It's been a hard days night, I should be sleepin' like a Blog

Week 3 Reflections

Engagement Tool - Blog

So obviously at this stage of the game one of the tools I have been working with is a blog, specifically a 'Blogger' blog.  I mention this in order to clarify that is not the only blogging tool on the internet, more like one of thousands.  At the end of the day all blogs serve a common purpose of allowing a person to share their thoughts, ideas and experiences with the online world and provide people (if so desired) with the opportunity to comment on said experiences. In addition to this if other people have blogs, like in E-learning, you can create a sort of online community whereby you can communicate and learn from each other.

I have already touched on my thoughts about blogs in my Week 1 posting (scroll down to the Week 1 Summary at the bottom of the page) stating that I had nver viewed them very positively but I think having taken some time to get the feel for blogging and consider the educational prospects they are more productive than I have previously given them credit for.  I think one area where students and teacher alike could really benefit from the use of blogs is in peer and self assessment. Self and peer assessment has been shown to be higly beneficial to students' learning by fostering collaborative learning and reflective practice, giving insight into the learning process as well as providing students with ownership of their learning (Brady & Kennedy, 2009) but many teachers struggle to find the time and to scaffold activities properly.  The use of blogs allows students to reflect on their own learning as well as comment on each others' learning.  Due to the blogs being online it is not necessary to use valuable class time for this and the blog provides a convenient setting that students will find easy to use.  In addition to this teachers can easily access blogs and gain a real understanding into how students are progressing and how they feel about the learning process.

This is only one use for blogs in the classroom and while there are many others this was the type of use that really struck me as utilising the effectiveness of blogs as a tool.  

Engagement Tool - Weebly

Weebly provides people with the ability to create and publish websites for free with a helpful user friendly interface.  Naturally as a company trying to make money there are extra features that can be purchased but I found that I was able to achieve everything I wanted with the free version.  Earlier in 2012 I used Weebly for the first time to create a science activity for grade 5 students(Year 5 Science Weebly). Feel free to follow the link and check out the site.  Using Weebly for the first time I found I had very little trouble asides from a bit of frustration with the layout of my title for the page.  I wanted to create a website that students could use to independantly carry out online science simulations and Weebly was perfectly suited to this purpose.

In the classroom Weeblys could serve as an effective tool for LMs to make interactive online investigations or information storage but also they are simple enough to create that students could use them to make there own webpages providing an excellent resource for the constuction of assessment tasks. As for the downside, if you want to add videos, and lets face it who doesn't, you will need to give them money so if you're like me that probably means not putting videos in Weeblys.

Engagement Tool - Wiki (AT2 Post)

 Personal Learning

I have chosen to focus on Wikis for my AT2 Post for this Week because out of the 3 engagement tools featured they are the one I have used the most over the last few months.  In saying this I had never even hear of a Wiki until last term so before we get carried away lets just make sure we're all on the same page in regards to what a Wiki is.

Those of you playing along at home will have noticed that I have covered the basics of what a Wiki is and what it can do in my Week 2 blog post so if you need to get the gist then hit up that link and check it out. What I'd like to do now is evaluate the usefulness of Wikis further using a Plus, Minus and Interesting (PMI) chart. 

Plus

• Easy to create and edit pages
• Able to upload images, videos, files (e.g. power points) and links
• Information is accessible and able to be edited by the whole group
• Data is retrievable through the history function so nothing is ever truly lost
• Layout is functional and easy to navigate
• Option to create public or member only Wikis
• LMs are able to view user contributions and comment on them
• Convenient online storage

Minus

• The initial look is very bland and Wikis lack inspiring customisation tools
• Advanced customisation tools such as tempates require purchase
• Only one user can edit a post at a time making Wikis unsuitable for real time group discussions
• Other people can alter your posts, which can lead to frustration
• There is the potential for students to post inappropriate content

Interesting

The most interesting thing about Wikis is the diversity of learning activities that can be created using them.  Educational Wikis provides a huge list of educational Wikis from around the globe and shows that while the format is not overly visually impressive the educational potential is. 

With that in mind lets talk about what I've done and what I'd like to with this technology. I had the opportunity to create a Wiki for Technology Curriculm and Pedagogy last term as a support tool for the creation of a solar boat for the Maryborough Technology Challenge. Follow this link to check out the Wiki and have a look at what I was able to achieve Solar Boat Wiki.  If I'm totally honest its not the most exciting wiki around but functionally it was perfect for my needs.  In addition to creating Wikis for uni tasks I have found them useful for online storage and communication while working as a group. This experience gets me thinking about how I would like to see students using Wikis.

From an ICT perspective we as LMs want to utilise technology seemlessly to support learning and I believe Wikis serve excellently in aiding and facilitating group tasks.  Group work has traditionally required meetings and coordination of schedules and even for a grade 4 student that can be a hassle. Wikis take away that necessity of having everyone in the same place at the same time and provide students with a tool that they can use to collaboratively create and store data.  As an example students working on a history presentation can delegate tasks during class time and create individual pages on their group Wiki for their respective tasks. The students are then free to go home and research adding to the wiki as they can do so without interfering with each other uploads.  They are also able see how each other is progressing, pose questions, offer help and all from the comfort of home or the library and still be able to access the information when meeting up face to face again.

This is a simple application for this technology but I believe it would be extremely effective and epitimises what we aim to do as LMs trying to foster constructivist learning atmospheres.

Legal, safe and ethical considerations

Rather obviously the potential for personal information to find its way online in blogs is tremendous and frightening.  In order for students to safely utilise this technology LMs must instruct students to not post any personal details sauch as full names, addresses in a publicaly accessable blog.

Also, students need to be made aware that any images and videos posted on a blog, Wiki or Weebly must be attributed and permission sought if necessary.  The practice of correct attribution has to be modelled by LMs at all times in order for students to see that everyone is responsible for ensuring proper credit is given whenever uploading other peoples work online.  LMs must also be conscientious about what they upload in ensuring that they always ask student permission to upload their work, adhere to the same 10% usage laws as paper based copying and always be mindful of what information they are providing online and who might be accessing it.

 
References

Brady, L. & Kennedy, K. (2009). Assessment & Reporting: Celebrating Student Achievement (3rd ed). Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Australia.