This past week, in the OLC Teaching Certificate program, I stumbled upon an individual who was using something called Actively Learn within the course they were developing. I’m always keen to check out new technologies, and I wasn’t let down by this one!
Actively Learn allows you to create deeper engagement and instructor presence in an asynchronous environment by allowing you to provide markup within your readings and incorporate interactive quizzing. Once I watched the demo for this application, I knew I had to make a push to my faculty members to begin using it within their online courses. So far, I’ve demoed it to 2 people and recommended it to 3 people currently developing courses…and it’s only been three days!
I see it being useful for courses that require a good amount of synthesis, as it can allow students to form more well-rounded understanding of the readings instead of just passively engaging with the materials. I also think that by combining questions (which the students must answer before moving on) allows the students to have a greater understanding of the materials as a whole, which may in turn lead to greater academic achievement.
I recorded a quick demo (below), and it’s obvious that I’m still new to the technology myself, but I wanted to show both the teacher and student perspective. Check it out and see how you can make Actively Learn work for you!
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