Week 3 - Blogs | Wikis | Web Sites

To look further into the possibilities of each medium for use in learning a short look at the various elements to each is necessary…

In the beginning we created a Blog…

Plus	Minus	Interesting
Very easy to create and make posts – can be done from anywhere with internet (it’s even free at Maccas)   Teachers and/or students can create one and comment on any   It’s fun – you can be writing towards an assignment and not really know it ;)   Can be formal or conversational   Free!!	Opens the students and teachers to potential harassment   Creates a digital footprint – invites spam   Can just be another thing that teachers have to do in their day…  (need to make sure that it’s not just for interest and that there is some assessment or learning outcomes	Opens the class room to an international audience – which includes parents and extended families   Can follow other peoples blogs (e.g. those of scientists, explorers, etc) to put science into perspective for real world applications   A great tool for the hidden literacy curriculum in all schools   Students write for a global audience so there is a hidden pressure to write, reference and include accurate content responsibly

As for the Wiki and Web sites we were asked to play with, I was feeling OK with the “how to”, but wasn’t sure where to go with the “what to”…  So, I’ve cheated a little and looked into a possible topic I could be teaching at some stage.  I’ve taken this from the AustralianCurriculum - Grade 8 Science:

Cells are the basic units of living things and have specialised structures and functions.

Elaborations

1.       examining a variety of cells using a light microscope, by digital technology or by viewing a simulation

2.       distinguishing plant cells from animal or fungal cells

3.       identifying structures within cells and describing their function

4.       recognising that some organisms consist of a single cell

5.       recognising that cells reproduce via cell division

6.       describing mitosis as cell division for growth and repair

This is one unit of work that is covered in Grade 8 so I have begun to make an example Wiki and a Web Site to allow students to discover this topic…

My thoughts about my Wiki follow in a PMI analysis and my example Wiki is titled Mrs Tuckers Grade 8 Science

Plus	Minus	Interesting
Great for collaborations or group work   Great for brainstorming   Good for encouraging participation   Can imbed many forms of media   Teachers don’t control the content which invites creativity   Small costs involved	Need to have many rules to make it work and keep it ‘safe’   Only edited by one at a time – makes it an at home (outside the classroom) only tool   Not as easy to use as a blog and has limited editing controls – google docs might be better for editing options   Anyone can edit anything – unwanted changes to the inputs of others (including deleting content)	Opens the class room to an international audience   Can be a tool to demonstrate on-line etiquettes   Can include and link to any media – pictures, diagrams, documents, videos, etc…  only limited by imagination

 A contrasting PMI for the use of a web site in the classroom has also been completed.  I thought a lot about the application of a web site while making one and have the following thoughts…

Plus	Minus	Interesting
Authors control content, and there can be many authors – possibilities for group creations   Many more editing and formatting options than available with a wiki   Global   Free to very expensive (you get what you pay for…)   Student works can be ‘published’	Not a many opportunities for feedback   Can be time consuming to have all the ‘bells and whistles’	Again with the hidden literacy in the curriculum…   Great for needing to know content and context at the time of creation   Can incorporate any other forms of media/technology   Lots of opportunities for using polls or surveys to get feedback or test students   Can bring parents and the community into the classroom

I’m not sure if I’m getting too ahead of myself (in respect of school capacities or curriculum), but I see a real niche for on-line tools in student homework and assessments, that hasn’t seemed to come up in other discussions.  I analyse a lot of data for my current job and many of the massive data sets that I deal with are gained through online surveys.  If you used a survey tool or something simular to create a homework sheet, quiz, test or exam, then you have the benefits of:

• No more ‘I forgot my homework sheet’
• Ease of marking – can be treated as a data set and automatically mark multiple choice questions and one word/number answers
• Reduces the amount to paper used
• Reduced pressure created by physically sitting in a formal test/exam environment
• Can use any of the tools we’ve looked at to do this (blog, wiki, web site, etc)

But to truly explore this option, you also must consider some of the downsides:

• Opportunities for cheating
• Students who don’t have internet access
• Students who have limited typing or computer skills maybe disadvantaged

I also found many examples on the web and one stand out was created by a science class where group work produced an encyclopaedic like web site with links and information about their project on planets – something to put into the back of my mind for my own classes of the future…

My example web site can be viewed at: mrstuckersgrade8scienceclass.weebly.com

These tools all focus on information transfer, and another massive advantage of all forms of communication is that it can be accessed by students and/or parents/guardians (who are pivotal in the education of students) anywhere, anytime, anyhow…  The little details that students can sometimes get hung-up on can be made available in black and white (or red or yellow, or blue, etc. etc etc.), assessment dates and requirements, upcoming school or class room events, and any other information and notes for families (many of which I find littering my kitchen bench and fridge can all be digital…).  It can also work in reverse, if the parent needs to contact the teacher about anything…  (Particularly since schools are big on documenting attendance and parents providing a ‘note’ for absentees.)

