Me and my blog have had our ups and downs!
My first ever post was a joyous occasion, as I marvelled at my own skills and the blogging technology itself. Now I have a way to share my inner thoughts and queries with the masses. I couldn't wait to see what the masses might think! It also gave me an insight into the minds of my peers (very interesting!) and prompted me to question and develop my own ideas (social constrctivism at its best!). But unfortunately this love affair was short lived.
Blogging is very time-consuming, especially when you first start out and the thought that people are going to be reading and judging your personal ideas made me rephrase my posts over and over to get the right 'voice' accross. (I must say it has got easier over the couple of months I have been adding to my blog, now I just write whatever I'm thinking...I guess my voice has found its own feet!)
I am sure that reflecting on the course content at regular intervals would be a great way to scaffold our learning and develop our understanding from week to week. However I must admit I did not always have the time to post my own ideas and comment on other blogs every week. Even though the posts were not always on time my blog is a great overview of all that we have covered in this unit and evience that I am able to use the technology.
The feedback from the lecturer and other students did encourage me to develop my ideas on the issues covered further. The comments posed questions and different perspectives that I otherwise would not have considered, and are evidence of how social interaction develops understanding and creates collective intelligence. This was also true for comments I made on other peoples blogs; I did not just read them and move on to the next but related what was being said to my own ideas.
I found this particular platform quite easy to use and managed to embed links, and a useful RSS feed to my blog. I think the more you use a particular site the easier it becomes to embed all sorts of useful links and resources, because I have been using Wikispaces for my wiki more frequently I found that platform easier to use. You can check my wiki out here.
Through this experience I can see the uses of using blogs in the classroom. I would model the use of blogs from early primary using class blogs and perhaps wikis on articular projects or topics. For middle to upper primary, as the students literacy skills develop, blogs become a fantastic insight into the students thinking and provide a timeline of their developing understanding.
The students may struggle at first, as I did, to find their public voice but with time, support, and development of digital literacy and digital safety skills, the use of blogs and other Web 2.0 tools could become key to future primary classrooms.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Taking a peek into the future
It is impossible to predict exactly how technology will evolve in the future but we are already seeing how technology may be integrated into all classrooms in the years to come, by looking at laptop schools and the developing use of Web 2.0 in classrooms today.
Although it may take time for the use of computers to become as normal as the use of a pen and paper is today I think this is a change that will be vital for teachers and students to benefit from a more social form of teaching and learning where we all make use of and contribute to a collective intelligence.
The issues of digital safety and information overload will continue to exist and teachers need to equip their students with skills and strategies to use new technologies safely and effectively. To do this successfully teachers need to stay upto date with changing technologies, and their potential risks.
I think m-learning may become particularly relevent in areas of the world that do not have access to computers and laptops. Mobile phones are a relatively cheap way to gain access to the internet, social sites and a huge store of collective knowledge. They may provide a way to bring education and information to the millions of people who cannot afford computers.
Although it may take time for the use of computers to become as normal as the use of a pen and paper is today I think this is a change that will be vital for teachers and students to benefit from a more social form of teaching and learning where we all make use of and contribute to a collective intelligence.
The issues of digital safety and information overload will continue to exist and teachers need to equip their students with skills and strategies to use new technologies safely and effectively. To do this successfully teachers need to stay upto date with changing technologies, and their potential risks.
I think m-learning may become particularly relevent in areas of the world that do not have access to computers and laptops. Mobile phones are a relatively cheap way to gain access to the internet, social sites and a huge store of collective knowledge. They may provide a way to bring education and information to the millions of people who cannot afford computers.
ARRRRGGGHHHH....INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!
I certainly need to learn some skills to deal with all the information that seems to be constantly thrown in my direction, so I'm sure the students would appreciate some guidence too! My desk is covered in scraps of paper that I have written handy web addresses on and if you delve into my computer it is much the same story; files and files of useful articles that I have collected over the years but never get around to reading as they disappear somewhere on my hard-drive!
Thank technology for Folksonomies! Now I have my friendly little 'Delicious' buttons on my toolbar I have no need to worry about where that old envelope is with the chocolate cake recipe on one side and the key reference to my latest essay on the other! Getting students familiar with such tools from an early stage will be vital for them to build skills to organise all the information they find now and in the future.
Wordle is another great tool that enables you to draw out the most important information from a document, website or blog, and could be used in a number of different ways in the classroom, for example you may build on the 'word wall' strategy and create a wordle image at the beginning of a topic (to get an idea of current understanding) and create another one at the end to see how the students understanding has developed over the course of a particuler project.
RSS feeds are another way to manage the information you recieve. They allow you to choose a particular topic of interest and recieve up to date news feeds straight to your blog, homepage or wiki. This is great for a classroom blog or wiki on a particular topic as there is no need to spend time sifting through mountains of information to find what you are looking for.
The idea of network (or social) filtering does have its advantages as it makes sense that the people you know and choose to have in your network are going to share interests with you. It may however limit the information you are given access to too much, which in turn limits your potential knowledge.
Thank technology for Folksonomies! Now I have my friendly little 'Delicious' buttons on my toolbar I have no need to worry about where that old envelope is with the chocolate cake recipe on one side and the key reference to my latest essay on the other! Getting students familiar with such tools from an early stage will be vital for them to build skills to organise all the information they find now and in the future.
Wordle is another great tool that enables you to draw out the most important information from a document, website or blog, and could be used in a number of different ways in the classroom, for example you may build on the 'word wall' strategy and create a wordle image at the beginning of a topic (to get an idea of current understanding) and create another one at the end to see how the students understanding has developed over the course of a particuler project.
