Brent Warner
This is the HigherEdTech podcast season three, Episode 12: 2022 Higher Ed Technology Trends

Tim Van Norman
Welcome to today’s higher ed tech podcast. I am Tim Van Norman, the instructional technologist here at Irvine Valley College.

Brent Warner
And I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL here at IVC. We both enjoy integrating technology into the classroom, which is what this show is all about.

Tim Van Norman
Welcome. We’re glad you’re here with us. So Brent, how was your your time, your flex week? And stuff like that? Do you get everything ready for classes as they’re starting?

Brent Warner
Nope! Not even. (laughter) We were getting there. I mean, I’m ready for first two days of classes. And you know, like getting into class and meeting my students, but I never feel really fully prepared. And, and, you know, we had our plan. No, this is different, so different for everyone across the country. But but we’ve mentioned before that our school is pretty conservative in terms of trying to, you know, like, conservative in, save in, in making people come back to campus, I guess, which is, which is the sense that we do not have to come back, or actually, we are not allowed to come back to campus right now. The plan was to come to the beginning of the semester, and we’re gonna have on campus courses. Of course, they’re still online courses to like, they’re, they’re mixing the options. But that got deferred until February 7 At the moment, and I am curious if that will be the end date. They’ll actually be the the end of work from home on, you know, my personal schedule is set up for hybrid so so like a day in person a day online, but I don’t know. I don’t know, Tim, I don’t I just don’t. I don’t know if that’s gonna be the reality of spring 2022.

Tim Van Norman
Yeah, as we know, with COVID, every time we think we know the reality, it shifts, so we will see. But I’m hoping at least that students are everybody is more in tune with whatever coming back means. As our last episode with Dr. McDonald, that was really good. And they actually helped me understand the beginning of the semester, a whole lot better, just that one episode. So..

Brent Warner
There was so much. If anybody hasn’t gone back and listened to that episode, I know the audio was not the best because we had a different different little different recording setup than normal, but it’s a very insightful, lots of great information. So go back and listen to season three, Episode 11. It’s it’s worth your time I, if I do say so myself. I agree. All right, Tim. So let’s jump into today’s topic, we got quite a bit to talk about.

Tim Van Norman
Brent, earlier this week, you contacted me about an article that you had found in Forbes called Five Ed Tech Trends to look for in 2022. And it’s a great article, we’re going to go over a couple of these trends. But I find it fascinating anytime people look forward by look back to look forward. And I’ve seen a number of these already starting to trend before this. And so. But in all of this, I’m finding that there’s a demand that we’re getting some results out of. By that. I mean, there’s for instance, a demand for more online education, for sure. Okay, students are demanding it. Faculty, in some cases have realized, hey, wait a minute, I actually can be pretty good at this. There’s other students who are demanding not to have it. And there’s other faculty who are saying, I am no good at this. I have seen my limits, and I don’t want to go there. And I think all four of those points are valid, and most people are someplace in the middle, okay.

Brent Warner
We’re like – the people in the middle or like the drawn and quartered horses are like, which way do I go and like, as your arms are being ripped off, so it’s tricky, and we’ll, you know, we’re gonna dig into each of these into a bit of depth. This article was a little it was it was great, but it was, you know, not tons in depth. So we’ll take our own kind of spin on things. But yeah, for sure. You know, like the way that people are. It’s very fascinating to me to him, because right now we’re in the middle of people changing their thinking about the way things can and should be right. And so they’re trying, including myself, right? We’re trying to make decisions that are best for students, but also match Our own styles that also like fit the needs of the school that also fit the broader needs of society. Right. And so when you’re talking about all of these demands, it’s like, there is so much being asked of us at all times, right? It’s kind of nonstop. And also, partly because we’re in this, like, the modern society is like, give me an answer. Now, now now, right. And so the expectation a lot of times, which is not necessarily realistic, is that we’re able to pivot immediately and make these quick changes. And it’s like, well, you’re dealing with a lot of people with a lot of needs, and, and some technology that does or doesn’t exist, or, you know, has to be repurposed. And so, you know, like, it can, it can make, you want to just crawl back into the bed and pull the covers over.

