Here are some interesting technologies to try out in the classroom. Many of these technologies are mentioned in other places within the TP101 website.  Please send additional ideas.

 

• Clickers.  In some cases, it seems like clickers have been replaced by cell phone driven applications like Kahoot and Poll Everywhere. However, there is still a case for clickers if you have a no cell phones policy or simply want to give students one less reason to look at their phones. The former editor of TΦ101 had enormous success with these little devices in creating a high level of student engagement and participation in large lecture classes. Their effectiveness in a new technique called  "Peer Instruction"  has been documented in some impressive evaluation studies.  

• Anonymous Grading Apps. Many of the Learning Management Systems made available by our institutions (i.e., Blackboard, Canvas) have applications to facilitate author-anonymous grading.  Students upload their papers, and the LMS both hides the author name and randomizes the order in which the papers are presented to you when grading.  Check your LMS, or with your local IT support, to find out what is available.  Anonymous grading, where possible, should be implemented. For a discussion of the value of anonymous grading, see this Daily Nous thread.

• Video feedback on papers: Tanya Hall, Dean Tracy, and Andy Lamey (UC, San Diego) experimented with giving students feedback on their papers for an entire semester using 5-minute videos recorded via Photobooth (an OS X application for Mac), which they uploaded to their LMS for students to view.  Hall, Tracy, and Lamey found that students perceived this feedback as clearer, and more constructive/useful than written feedback, and also that they perceived the professor or TA giving the feedback as more empathetic.  As a result, students were more motivated to use this feedback to productively inform their future work in the course.  Video feedback also seems to carry the added benefit of reducing the time it takes to offer detailed comments on student papers.

• Grade Calculator.  This helpful grade-calculator, designed by Daniel Immerwahr, can be used by both students (to figure out how they would need to do on the next test to improve their grade) and by faculty members to calculate either individual grades or grades for a whole class. It also allows faculty members to create rosters for large and small classes. Most LMS have built in grade and attendance features, but this is an alternative if you don't have such tools available to you. For a full grading and attendance manager, check out GradeKeeper, a commercial program available for a small yearly fee.

• MindMap Software. There are a number of free and commercial mind-mapping software programs available. Some faculty members ask students to use these in developing their papers. But they can even be used for lectures (instead of powerpoint), or as a way to record the points that students are making in discussions. You can find an overview of available software here.

• Wikis.  Given today's emphasis on collaboration in the workplace, assigning students to do projects outside of class is as important as it is challenging. A technological solution is to set up a "wiki" that allows a defined group of students to collaborate on a document. (Wikipedia is the most famous example, where anyone in the world can edit any entry).  Nancy Hancock, from Northern Kentucky University (and a former President of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers) has a handy guide to getting started. Alternatives to Wikis include having students work on a shared Google or Word document. 

• Perusall. A social annotation platform designed by teachers and researchers at Harvard. It is (currently) free software designed to allow students to read and collaboratively comment on the same text. It was designed to increase student engagement with the text. Here is a study from the developers of Perusall. Perusall is on the road to commercialization, but right now it is still a free and very useful tool. The current editor has been using Perusall for some time in their online courses and finds it highly effective. 

• Argument mapping software.  Rationale is a computer based argument-mapping program that helps students organize their arguments in learning critical thinking and in preparing papers or presentations.  It was developed by an Australian logic professor,  Tim van Gelder. The homepage for Rationale has some useful instructional materials on how the program can be used.

• Logicola. Logicola is a free software developed by the late Harry Gensler to accompany is logic textbook, Introduction to Logic. If you try, you will probably be able to find free PDF versions of his textbook on the web (not that TP101 condones that kind of thing), but you can also use the software without his book. The software is an oldie, but a goodie, and covers a variety of deductive systems. The original software does not interface well with all operating systems, but fortunately Malik Piara is developing a web version of the program. You can check it out here. You can also help his cause here. 

• Carnap. Carnap is another free software for teaching propositional logic. I don't find Carnap quite as user friendly as logicola, but it's still a great resource. 

• Second Life. This popular program has many features that can be used to teach philosophy courses, including the ability to create remarkable on-line chat rooms (where the students create avatars that can meet and either speak or exchange text messages). The March 2011 issue of Teaching Philosophy has two articles on promising efforts to integrate this software into intro classes.  

 

 

Author: John Immerwahr

Update: 26 June 2016 (E. Tarver); January 2020; 2-2-2026-D. Sackris