RSS feeds are another way to manage the information you recieve. They allow you to choose a particular topic of interest and recieve up to date news feeds straight to your blog, homepage or wiki. This is great for a classroom blog or wiki on a particular topic as there is no need to spend time sifting through mountains of information to find what you are looking for.
The idea of network (or social) filtering does have its advantages as it makes sense that the people you know and choose to have in your network are going to share interests with you. It may however limit the information you are given access to too much, which in turn limits your potential knowledge.
Digital Safety: Preparing your students
Unfortunately there are many dangers that face children today; from crossing a busy road on the way to school to 'stranger danger'. As teachers it is our responsibility to make sure students are aware of these dangers and teach skills and strategies to cope with dangerous situations. Digital safety should not be treated any differently. Although, as members of a generation which grew up without issues surrounding digital safety, we view these as new dangers, the 'digital natives' in our classrooms do not see a difference. They need to be taught digital safety alongside traditional safety education.
Digital safety should be taught as soon as children are using computers and the internet. There are many resources available for teachers to use to help educate students about the dangers:
•Budd:e (Australian Govt, 2009)
•Get Safe Online (UK Govt, 2009)
•Wise Up to IT (Australian Communications & Media Authority, 2008)
There are also tools that teachers can use to control the content that students are able to access. Websites such as Yubby allow videos to be imported to create personalized channels. I recently used this with a Year 3 class during a project about electricity. I created a channel (BrightSparks) with videos about various power stations which the students could then access with a username and password. I was not worried about the students being exposed to inappropriate content and it also saved time during the lesson.
The above example is useful in lower and middle primay classrooms but as students get older as long as they are educated about on-line dangers there should be no need to restrict their internet access. Restricting access, especially to social sites, may disadvantage students as we move towards a more social way of creating and sharing knowledge: collective intelligence.
Digital safety should be taught as soon as children are using computers and the internet. There are many resources available for teachers to use to help educate students about the dangers:
•Budd:e (Australian Govt, 2009)
•Get Safe Online (UK Govt, 2009)
•Wise Up to IT (Australian Communications & Media Authority, 2008)
There are also tools that teachers can use to control the content that students are able to access. Websites such as Yubby allow videos to be imported to create personalized channels. I recently used this with a Year 3 class during a project about electricity. I created a channel (BrightSparks) with videos about various power stations which the students could then access with a username and password. I was not worried about the students being exposed to inappropriate content and it also saved time during the lesson.
The above example is useful in lower and middle primay classrooms but as students get older as long as they are educated about on-line dangers there should be no need to restrict their internet access. Restricting access, especially to social sites, may disadvantage students as we move towards a more social way of creating and sharing knowledge: collective intelligence.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The importance of critical literacy
The lecture today actually got me pretty excited about teaching information literacy in the future....worrying I know! I definitely agree with the comments made about the importance of teaching, or at least modelling critical literacy to children as early as possible. We are bombarded by images and text in our everyday lives, which we as adults are constantly processing and filtering to be able to obtain useful information and discard not so useful information! We have learned and perfected this throughout our lifetimes but this is something we need to teach our students explicitly.
By explicitly teaching our students what questions to ask when they are exposed to new literacies, and the process of triangulation, they will be able to challenge and build on their current knowledge. Digital literacies offer the perfect opportunity to teach critical literacy. The amount of information out there is seemingly endless and without the tools of critical literacy (crap detection 101!) it would be virtually impossible to find and identify useful sources of information.
By explicitly teaching our students what questions to ask when they are exposed to new literacies, and the process of triangulation, they will be able to challenge and build on their current knowledge. Digital literacies offer the perfect opportunity to teach critical literacy. The amount of information out there is seemingly endless and without the tools of critical literacy (crap detection 101!) it would be virtually impossible to find and identify useful sources of information.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
wikis: turning disadvantage into advantage
I think I was probably the only one in the lecture who does not use Wikipedia. That's not to say I haven't heard of it before, but I remember being told, years ago (perhaps at uni first time round, or in high school) that the information on Wikipedia is not reliable, and so I've never really bothered with it after that. I've also never bothered thinking about how the information on Wikipedia is created so the lecture was actually a bit of an eye opener for me!
One of the disadvantages brought up in the lecture is the lack of 'expert' quality control, meaning that students could be picking up false information. However I don't see this as a disadvantage, it is just something teachers have to be aware of so they can arm their students with appropriate skills.
Students must be taught how to critically analyse all sources of information, whether it be a wiki or a book, to construct their own understanding. Wikis may not be expertly controlled but as long as students are aware of this they should be allowed to decide for themselves, through further inquiry, whether the information they provide is valid or not.
This inquiry approach, where students are the ones deciding which information is important/valid/correct is so much more engaging, and will lead to a deeper understanding than reading an encyclopedia ever will.
One of the disadvantages brought up in the lecture is the lack of 'expert' quality control, meaning that students could be picking up false information. However I don't see this as a disadvantage, it is just something teachers have to be aware of so they can arm their students with appropriate skills.
Students must be taught how to critically analyse all sources of information, whether it be a wiki or a book, to construct their own understanding. Wikis may not be expertly controlled but as long as students are aware of this they should be allowed to decide for themselves, through further inquiry, whether the information they provide is valid or not.
This inquiry approach, where students are the ones deciding which information is important/valid/correct is so much more engaging, and will lead to a deeper understanding than reading an encyclopedia ever will.
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