Tim Van Norman
And, and that’s the same for faculty as well as students, students are in that same boat, where all of the sudden, they’re asked to do something very different. And maybe before where they felt comfortable raising their hand and saying, Hey, I don’t understand those instructions. Now, they realize that, oh, if I do that, I’ve got to do it in writing, I’ve got to let everybody know that I don’t understand. And that that didn’t make sense to me. And so it goes both ways. I’ll people are affected by this. So as we look at this, one of the first trends that comes up is the personalized learning. And I’m going to include personalized teaching in this. So we’re seeing more and more where you can actually engage the students where they’re at. Right? It’s not always easy. And in fact, I would say most things, most trends are never easy. They always take effort to get to effort on the part of the instructor effort on the part of the students, etc. But I’m seeing more and more where students can choose their own path, or can determine what their grade is going to be. They can look at their own efforts and and grade themselves or advance to that next level. And as the instructor, you can put that together, it’s really hard to do that when you’re in one classroom with everybody. But when you have an online component, and I’m not saying fully online, I’m saying an online component, when you have that online component, you can give different things for different students for different needs. So maybe you have three assignments that accomplish the same thing. One is a video that they do one is a face to face presentation, and one is a essay that they write. And you have which one would you like to do? That’s already much more personalized? Yeah. So I see, I see that happening more and more often as we go forward.

Brent Warner
Yeah, there’s a, there is a trend that’s been going on for a little while the called choice boards, right? Where where people are given when students are given, you know, different styles of choices that might be like Tic Tac Toe style, and it’s like, hey, here are nine different ways that you could possibly approach this assignment, which style works for you? Do you want to make a Flipgrid? Video? Or do you want to write a an essay? Or do you want to do you know, like, there’s just lots of different possible ways. And then sometimes you’ll even see them, sometimes they’ll just be like a two by two. So like four choices, right? The, these are really wonderful once you built them, but you’re also planning four or nine different approaches to doing an assignment. So what I’m seeing teachers do is they’ll kind of build a generalized choice board of something, and then they’ll change the prompt at the top right? So they’ll always say, hey, here are the different ways that you can create this thing. The prompt is always still the same. So then, so then as the teacher, you’re saying, Hey, I’m giving you lots of different ways, but I don’t have to build it over and over and over again, I build this choice board out one time, and then I can kind of repeat it to something like that. Right. So that’s a really cool way. And then I also think, to kind of what you’re talking about is like as students when they’re coming in, they’re going Hey, like what, you know, what do I do? Or how do I make this customized towards myself? A lot of that data is becoming more accessible to students directly, right? Like when they can go into Canvas, for example, and see things like Oh, I’m not doing that well on this category, like in my case is like, you know, maybe their grammar assignments right? They’re like, Why am I always not getting the grammar assignments or or doesn’t even have to be a specific skill, right? Like the blogging assignments, right? I’m just like, I’m, I am reluctant to jump into those types of assignments for whatever reason, right? And so then students themselves, if they’re aware of their study habits and what they’re trying to do, then they can also start to make better decisions in my class and a lot of our classes in our department, we kind of build on that quite a bit like, what are your study habits? What are you trying to do? What are you seeing in your own growth, right? Because this is like a real big. This, this is kind of that personalized learning that we’re trying to talk about, which is getting people to recognize what works and what doesn’t work for them. And then, you know, this idea, I think the idea that, like you need to work on your weaknesses is really dying. And it’s really more like, hey, let’s spend time building your strengths, right? I don’t, I don’t always know that that’s the best choice. But it is kind of a, that’s another trend that’s kind of going in here with this personalized learning. And so it’s, it’s interesting to see, and I love the idea of like, Hey, I’m kind of good at this thing. So I want to keep working on that, right. And I want to be able to show my understanding of the content through that skill set that I do have. So it’s moving a little bit more into like, deep mastery instead of broad, shallow, like, surface level understanding of a lot of different things, which, you know, that’s old. Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas on, you know, learning and those types of things. So it’s just interesting to see that it’s kind of coming out more and more these days.

Tim Van Norman
Absolutely. And, and I’m seeing more and more faculty asking me questions about, Hey, how can I have three different assignments for students? And if they take this one path, can I create a whole path that my course is there, which is similar, that similar to everybody, but, you know, can I create a path, and it’s a struggle to do that. It’s not, like I said, at the beginning, this is not simple. But there are ways of doing even stuff like that, through Canvas, for instance. And, but it’s, you got to think about it ahead of time, you got to plan for it, and how are your students going to get the information that you want them to get? There’s been some that are kind of using elective type processes,

Brent Warner
Does Canvas let you do, like logic trees, in terms of that type of thing? And then like, each of these, at this level, will be the grade? Does that exist, I would be surprised if it did.

