Engagement Activity 1 to 3, Images & photo upload.

I have chosen a few photos to upload to the blog as part of exercises 1 - 3.

I was unable to use mobaphoto as it only supports windows. To me this really highlights the need in e-learning to have software that is usable across all platforms as discussed in The Global imperative (2005). I then discovered that I was already manipulating photo size as a part of normal part of iPhoto export and preview process. The upload process itself to both my wiki and blog was very easy and I expect very junior primary school children could master it very quickly.

I had a good look at FLickr and the rules of the site and I found there to be more restrictions than I would have expected. More photos than I expected were restricted for download and at times you are asked to buy images. Flickr Zoo was a wonderful release into easily accessible photos and brought a rainbow into my day!
This aspect of internet use could actually be used as an introduction to the process of copyright on the web and the exploration and discussion of copyright in the classroom

This photo was one taken on Fraser by myself and adapted with befunky.

It was a wonderful website to use and very intuitive with a very broad range of techniques and styles that could be used if time permitted. I will definitely be returning to this website with some of my own photos soon.

IMAGES AND TEACHING.

There would almost be no limit to the ways in which we can use images in our day to day pedagogy and there is an enormous range of tools out there that can be used to create meaningful and engaging activities for our students. 

This website suggests many ways that an image can be used in the classroom and the teaching environment. I have as yet not even begun to look at the many photo sites mentioned in the tutorial but will return to edit as I have time.

References

The Global Imperative (2005) the report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Global_Imperative.pdf

WEBSITE REFLECTION

Image from website cartoons.

My website can be found here: http://cqu66michael.weebly.com

In this blog we are to reflect on the functionality of a website,

how it can be used in the teaching context and how a static website can be used to support student learning and also how students can use one to express their creativity. We are again encouraged to use an analysis tool and I will be choosing the PMI method again.

Positives:

Ability to use as a central point of classroom communication.

Stable platform. 

Easy to control use / editing of page.

Strong tool for dissemination of information.

Cheap to set up and easily updated. (lizzy blog)

Minuses:

Lack of flexibility.

Requires more skills than other open space type media.

Takes time to edit.

If design inadequate difficult to use. (lizzy blog)

Interesting:

Students can create websites as a part of art design, business, science. It is a fact of business life now that web based marketing and sales is vitally important to many business ventures. It provides relevance and world view. Students could produce websites for local businesses.

Using a website as a locale / hub for generalised class base information such as class rules, internet etiquete, referencing styles, project web links, links to curriculum, calendar events, exam dates, assignment schedules etc.

Parents may be able to be involved by using site to look at curriculum and teaching strategies that can be followed up at home.

Web can be used in the support of special needs students by providing pages or links specific to their needs that can be displayed in a generic supportive inclusive sense.

WIKI WIKI WOO..........

Photo: LINK

MY WIKI LINK
please feel free to have a look at the wiki and leave a comment.

In this blog we are to create a new posting reflecting on the learning potential of a wiki, considering the technical affordances of the wiki (the things it can do), and how these can be used by the teacher and the students to support, facilitate and transform learning.  Using A SWOT analysis or PMI.

I feel as though I am being asked to comment on the aspects of the dynamics of flight and how to build a plane after being pushed off a cliff with three bits of wood and some bailing twine. This is however a constuctivist world now and I will reach into my proximal learning zone and use some connectivism to survive it.

I have not tried a PMI strategy before so will try it this time,

POSITIVES:

It is wiki wiki = Hawaiin for fast. link

Ease of use: a wiki is very easy to produce and to edit.

wonderful tool for group work, collaboration, brainstorming.

Can be structured by teacher to scaffold learning experiences.

Allow students to contribute without classroom pressure.

Can create side comment pages to further focus / filter information.

Can provide links so creates a form of connectivism for other students.
Class activity can be monitored using running history.
A place that children can be engaged and relatively self directed.
Further positives / uses from course wiki

MINUSES:

Can not create a real time dialogue.

Student content can be overwritten / lost / so requires monitoring and history checking so can be time consuming for teacher to control.

If two people contributing at once information can be lost.

Can be opinion based.

Project needs to be time sensitive otherwise relevancy may be lost to earlier contributors.

