Creating a Blog Reflection

A blog is an internet tool that is used by individuals or groups to post their own ideas, opinions, experience, observations, information and much more.  Although it has generally been used as a personal space, the use of blogs in educational situations is on the rise. This technological tool allows individuals to post content on a regular basis in an engaging and interesting way.  Before this class I had never used a blog before and initially found the task quite daunting but as I started posting reflections and using the space more I became more confident and actually enjoyed it. I think one of the things I like most about blogs is that everything posted on there is my opinion and my personal point of view on the topic – I guess, I essentially like that I can share my own ideas and thoughts in a non judgmental way.

BLOGS IN THE CLASSROOM– PMI CHART
POSITIVE	MINUS	INTERESTING
Supports collaborative learning	Students may not be away of safe, ethical and legal issues when dealing with the web	Students are able to work in groups or individually to showcase their own opinions and thoughts
It’s a learner-centred tool	May result in cyber bullying	There are millions and millions of blogs online being used
It’s engaging and interactive and allows creativity	Students may access or share inappropriate content	Increasingly popular as an education tool
Supports and facilitates; higher order thinking, exploration, contribution
Easy access
Easy to use
Allows students to embed videos, text, images, links etc

After exploring the positives and negatives of using blogs in the classroom, I believe that blogs would be an extremely effective teaching tool I could use in my own classroom. It allows students to show their creative side whilst promoting a collaborative and learner-centred activity. It is engaging and interactive and also facilitates higher order thinking of the learners. It also could be used in several ways; it could be used as an assessment tool, or a place to post a reflection every week as a study guide, or even as a class blog - if the class were studying a specific subject, they could create a blog to showclass their subject and what they're doing and learning etc.

Although I would use blogs in my classroom as a teaching tool, there are certain issues that must be attended to and monitored. Such as; students awareness of the ethical, legal issues and copyright issues when dealing with the internet and making sure students are cyber bullying one another or accessing and sharing inappropriate content online.

But as long as blogs are used in conjunction with the safe, legal and ethical policies they would be a useful technnological tool for learning managers.

Wiki Activity - Mobile Phones in the Classroom?

This week we participated in an activity based on a wiki website, dealing with the implications of the use of mobile phones in the classroom. We approached this issue through Bono's six thinking hats scaffold.

The way that the activity was set out in wiki clearly outlined what needed to be considered for each colour hat and made responding to each column easy. It was interesting to see what other people wrote and to bounce off other's ideas to help form my final opinion. I believe mobile phones in the classroom would create more negativity than positivity by increasing the chance of cyber bullying and creating a distraction from learning. The use of mobile phones would hinder, not enhance, student learning and with so many other useful ICT tools available there is, in my opinion, no need to incorporate the use of mobile phones into student learning.

 

Working with Wiki - Yay or Nay?

Wiki provided a space for collaboration amongst our class, a space to add our own opinions and view others. Students in the 21st century need to be engaged in their learning and I believe the use of a wiki space allows students a space to collaborate and share their own ideas in a creative and engaging way.

THE USE OF WIKIS IN THE CLASSROOM PMI CHART
POSITIVE	MINUS	INTERESTING
Every student can participate by editing, modifying and adding information	A student can remove or change what another student has added to the space	A log of access and contributions made to wiki is kept
A perfect way to incorporate collaboration into the classroom – in cases of group work, wiki could be used a collaboration space to organise assignment – can then be used as evidence that every group member participated	Only one person at a time can add, edit or modify wiki at any given time to avoid students writing over the top of each other	Activities on wiki can be watched by guests such as a teacher.
History function can recover any information that is lost	The teacher must be constantly regulating or checking that students are developing their work safely, ethically and legally	Students are able to compare views and bounce ideas off each other
Teacher could assign homework dealing with wiki – engaging students digitally and allowing them to take part in 21st century learning and collaboration and discussion as opposed to homework sheets.	Cyber bullying may become an issue associated with this type of learning environment.	The degree of learning that can take place is beyond what can be learnt from the teacher just standing in the front of the class talking. Students are able to investigate and feed off each other for ideas
It allows students to be creative and work collaboratively	Students who don’t have easy access or no access to the internet will suffer	Activities can be activated within the website
Links to images, other websites, youtube etc can be created and utilised