Tim Van Norman
Um, there are ways of making that work,

Brent Warner
We’ll have to work on that for a future show, people would love to know how to do it.

Tim Van Norman
it’s it takes, like I said, it takes a lot of work, it’s not something that you would do at the beginning of a semester, you know, introduce too early in the semester, at first, you would want to do it a little bit for your sake, you know, across a couple of semesters, build that in just like anything else in your class, that you’re going to really change a lot of your class, you just built it in different steps, but there are ways of making that work. And it’s basically, a lot of this is getting more and more prevalent. People are aware of it. And I love that I think this is gonna be better for the student. And in the end, it sure makes it a lot more interesting. Grading. Yeah, rather than grading that same paper 30 times. We’re sure. or something.

Brent Warner
Yeah, yeah, the approaches that students take. And actually that’s like, the thing that’s like, brings joy to teachers, too, is like, Oh, I love that you’ve done something different. That’s like, an interesting approach to things. So so for sure. Okay. Okay, so that is a personalized learning and personalized teaching. What’s next,

Tim Van Norman
closing the gap. And we’re talking here about technology. So there’s lots of gaps in education that we talked about closing. But in this particular case, let’s talk about technology gaps. We have students, and faculty who are all struggling because maybe the area they live doesn’t have the technology, the Wi Fi, or internet connections that they need. I happen to be a technology guy. And so my house is got broadband over power line running through the whole house. So I’m literally plugged into the Internet right now, even though I not streaming a cable over to my network. But that’s me. That’s not other people. And so, and I happen to be, you know, I sit at my kitchen table, if I’m going to be working from home, I don’t have a desk because my house is so small. Well, now you put four different people on Wi Fi, all sitting at the kitchen table all on zoom at the same time. There’s a technology gap sometimes. We also have schools that have different levels of technology that are available for us. We have the library who if you come in, they now can loan laptops and they’ve got all kinds of different services that are available. You can work in the library, you can take things outside the library, depending on what it is exactly that you need. All of those things are efforts that we have put in at IVC to try to provide more services and provide students with better options for that internet, for instance, you can come on campus and in any of our buildings, if you got a laptop, you can be on Wi Fi. Yeah, yeah. That’s a solid connection.

Brent Warner
So the connection to the Internet is one thing, but also like, you know, device availability is, it’s an interesting conversation, because I think there’s also been a gap where, hey, you need to have a Windows machine in order to install this particular software. And it’s like, well, what if I’m on a Mac? Like, you know, there’s like, I don’t know what the percentage is, but it’s pretty big. Now have Mac users right on on campus? And? Or what if I don’t have that? What if I only have a mobile device, right. And so now teachers are, you know, kind of smartening up around that. And they’re trying to choose things that are a little bit more device agnostic. So whether that be web based services, or, or something that is available on many different types of devices. So if you’re looking at something like flip grid, you know, you can have an app on the Android or on the iOS devices, or you can just log on to the web to use it right. And so, so I think that teachers are now trying to be more conscientious about those choices. And so when they see something that is only available on one, one platform, for example, a lot of times I’ll see teachers that are not even super techie, they’re just like, oh, no, I’m not going to use that, because it’s not available for my students. Right. And so it’s, it’s interesting. And we’re, we’re still at like, I mean, the truth is, we’re still at baby stages of like developing these types of apps and things like that, but, but people are starting to see now like, hey, it needs to be universal, because not every student can afford to buy an iPhone or you know, like, or a fancy high processing desk, you know, desktop, Windows machine, or Mac or whichever one it is right. And so, so that is also a way that people are closing that technology gap is by choosing things that are more universally accessible, accessible in, you know, online. So I think that’s, that’s quite useful.