We also keep hearing that the ICT’s we will be exposed to at our school will depend on the individual school and the security limitations imposed by Education Queensland (e.g. YouTube not allowed in state schools), or Catholic Education, etc..  I think that this needs to be explored further and once we are ‘real’ teachers, we will have another steep learning curve to master the tools, software and facilities that our school has available. And, as next generation teachers, I also think that it is our job to keep on top of technology and encourage its use and its possibilities.

 

Week 2 - Using Wikis in the classroom

Using Wikis in the classroom

I must admit that I have struggled to move past this activity and it has taken much longer than I had envisaged.  I consider myself to be quite computer literate, but I must confess that I got completely lost in Wikis.  Mainly signing up to create a wiki and accessing others that fellow students have made.

I’m still not sure where my Wiki ended up – watch this space to see if I can find it again…

                                Found it:  http://mrstuckersgrade8science.cquniversityschoolofeducation.wikispaces.net/  :)

To look critically at the attributes of a wiki and how it can fit into the classroom, I will do a further analysis in a future post as I also explore web sites and blogs.

The class example of a Wiki to reflect on the use of mobile phones in the class room (using de Bono's Six Thinking Hats - and see graphic below) was not particularly successful and may have also clouded my judgement on the usefulness of Wikis – and it has in no way helped me with the mobile phone topic either.

I was not one of the first people to access the site and by the time I sat to have a read of my fellow students thoughts, and hopefully add my own, the site was a total mess.  I was unable to read it without it bouncing all over the screen and in the end I gave up around the red or blue hat…

I guess that it was fairly open slather and some more direction on its use or a better layout may have helped.  If I were to use this in my classroom, I would make sure I gave very explicit instructions and the students would know how to navigate the Wiki before I let them loose in it.

 

(http://katekendall.com/2010/04/05/graphic-facilitation-of-de-bonos-six-thinking-hats/)

(Also fitting to reference the most famous Wiki - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats)

 

 

Week 2 - TPACK Blog

TPACK Blog

TPACK framework - Just another acronym or a great framework to facilitate learning???

To unpack the individual letters:

T - technology	Anything that is digital…  from the humble desk top and its seemingly out-dated PowerPoint’s, to the internet (social networks, blogs, Wikis, web sites, etc.) to cameras, tablets, gadgets, gizmos, blah blah blah... (anything that is on a kids Christmas list…)
P - pedagogy	The science of teaching.  Mmmm, really?? The further into this course I get I am starting to wonder if pedagogy is more of an art than a science.  As an environmental scientist, I’m very familiar with the development of a theory with subsequent testing or investigation to determine the validity of that theory.  The research or the experimental results then provide an outcome, a single outcome, a yes or no, a ‘this is how it is’, a full stop.  The ‘science’ of teaching seems to have too many variables, and possible outcomes, for my liking.  I am finding it really challenging (in a good way J).
A - and	I THINK THIS IS THE MOST IMPORANT LETTER OF THIS ACRONYM!!!! It is the ‘and’ that is the key to bringing these three components together.  It is the linking that provides the framework element to support an effective learning environment for learners.
CK - content knowledge	The ‘know your stuff’ component.  We are all here because we know our specialised field of study; we just need to learn how to teach it.

 

I guess that to fully explain the TPACK framework you would be amiss to not include the schematic developed by Shulman (1987) (Figure 1), that is everywhere on the web.  I feel that the most important element of this diagram is the outer circle where context is noted.  As with any method of delivering pedagogical content, it needs to be balanced and in context.  In context with: the material to be presented; the characteristics of the learners, to take into consideration their skills, attitudes and experiences; and the physical resources available at that time and place.

Figure 1

 

As with any good Google search, there is always the material to be weeded out.  When I found this defaced schematic I had a little smile and moved on, but afterwards I came back and had another look, and it’s more accurate than I first thought (Figure 2 (ites.ncdpi.wikispaces.net).  It is the fine balance and the appropriate use and integration of each component that provides the most effective learning tool.  These squiggles are more like how I’m envisaging the meshing together of technology, content knowledge and pedagogy than the simple symmetrical circles of Shulman (1987).

