What is LiveText and how does it benefit me as a student of Rockhurst University?
LiveText is a flexible web-based/online tool that helps you to enhance your educational experience and to extend professional opportunities. Each user can use it in a different way. Listed below are some uses for LiveText.
Organization/Resource Storage:
LiveText is a boundless "My Documents" that resides on the internet. You can store all of your important files there, organizing it to meet your need. Your data can be accessed anytime from any computer with Internet access anywhere in the world. Your work is backed up at least daily. When was the last time you backed up your data files on your computer? If you are like most other users, the chances are the answer is: Never. Some may say, "Rarely, but some."
You realize that you are risking the loss of data that you can ill afford to be without, regardless of its purpose. Have you arrived for a class or come to campus and forgotten some file at home that you needed or wanted to work on? It’s a common experience, but it needn’t ever happen to you again. You should never again experience the failure of a floppy disk, have a CD that the computer can't read, or lose everything because someone stepped on your USB flash drive or you misplaced it. Your work is safe, secure, and available on LiveText.
Efficient time use:
Could you have accomplished meaningful work even in short periods of time while on campus, say after going to the library and having even 10 minutes before heading to class, if only you had the right files with you? Easy access to your work on LiveText is a great productivity booster. With your electronic files stored on LiveText, you will always have access to your work whenever and wherever you have Internet access.
Collaboration:
You can collaborate with other LiveText users through “sharing” documents. LiveText is student-centered, meaning everything starts with you, the user, not with an instructor. All of the work you store and organize in LiveText is totally private until you choose what to share and with whom. You can give other LiveText users access to selected materials and also determine whether they are allowed just to view them, to make comments on them, or even to edit them just as you can. You also can share your work with non-subscribers to LiveText, but they can only view materials. Any LiveText user can establish a collaborative group at any time, add or remove participants, etc., and everyone in the group can work on documents together, when that is appropriate.
Contrast this with the instructor-centered nature of BlackBoard where individuals can work together only if the instructor sets up a group. Furthermore, collaboration through LiveText is not limited to individuals in one class or even at Rockhurst. Rather, you can interact with any LiveText user anywhere in the world. Many universities, community colleges, and private institutions have adopted LiveText, so chances are you may have friends at other schools with whom you can collaborate.
Portfolios:
Many students are now required to create and maintain an electronic portfolio to demonstrate their proficiencies during their undergraduate/graduate work before graduation. Using LiveText with online availability, routine back-ups, exceptional storage space, 24/7 accessibility anywhere at any time with internet access; potentially faster assessment with greater feedback; capability to share with other students for formative feedback; etc, provide a more organized, efficient means to complete your portfolio. Electronic portfolios are becoming increasingly common tools for job-seekers. An employment portfolio is likely to differ a lot from a graduation or assessment portfolio, but within LiveText you can reuse components from one portfolio in another quite easily, so maintaining multiple portfolios is very feasible. The ability to demonstrate your skills and talents through portfolio materials is beneficial for any field. Once created, your e-portfolio in LiveText can be available to any one or more potential employers by an electronic Visitor’s Pass. The potential employer(s) do not have to have a LiveText account and each Visitor's Pass is unique for privacy.(This eliminates the requirement for common software like Word, Powerpoint, etc to review the content of your portfolio.)
Assignment Creation and Assessment:
Those in the field of education are aware of the design of lessons that are aligned with local, state, national and, possibly, international standards. LiveText users can prepare assignments and quickly associate them to standards, many complete standards sets already exist in LiveText, with a few mouse clicks. No more searching for standards and no more typing them into the document. Also, instruction can be aligned to program objectives where no overarching set of standards exist. Your electronic submission of your assignments through LiveText followed by an electronic assessment has the potential to provide you with better feedback in a more timely fashion and with greater consistency because of LiveText's feedback process. The requirement to complete assignments using a specific template/format is much easier than having to find the instructions in a syllabus that you may not know the whereabouts.
Lesson Planning and Course Management:
LiveText has additional benefits for educators who do lesson planning, a basic type of document in LiveText. In addition to standards or objectives alignment, LiveText users also may access the vast on-line digital video resources of United Streaming. It is part of Discovery Channel, so its resources are included, as are materials from Weston Woods and other producers of educational videos. More than 4000 videos and 40,000 clips of standards-aligned resources are offered to build lesson plans then deliver the lesson wherever you are teaching from your own account. The host site does not need to be a LiveText participant. Again, you don’t need CDs or flash drives to bring your materials into the classroom. Learning to work with LiveText positions you at the forefront of a new technology.