Tim Van Norman
The other thing to think about is, how are students going to go to the library at midnight, our library is not open then. So we don’t want students on campus then for all kinds of different reasons. So how do you make it accessible when the students ready to study as well, maybe they’ve worked all day, they get home, put the kids to bed, and now they can finally study, they can’t leave the house. So like at IVC, one of the things we’ve done is we’ve created virtual computer labs. So you might only have a Chromebook. But you can actually run Maya and other tools that are really, really complicated, really, really processing intensive on our systems by simply connecting to the internet, going to a browser and going in. But those are things that we didn’t have two years ago, yeah. We’re developing those types of systems. It’s really been neat seeing what we can develop and how we can work with those. And I think that’s going to increase actually, I think we’re going to have more and more of that type of thing. Because more and more the computers that you can actually buy, if you buy a laptop, it’s not going to run that high end software, no matter what, okay, you can buy a brand new laptop, and unless you spend 1000s, you’re not going to get the ability to do that. But yet you need it for your class. So if we can provide you with a remote way of logging in, you can now go to Starbucks and, and work on your class, and stuff like that. So yes, we’re looking for tools that can work on any device, but also if we can’t get that or we need that extra horsepower, rather than forcing our students to go buy the bigger horsepower. We’re looking for ways of handling that in house and I think that’s a really nice trend as well.

Brent Warner
Yeah. Also just point out we’ll just touch on these briefly but like, you know, we’re starting to see more government action going in where we’re saying like, Hey, we’re gonna use some of this tax money to you know, some of the cities out there and I can’t remember what city it was but I saw this one was like the whole city is trying to get Wi Fi across anywhere you are in the city, you’ll always have access to Wi Fi right like so the whole the whole city would be netted in Wi Fi access. And so you don’t have to be anywhere special. If you don’t have you know what one you would have at home if you live in that city, but you can just be you know, you don’t have to even go into Starbucks and buy a $6 You know, latte, or whatever it is, right? So so I think that those are good. To me, those seem like good government, you know, programs that can really support people and support, you know, those who don’t have access to those things or can’t afford to pay pretty exorbitant prices sometimes for these internet services. And then also another thing is universe uniformity in tech choices. So like, so we were talking about this before to Tim is like, in, you know, we all use Canvas, right? And so, if every teacher is using Canvas, right, that actually makes a lower capacity burden for students to have to learn a new system over and over again, right? So could you imagine if like, one teacher is teaching on Canvas, and one teacher is on Moodle, and one’s on Blackboard, and one’s on Google Classroom, you know, like, all of these different things, and you see, like, why teachers want to have their custom choices. But I also think that like, a better sense of like, why are we choosing these individual ones, and which ones are are collectively used does help students also close that gap to right, because it’s less for them to have to learn over and over again,

Tim Van Norman
Even better is when they’re using it in their middle school, high school. And then, as they move into college and graduate school, as it continues, and it’s the same, like same software, yes, the software is changing, yes, the teachers are organizing them different classes differently, all of that, but it’s the same environment. And you can either choose to change everything, every single time, or you can tweak things. And it’s always easier to just change just a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit someplace else, rather than constantly reinventing the wheel.

Brent Warner
Yep, so lots of people putting good work into trying to close that technology gap. It’s it’s hard, a lot of work. And a lot of people have to put in some serious effort. But I am seeing it’s a lot better than it was, you know, the beginning of the pandemic, for sure. And I think it’ll continue to, to close as we move forward.

Tim Van Norman
Absolutely. We’re also focusing on teacher student relationship. In the classroom, I think that a lot of people looked at that as just built in this teachers talking the students listening, that’s a relationship. Online, that doesn’t work as well. Because frankly, you don’t see the student necessarily. But also in that we also want Student to Student Relationship, student to student interaction. So group work is a great example of how you can have students working together on something. And then having office hours, but also having where students are presenting to the teacher. Things that basically allow that student to teacher to have two way communication, not just somebody pontificating from the lectern. Yeah.

