The final project for the ETC course was a challenging one for me because I had some technical difficulties while shooting video of my students working together and also when recording their comments about the two tools we used. Fortunately the audio recording I made was good enough for me to jot down notes with their feedback, however it was not of sufficient quality to include audio excerpts. I need to figure out a better way to record audio statements that can be imported into iMovie.
I also had some challenges recording the voice-over narration within iMovie. Every time I tried to record, the recorder would cut in and out and I would lose part of the narration. I didn’t have the time to figure out what I was doing wrong, so I decided to record the audio as a podcast in GarageBand and exported it to my iTunes library. I was then able to drag and drop the entire audio file into the project in iMovie. From there it took me a bit of time to adjust the timing of my visual elements – most of which were photos that I imported from my iPhoto library.
I really appreciated the assistance of my Executive MBA students in the Lubar School of Business for their help with this project. They were willing to try out Dabbleboard and Simple Diagrams on fairly short notice and gave me some excellent feedback on the tool. If you have any interest in using visual thinking strategies, I highly recommend that you check out these tools. Thanks for your interest in my work. Feel free to share your comments below.
For those of you who are interested, here is the Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario Plan that I submitted before implementing this activity on January 21st, 2011. Feel free to try it yourself!
1. Target Audience:
The target audience for this Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) consists of the 14 executive managers who are currently enrolled in my graduate course in strategic management. There are 11 men and 3 women in the class and they range in age from 25 to 49. Five students are employed by non-profit organizations and nine people work at for-profit firms in the financial services, grocery, household fixtures, and a variety of manufacturing businesses. Each person in the class has at least five years of management experience, however, most have more than that, yet only one student has an undergraduate degree in business. One student holds doctorates in engineering and computer science and another is a licensed cardiologist. This course is the capstone in the executive MBA program and is intended to integrate the knowledge students have gained in other business disciplines, such as marketing, finance, economics, accounting, information systems, leadership, statistics, business law and operations management.
2. Materials:
In order to complete this RILS activity, each student will need to have a copy of Dan Roam’s book entitled The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, and a copy of Michael Copeland’s August 16, 2010 Fortune article entitled Google: The Search Party is Over. In addition, each student will need to have access to a computer and Internet connection or be willing to share computers with each other. It would also be nice to have a video projector and screen attached to a computer so we can project the visual thinking diagrams for everyone to see. Finally, each student will need to create a free Dabbleboard account. If students elect to draw their diagrams by hand on a piece of paper, we will also need access to a scanner so we can scan their diagrams and upload those image files to the Dabbleboard website. Since I will also be interviewing students about their reactions to the Dabbleboard tool, I will need a microphone, digital video camera and tripod to document their comments.
3. Objectives:
One of the primary objectives I have for this course is to help my students develop their skills as strategic thinkers and be able to use those skills to solve problems. Over many years of teaching the course, I have realized that it is important to use visual thinking strategies to explore various dimensions of strategic problems, communicate effectively and design practical solutions that add value for the organization. So in this course I adopted a book by Dan Roam called The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. We are just beginning to read and apply Roam’s visual thinking techniques this week, so it is a perfect time to ask students to use Dabbleboard, a web-based interactive whiteboard, to share their diagrams with each other and further develop their visual thinking skills.
The primary objectives for this RILS activity are as follows:
Objective #1 – Help everyone get familiar with the Dabbleboard tool – take a short tour of the site, create a free account, and learn how to share the whiteboard canvas so we can work collaboratively to create visual thinking diagrams.
Objective #2 – Have each student create at least one diagram that applies one of the visual thinking techniques from Roam’s book to the Google article that has been assigned for the week.
Objective #3 – Use Dabbleboard to share and revise our visual thinking diagrams and stimulate face-to-face discussion of the tool and the diagrams that students have created.
4. Procedure:
I sent the following email to my students at 12pm CST on Monday January 17 to request their participation in this activity:
Hello members of Team Undefined, EDJE and Road Scholars.
I hope the rest of your classes went well on Saturday and that all of the Packer and Bear fans in the class were able to enjoy their team's playoff victory.
As you may recall, I am currently enrolled in a Master's program in Educational Media Design and Technology (EMDT). I was just given an assignment that I hope you will be willing to help me with, since you are the only students with whom I am working right now. I am also hoping that participating in thi activity will help you get started on the final course project - your review of some Web 2.0 tools that can be used to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing.
For our next class on January 21, I have asked you to read Part I of Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures and apply some of his visual thinking and problem solving techniques to the article on Google that is posted in the Content Area of D2L. For my EMDT assignment (and your final project on Web 2.0 tools), I would also like you to try out a Web 2.0 tool called Dabbleboard - a web-based interactive whiteboard that can be used to share your diagrams of the Google article with me and the rest of your study group.
