Day Ten Teaching Evening (or Extended Time) Classes

Most of us have invited guest speakers to contribute to the learning of our students. In the evening, they can be one of those appealing activities to use to break up the evening and capture the attention and imagination of your students. Sometimes, securing a speaker during the day can be easier than evening because people consider it part of their jobs. Availability may be more restricted at night too because of personal obligations or the distance the speaker lives or works from BHC. As a result, today’s idea is about suggestions for inviting guest speaker presence when he/she is unable to attend the class in person in the evening.

Have you ever thought how exciting it would be to have the author of your textbook visit your class? Or a leader in your field (academic) or profession (working professional) that does not live in the BHC district? Or an expert of any kind who could contribute to your class for 10-15 minutes on a very focused topic? How about one of these alternative methods to an in-class presentation?

1. Have Andy create a guest account to your CE8 course site for the speaker. [If you don’t already have a CE8 site, he can create one for you for this purpose.] Invite your speaker to join your class in the CE8 chat room for a live interview/discussion. Students can access the chat box from their own lab computers to post their individual questions or comments, and to follow the discussion. Tip: Have your students discuss ahead of time the questions they’d like to ask or topics they’d like the speaker to address. Then, send these to the speaker in advance. You may find it helpful to moderate the Q&A time if you have more than 10 students in class so that the conversation is more controlled. You can save the transcript of the text conversation to revisit later or more fully discuss in class. Sharing the transcript with the speaker may also generate follow-up comments or ideas from him/her, as well.
   
2. Sign-up to get a free Elluminate V-room (or borrow mine!). Send the URL to your guest speaker with very simple instructions,*** including when to join you and your class online. Then, pull up Internet Explorer or Firefox on your classroom computer and project it on the big screen. You and your students can interview/interact with your guest live! Students can ask questions orally by sharing your instructor microphone, or they can direct their questions to you or another student to type into the chat box. The V-room also has a white board area, so the guest can upload PowerPoint slides, a Web site or other demo, or other informative visual to display while he/she is talking.
   
3. Invite the speaker to audio record a short presentation or commentary that you can listen to in class (Audacity is a free download audio recorder; If you wish, you can edit the recording or cut it into pieces or ask the TLC to assist you with either task). Once the recording is ready, you can listen to it in class and brainstorm questions for your guest speaker, posting them as topics in an online discussion board. Invite the speaker to join you in the online discussion throughout the week. Students can be encouraged to join in the conversation all week, as well. Of course, you can have the speaker post the audio presentation to your CE8 or Sungard site and then conduct the Q&A live using method one or two above during class, as well.
   
4. Teach poetry? How about inviting some poets to read their poetry live using one of the above methods?
   
5. Want to direct your contact with a guest speaker to real-world settings? How about creating written scenarios/off-site video clips/case studies of common challenges or problems your guest might deal with at work and invite his/her analysis of the situation? Using any of the methods above to discuss the scenario, students have a chance to interact with the real world in meaningful ways. These can be short as well! Perhaps one per week on a problem that relates to that week’s course concepts?
   
6. If your students produce projects or designs, you might like to invite professionals in the area to do a project review. Students could post their projects online. Then, you could ask the guest to come to class live one night using the methods above and share his/her comments/suggestions, answer questions, etc.

***Instructions for live presenters using Elluminate V-room:

1. Purchase an inexpensive, USB headset with microphone or borrow one.
   
2. Visit the V-room site a day or two before to perform the automated computer checkup and audio wizard. A small download may be necessary, which you don’t want the speaker to have to do during your class time. http://www.elluminate.com/support
   
3. Practice a bit with you [instructor] so that the speaker is comfortable with the interface and how it will work. [Easy to learn and to use, but to minimize downtime or confusion, practicing a bit is always wise!] Explain your “moderator” role in the chat box.