Brent Warner
Well, there’s, there’s so much conversation now amongst teachers about like, student centered learning. You know, we’ve talked about this for many, many years. But this idea, like, it’s not the sage on the stage, it’s the guide on the side, right? Like how are, you know, at the college level? You know, it’s like, are we really supporting these people as like, adults, right? Because it’s easy sometimes to treat students like children that don’t like, you know, like, you need to be told what to do. But there’s a real major, like, a sea change shift to it’s like, no, you guys are adults, we are people that could theoretically be, you know, sitting at a bar together just next to each other. Right? Like, we are all participants in society. And so how do I, how do I interact with you in a way that is, you know, supportive and guiding, but also like, you know, side by side, right with, with you helping you get through this process, rather than a top down type of process. And so there’s a lot of conversation around this. And I think, I feel like a lot of the technology really does help us to kind of get into that. So you know, at our school, we got pronto recently, that’s a great way to kind of just kind of informally and there’s different ways you could do it, but I use it kind of informally to connect with my students say, Hey, here’s a picture of, you know, kind of social media style where it’s like, Hey, I’m out at the, you know, at the lake, here’s a picture of the lake or whatever it is. And, and then also, some of these things are some of these edtech tools are similar to social media types of platforms, right. And so it’s like, Hey, I’m used to typing a quick note on Twitter and so I’m Okay to type a quick note on this type of thing, or, Hey, I’m used to making a video and guess what, you can make a little video in Padlet, or, you know, there’s all these different ones, these different approaches that you can make to help your students feel like they are almost family, like friend friendly family kind of that I know people get concerned about that. Like, no, we have to keep the relationship professional, and we have to keep those and those things are all true. But I think people are really exploring with like, how, how those blended together and how they can be, you know, a better, more. Yeah, just a more supportive, more friendly, and it’s not just about like, follow these rules. And a lot of teachers are trying to get rid of that out of their curriculum, right. It’s like, it’s not about following rules, it’s about showing me that you understand this content. And if you’re a quote, unquote, good student, or quote unquote, bad student or whatever, you know, whatever judgment that means, is trying to remove that from yourself, and then just really focusing on how well did they understand the things that we’re trying to talk about and learn about and that is a, a pretty big change that we’re seeing more and more of.

Tim Van Norman
And, frankly, we’ve learned in the past that if there’s a relationship between student and teacher, grades tend to improve, there tends to be a lot more understanding between the two parties, and stuff like that. And if something’s going wrong, people feel free to comment on it. Yeah. If something’s you know, if, if it is sage on the stage, no student wants to ever correct that person. Yeah, and so therefore, they get wrong information, because it was just a mistake that was made or something like that. So

Brent Warner
yeah. And it’s also interesting, too, because you’ll, I’m seeing teachers, they’re like, trying not only to learn their students names, which you know, some teachers still struggle with, but it’s like, I’m trying to learn your family members names and your and who your pets are, and what your favorite sports team is. And like, all of those things, so that they can really actually make a connection. Because what are the things that people really care about? Right, like in trying to trying to have a better connection with people that way? Because as you’re saying, like, hey, if they if they feel that you care, then they care about what you care about, too. Right. And so, so yeah, that is a great thing. I don’t know that I want to totally techie. I think that there’s all sorts of ways to approach that. But certainly there is technology that is helping us to, to be better at that, I think as well.

Tim Van Norman
Absolutely. And as we’re doing this, I think, I feel that there’s going to be yes, there will be some more online options for classes. But I think blended or hybrid, specifically learning is going to boom, I think there’s going to be a lot more of that there’ll be less face to face only. And I face to face only to me, is when you’re not using technology, outside the classroom. When you’re in the classroom, you’re that’s one thing. I see a lot of additional technology in the classroom as well. But having students hand in homework on a particular day in classroom in front of you with a piece of paper. That works in some cases, but that’s not going to be what you really want all the time, having giving them the extra few hours to be able to hand it in until six o’clock that night or the next morning or something like that. For some students that can make all the difference between success and failure. Yeah, yeah. Okay. First, for some procrastinators, it doesn’t matter, they’re going to do it at the end anyway. But sometimes you get that that hybrid approach allows for some extra abilities in that. And so just simply from that standpoint, handing in papers, is I think there’s you’re going to see more and more of the hybrid happening. Now, when it comes to teaching, I think hybrid also has a lot of advantage, you can lecture, but really are, how much of that is the students going to remember for the next class. What you can do is now have online, your lecture, you can have other resources for the students to remember and understand more fully what you did lecture about, if you even are going to lecture in person. Okay? But the ability to give that extra those extra tools. If you’re writing it down on the whiteboard, are you really going to write down a whole URL for when where somebody needs to? Hey, for more information, look at this article, and you’re going to write all the way across the board especially some of these articles. Get really really long with The URL. And yet in Canvas, it’s copy paste gun. Yeah. Oh, all

Brent Warner
the time. I mean, I’m always like, Oh, the links in Canvas, right? Yeah,

Tim Van Norman
exactly. Yeah. So and that becomes a hybrid that takes them. And how many students have their cell phone handy? All the time, most students, at least at the higher ed level are on their cell phones have their cell phones available, giving it giving them that technology tool to use for classroom to I think that’s a really good thing. And I think that trend is going to keep on increasing.

