Using Technology to Enable Lightweight Teams
Mary Lebens
Anoka Technical College
Abstract
Do your group projects suffer from the dreaded “free-riders”, students who receive a grade but don’t participate? This presentation explains how higher education instructors can use lightweight teams to get rid of the “free-rider” problem. The lightweight team methodology uses freely available educational technology to develop engaging team projects and to encourage positive collaboration between students. Using lightweight teams helps instructors assess outcomes more accurately than traditional group projects. This methodology can be used in face-to-face, hybrid, or online courses. A brief demonstration of relevant educational technologies is included in the presentation.
CommentsTech Resources covered in presentation:
- Prezi for Presentations: www.prezi.com
- Jing by Techsmith: https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
- iMovie (free for Macs and iPads purchased in 2013 or later): Free download in the App Store
- Screencast-O-Matic: https://screencast-o-matic.com/home
- WeVideo: https://www.wevideo.com
- Good old D2L aka BrightSpace or Blackboard
Author Biography
Mary Lebens, Anoka Technical College
Mary Lebens is a student-centered college instructor as well as a systems analyst and application developer. She teaches mobile software development for Android and iOS, video game development using C# and C++, and web development using JavaScript and ASP.NET. Prior to becoming a full-time faculty member at Anoka Technical College, she worked for thirteen years in industry as a software engineer and systems analyst for Minneapolis-based organizations such as Oracle, Lifetouch, and Hennepin County Medical Center.