Possibility of early posts controlling thought processes of others.

Has some risk for privacy and confidentiality, bullying, it is a public space, rules needed and to be enforced. Further to this I asked my 15 and 17 year old daughters about Wiki use in their school and they were dead against them citing technical and personal privacy issues, to quote, "no way do I want to put my personal thoughts and work where anyone can read them!" Interesting.

INTERESTING:

Perhaps use as a tool for student feedback.

Great way to assess prior knowledge on a subject before teaching it, brainstorming, building bridges, KWL strategies. (QSA, 2009)

A place for students to pool resources for, research, exams or projects. A place that they can create and manage, with some oversight / scaffolding, themselves. (Cool cat teacher link)

Students may be able to creatively write a story, novel, factual text as a collaborative. (source)

What is fantastic is the web itself and the plethora of options, ideas and opinions out there that can be used to apply wiki's. I think with a clear idea of what content and outcomes are to be achieved i.e. good pedagogy,  and with some creativity wiki's are a very versatile tool. 

As a discussion regarding the uses by the teacher and the students to support, facilitate and transform learning we need go no further than to review the positives and the interesting. Wiki's are a beautiful tool to help create collaborative learning in the constructivist learning model and is well supported in the  connectivism model of supported learning. Students can be collaborative and fully participant in the learning journey. If scaffolded and reviewed well it can create true ownership and stimulate creativity. This is a link to education Tasmania and gives wonderful overview of scaffolding and ICT's. It is the bringing together of all ideas from the TPACK framework discussed earlier. Great scaffolding ideas can be found at our course wikispaces site and include; ranking tools, PMI, SWOT, Compare / contrast, collaborative authoring, Six hats and project drafting to name a few.

This of course means, as stated in minuses, that clear boundaries must be established and rules of ethical and legal behaviour will be adhered to at all times. This is a Link to a good website for a discussion and further links for internet safe and ethical practice. This issue in itself though is an excellent learning for the real world environment and establishes opportunities for web use discussion and research. Part of early usage of wiki's could be a creating a scaffolded student wiki exercise for example a KWL in researching ethics and correct referencing in the web based format and building a wiki of class ethics. See course notes for further info.
I have researched into web etiquette and this can be found in my wiki.

Earlier thoughts on Wiki's can be found in one of my previous blog reflections.

References:

Queensland Studies Authority, (2010) Teaching reading and viewing, Comprehension strategies and activities for years 1-9.  Retrieved from http:// http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p_10/engl_teach_read_view_comprehension.pdf

Blogging along - a reflection.

In this Blog we are to create a reflection on the potential of blogs in the teaching context and to scaffold that exercise in a SWOT style so as to create an analytical landscape. It is to be focused on learner centred styles and the teacher as the facilitator.
So this is a reflection on how I may see the use of blogs in the classroom environment. Firstly a SWOT diagram as explanation.

image link.

I will begin with the SWOT analysis and then move further into the uses of blogs within a classroom environment.

STRENGTHS:
Ease of use, accessibility in time and location, connectedness to community, builds chronological time line of work, student feedback easy with comments, multimedia format / use video graphs, pictures, open to strong scaffolding tools (link), brilliant tool for reflective learners (see learning styles), excellent tool to encourage writing, Perfect platform to develop ICT learning, safe places available e.g. learning place, can create a real sense of class belonging (see school link below),( Blackstone,B) states, "accessability beyond traditional limits of the classroom", "can encourage autonomous learning", "personalised and student centred",                                                                          

WEAKNESSES:
Difficult to monitor all of class, can be opinion based, can create isolated working situations if poor pedagogy employed, others can not share other than comments, may not be as useful for collaborative exercises e.g. wiki, not so good for active learners (see learning styles), dependant on individual student motivation.

OPPORTUNITIES:                                                          
Possibility to include parents, possibility to involve community, ability for others to make comment. Inter / Intra-class collaboration, Inter  / Intra-school collaboration,  gain understanding of student feelings and thoughts, ongoing assessment to gauge effectiveness of pedagogy, students learn from others students, possibilities to use with special needs students, brilliant tool to encourage children to write,

THREATS:
Limited by available technology, risk of inappropriate content, others comments inappropriate, poor student technology skills, students publishing private info, time frames, school policy / procedures,  classes changing each year what happens to the students blog?