Brent Warner
I also kind of want to talk about this, you know, part of the way that my hybrid style is working right now. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna define slightly differently. So blended for me is like, hey, we do have online elements of the class for me, I’m going to call hybrid right now. Where we have one day in person and one day that’s on like, actually online class. Right. So synchronously. Yeah. So so for me synchronously. Some teachers do it asynchronously, but like, but for me, just at the moment, this is how I’m temporarily defining it, although be nice if everybody had the same definition. But the idea of coming physically together one day a week, and then being able to have the flexibility of logging in the other day, a week, I think, at the college level, I think we’re gonna see a lot more demand and or interest for that. Because then it’s like, okay, the effort to get to school, the effort to do all the things, it doesn’t have to be quite as much, right. And you’ll still see the people, you’ll still have the opportunities to interact with each other. But you’ll also have, you’re kind of like, there’s always kind of that solo work stuff, right. And so as teachers get better at setting up their lessons, and say, like, Hey, I know we’re gonna be together for this day. So this is the work of the group type of work that we’re going to be doing that really does require a social element to try. And here we’re doing, you know, on the, on the Wednesday class, we’re doing the, you know, the part where it’s like, yeah, you guys can talk to each other. Of course, there’s lots of online options, and zoom breakout rooms, and all the different things that you can do to talk with each other. But you don’t necessarily have it, you know, it’s okay for you not to be sitting next to somebody and it’s, you know, you can kind of spend 15 minutes working on this on your own, and then we’ll come back together. So I think that there’s gonna be maybe more desire for those types of setups, because then that allows you a lot of flexibility, right? When you’re done with that class, and you go click, and then you’re like, Alright, time to make dinner, or, you know, like, I don’t have to, it’s not going to be another 30 or 40 minutes before I just walk in the door home and get started with my next thing, right. And so. So I can see a lot of people having continued desired for this kind of flexibility between blended hybrid options for for their, you know, to fit into their lifestyle.

Tim Van Norman
Well, as well as in, in this area, we’ve got, we’re still in the middle of COVID. So if somebody is sick with COVID, you don’t want them in your classroom, but you want them to learn, and you want them to get those resources and stuff like that. So it’s how does that all work together, we still have to see, we really don’t know. There’s lots of opinions, there’s lots of thoughts, some better than others, but, but I think we’re gonna see more and more people paying attention to that. And thinking about that, and looking for that, as we go forward.

Brent Warner
Yeah, I’ve actually gotten some really interesting feedback from students on that too, like, because last semester, I had, we started off just like this semester, started off all online. And then we kind of came back when the school opened up, and we had one day on and one day off. And then I had students talking to me about like, reflecting on that process, and like, oh, this really does this, this works better for me. And that works better for me. And I really found that I’m, like, more successful in this type of setting or whatever it is. And so it’s not just teachers that are making these choices, the students themselves are coming to recognize, like, what what helps them get through their process as well. So I think it’s really fascinating. And then those students will in the future will be the teachers and they will be the you know, like they’re they’ll be the ones making the the policy decisions and the you know, the bigger ideas and all those things so, so we’ll see major shifts, because this huge group of students is coming through, we can have a whole nother conversation about the major dropout rates in college right now. And then the lower enrollment rates and all those things, but it’s just it’s it’s fascinating to see what is happening though.

