Group 1: Blogs, Wikis and Weebly, oh my!

Tool #1: Blogs

One of my favourite blogs.

I love blogs. It's the simplest of ideas, and yet blogs are used for endlessly different purposes and in endlessly different ways. I've kept blogs in the past, used mainly for sharing my own daily experiences and thoughts with close friends. I'm also a blog consumer - my friends link me to wedding blogs, cooking blogs, craft blogs and fashion blogs on a regular basis. If I had more spare time I'd be an avid blog reader, because there are so many interesting things to read about.

Do blogs have a place in the classroom? Sarah posted a cartoon in which a teacher stands in front of a blackboard with 'What I did on my holidays' written on it, and a student asks if he can just link her to his blog. This is food for thought. Ideally, if I had a middle or upper primary class, I would love for every student to maintain a blog as a sort of learning journal that they felt comfortable sharing with their peers and I. They could tag posts with different keywords depending on their content. They could even create collaborative blogs for certain projects - blogs can have multiple authors. I think it has potential to be a window into each child's unique perspective - something I value enormously - and, handled carefully, it could foster a more supportive, collaborative classroom environment.

There is a safety factor involved. While in some situations it might be important for blogs to be publicly available, I have concerns about students either a) sharing sensitive information, or b) sharing barely anything because they're not allowed to share sensitive information. So I think for blogs to be really effective in this circumstance, they may need to be accessible only by people in my classroom.

One other issue stands out to me - the painstaking slowness of the hunt-and-peck typist! I think every child should be taught how to type, just as much as how to write - it's fast becoming an essential skill. There are other options, however... podcasts and video, for example. Blogs don't need to be composed entirely of the typed word.

P.S. I hate cooking blogs.

Tool #2: Wikis

Wikis (according to wikipedia.com) date back to 1994, when they were used by software developers and computer programmers. They didn't become popular with the general public until several years later. Wikipedia.com ('The Free Encyclopedia') is arguably the most famous and popular wiki in existence. It is huge, viewable in multiple languages, and can be edited by anyone. This makes it a fantastic example of collaboration on a global scale!

I deem wikipedia itself an invaluable resource for classroom use. Its publicity means that it is monitored constantly (by people around the world, from all walks of life) for accuracy. Notes are made where information is uncertain or citations are needed, and at the bottom of each page is a reference list which can be followed up for further information (or more credible sources). The most obvious classroom use for wikipedia is to locate information, but I think also that from a critical literacies perspective it has immense value. Students can learn, in a highly relevant and contextualised way, the need for accurate and trustworthy information, and the ways in which reliable sources can be judged.  Teachers should be modelling this kind of judgement and behaviour regularly.

As for creating wikis for classroom use, both teacher and students can create their own wikis (using freely available, intuitive online software) following this model, and use them to collect information about particular topics. An entire school could maintain, for example, a school-wide wiki with information about the school itself - maintained by its students as well as staff. What could be more authentic? I love that files and  Specifically within an early childhood context (with learners P-3), I would take extreme care in planning wiki use. Students at that age cannot necessarily read, write or type, so audio and visual tools could be used in a variety of ways here. If some typing is necessary it may be helpful to appoint someone (possibly an adult) as scribe. Wiki software also tends not to be very aesthetically pleasing, so I might set up a more attractive template in advance.

I participated in the creation of a group Wiki earlier in the year, which can be viewed here (courtesy of http://www.wikispaces.com). I don't think a Wiki was well-suited to this situation, but it was a requirement of a particular course. At the time, I was left with some hard feelings towards Wikis, but those soon faded, and I have learnt that I need to be purposeful and careful when I choose a particular tool for my own students to use - and ask myself whether it is the best tool for the job. There is no point in just throwing it in there (like some kind of ICT garnish). ICTs are powerful tools, used for specific purposes, and teachers need to be critical in their implementation.

I have also been looking at 50 Ways to Use Wikis. These ideas are detailed and some are very creative. It goes to show how helpful it is to be able to share teaching ideas over the internet!

Tool #3: Weebly

Weebly is a very simple and intuitive website creator. I used it during a SOSE course to create a webquest:

Help Lisa - Be a Park Planner

I was able to embed links, images, video, documents and Vokis throughout the webquest to create an interactive, engaging learning experience. Looking back, I am still pleased with what I was able to achieve with Weebly, and I would use it again. I like to code, but it takes time and a lot of problem-solving. With Weebly I was able to avoid the drama and focus on the content of my webquest.

The TPACK framework

It took me a while to post anything about TPACK. I wrote some up but just... didn't have much to say, and felt I should add more. Here goes, at last.

Image source: http://tpack.org

For some reason, I had trouple understanding the diagram at first. I didn't know what I was looking for. Something clicked after some in-class discussion and I realised that it does have meaning to me. ICT can't be an isolated 'extra', tacked on to your learning design in order to satisfy onlookers and meet external requirements. It's an integral part of the teaching and learning process (at least, in 21st century Australia, it really should be).

TPACK helps emphasise this by encouraging teachers to consider 3 interrelated aspects of their role:

1. Content - it's important to know what you are trying to teach!
2. Pedagogy - it's important to know HOW you will teach the content. What strategies will you use? How will you apply learning theory? How will you differentiate instruction?
3. Technology - it's important to support the use of technology (particularly, in this context, ICTs) - not only by students but also other staff.