Following is a diagram that covers the practical uses well.

 diagram link

Another link that is very useful is the QSA Information and communications technologies, cross curriculum policies. Reading between the lines I can see a use for blogs in almost every aspect of the document. A great site to encourage creativity.

Here is a LINK to a website that proposes 33 ideas for the use of blogs in the classroom. What is wonderful are the comments afterwards, as others include their thoughts and ideas. Connectivism at full speed.


TEACHING IDEAS:

I will be teaching primary students so I will be applying ideas to that situation. As I am very new to both teaching and deeper ICT I would take a lead from the expectations of Education Queensland and their expectations from ICT. Understanding my students and their individual and collective needs and learning styles will factor in all of this.
(ACARAv4.2) gives clear indications of "applying social and ethical protocols and practices", when using ICT. A blog is an exceptional format for learning how to reference and use ICT information and to learn to operate safely in the web environment.  Any decent pedagogy will have these issues front and centre. I have created a wiki page that has reference sites for safety that I will implement in the class setting. I have a long way to go and realise that my knowledge must continue to grow.
I have seen many references on the positive effect of blogs and technology on written literacy (example), (Winch, G., p.254) states technology, "may enhance writing and even make certain stages of the writing process( such as drafting, editing and preparing easier, more interesting and ultimately more satisfying. The end result may be better and making collaborative work easier and reinforcing the social nature of learning". This is perhaps especially true for some students such as those with Dyslexia and Autism spectrum disorders.

A link here to a class web blog in Victoria. The excitement of the children at their tasks is obvious and wonderful. The inclusion of web safety protocols within the blog is vitally important.

Following are a few teaching ideas:

As stated in the opening preface, the goal here is to be facilitator and focus on learner centred approaches. This tool delivered / scaffolded appropriately engages students and creates motivation for learning. 

Early primary: 

• very early primary run a class blog that we contribute to as we progress, group activity will begin to induce collaborative learning and will help to scaffold learning for those less technologically able. If two or more groups are created, ethical commenting, evaluation and analysis can be explored.
• A great vehicle for  reviewing or referencing previous class work, develop self assessment and progress and encourage collaborative engagement and ownership of work.  
• literacy and spelling work can be created and stored in the blog, which relates to point two as progress can be evaluated, like a work portfolio.
• caution must be exercised to develop a safe working environment and web searches may need to be guided.
• when searching the Internet work in pairs as a minimum.

Mid primary:

• ask individual to have blogs and ask students to make comments. 
• Collaborative work may be more effective, use blogs as portfolios of learning, use as an inducement for literary skills, by learner centred focus and relevancy by asking students to create own literature.
• Create a personal blog, teacher only other access. Excellent resource for those less willing to share private thinking or feel embarrassment of work, a safe place to share their poetry, writing, feelings etc.

Later primary: 

• Create personal blogs as best work portfolios.  
• Blogs as term project portfolio e.g. in climate studies building answers to problems much in the way we are doing here, gathering data and it would be especially useful in the higher order Bloom's Taxonomy level as the student's revise and reflect on their work.
• Ask parents to comment on blogs, 
• Involvement of community by collecting comments from actual people in that line of work, scientists etc. when students do projects.
• Most importantly of all, other than personal blogs, students can engage with the blogs of the world. For a literacy assignment I produced, a part of the after reading task was to access Blogs of scientists on Macquarie Island, to ask them questions and to make comments. Talk about connecting to the world.

As with all teaching we are intent on helping our students learn through creative thinking if possible, Learnonline has some great tools.

Stephen Downes is prolific in further thoughts on blog use, too many to include here.

After reading Lynette's blog I was inspired to add her page to this discussion as it has some excellent links to blog ideas and some inspirational examples of how blogs can be used to help bring relevance and engagement to the class with ICT's and particularly Blogs.

