Reflecting on.......... Blogs

This reflection is on Creating a Blog  

(Image from scdene-blog.com)

I have used the PMI (Plus Minus Intersting) thinking process to examine the potential of blogs for teaching

Pluses 

Blogs......

• provide opportunities for independant and collaborative learning
• develop self expression encourage research and literacy development
• motivate learning - are fun and creative to use
• create unlimited networking possibilities - cross demographic/culture/geographics
• allow for teacher and student monitoring of the learning journey
• are easy to access, utilise and publish
• are a storage place of ideas

Minuses

Blogs....

• are dependent on internet access and working technology
• can be difficult to monitor  - response/comment - what is written
• are easy to stray off topic when writing

Interesting 

Blogs...

• Involve the unknown -e.g. where does the information go? Is it permanent?
• are in the public domain - everyone can see it and comment your view and ideas 
• are most effective when followed and commented on by others?
• require a marketing plan to encourage readers and followers

...... Refections

Blogs are an effective way for students to develop self expression and also develop their meta-learning (metacognition).  Students can put their personal touch on their posts and develop their own ideas on topics.  They can then reflect on their journey and look at 'where they were' versus 'where they are now'

A student blog also offers a window for teachers to monitor a student's educational progress and an insight into their learning style and thought process. Teachers can monitor a student's development and nurture their journey via comment on the blog or additional scaffolding.

In the same way fellow students, family, friends and the broader community can follow a student's learning journey and assist in the process via comment and discussion on their blog posts.  A blog’s user interface can be used to monitor, compare, analyse and evaluate the views and usage of a blog including what search engines were used and the countries viewers hail from.   This encourages both real-life application and problem solving as prescribed by Education Queensland's Productive Pedagogies.  It further encourages higher order thinking.  Students can compare their blogs to others and devise techniques to increase connectivity via links and engagement in others' blogs incorporating Bloom's Taxonomy application and synthesis.

Blogs provide a forum that can be managed and monitored by the student or a group of students in the case of a collaborative blog. As with the phones in class wiki, effective scaffolding guided by analysis tools such as De Bono’s hats, PMI and SWOT and coupled with engaging relevant content can help student’s stay on- task and engage in high-order thinking. 

It is important that in setting up scaffolding teachers address the potential for mis-use inherant in blogging.  Clear rules and boundaries can be put in place to ensure online safety and security of all students and others that may be effected by inappropriate blogging.  An example of this would be to develop with students a class blog user guide.

The issue of 'where the information goes' is an interesting one.  It is important for students to be aware that their blog is in the public domain and therefore has unlimited accessibility.  Words written now could still be floating in cyberspace in 100 years time.  Students should also be made aware of copyright and intellectual property rights and how they relate to their posting and commenting.

In my experience I found it difficult at first to express my throughts and views in public ie. I had a fear of 'public speaking' via my blog.  When blogging students could be made aware that they are opening their views up to all for anaysis, evaluation and discussion.  It would follow that a good understanding of the internet and information highway is important.  Perhaps learning on these topics could be done in a scaffolded wiki about these issues - or via posting about each issue on their blog.

What is the internet:

The internet revolution 1993:

Finally I have been thinking about the effectiveness of blogs with and without collaborators.  I have found personally that it is a more interesting, engaging and productive forum when others join in - or at least when you know your family is dropping by to take a look :-)  This then leads me to question whether the most effective blogs for students also require a marketing plan.  

(Image from www.capitalnetworkmagazine.com)

Our lecturer has encouraged us as students to engage in networking and to promote our blog.  I have found this to be be quite challenging.  A study on student wiki use reported in Wheeler, Yeomans and Wheeler 2008 article "The good the bad and the wiki" showed that students tend to predominantly visit and engage in pages that they have contributed to.  It would seem from a teaching point of view a blog that operates completely independently ie. without engagement from others would lose a lot of potential outcomes eg. higher learning through collaborative analysis.  Therefore do we also need to include a marketing element on our pedagogy?  Once again this could be an ideas topic for a wiki or blog posting.

References:

Wheeler, P; Yeomans, P; Wheeler, D (2008). The good, the bad and the wiki: evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning.  Brithish Journal of Education Technology.  Vol 39, No 6, 987-995.

Sinking In....

In the week following residential school I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Emerald and work with a group of people from Semita house who are living with life challenges.  We are collaborating on a music project together to write and record songs.  We hope to perform at the Central Highlands Multicultural festival.  I also visited the Capricornia Distance School of Education to run 2 workshops with Prep-7 students.

I was very excited to find myself tapping in to the information I learnt in res school :-) 

For a start I included a much clearer introduction to my workshops than usual. I outlined what we would be doing, the expected outcomes and discussed with the group what they hoped to achieve.  This was a great way to put some structure in the workshop and make sure we were all on the same page.

I then used the "I do, We do, You do" technique which I had heard about during the week and at one point even attempted "Think, Pair, Share" - although I couldn't quite remember how this was supposed to go at the time :-/   I also tried hard to remember everyones names and used them regularly - thanks Greg!   

