Virtual flashlight

Contribution to the learning process

This is a simple method to give and receive feedback regarding content and relations.

To see how virtual flashlight is integrated in the FyR project, see "Online cooperation in your river project".

Targets

With the purpose of evaluation the participants provide feed-back concerning contents and relations of the passed project or a part of the project.

IT-Tool

Forum:

• Book of the River > My Book (Login) > our partnerships > Work spaces with partner schools > (select your work space) > Forum

The Forum is not open to the public and is only available to you and your partner group.

Possibly also chat.

Required time for preparation and realization

low

Time needed

1 hour

Target group

Groups of learners from different places who have already cooperated with each other in the FyR project

Requirements and preparation

Questions, method, duration, and rules should be agreed upon beforehand with all participants.

It should be stressed that

• Each participant is allowed to present his/her personal view and; 
• These statements are not to be commented on or graded by teachers.

The tutor must ensure that these rules are followed.
The activity should be planned so that all groups can participate simultaneously.
The forum has to be prepared with, a welcome note posted as new entry.

Activity

Start

Participants are welcomed to the activity with the note written by the tutor.

Main phase

• Each participant writes a short statement where describing his/her feelings and views of the project, the group, and learning process.  
• All participants can read all statements. 
• No comments should be written in response to any statement.

Finish

The participants end the online work.

Post-activity

The tutor evaluates the statements and presents the feedback to the group. The feedback should indicate consequences, e.g. what proved as good? What could/should be changed in future?

Experiences / results

Flashlight is a well-proven method of presence-work.

When groups in different places cooperate, the virtual method proves ideal.. An advantage of the virtual flashlight is the documentation of the statements for further evaluations.

Tips

It might be useful to hold the flashlight in the forum and to provide a seperate chatroom for smalltalk.

Literature

BRAUNECK/URBANECK/ZIMMERMANN (1999), nr 008