Tools for interaction and collaboration - Kunnskapsbasen
Tools for interaction and collaboration
An overview over different tools for interaction and collaboration. This page is designed to provide support for educators at NTNU.
Denne side på norsk - Verktøy for interaksjon og samarbeid
Plan and execute the teaching - for teachers (currently only in Norwegian)
Getting students to participate in active learning and increasing their interactions with their peers and educators is shown to increase motivation for learning and produce better learning results (Freeman et al. 2014., Deslauriers, Schelew, & Wieman, 2011.). Digital interaction and collaboration skills are important both in higher education and are increasingly prized by employers in today’s globalised society. Here are some tips for tools and systems you take use in your teaching.
Innholdsfortegnelse [-]
Online Storage and Sharing
There are now several online services with storage, sharing and collaboration capabilities. These tools can help increased collaboration skills and digital understanding. NTNU offers many different online storage and sharing solutions, but you don’t have to use all of them. Try different solutions out and see which one suits your needs best.
NB!
- You must use NTNU's selected systems that have a data processing agreement
- Never store confidential or sensitive data in the cloud.
- You must reflect over what personal data, research data and copyrighted data you might be saving in the cloud
- You may be held responsible for sharing copyrighted content
Read about information security
OneDrive
OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud storage service. OneDrive is based in Ireland and not the United States. This provides greater security in accordance with stricter EU rules on transparency.
NTNU has signed a data processing agreement with Microsoft which among other things ensures that all data is stored within the EU. This allows you to safely store your documents, photos and other files, and access them from all your mobile devices connected to the Internet. Each user gets up to 1 terabytes (TB) of storage in OneDrive as long as they study or are employed by NTNU. You can install Office 365 on five devices at the same time.
Get started with OneDrive (Innsida)
Get started with OneDrive (Microsoft)
Office 365 - sharing and collaborating
NTNU Box
NTNU Box is a cloud service for personal storage, sharing and synchronization of files between all your mobile devices connected to the internet. Box is an institutional alternative to Dropbox, with agreements that meet all relevant requirements in Norwegian laws and regulations.
Collaborative Writing and Collaboration Tools
Collaborative skills are in great demand by employers and are especially important in today's globalised society. Tasks requiring students to write together can help develop students' collaborative skills.
Collaborative writing occurs mostly in virtual arenas now, whether students are in different geographical locations or sitting together and working online.
Read more about the benefits of collaborative writing
Word Online
Microsoft Word is part of Office 365 that all NTNU staff and students have access to. With Word in Office 365 you can write both in the program downloaded on your computer or in your browser. All files stored on OneDrive are stored in the cloud and synchronized on your computer and can therefore be opened both when you have the internet and if you are offline. Documents must be synchronized regularly between rooms. One or more can work on the same Word document and all editing done online or locally can be transferred both ways.
Get started with Word Online (currently only in Norwegian)
OneNote
OneNote provides great opportunities to digitise, share and structure all your notes; lecture notes or group meeting notes. You can build your own notebooks in OneNote with sub-pages in all subjects and topics, insert links, pictures, graphs, illustrations, texts etc. As in Word; OneNote works both in the cloud and on your computer as a client.
Get started with OneNote (currently only in Norwegian)
Student Response Systems
Student response systems (SRS) were previously known as clicker systems, where students were each assigned their voting apparatus to answer quiz-like questions in the classroom. Over the past four or five years, the development of student response systems has opened a whole new world of digital interaction with students.
Now you can use these tools to check knowledge, get feedback and responses to discussion points from students in real time. Students utilise their mobile, tablet or PC to vote or participate I discussions. Th results and responses can be shown on a scene in real time and can be downloaded after the lecture too.
These tools can help increase audience participation, interaction and motivation knowledge sharing. See the literature list for suggested academic papers to read about the effects and limitations of using SRS in higher education.
Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a student response system which makes it easy to increase student interaction in class. You set the questions or task for the class and students use their mobiles to answer and play long. There are many different question types and exercises that can be done with Mentimeter: polls, word clouds, audience questions, quizzes and more. Students get a code to the Mentimeter which allows them to access the programme, no log in details needed. Results are displayed in real time allowing for whole class participation and inclusive debate.
Mentimeter can be used on its own as a presentation tool, but it can also be integrated into a PowerPoint presentation. It’s simple to add a few slides with questions or a mini popquiz into presentations. How about a simple poll at the beginning of the session to see how much students already know about topic? That coupled with a quick quiz at the end of the session will help understand their progress and decide what areas they need to study more closely individually. This is an excellent tool to use as a first step towards engaging more students in large lecture halls or on different campuses.
The Section for Teaching and Learning Support offers courses to academic subject groups about how to increase interaction in teaching with Mentimeter. Contact them via NTNU Hjelp to set a course up.
Kahoot
Kahoot is an online tool where you can create, play and share digital quizzes. It was developed by NTNU's Professor of Game Technology Alf Inge Wang and has now reached one billion players around the world! It's a fun way to check how much students remember after a lecture or how well prepared they are. Kahoot is very intuitive to use.
How to get started with Kahoot at NTNU
Tools for Communication
There is an array of tools that can be used for digital communication. Here are some of the tools you can use for various types of communication with colleagues and students.
Audiovisual Communication
NTNU offer a couple of solutions for audio and visual communication These communication tools can be useful for when you need to mentor students or give feedback to them. They can also be useful for undertaking distance education or conducting oral exams.
Zoom
Zoom is a high-quality tool for web conferences that can be used for real-time online lectures, online meetings and tutoring. Teachers and students are online and attend the conference at the same time.
Get started with Zom video lectures
Blackboard Collaborate
Blackboard Collaborate is a simple and reliable video conferencing tool designed for use in educational settings. Collaborate acts as a virtual classroom and provides an arena to share presentations, text files, images, and use digital tools to facilitate student-active learning online.
It is not suitable for streaming between physical rooms on campus but is great for webinars or large group meetings. NTNU employees have access through Blackboard where they can easily create a room that can always be accessed or with limited access. A Collaborate room can be used both by people internally and externally, anyone with the link can access the room. Students can also use Collaborate if they are in a Balckboard group together. Both the course leader and the students can create a Collaborate room that can be used by all students in the group.
Get started with Blackboard Collaborate
Teams
Microsoft Teams is a tool for easy communication and interaction in groups. Teams includes a wide range of communication solutions, and offer collaboration in the most important Office-applications. Teams are for projects where you want an overview of and access to tasks, content and colleagues. Through the shared storage and co-writing capabilities of Teams, you will avoid the challenges with many versions of documents circulating in e-mails and file areas.
Learning Management System
Learning management systems or learning management platforms are programmes used to coordinate and manage course content. The learning platforms can also be used for communication in teaching, both between student-student, student-teacher, and teacher-teacher. The system often offers both synchronous and asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication is often done through chat or discussion forums. Asynchronous communication occurs through email or posts / messages.
NTNU has Blackboard as its learning platform. This is the only learning platform with which NTNU has a data handling agreement. All teachers and students have a Blackboard account and are encouraged to use this system. It’s not possible to use other learning management systems because NTNU only has a data handling agreement with Blackboard.
NTNU actively manages and develops Blackboard to give you the best possible experience, for more information about how to improve your Blackboard experience you can click here to visit NTNU’s resources for Blackboard.
Literature
Deslauriers, L., Schelew, E., & Wieman, C. (2011). Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class.science, 332(6031), 862-864
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410-8415.
Hedgcock, W. H., & Rouwenhorst, R. M. (2014). Clicking their way to success: Using student response systems as a tool for feedback. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 22(2).
Trees, A. R., & Jackson, M. H. (2007). The learning environment in clicker classrooms: student processes of learning and involvement in large university‐level courses using student response systems. Learning, Media and Technology, 32(1), 21-40.
Contact
Contact Section for Teaching and Learning Support for help with digital tools and student active teaching methods for through NTNU Help.