I noticed the different ways participants took in information and adapted my approaches to try to include everyone' s learning needs - audio, visual or doing.  I had in the past focused primarily on the doing as this is the way that I learn.  

I did my best to ensure all participants played a role in the writing process - even if it was just one word or even a sound.  This helped give them ownership of the final songs.  

We also used plenty of ICTs including youtube videos, online lyrics and chords - mobile phones, ipads and laptops were rampant. We also organised some skype workshops for us to revisit the songs in coming weeks.  This helped with engagement and variety in the workshop and brought the outside world into the room.  

Finally I discussed at the end what we had achieved after the workshops - which was three great songs which participants created themselves.  I hadn't really done this before and found it a great exercise.

                                                      Mike Thomas and Abe Stewart from JAM with the Semita House Crew!

Thanks to the beautiful people at Semita House and to CQU residential school..... something did sink in!

Learning design,wikis & phones in class

Hi all,

In our ICTs (Information Communication Technology) for learning design course this week we were asked to join discussions on a wiki about mobile phones in classrooms. We were asked to do this using De Bono's 6 thinking hats.  Here is Edward De Bono in action - I enjoyed this - one of my many study sidetracks this week :-) I realise it is quite long but the beginning gives you an idea of De Bono's thinking.

For those of you (friends and family checking in) who don't know what a wiki is, it a website that anyone can visit and change e.g. Wikepidia is a wiki encycopodia and Wikileaks a wiki for leaked documents and so on.

By contributing to a wiki I gained perspective on some of the learning theories and frameworks we have covered so far in our course.  I have outlined some of these below before moving on to my reflections on the exercise.

General learning theories

1. Behaviourism – learning through repetition, practice and revising
2. Cognitivism – learning through mental processing involving your sensory, working and long term memory.
3. Social Constructivism – learning via social interaction and collaboration
4. Connectivism – learning for the digital age via networking

Productive Pedagogies

Productive pedagogies is an Education Queensland (EQ) framework for teachers relating to teaching style and student diversity.  EQ's class-room reflection manual includes:

1. Intellectual quality - deep knowledge, higher order thinking
2. Supportive classroom environment - direction, engagement, self-regulation
3. Recognition and valuing of difference - cultural knowledge, identity, citizenship
4. Connectedness - background knowledge, integration

ICTs and the Australian Curriculum

Australian Curriculum - general capability, ICT competency recognises the use of ICTs in schools giving a guide to what is expected of students with ICT. The diagram below gives an overview of expectations.

(image from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au)

TPACK

TPACK (Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge) combines the use of technology (computers, ipads, wikis, blogs etc.) with pedagogy (the art and framework of teaching) and content (the information to be being taught). For TPACK to be effective a teacher must have knowledge to combine all three.

(Image: http://catchydomainn.files.wordpress.com)

Blooms Taxonomy

Blooms Taxonomy classifies learning levels and abilities. We focused on cognitive or mental skills with the following levels

1. Remembering – remembering information
2. Understanding  – being able to explain the information to someone else 
3. Applying – put the information into another context
4. Analysing – the whys and hows of the information
5. Evaluating – place a value and rank on the information
6. Creating  – come up with a new take on the information

(image from thinkonline.smarttutor.com)

My reflections on the wiki exercise 

In this exercise I examined the question in the wiki relating to mobile phones in classrooms from different perspectives in a forum where others were also providing opinion.

I started to understand the different ways to approach an issue from looking purely at the facts through to conceptualising new ideas. I also thought about the positives and negatives of the evolving debate and imagined a big picture approach to managing the issue now and into the future.

I related these experiences back to the theories and frameworks outlined in our course and outlined above. I approached this in an organic manner i.e. I wrote as I thought about and experienced these relationships during and following my wiki experience rather than following the order in which the concepts were learnt or written above.

Blooms Taxonomy

I experienced a number of different learning events which I related to the Blooms Taxonomy levels of learning. When I discussed the facts that I knew, I entered into the remembering learning level. By discussing the facts I didn't know I utlised understanding and application skills. In discussing positives and negatives I used application and analysis. Wearing the blue hat I examined the issue as whole and applied evaluation. I further used analysis and evaluation finding where I stood on the issue in relation to others.  Wearing the green hat I came up with ideas for moving the issue forward thereby utilising the creativity.

Productive pedagogies

I now have a better understanding of the phones in class issue because I examined it in so many ways and researched the issue extensively during this process. This engaged me in higher order thinking.

The real-life aspect engaged me.  My interest in the topic drove me to take the time to really try and understand the issue and contribute effectively. In the same way the issue is relevant to me as I am an avid mobile phone user and an advocate for phone use in class rooms.

The wiki environment was one run by us the students and entry makers. In this way I felt that we were responsible for the outcomes. Other than being given the theoretical background, the topic question, the hat concept and the wiki as scaffolding we students came up with all the content on the site.

I didn't see much reference to other cultures in the Wiki discussions nor did I see much reference to special needs, however I felt different opinions and beliefs were accepted by the contributors as a whole. The environment felt supportive to 'going out on a limb' and being different. I didn't feel like I had to conform to any particular point of view or process and this allowed me to express myself. The forum encouraged discussion on social and community morals around this topic

Due to the number and content variety of contributions the page itself took on a strong identity of opinion. By this I mean the issue was covered from so many angles that is had formed into a concise overview of the discussion topic.

I found I started my entries by writing my own opinions exclusive of others. Even though I read the other entries I still gave a full description of where I was at on the issue. By the end of the exercise I was responding and adding to the comments of others. This was a great exercise for me to develop my collaborative learning skills. 

TPACK

I leant in this exercise how to operate and engage in a Wiki which I had never done before. I also learnt how to link pages quickly and effectively. I got to see first hand how Wikis can be used as effective TPACK.  I could see how content knowledge could be added, developed and defined using the wiki and how the wiki can be guided by scaffolding and learning theories.  I witnessed first hand issues development via the wiki and the power of collaborative and networked learning via technology.

Australian Curriculum - general capability, ICT competency

During this exercise I inquired using ICT by researching and examining the issue via the internet and analysing and evaluating the entries from others. I communicated via ICT in writing my opinions from different view points and in relation and collaboration with other. I examined ethics issues with ICT in researching the use of mobile phones in classroom and learning about regulations around the internet and technology. I learnt about operating ICT in using my computer and phone to research and complete the task on the wiki.  I considered ethics throughout the process doing my best to ensure any work I used was attributed to the site's and creators.

General learning theories

1. Behaviourism I learnt to engage in the wiki more effectively with practice and began re-shaping what I had learned through the process
2. Cognitive By staying on the issue and coming at it from a lot of different angles the issue had time to enter my working memory. Some parts settled in my long term memory including my general opinions, an overview of positives and negative and ideas for a way forward. I have been discussing the issue with friends and have noticed these recurring topics.
3. Social Constructivism We the contributors developed this issues within a community managed by ourselves. We took our own opinions and experiences and developed them further through interaction with others, thinking about the issue in different ways and combining and sharing independent outside research.
4. Connectivness We connected with others via the forum and further afield via our research and links added to the Wiki. We created further digital connections by expanding the discussions into our blogs and discussing the issue online with friends and colleagues. Via these processes we have located and transmitted knowledge on the issue.

Scaffolding

The scaffolding for the activity included the background learning theories and frameworks, the topic mobile phones in classrooms, De Bono's 6 Hats model and the wiki to work within

1. Learning theories and frameworks - Reading about different learning theories I could apply these to the question while I was discussing it. I understood there were different ways of looking at an issue and could get my head around all the hats
2. 6 Hats model - gave me direction as to how to address the issue and what to write about.
3. Topic - was relevant to me and had real-life applications. It was not too specific which gave me freedom to explore and research a lot of information that engaged me. It allowed for a lot of opinion, discussion and debate on the Wiki.
4. Wiki - allowed ownership and management of the entry makers. I felt a responsibility to contribute purposefully. It allowed me to experience collaborative learning and to feel a part of an evolving learning process

Round Up

I very much enjoyed this exercise. It gave me a clearer understanding of how to approach learning design using technology and also how to develop content via a collaborative, social and connected forum. Along the way I learnt how to use a wiki and make links and as we connect now – how to write a blog!

I have an idea now of how to provide scafolding for students that allows them to move forward with an idea and take ownership and management of it. I also am developing understanding of different ways and processes of learning. This coupled with identifying the different learning styles of students and I am starting feel some foundations in my teaching education.

Phew that was all pretty heavy but a great learning experience......

Bye for now

Brick walls, fluros and a sore brain

I spent a week at residential school in Rockhampton embarking on my Post Graduate teaching degree.  In a word - daunting.  There was no place to hide from the moment of entering the student digs - which were just how I remember them - a single bed, brick walls and a desk - oh and fluros.  Thrown in to a wonderful mix of personalities it was time to swim or sink.  Luckily everyone rocked!  Such a nurturing and experienced bunch. So there was very little sinking after all... and plenty of buoyant laughter.  I guess if you are entering the profession of teaching you probably don't mind a chat, enjoy sharing stories and have a caring nature - so I guess that makes sense :-) Big love to you wonderful people for the inspiration - I think we were all 'scaffolding' each-others learning journey without knowing the term yet.  Our friendly (and less friendly) marsupial friends help set the mood.  Here are some vids from outside our dorm...

The lectures were where the really daunting bit comes in.  It had been a long time since I had sat through hour upon hour of information absorption and my brain felt like it has completed a marathon at the end of each day - lucky I am having a year off the booze or I think I may have developed an unhealthy relationship between learning and drinking during the week.  The part I found most challenging to get my head around was the "teaching is a conservative profession" bit.  My experiences with teaching - predominantly in the Music Biz - have always been on a first name basis and in creative environments that encourage alternativism (is that a word?).  There was also a lot of focus on "you are now a teacher"  "you will be a teacher"  "when Education QLD calls you will take the job"...... and very little "for those of you who decide to use your degree for teaching" or "whether you take your knowledge and skills into the teaching profession or utilise them in another sector or profession..."  Hmmmm Mr Thomas it is.. time to pull your socks up!