TPACK as a framework is a nice way of presenting this trichotomy and reminding us that technology isn't just a stand-alone feature or activity. The central area of overlap in the diagram is key, as that is where all three aspects come together.

Leah posted this video (uploaded by Roycekimmons on 22-03-11), which made me curious about the dotted line around TPACK. My research located this image, also sourced from http://tpack.org:

What I prefer about this diagram is that it makes me specifically aware of the contextual issues surrounding use of TPACK.

The only issue I have with TPACK is that I already feel like I'm juggling too many frameworks! Luckily the TPACK premise feels like common sense to me. It's a useful image for explaining the concept. It is not something that I will necessarily be keeping pinned above my desk, however.

Reflection on the 'Six Thinking Hats' activity

We spent some time in class this week on an activity involving mass-editing a single wiki page. The results were ... not optimal. Basically, with several people editing at once, the page would be updated by one person, but somebody else would be editing an earlier version of the page simultaneously - and when they published their version it overrode other changes. The page could be seen flashing through different ideas, never keeping the same content for 5 minutes in a row. I successfully contributed a paragraph, only to find it erased entirely when I refreshed the page! This was frustrating because I hadn’t saved it into a separate document. I don’t think a Wiki was the most useful tool for this activity. A shared Google document may have been more effective when it came to multiple people editing at the same time.

Aside from this problem, the design of the activity was pedagogically sound. It provided a strong example of social constructivism in action, as an entire classroom of learners brought their thoughts to the table and bounced their ideas off one-another in an effort to collaboratively seek an answer to a question. This can be clearly observed in the wiki, with many people actually referring to others’ comments and offering support or contrasting viewpoints.

The use of Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ was highly appropriate. The Hats acted as a scaffold, encouraging higher order thinking by emphasising creative and critical exploration (Jarrard, 2011). An answer to the set question was never determined, and yet I believe the activity was a success. Learning occurred as people exercised their minds, and this is evident in the contributions. The activity could be followed up on, though, by setting the task of analysing the multiple perspectives in order to arrive at a solution.

The ‘Six Thinking Hats’ are pictured below for reference:

 Image source: http://www.mindwerx.com

I also think that, in participating in this activity, we were learning in ways that went beyond just thinking about the topic. A table, and minimal instruction, were provided to help us organise our contributions – but how would we know who had written what? We needed to problem-solve collaboratively to keep ourselves organised. We quickly decided it would be wise to add our names after we wrote something, and that the use of colour would help distinguish between entries. We also had to consider how we could respect other people’s contributions, doing our best not to accidentally change or remove their words, and phrasing our opinions in considerate, tactful ways. All of this made the activity an exercise in cooperation - it was not just about 'what' we were doing, but 'how' we were doing it.

References

Jarrard, B. (2011). Six thinking hats: Parallel thinking for teamwork. Retrieved from http://www.mindwerx.com/mind-tools/5970/six-thinking-hats

Week 1 - Reflections

Unconsciously incompetent --> consciously incompetent --> consciously competent --> unconsciously competent

This concept struck a chord with me. There's so much I know I don't know, and I'm certain there's far more that I DON'T know I don't know. Unconscious incompetence is often a happy place, but it isn't all that fulfilling. While it can at times be crippling, conscious incompetence is the first step to actually learning something new.

"Embrace change!"

Whilst I love ICT, I must say it's hard to get close to something that's constantly wriggling out of your grasp. The ICT landscape is unbelievably fluid. My conscious incompetence bucket is usually brimful, and it can be tempting to metaphorically empty it out and ignore it. This is unproductive and the bucket will fill up again anyway. Really, conscious incompetence is probably best used as a prompt to explore the unfamiliar. For me, for a while, this mostly involves adding more things to the bucket, but gradually my inability translates into ability. I'd like to say it's a great feeling, but once I master something in the ICT world I quickly cease to notice it. Something I'm realising is that in situations where you are unconsciously competent, you may not remember that other people don't always know what you know. You need to put yourself in their shoes and slow down if you want to help them catch up.

Digital natives and digital immigrants?

Around the world, situations vary greatly, but in Australia it's obvious that ICT has dramatically impacted our life experiences. Prensky (2001) suggests that extended use of new technology can at least alter our thought patterns, if not the actual physical structure of our brains. If this is so, the implications for teachers are huge, because if we approach our students without taking this into consideration, we risk isolating and disengaging them. Digital literacy, it seems, can be compared to any other type of literacy - having 'native' and 'immigrant' speakers with varying levels of fluency.

Prensky makes a bold (and, I believe, controversial) claim that students of today are 'digital natives' (2001, p. 1). Within Western society, there are many families that cannot afford (or choose not) to own items like computers and game consoles. Even with those students who do make regular use of ICTs, there is no guarantee that their experience is extensive or particularly educational (Margaryan & Littlejohn, 2008). In my own limited experience I have sat beside students at computers and struggled to meet them at their individual levels - to realise that not all of them know what a link is, or how to right-click. It is important to never make assumptions about who your learners are. There are no shortcuts in this regard. To know your learners you can't read a book and leave it at that - you must meet them where they are and interact with them. I think this understanding is fast becoming central to my teaching 'philosophy'.


References

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Retrieved from

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20-%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf