PALMS Newsletter

ChemEye and iClass Content YoTeach! By PALMS Introduction to PALMS Project TEAL inventory Welcome Message from Project Leader: Fridolin Ting Badaboom! A better Kahoot! Events this 2017-2018 Academic year Upcoming Events @PolyU_PALMS @polyu_palms @PALMSPolyU PALMSPolyU As project leader, it is my pleasure to present the first issue our PolyU PALMS newsletter. Some of you might be wondering what our PALMS project is all about and what we are trying to achieve. We like to think that the development of active learning pedagogies through cutting edge technologies to increase student engagement in STEM higher education is what we are all about! Our goal is to connect academics and educators like yourself to promote closer collaborations, supported through a common desire to improve our students’ learning experience and outcomes through active learning methods and complementary technology in STEM education. We hope this newsletter will inspire you to try out something new in class, or give you an idea on how to improve student engagement. In this direction, we want to give you a glimpse of our project developments and inter-university collaborations with our project partners, the ways we are working together to keep our broad educational community moving forwards and the exciting things that are happening as a result. we’ll be introducing our newest developments, YoTeach! and Badaboom! Promoting YoTeach! and Badaboom! through various social media platforms has been key to increasing our visibility to help us better engage with followers and monitor success. We recognize a considerable part of our success is attributed to the role social media plays. Hence, our efforts have been focused on social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and Instagram are our four most important digital communications channels. These platforms, including our PALMS website, have been the source of our promotion of our YoTeach! and Badaboom! applications. Additionally, our plan is to continue to increase activity on our Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and Instagram pages by better utilizing the engagement tools and making better use of visitor analytics. Well it’s been a fascinating journey so far! It’s also been a busy and exciting few months to say the least! Busy, and productive! I hope this newsletter will give you a sense of the range and significance of our accomplishments as well as keep you informed of our upcoming events, news and updates on the progress of our exciting and rewarding 3-year UGC funded project. We are committed to being open and transparent about the work we are doing and we look forward to our continued work with our project partners in the coming years. Remember our door is always open and we welcome any ideas or comments you might have about our PALMS project! Featuring our 1st Mobile App: ChemEye by Dr. Gray HO & Prof. Albert LEE (HKBU) We’d like to highlight the work of one of our project partners and discuss the work they are doing. In analytical chemistry, colorimetry is a technique that is applied for the quantitative determination of colored compounds in solution, e.g., heavy metals, sugars, proteins, food preservatives, environmental pollutants, and other molecules. The ChemEye app, developed by Dr. Gray Ho and Professor Albert Lee and his team from HKBU, is an app that turns any smartphone into a portable spectrophotometer. The app allows students to read and interpret concentration values of the substances they measure and perform colorimetric experiments at anytime and anywhere, thereby providing additional teaching and learning activities in and/or after class. Students are able to use the app as a platform to develop their own analytical methods for colorimetry, in which problem-solving, analytical reasoning and critical thinking skills are sharpened. The methodology developed will be used in chemistry courses, integrated science and general education courses at HKBU and expanded to other universities. Furthermore, the user-app interface design employs on-demand tooltips, so that information and instructions are revealed just-in-time as the user progresses through the workflow. In the further collaboration with the Apps Resource Centre at HKBU, new functions will be added to the ChemEye app for improvement. ChemEye is now available on Google Play and Apple Store. YoTeach! now on Cloud: https://yoteachapp.com/ http://palms.polyu.edu.hk/educational-apps/yoteach/ We’ve been promoting YoTeach! by leveraging social media streams such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as a broadcasting platform to maximize awareness and impact. Awareness and interest in YoTeach! is high and use of the platform is on the rise with an increasingly diverse user base. YoTeach! continues to gain traction and resonate with an increasing number of users, with an average of 20 rooms made every day. We currently have 2800 rooms opened as of November 21, 2018. So what are you waiting for? Start using YoTeach! today at: http://yoteach.hk/ or our YoTeach! on cloud at http://yoteachapp.com. We argue that pedagogical change requires a catalyst and that digital learning can provide such a catalyst. With educational technology propelling us into the forefront of education and everyone trying to keep up, we believe our YoTeach! back-channel platform is the coolest thing since sliced bread! We're not exaggerating either! We believe YoTeach! is hands down the coolest educational app in the galaxy - okay may be not coolest app in the cosmos yet but we sure feel like we’re heading there! Take it from us – we like it when technology is able to solve pedagogical problems in our classrooms. This being said, we feel it is important for teachers and students to be engaging interactively, allowing them to communicate with each other, expressing their thoughts in more dynamic ways and engaging in meaningful conversations. In conventional teaching, students are typically passive learners – when they are asked a question, the class turns absolutely silent and many students cast their eyes downward. The teacher may try to coax participation out of students before a brave student musters the courage to ask, “We don’t understand – could you please explain again?” Or some students may be shy or hesitant to ask questions in front of their classmates, thinking that their questions are “stupid.” Our YoTeach!, web-based backchannel chat platform for classroom teachers and students, developed by our PALMS team, solves this by allowing students to ask any question they may have, without feeling embarrassed. Moreover, YoTeach!, allows them to actively participate in discussions or chat rooms created by instructors, thereby increasing participation, engagement and peer interaction. To get ahead of the game, you have to stay ahead of the game! But at PALMS, we’re also on top of our game! We believe, with the right tools we can make a difference in the ways our students actively engage within the classroom. So we’ve developed a better Kahoot!, a game-based classroom response system called Badaboom! We're REALLY excited to show off our new game-based digital learning platform Badaboom which we think is a game changer! Badaboom! is based off an open-source project using the current framework and customized to accommodate newly added functionalities and features. We think Badaboom! is the granddaddy of game-based classroom response systems but we’ll let you be the judge of that! Why? Because Badaboom! is not just your typical game-based classroom response system that incorporates different gaming elements. It’s much more than that. The unique functionalities and gameplay experience in Badaboom! is what makes it stand out from the rest of the crowd! We’ve not only incorporated all the gaming elements of Kahoot! such as goals, rules, competitions, timing, reward structures and feedback - we’ve also incorporated new functions and features including a selection of question types that include multiple choice questions and surveys, options to enter questions as mathematical equations with LaTex Output and support for images, word clouds, emoji, formulas and videos from YouTube and/or Vimeo embedded in question and answer choices. If you are looking for a fun way to liven up the delivery of content in your classroom, look no further than Badaboom! What are you waiting for? Get started now at http://www.badaboom.hk/ or find out more at http://palms.polyu.edu.hk/educational-apps/badaboom/. Why we choose Badaboom! How to use Badaboom! https://ajet.org.au/index.php/AJET/article/view/4472dings At PALMS, we continue to evaluate the measures of success by disseminating project results and outcomes of the project through dissemination activities that contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Right from the outset, monitoring and evaluation have been an integral part of our project planning and execution. In order to achieve the highest possible impact of our project activities and best contribute to supporting and strengthening collaboration with our project partners and members, we continue to systematically monitor and evaluate progress and achievement of the project. This includes: Besides being invited to numerous workshops to demo our two apps, YoTeach! and Badaboom!, we also organized a UGC T&L Project Meeting (Active Learning in STEM Education) on April 17, 2018 to gain a comprehensive update and overview on projects and activities from participating university project partners and members including a presentation report by the Principal Project Investigator on budget expenditure, key accomplishments, educational research planned and timelines for achieving the deliverables according to the project objectives One of our key highlights this year was our Mini Symposium on Technology Enhanced Active Learning (TEAL) in Tertiary STEM Education" held on 27 June 2018 at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The minisymposium provided us an opportunity to showcase our project’s achievements and activities and also raise awareness of new pedagogies and technologies to advance active learning in STEM Education Events this 2017-18 Academic Year The symposium highlighted emerging use cases and opportunities but also discussed the evolving challenges of active learning in STEM Education. Our diverse and dynamic group of speakers and panelists provided in-depth insight through experience sharing and exchange of innovative ideas. They not only shared invaluable perspectives, fresh ideas and approaches to active learning, but also shared their practical experiences. Inevitably, the perspectives and dissemination of knowledge that occurred in the symposium will contribute to our learning process as we continue to leverage and explore new pedagogies and technologies to advance active learning in STEM Education. We’d like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who attended this event. We also would like to thank all our university partners for sharing their ideas and expertise and for making this event possible. From the entire PALMS team, we look forward to seeing you next year! The success of our mini symposium was the direct result of not only the attendees and presenters but also the efforts of our PALMS team who worked hard to make the symposium a success. Academics, experts and advocates of active learning pedagogies from a wide range of interests and disciplines from Hong Kong tertiary institutions explored various approaches to technology enhanced active learning in tertiary STEM education and shared insights from their experiences. A keynote speech was given by Professor Eric Tsui of PolyU, followed by a moderated panel discussion on the progress of TEAL in HK university STEM education. Poster presentations and hands-on sessions on recently developed novel mobile apps in STEM education were also show- cased following two afternoon workshops on "Frontiers of TEAL in Medicine" and "Supporting Visualization in STEM." Mini Symposium 23&24/August/2018 @ AAB 506, HKBU Presentation of active learning APPs Clickers Workshop PALMS Events in 2017-2018 The role of mathematics in stem education 15/Mar/2018 @ The Zone, PolyU 23/August/2018 @ TU411, PolyU Coding Made Easy App Making Challenge 17/Apr/2018 @ Zone, PolyU 17/Apr/2018 @ Zone, PolyU UGC T&L meeting ELC Playdate 29/August/2018 @ FG815, PolyU Photo Gallery: http://palms.polyu.edu.hk/photos/ Piloting of video peer assessment using IClass 27/June/2018 @ TU107, PolyU Upcoming PALMS Events 2018-2019 For More: https://www.ltexpo.com.hk/LTE/expo-programme/