Tim Van Norman
Great, not great. And along those lines, and this is something that I think we’re gonna see in face to face classes as well as outside the face to face classes and online hybrid, etc. Is gamification. Setting things up in a way that students feel challenged, feel accepted. Students love many students love games. And the idea of being able to play a game in a classroom, using the technology, the ability to look at your course and say, Hey, wait, I want to get an A in this course, what do I need to do to get an A, versus, you know what I’m okay with A, B, because I know that’s what my level is, how do I get a B, whatever that is, for that student, the ability to make it more interesting, more fun, engage them more. That’s gamification. And that is going to make a big difference going forward. We have a lot of students who, literally when they’re done with your class, they go home, and they spent three hours or four hours or five hours playing video games. Well, what if we could engage them somehow, in your class that way? Not that they’re going to spend four or five hours on your class, that would be amazing. But that’s not going to happen, most likely. But could we engage them in such a way that they’re thinking of it as fun as hey, I want to come, I want to be there, I want to see how this is going to work. I want to do better than my fellow student, I want to see who can succeed all of those things. Kahoot is an example of that. And we’ve talked about that, in the past, seeing students get engaged in one game of Kahoot. That alone can convince you that gamification is got a future.

Brent Warner
Yeah. Yeah. So the I was kind of laughing when I was looking at this article, because, once again, the distinction between gamification and game based learning was not quite clarified in the article. And so just to be clear on this, for those listening, you know, gamification is when the structure of the learning is using game elements, right? Where as game based learning is playing a game inside of class to learn something. And so I think that these are all really, so it’s interesting to talk about Kahoot, right? Because Kahoot shows us the what the potential for game if it’s a game based learning, but it shows us the potential for gamification, right? Because we’re saying, Hey, we’re looking at all of these, you know, structures, right, like things like leaderboards and things like the ability to retry and challenge yourself. And you know, do do the activity over again, right? Like you do it in, you know, I’ll simplify the game, but it’s like Super Mario, right? It’s like I failed the level. And we’re going to try it again, I failed the level, I’m going to try it again, you get better and better at it. And you kind of keep progressing until you get to the end of that level. So. So there’s a lot of really cool things that I think that if some of these edtech companies are continue to be wise, they’ll not only be focusing on making a game for people to play, which is the game based learning, but really structuring it in a way that grows the students continually. So I would be surprised if Canvas isn’t working on something like this in the background, right? Where it’s like, hey, like, Guess what, like, if you start doing these types of things, you’ll get more like it unlocks more things, right? Some of these elements exist individually, right? But if they started linking them together and saying, Oh, here’s a default template, you can just click and unlock this whole template, and then that’ll help students walk through these, and they’ll get their options. And we’re talking about before with this idea of like, hey, there’s a logic tree, and you can make your choice, and then that choice will give you a certain bonus. And, you know, I really see, the great future for LMS is to, to really structure themselves, or at least to have a component that allows for gamified learning.

Tim Van Norman
Agreed, I think this is going to be something. First of all, as going back to you as a teacher, it’s a whole lot more fun to have your teacher, your students engaged, and a whole lot more fun grading and stuff like that, when you have that variety. And so gamification, as well as game based learning can really enhance your classroom, whether it’s online, hybrid face to face, there’s lots of different tools and more tools coming out all the time. Yeah,

Brent Warner
I should also point out that I’m not saying that gamification is better than game based learning or game based learning is better. It’s, it’s, you know, you need to look at your context of what you’re trying to do and what you’re trying to achieve for your class. And, and one or the other. And sometimes, honestly, neither is the best choice to write like, you don’t always want it to be this like okay, here’s the thing, it’s like, well, let’s let’s just have a more organic, less competitive conversate you know, whatever it is, so So there’s all sorts of things and you need to make, you know, conscious decisions on when you’re making those choices to as you’re building your lessons and classes and all those types of things.

Tim Van Norman
Absolutely. One thing that I have seen that has progressed leaps and bounds just in this last two years is accessibility. And all the stuff that we’re talking about making content that’s available to all of your students, all of your, the people who might want to be looking at your content, whether they’re looking with their eyes, or looking with their ears, they can hear it and not see it or whatever. Captioning, there’s a lot of things that are coming up in your life meeting now zoom has captions that are built in, you just turn it on, you don’t have to have otter, you don’t have to have other systems, you can just have it captioned directly that didn’t exist two years ago. It’s a huge advancement. That one thing alone. Now, the fact that your videos can be captioned very quickly, we’ve got otter, we’ve got rev, there’s all kinds of different systems in place that you can have your videos captioned very quickly. And I’ve seen people try to do it with Google. Google itself, Google meet will actually live caption your presentation. Yeah, if you want that. So there’s a lot of different things that have happened with that. Also, course design, people are realizing that just throwing a whole bunch of text on a screen doesn’t look good. And doesn’t engage, and frankly, might not be the right way to do it. Putting images in and then putting the alternate text behind it, when you just different things that you can do to engage your students. Accessibility can fit in so nicely and honestly makes your course look better.

