BP8_RILS Publication

Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario
ConceptShare
Dorreen Petersen Davis

1.     Brief Overview – If you are an instructor who teaches any of the arts you will be critiquing student artwork. Sometimes those critiques are instructor-to-student, student-to-student or both. Traditionally this is done either in person or via email. With larger class sizes it is hard to get to everyone in a timely manner, and if you do student group critiques the students will talk more about the weather than the artwork. If done via email it is cumbersome and response time is not immediate. ConceptShare makes sharing more collaborative and easy for both the student and instructor.

Senior students also are required to have at least 3 faculty members and the director critique their final portfolio – a very time consuming process for the student to connect with faculty. ConceptShare would make this process much easier and everyone involved could see other comments allowing them to look at other areas. Other processes that have been tried so far have not been real successful.

2. Target Audience (TA) - Fellow colleagues at the college we teach at. I invited seven of the graphic design instructors and Director for a total of eight.

3. Materials–

·     Computer

·     Email request for participation, which included quick start instructions on use of program and video links. 

·     Invite link to ConceptShare from me.

·     Four assets in ConceptShare for the TA to critique. Will ask each TA to comment on at least two assets, add artwork, and go back in later and reply to at least one comment. Would like them to learn how the program works as much as possible.

·     Google Doc form questionnaire about their experience.

4.   Objectives–

At the end of this scenario, the learners will be able to:

·     Understand how ConceptShare works.

·     Apply the majority of tools when critiquing a student’s artwork and be able to add another student’s work for others to critique.

·     Analyze and evaluate ConceptShare.

·     Compare ConceptShare to currently used process of student reviews and give recommendations on either using this tool at the school or suggest another alternative.

5.   Procedure –

·     Will work on tool myself and write all elements I want the TA to use

·     Send an email that will explain ConceptShare and any instructions on its use (possibly a video), my timeline for scenario, and for them to watch for their invite to look at the tool.

·     Send them their invite and link to Google form.

·     After reviewing forms will look at information received and make a conclusion.

6.   Web 2.0 Tool – ConceptShare is a tool where once a company or school purchase the usage rights can have any of their clients, workers, students upload their artwork, photography, videos, etc. for others to look at and make comments. This is a desktop-like application. 

7.   Social Participation/Social Learning–

·     An email that requests participation in the RILS, what I will be sending them in a couple days. This will also include a quick start instructions, a link to ConcpetShare website, and recommend videos to watch that demonstrates how ConceptShare work.

·     Send email of objectives and deadline for their trial.

·     Once I set up the learners as a reviewer, ConceptShare will send an invite via email linking to workstations I have set up. In the workstation will be several students artwork for them to critique.

·     ConceptShare will automatically send an email to all participants when anyone makes a comment, add an asset or reply to an existing comment. The email shows the asset and comment made and has another link back to ConceptShare, making it easy for them to go back and reply.

·     Once they are done will fill in questionnaire and submit back to me.

8.   Making Connections –

·     Instructors will work and understand the desktop-type application features to create workspaces, add assets and comment on projects.

·     Instructors will find this relevant and connect with the tool, as this could be a more efficient way for them to critique student work.

·     Instructors will connect easier with both students and other instructors as they interact with all those involved.

·     Instructors will discover how easy the collaboration is between students and colleagues.

9.   Create/Produce –

Because of how ConceptShare I will set up the account and invite the target audience in. Each participant will go into a workspace and make comments on assets (artwork) provided using the different tools and reply to at least one other reviewer. They must also add assets for others to comment on as well. When complete there should be at least ten pieces of art in the workspace they were given and an unlimited number of comments and replies.

10. Assessment –

TA will receive a link for a questionnaire with very specific questions and an area for comments and reactions to the tool. I will also meet and interview as many as possible about their experience and how they feel this can be used at our school.

11. Reflection –

During the scenario I too received emails of the learners comments, addition of assets and replies. This showed me if they understood ConceptShare. I would go into the workspace and see how they were using the tools to critique the artwork given and if they are adding other assets. Once I received the questionnaire I analyzed and evaluated their reflections on ConceptShare. Their interview added to their overall opinion of the tool and what if any recommendations they had to use or not to use at the school.

The process was challenging in the beginning and there were a couple of glitches I had to overcome. With the short time frame I had to work in a couple different directions at once. I had to get the correct trial version that was going to fill the outcomes I wanted from the RILS. Once I got the trial and received a quick review of the features I put together a workspace and set up the management for the reviewers. At the same time, I had to send out an email requesting the learners’ participation, introduce them to ConceptShare, and set their deadline. I finally got the workspaces up, reviewers set up and introduced only to find out they couldn’t get into the areas; so back to the drawing board. Next day, I worked with my rep and got the problem solved and re-invited everyone again. Now it was working but my time frame was shortened by 24 hours and not everyone was responding. I sent out another plea and success, they started critiquing. A day later, several of the reviewers couldn’t get back in to see the replies of their comments. So I had to go back in and figure out what happened. I determined that I had allowed them too much management capabilities and someone removed everyone from the workspace. Therefore, had to add them all back in. Looking back I feel I needed to have met with all of them as a group (extremely difficult to do) to do a mini-seminar on the tools and features.

Ultimately, when everything was working and everyone was making comments and adding assets, etc. this RILS was a success. The target audience thought this was a good tool to use for in class critiques and especially for our senior portfolio critiques.  In the area of the tool they had control over they felt it was easy to use and that students would be able to use it as well. They were mixed on whether they thought the student would use it. All of them said that they would use it if we had it available and would like to seem more on the tool. So hopefully during our break we can get together and look at it more closely.