 

Creating a Wiki - Personal Experience

I am a complete newbie when it comes to creating my own Wiki Space. However, after having a quick play with my own wiki page and participating in the mobile phone wiki activity I have realised that the use of a wiki space in a classroom environment would engage and enhance students and their learning. As mentioned in the PMI chart above, it provides a space where students are able to work creatively and collaboratively with one another to view and form opinions, assignments, activities, discussions etc.

It is a great tool that could be incorporated into any learning environment. My two fields of study include Legal Studies and Mathematics and I believe that wiki could be used in both classrooms. Although it would most likely benefit students in my Legal Studies class, students studying math could also make use of this space by using it as a collaborative area to discuss assignments.

However, we have to consider a few things. Such as do all students have access to a computer and internet at home? Do all students have access to a computer and internet in the classroom? Do all students have enough knowledge to navigate their way through and participate in acitivities on the wiki space?

I have included a link that will take you to my own wiki space. I have not done much to it, but I have created a new page, uploaded youtube clips, uploaded an image and created a post, proving to myself just how easy it is to navigate.

Education Is Changing "collaboration is the stuff of growth"

TPACK Framework

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a framework that attempts to identify the knowledge required by teachers to enable technology integration in their teaching. It is an expansion from Shulman's idea of Pedagogical Content Knowledge. It combines three primary forms of knowledge; Content Knowledge (CK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) and Technology Knowledge (TK).

The TPACK approach goes beyond seeing these three knowledge bases in isolation and focuses on the intersection of all three elements. It is an essential framework for teachers in the 21st century. Teachers need to implement a range of diverse learning strategies to ensure that all students in the classroom are being engaged in their learning.

The TPACK framework assists teachers with learning design decisions about the content they will be introducing to their students and what technologies would best help them achieve success for every student in their class whilst incorporating the curriculum and productive pedagogies.

Picture from http://mkoehler.educ.msu.edu/tpack/what-is-tpack/

Productive Pegagogies

Pedagogy is merely the art of teaching. But what is productive pedgagogy? Productive Pedagogy is again, the art of teaching, but further allows the students to obtain the best learning outcomes possible. It is a theoretical framework that teachers are able to use to assist in creating a relevant and meaningful language within the classroom through practical learning experiences.

Productive pedagogies facilitate deep knowledge through higher order thinking skills (HOTS), encourage collaborative learning with emphasis on conversing, supports students in knowing their learning style, creates relevance and connects learning with knowledge they already posses, emphasises and supports student centred learning and the development of active citizenship and socially supports, engages and values cultural knowledge. 

Understanding and being able to introduce productive pedagogies into your classroom is a must as a learning manager. We as learning managers have a responsibility to create authentic learning and make connections between their learning and real life context in a non-discriminating, supportive environment. As we are in a fast-paced, always changing, technology driven era, we must embrace digital pedagogy into the classroom.

Through the use of ICT we are able to facilitate engaging learning experiences for 21st century learners. We are able to impliment productive pedagogies that enable our students to access, integrate, manage and evaluate information to develope new understandings and make use of their higher order thinking skills. We will have the ability to introduce new ideas and theories and enable students to continue developing deep knowledge through inquiry, connecting to sources of information, organising ideas, planning solutions and much more, through a highly creative, reflective and expressive process.

My Personal Learning Style

It is important to know each of your students learning styles early, so that you can succesfully engage them in learning and ensure the best learning out come possible for each student.

After completing the learning styles survey, I wasn't suprised at what learning style best suited me. I showed a strong preference towards being a "Sensing Learner." It said that sensing learners tend to like learning facts, solving problems using well-established methods, are patient with details, good at memorising facts and tend to be more practical and careful. This describes me to a T!

If I were teaching a student that learnt the same way as me I would ensure that I was connecting learning to the real world aswell as using set methods and procedures.

Engage me!