Brent Warner
Well, the other nice thing about that, Tim, is I think, even at the beginning of this shows only a few years ago, like you, if you probably listen to a few of the early episodes, you probably would have heard me, you know, wailing and complaining about how hard it is to make things accessible. And it’s like, it’s just, it sucked doing it, you know, it was like there’s so much work. And now, Canvas is at the point where it’s straight up gives you a little blinking icon that says, hey, this is you know, this is not readable in the accessibility like they can the contrast inside of your text or whatever is it needs to be fixed, right. And then we’ve got some of these other tools that we’ve got plugged in. So they’re all just like, click and run and we got grackle we did an interview with grackle. A while back in Google Docs, but you’ve also got things built right into into Canvas. I think it’s what is it, you do it or we’ve got you do it as well. Right? So like, a lot of these things are just great. Because all you don’t have to do anything anymore. It’s like it just tells you Oh, by the way, do you want to make this accessible? And it’s like just typing a couple words. Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ll definitely do it there. Right. So so the easier that makes it on the teachers to get these things done, the much more likely the teachers are to do it when it seems like a hurdle. When it seems like another mountain to climb just to get this one thing done. I get it, like teachers are tired, they’re burnt out. They don’t want to do all those extra things, right? But if it’s just like, hey, it’s not that hard. Here’s a quick little thing. And I’m and the the app itself is popping it right up there on the screen for you to simply do it right with one or two more clicks right, then it’s great. And that type of stuff really did not exist a couple of years ago, and is a lot more common. And even even Twitter has alt text options that are really easy to do if you if you upload a picture inside of it. Right. So. So yeah, it’s great. There’s been a lot of growth around accessibility for sure.

Tim Van Norman
I think we’re gonna, I’m hoping we’re going to see more and more of that, because we’re seeing we’re also identifying more and more people and going oh, wait, they can use this as well. While maybe, maybe you don’t need captions. Normally, sometimes it’s actually nice to have captions, because you get somebody who mumbles while you’re watching a movie or something, you see some some mouth movement, but you can’t really tell what that is. Well, all of a sudden at the bottom, it tells you, that’s amazing. Something that I’ve enjoyed. And so yeah, now I watch almost everything with captions on. So it’s things like that, that have become built into our lives. And I think that’s a really good thing. It’s useful for everybody and these trends that we’ve been talking about. I’m hoping they’re going to continue. I really do see especially accessibility, I think people are identifying more of that. More easier ways of happening of it happening. So, I think we’re gonna see some of these trends really keep rolling, especially in this next couple of years.

Brent Warner
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. And I think I think as people become more comfortable with it, it’s not as hard or it’s not as, it’s not as much of a challenge for people like it’s real big when you first start trying to do some of these things right. But like the like you said earlier on is like you do the little stuff. This time you do the little stuff the next time and it starts getting easier and easier for you every time moving into the future.

Tim Van Norman
Thank you for listening today. In this episode, we talked about 2022 Higher Ed, technology trends. For more information about the show, please visit our website at the higher ed tech podcast.com. There you will find our podcasts and links to the information we’ve covered.

Brent Warner
As always, we do want your feedback. So please go to the higher ed tech podcast.com. And let us know your thoughts. And if you have ideas for future shows, or if you just want to shout out and say hello, we’d love to hear from you. There is a link over there where you can give us some of your ideas or shout outs.

Tim Van Norman
For everyone at IVC that’s listening. If you need help with technology questions, please contact IVC Technical Support at extension 5696 or by emailing ivctech@ivc.edu. If you have questions about technology in your classroom, please contact me Tim Van Norman at tvannorman@ivc.edu.

Brent Warner
And if you want to reach out to me about the show, you can find me on Twitter or Instagram at @BrentGWarner.

Tim Van Norman
I’m Tim Van Norman,

Brent Warner
and I’m Brent Warner and we hope this episode has helped you on the road from possibility to actuality. Have a good one everybody. Talk to you later.