I would really appreciate it if you would take the following steps before we meet on the 21st -
1) Visit the website at http://www.dabbleboard.com and take the short tour that is highlighted on the home page;
2) Sign up for a free account and let me know what username and email you used to create your account;
3) Use the Dabbleboard tool to create a diagram that applies one of the visual thinking techniques to the Google article or create your diagram by hand (or by using another diagramming program) and upload an image of your diagram to your library on the Dabbleboard site;
4) If you have access to a laptop, please bring it with you to class on Friday, Jan 21 so we can access and use Dabbleboard during class. I will have two MacBook Pros available to share if you do not have access to or do not want to bring your laptop to class. Unfortunately the Dabbleboard site uses Flash, so it is not compatible with the iPad.
5) I will also offer 4-5 extra credit points to the first two people who create a Visual Thinking Toolkit with at least four elements and upload it to the public library in Dabbleboard by class time on Jan 21. Please send me an email if you are taking advantage of the extra credit opportunity and name your toolkit "Visual Thinking Toolkit 712" so we can all find it easily and copy it to our libraries in Dabbleboard. The extra credit points can either be used to replace another application assignment or be added to your total points at the end of the course - the choice is yours.
Toward the end of class on Friday I will ask you to share your feedback on the Dabbleboard tool and how you might use it in the future - feel free to incorporate that feedback into your end of class project on Web 2.0 tools.
Please let me know if you have any questions and also send me an email if you intend to take advantage of the extra credit opportunity. Thanks for your help and I hope you have some fun exploring dabbleboard. I'll see you on Friday. Have a great week.
Dr. Jude Rathburn
On Friday, January 21st our class meets from 2:30 – 5:00pm and we will spend most of that time sharing our diagrams and discussing the article about Google. At the beginning of class I will ask for one person from each of the three study groups to volunteer to share his/her diagram with the rest of us using the sharing feature within Dabbleboard. I will project those diagrams, one at a time, on the big screen and ask the creator to talk us through his/her diagram. We will then break into smaller groups and each group will add their own ideas to the original diagrams – thereby trying out the “real-time” collaboration features of Dabbleboard.
After about 15-20 minutes we will come back together as a large group and take a look at how the diagrams have changed, with each group explaining the changes they made to the original diagram. After comparing the three group diagrams, we will then be able to step back and discuss if there is anything missing from the diagrams. I will be curious to see if an “anchoring bias” affected the group diagrams or if group members were able to move beyond the restricted viewpoint of the original diagrams to incorporate a broader perspective. The final step will be to discuss their experiences using this tool and share ideas about how they might use it in their own work environments.
5. Web 2.0 Tool:
Dabbleboard, an interactive electronic whiteboard and collaboration tool that can be found at http://www.dabbleboard.com
6. Social Participation/Social Learning:
This RILS activity incorporates social participation and social learning in a couple of important ways. First of all, at least three students will share their visual thinking diagrams with the rest of the class and talk us through their diagrams. I expect that we will discuss the ideas that are presented and also make comments on the various visual thinking techniques that each presenter chose to include in his/her diagram. The second opportunity for social interaction and learning will occur when the students break into their smaller study groups (4-5 people in a group) and start revising the original diagram that was shared by a member of their group. I anticipate that each group will have a lively and highly interactive discussion of what should be added or deleted from the original diagram in order for the final product to include elements that each group member deems important. The third opportunity for social interaction will occur when each study group shares their revised diagram with the rest of the class and talks us through the changes that were made and the rationale behind those changes. We will also be able to compare the diagrams of each group to determine if anything is missing and if the collaborative diagrams actually incorporated elements from each group member’s diagram. Finally, in our debriefing session, students will have the opportunity to share their reactions to the Dabbleboard tool and discuss how they might use this tool in their own work environment, thus learning from each other and coming up with a variety of scenarios in which this tool might facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing in the future.
7. Making Connections:
Throughout the first eight weeks of the course we have used a variety of different techniques to encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing. Students have worked in their study groups to create concept maps, design and deliver short presentations, participate in online discussion forums and provide peer reviews of presentations. As we discuss their experiences with Dabbleboard, it will be fairly easy to ask them to compare our use of this tool with the experiences they have had throughout the course using other collaboration tools. I am also curious to see if any students take advantage of the extra credit opportunity and create a visual thinking toolkit that can be copied and used by other members of the class – another way to build connections among team members. Finally, I am curious to hear their reactions about how the use of Dabbleboard made them feel about their drawing skills – did it make it less (or more) intimidating to share their drawings with each other? We have already had some thought-provoking discussions of our fears about sharing our visual thinking and drawing skills in public – so it will be interesting to see if this type of tool impacts that fear.
8. Create/Produce:
Each student will create a diagram that applies the visual thinking technique of their choice from Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, to the article entitled Google: The Search is Over. Students have the option of creating their diagram using the Dabbleboard tools or by using some other diagramming program or hand-drawing and upload their diagram to their Dabbleboard library before class. During class we will also create some collaborative diagrams as we share the diagrams created by individual class members and revise them in real time to incorporate insights from our face-to-face discussion.
9. Reflection:
Each student will reflect on his/her experience using the Dabbleboard tool to create their individual diagrams and also the process of sharing diagrams with each other and updating them in real time. Students will also reflect on how they might be able to use this tool in their own work environment to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing. In addition, students will have the option to include this tool in their final project – reviewing three Web 2.0 tools that can be used in the workplace to help people share ideas and collaborate more effectively.
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