References:

Blackstone, B, Spiri, J, Naganuma, N, Blogs in English language teaching and learning:

      Pedagogical uses and student responses, Reflections on English Language Teaching, Vol. 6, No.       2, pp. 1–20

Downes, S.(2004), EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26. Retrieved (March 2013)

Winch, G., Ross Johnston, R., March, P., & Ljungdahl, L., Holliday, M. (2010) Literacy, reading, writing & children/s literature (4^th ed.) South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Engagement 4 Blog reflection on de bono Wiki

From Wiki images

It has been quite fun to use and be involved in the mobile phone wiki. It is very simple to use and a wonderful way to share a groups opinions. I particularly enjoyed the use of De Bono's hats in a discussion format. Being asked to, and finding myself capable of, deliberately shifting thinking style was fun, and at times challenging. It is a wonderful format for a discussion wiki and I will definitely use the technique in the future. I think it would be appropriate to further the project by forming groups and applying evaluation, critical thinking and analysis in the form of Bloom's taxonomy of questions to tease out and refine the collected information of the group. There is an almost limitless amount of information in the web, our students need to develop critical thinking around all information and its quality and authenticity. The NMC report (2011) states; "sense-making and the ability to assess the credibility of information are paramount. Mentoring and preparing students for the world in which they will live is again at the forefront".

Is this forum reflective of certain learning styles?

I feel that in some ways all of the learning styles are being represented here and that this is of no surprise as they are a bit like Russian dolls, one contained within the other, behaviourism leading to thought to that created recognition of cognitivism and so on and all having a perspective of the learning process. 

Beginning from the outside: 

Connectivism:  

These principles are definitely represented here, although debated as a learning style it is still valuable to reflect on it here. In blue are comments on the points of connectivism related to our exercise.

● Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. 

   Obvious in the group task setting.

● Learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes or information sources. 

   Information was brought from many diverse, topic specific sources and shared

● Learning may reside in non-human appliances. 

   The collective knowledge is held in the wiki.

● Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known

   This is in the creativity of the exercise, bring in known information, but be inspired to think, create and learn more.

● Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.

   Returning to the wiki to follow ideas and discussing with peers vital to this process. 

● Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. 

   especially within the de bono process.

● Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.

   My intent was not to refer to texts or older learning It was to find information, articles and opinion, almost exclusively web based, that is current now. 

● Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information

   Searching for your own information to contribute and help form   your opinions. What is worthwhile to contribute and why. What have others offered and is it relevant to the topic and to me.

taken and adapted from elearnspace

Constructivism:

This is a huge part of what we are doing here, the core of the exercise.

"learners construct their own reality or at least interpret it based upon their perceptions of experiences, so an individual's knowledge is a function of one's prior experiences, mental structures, and beliefs that are used to interpret objects and events." (Jonasson,1991, cited Mergel 1998) from week one learning materials.

We are asked to offer our opinions here and to build and expand on those opinions as we read and take on that which we feel is important to us.

"Important in the learning process is the support of the teacher (or more knowledgeable others who may be other learners) by modeling and scaffolding. These include explicit modeling by the teacher, a shared understanding of what is to be learned by teacher and learner, the use of a suitable tool (cultural, physical or virtual), collaboration and 'bouncing' ideas off others, and finally internalisation of new knowledge." ( week 1 notes). CLE states, "Teachers are now challenged to adapt and change instructional design strategies to actively engage learners in meaningful projects and activities that promote exploration, experimentation, construction, collaboration, and reflection of what these learners are studying".

Well that's it in a nutshell really. We are still in the guidance and scaffolding of the teacher and indeed the wiki as the teacher has set the boundaries of the topic and the questions and direction for the discussion and also the structure by placing it within the wiki, which has its own rules. We are learning through free exploration of information through scaffolded questions that initiate social engagement and collaboratively working to a solution.

Cognitivism:

More of an internalisation of the learning process, what is going on in the mind of the learner. In this instance the exercise is asking us to rework knowledge we have already used. This discussion being a part of the task asks us to remember and rework knowledge in our minds again, thus in all probability allowing better recall at a later time.

Behaviourism:

Perhaps within this all, behaviourism is still there, deep down. In the simplistic effort of working our way into and out of the wiki, blogs and web sites we are doing repetitive tasks with minor rewards at each step. This allows us in the future, almost reflexively, to use the technologies and software in the process of learning.

Benefits, 

The obvious benefits of working in a wiki like this, is to have a group work collaboratively to gather information and opinion, influencing each other as they do so. The wiki allows all to have an equal voice and a chance to contribute, this does not always occur in class, more reticent, reflective learners may not contribute as easily. To then have the ability to collect this information, even in a scattered group such as ours, and to have that information permanently recorded is of a great benefit to learning. This is especially relevant in the collection of answers and web information that can be collected and refined into further wiki efforts on the subject. Proper instruction would include Bloom's ideas of further / higher analytical thinking. An important point here would be a further wiki perhaps on listing and organising things that have been learnt, or ideas that have changed, or assessing the quality of the information collected. For the teacher there is opportunity to ask, was the pedagogy effective in its outcomes? What did my students learn? the teacher can look at individual authorship to evaluate individual students. It is vitally important to assess the effectiveness of the strategy. Quizzes on final learning in another aspect of the wiki would be useful here.

Issues, drawbacks.

A drawback of this particular system is the time frame over which we all will be contributing, theoretically that could be weeks, by which time others have moved on and do not benefit from later thinking of others who have the difficulty and gift of reading the work and ideas of others. Scaffolding needed to bring early authors back to the conversation? It is also difficult not to see that most of what is presented in this example was opinion. A necessary thing in that we have not had much time to become informed and to do deeper research for ourselves. The scaffolding certainly contained this and ensured deeper thinking but opinion was still evident. Were our opinions and evaluations valid? A chance for another type of examination?

The idea of deeper learning to me is also an idea of quality of knowledge. No point deeply knowing / debating something if it is based in poor information. inspired by (NMC, 2011. p.4). 

Another problem with this exercise was the lack of skills of the students with wiki operation. This led to overwriting issues, formatting issues and a lot of frustration. This exercise would have been better served by ensuring all students had effective wiki navigation skills prior to commencement.

How will this affect teaching wiki style elements in school?

I have no doubt that I will use wiki style learning in my class environments. I have never participated in this before and I think they are a fabulous tool and there are so many exciting applications. Including,

•   group project building, 

•   discussion forums,

•   collaborative learning 

•   class planning and more.

In a learning sense it is very interesting because how will students draw meaning from a project like this. It is like reading a book written by 30 people all at once, that evolves quite literally as you read it! I think these are new skills to be developed. To find meaning and relevancy quickly. I want to explore this more, and to have a better understanding of the uses and pitfalls of this technology, but overall I'm really excited about the potential uses. TPACK here I come.


It is highly recommended you visit my later analysis of  WIKI's

Some more information regarding Wiki can be found on  course wikispaces

Understanding TPACK

Reflections on TPACK.

Image from technolote.com

TPACK: Technology, Pedagogy and Content knowledge.

Technology:    Fancy word for tools

Pedagogy:       Fancy word for teaching skills

Content:          Not a fancy word for what. What is to be taught?

This is the area in the diagram in which all three areas of a teacher's Knowledge intersect. It is the place in the classroom where a teachers knowledge of content, of the information to be gained by students, intersects with the teaching skills and styles of the teacher, pedagogy, and the teachers awareness and skills of the use and application of technology.

It is the place that represents a teachers ability to take an area that needs to be learnt, often guided by the curriculum and creatively applies / uses pedagogical skills in the application of technologies as a vehicle to reach desired outcomes and understandings. The technologies themselves can be discovered as a part of the learning process itself. In a sense, to me, this is how children learn. A wonderful piano teaching technique, Simply Music, teaches children piano and music in the way they learn language, imitation first and then slowly introducing the structures of tempo, melody, written notes and music. So the piano and its music is discovered in the process of enjoyment in being able to produce songs.

It is interesting that in this TPACK intersection the domain can be very strong if all areas of knowledge are strong. Or indeed weakened if any of the areas of knowledge in the teacher are themselves weak or if the  ability to integrate any of the three separate fields into each other. So if you are are great tech head but your ability to help others understand what you know is poor, poor pedagogy then it weakens the TPK domain and so the TPACK domain. This of course applies to all the Knowledge intersections.