Figure 2 

 

A short aside:

Tonight I wrote the letters T, P, A, C, and K in the Google search window just to see what other perspectives were out there (note: I love Google), and one of the first items to come up was the YouTube video, “TPACK in 3 Minutes” (http://youtu.be/0wGpSaTzW58).  YouTube seems to be popular this week, as during our tute we also watched a video, “Wikis in Plain English” (http://youtu.be/-dnL00TdmLY).  Both of which I found to be quite ok and they gave a nice and easy to understand explanation for their individual topics.  The most interesting thing about them (and my long winded point here) is that they were videos of exactly what I would have seen my ‘old school’ teachers drawing, in real life, on the blackboard (yes, I am THAT old).  It makes me wonder just how far technology has really come, if we are simply watching a movie clip on the internet of people writing on a white board or playing with flash cards and printed pictures… I think that it inadvertently demonstrates the value of continued, more traditional, forms of ‘face to face’ teaching, while at the same time highlighting just how diverse the subject areas are on the internet and how valuable it can be when gaining knowledge.

 

Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform.  Harvard Educational   Review, 57(1), 1-22.

 

Prensky - not a fan...

Overall I am not a fan of Prensky’s way of thinking.  Not that I don’t see a place in schools for technology and games and interactive learning.  But I think in Australia, on many levels, we need to stop being the little brother to the American way of life and this extends into our education systems. 

I can only speak for the school age children I know and admittedly most of them are in regional Queensland, but unlike the children Prensky exemplifies, a 4 year old can’t play Halo 2 (and I can’t think of a parent who would let them), I also know that my 3^rd grader and all his school mates do not have "multiple e-mail addresses"…

I am also offended by the pidgin hole he places me in, ‘the digital immigrant’, and his statement that I would think that education can’t be fun. 

I think he forgets that it was us immigrants that made the technological world – we are the ones that have perpetuated it’s development and have adapted to it and facilitated it’s integration into society – and in turn it is possible the ‘digital immigrants’ are actually the digital creators.

 

We learnt during O-week the extracurricular learnings that are entrusted to us as mentors of future generations – it is us who help to teach children manners and respect.  If we are engaging children with technology all the time, how do we teach them to speak with correct grammar, to respect and sit and listen to the stories of our older generations, and to have the values we want in our children.  When do kids get to be kids and play (outside) and get dirty and have an imagination of their own.

Isn’t the innocence of children lost soon enough? Do we really want 4 year olds playing MA computer games to be the norm??  Isn’t there an ethical dimension to this argument as well???

Week 1

OMG I made it to the end of Week 1 :)

I feel like I've had a crash course into my own personality.

I really enjoyed doing the questionnaires. And I must say that my results were not a surprise to what I already knew about myself but I was surprised by the unevenness of my characteristics...

 

 (source: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html)

 

 

 (source: http://www.gp-training.net/training/educational_theory/multint/multint.htm)

It would appear that I need the global perspective but I do like to do things in order, otherwise, I'm very one sided in learning styles towards the sensory/active/visual side for the spectrum.

My Multiple Intelligence was also very unevenly distributed - again leaning towards the physical characteristics (nature/body/picture). I am not good at music or individual reflections - so you can imagine how hard it is for me to be reflecting and self-analysing in this course :)

How will this help me associate with the vast number and unique combinations of learning styles that I will encounter in my students??? Mmmm, good question.

I think that the awareness of this diversity is a great start! My strength in recognising patterns and observing nature (if we can call students an element of the natural world) will help me to look at the students collectively and individually, and plan lessons that will cater to the strengths of various cohorts. I will need to spend time connecting with the musical and introverted learners as this is not an area I feel confident - not a personal strength of mine.

Finally (how long should a blog be???....), I really enjoyed the perspective of Sir Ken Robinson. I always try to relate my lessons to my own children and my own experiences and I found this speech very thought provoking. How do you teach our next generations "it all"?? When do you steer a child towards a life-time path - do you take a student with musical talents out of the conventional classroom and foster their natural talents??

How do you know if a learner has an exceptional talent or just a passing passion for a subject area??

My personal experience with managing this balance just creates more questions than answers. With the expansive opportunities that children have today it's mind blowing - my kids play soccer and AFL, do swimming and athletics, when they come home with a flyer and want to play tennis, how do you know where to draw the line in the sand?? What if we had the next Roger Federer but didn't give them the opportunity??? What if they are already doing too much extracurricular and their core studies suffer and they never become that brilliant brain surgeon or that revolutionary artist??

Being a teacher/parent/guardian of the future generations, how do you find the balance between language, science, art, sport, etc., etc., etc.... Sir Robinson also alluded to physical and physiological differences - with the differences in brain functions between genders. And there are many more differences between people (and hence learners) that are at the DNA level... How does this affect the learners in your charge and your own skills and techniques to facilitate learning?

Is, what someone is good at doing, necessarily what they enjoy?

Likewise, if someone enjoys something, will they ever excel in that field? (My children who suffer my singing in the car, will disagree...)

 

 (source: I * love science's face book page)

I think that the learners will be forever evolving and as such we, as 'teachers', will need to evolve as well and in doing so, we will always be a learner as well...

Week 1 - done...