Drawing tablet in the Virtual Classroom meeting

This article will show an example of how to use drawing tablet in Virtual Classroom meeting.

Drawing tablet in the Virtual Classroom meeting - cover image

Course: FPE10808 Food Production Chains (around 160 students)
Period: Period 6 

In this article you will find:

Short introduction and background

Introduction and story behind the emergence of this learning activity. What was the need, what issue/problem was the teacher facing and wanted to resolve? 

As we had to move on short notice to online, we have not changed a lot in our course. What we did do was making a very clear structure and a schedule that explained everything the students had to do per day. This offered structure and guidance to them. In addition, we scheduled plenty of contact hours.  

Our lectures we did in Virtual Classroom. This way there was room for interaction and asking questions, just like in an on-campus lecture. About 2/3 of our students was present during these lectures. The virtual classroom sessions were recorded, so the rest could watch them from home, and everybody could review them at a later time as well.  

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For tutorials we sometimes used a drawing tablet, the wacom. This made it possible to directly react on questions of students. The drawing tablet made it possible to directly respond to questions from students; we could draw a flow chart or process, or do step-by-step calculations. As you would do when you have a whiteboard. Tutorials were not recorded. This might have helped for the students to be less reluctant with asking questions. Recording might potentially decrease the feeling of safety within a learning environment.  

We especially think that these many moments of interaction benefitted our course. To student we indicated that they could communicate with us via the public and the private chat. Many students welcomed the opportunity to have this one-on-one contact with the teachers.  

Relevant tools / apps (software) or hardware used

Learning outcome(s)

What has been learned after this lesson/activity has been executed ?

During the tutorials, students practiced with calculating various parameters in different process designs.  

Lesson idea / Learning activity

Specific description and demonstration of the lesson idea/learning activity.

In interactive tutorials, students were given various exercises. Depending on the questions asked, explanation was given using the drawing tablet. The drawing tablet was used the drawing tablet via Microsoft Whiteboard. 

 

When using a drawing tablet in a virtual classroom session, it is nice that you can move around with the screen. You can make a new drawing, but you can also easily go back to a previous screen. Especially convenient if students work on different exercises with a different speed. 

Lessons learned / Tips

Mentions tips lecturer has for colleagues based on their experience.

Especially for a first tutorial, it is convenient to be with two teachers in the virtual classroom. One can give some explanation using the microphone, the other is answering questions via the chat. 

Figure 1: A drawing tablet, used during a Virtual Classroom tutorial

Figure 1: A drawing tablet, used during a Virtual Classroom tutorial, comes in handy to explain exercise that require drawings or calculations and in direct respond to students’ questions.  

Contacts

Teacher(s): Anja Jansen, Melanie van Berkum
TLC contact (on MS Teams): Barbara van Mossevelde
Author (interviewer): Barbara van Mossevelde 

Attachments

Figure 2: Detailed course schedule outlines all daily activities

Figure 2: Detailed course schedule outlines all daily activities

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