So, lets put this in a way that I can understand. If I want you to know how to fix something, say a toaster. There is a way of measuring how well I can do that. How much do I know about toasters and how to fix them? Content knowledge. What skills do I have of engaging you in wanting to fix the toaster ( are you hungry yet?) and communicating and discovering how to fix it and then measuring how well you did it ( is the toast burnt?) ie teaching skills specific to toasters, Pedagogy Content Knowledge. If I choose to do this engagement with technologies be it through the use of internet, phone a friend, texts, emails, discussion forums etc etc or even in the actual application of hammers and screwdrivers what do I know about them and their specific application to teaching how to fix a toaster and how will using these technologies affect the process and outcomes? Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

It is the relationship of these areas that TPACK tries to model, measure and quantify. But it is a slippery sucker, especially the technological aspect, it changes and grows and redefines as do all the knowledge areas but it seems to me to be Technology that is the most fluid at present. Add in ever shifting context and it really becomes fun. Technologies and our students using them are asking us to become more creative in the delivery of our teaching, TPACK may help us to better learn what will be effective.

If I can use the model to better understand my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, not viewing each domain as isolated but as a heaving mass of interdependency then I have a stronger ability to improve my skill sets and to be able to use technology not as a adjunct separate to my teaching goals but indeed integral to them. Learning technology through the desire to complete content goals using effective pedagogy. 

Clear as mud, excellent, let's find out more.

I will include a link to a video where Mishra and Koehler explain it much better for themselves.

http://punya.educ.msu.edu/2008/03/18/site-2008-keynote/

Engagement 4 It's learning Jim but not as we know it!

Connectivism: Learning as a skill rather than an outcome.

The Thigh bone is connected to the knee bone.....

My personal experience of this is in my profession as a Chiropractor. In many years gone by a medical practitioner was expected to keep his knowledge in his head and to attend seminars and do appropriate journal reading to provide continuing information updates. It is no longer possible to do this. The advance of medical knowledge is so fast that it would be more than a full time job to just do the required reading. We just have so much information now. We created specialisation to deal with this, but even now that is being overwhelmed.

What to do?

I think that Siemens has a very strong point and it is reflected in real world outcomes. My favourite doctors now are the ones with a lap top on their desk who research information for you as they go, printing relevant information for you and directing you to high reliability websites to help you to be better informed. Base knowledge is essential and we still need to recognise where the stethoscope and thermometer goes, very embarrassing to put it in the wrong orifice. But what do we do with gathered information particularly if it is beyond our working knowledge. It is common to outsource to specialists in data interpretation such as professional radiologist readers or to research online. The trick now is who do you connect to and how?

Technology, creating the problem and being the answer.  The NBN is touted as necessary for this style of information gathering, holding and sharing especially in the medical profession and linking remote areas with world class diagnosticians.
Classroom.
In the classroom environment a topic could be chosen; by the class (relevance) and all the collective knowledge of the class about the subject is gathered. Then postulate the question, is that all we can know? (engagement) Where and how can we find out more? Class suggestions. Then ask where is the latest thinking and information to be found? Texts, books, magazines, internet? Set different groups on to different modalities? Who found the most? Ask the question: If we had more people helping us search would that help us? Once more knowledge is found, what do we do with it? can we add to this? How can we do this? Where do we do this? Who do we want to know and how do we make sure they can find it?

Source

The following is a list of thoughts and questions inspired by the reading that I will get to answering as time permits.

• Content, who has control of what I learn? curriculum, family, culture, informal learning?
• Self awareness; how do I learn? how am I intelligent?
• Relevance
• Engagement
• Boredom, motivation, attention span, critical thinking, analysis.
• Education as entertainment?
• In a fast information world where everything changes and is rapidly discarded where is personal and life meaning; are our children happier and do they have stronger sense of purpose and self worth?
• What is the value of delayed gratification in learning?
• How quickly should we form an opinion, what is a considered opinion and then how quickly should we share it?,
• Work ethic and determination, always in style?
• Critical analysis of information, what do I choose to believe.
• ICT in creating learning environments.
• Web, Wiki, Blog, face book, video media, discourse pages, i pad
• How IT astute are primary school children, how astute do they need to be.