusion which has led me me to my present intention. Best of luck & I hope this piece of personal experience and intention might be helpful.