Wiki's
In the first two weeks of our ICT’s class we were introduced to wiki’s
and how they can be used in an education setting. We were asked post our
thoughts on mobile phone use on in the classroom using DeBono’s six thinking
hats in a wiki created especially for us. This was a valuable experience, as it
not only allowed us to form out own arguments but to discover other points of
view held by classmates.
Although valuable, I personally think that open ended questions such as ‘should
we allow mobile phone use on in the classrooms’ are not really suited to a wiki
because of their answers are based on opinion. This is not to say it wasn’t
useful, but I think wiki’s can be used in other, more effective ways.
As per my blog post, wiki’s are
reflective of the connectivism education theory. The two key components of
connectivism, learning and knowledge, rest on the diversity and opinions of a
group of people. The first principle, learning, is demonstrated by the students’
ability to write their own opinion on the wiki. The second, knowledge, is
demonstrated by student’s reading/responding to classmate’s posts on the wiki.
The main goal of a wiki is expand your knowledge, not just find the definitive
answer.
Although wiki’s are mainly used for opinion-based topics, I personally
believe they work best when they produce definitive answers to a topic. I
envision setting up a wiki for an entire subject to create a database of
definitions and concepts. For example, creating a wiki for maths and having the
students update their allocated part of the wiki, as well as moderating the
entire site to show that they have an understanding of the mathematical terms
and concepts. As mention in my blog, one of the most important factors in
creating and maintaining a successful wiki is regular moderation. The students
can moderate the wiki but ultimately it should be checked by a teacher, to make
sure all terms and concepts are correct. The biggest issue with wiki’s is that
anyone is able to write what ever they want, which may lead to incorrect
information or abuse. To address this, wiki’s must constantly be moderated by
the teacher or students and a teacher. I would suggest that the first stage of
a wiki is to get the students and teacher to create the rules and regulations
page, this way students have ownership of the rules and are quickly able to see
if there posts are appropriate.
Podcasting/Vodcasting
If you are unaware of what a podcast is then it’s an episodic series of
audio clips that people can subscribe to and download through services such as
iTunes, vodcast’s are essentially the same except they are a episodic series of
videos. It would not be possible to estimate how many podcast there were on the
internet currently as they are being used by everyone from multi-national organisations
to amateur news channels to education institutes. Because of the sheer amount
of podcast/vodcast available online you are able to find a podcast/vodcast on
topics such as
- Art
- Business
- Comedy
- Government
- Education
- Kids
- Health
- Sex
- Technology
- Sport
- TV and Movies
My personal view of podcast is that they are a great way to easily access
and learn about a wide range of topics. As a teacher I would implement them
into my classroom by recording myself talking about the main concepts and idea
of a certain curriculum area. Once recorded I would make it available for
children to download and listen at home. I believe that integrating podcast
would demonstrate the flipped classroom theory described in the Edmodo blog
post. All podcast/vodcast would be subject to the
ethical rules and regulations of the school.
During week 5 we were given a choice to analyse one of a range of
presenting tools. As I mention in my blog, I have been a
life long PowerPoint user, but have only recently been introduced to Prezi. I
have always used PowerPoint, as it’s always been able to do what I would like,
but now I realise that I only used Power Point because I didn’t think there were
any alternative programs. Creating a Presi for the classroom allows you to take
students on a visual and auditory journey through the chosen topic. Being able
to teach through the visual and auditory channels allows you to cover two of
the three learning styles defined in Neil Flemming’s VAK model. For a more
in-depth look at the VAK model you can visit my blog at http://theimmatureintellect.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/icts-for-learning-design-week-1.html.
Although I have not been able to present a Prezi in a class as yet, I
decided to create a Prezi for my blog that presents the life cycle of a frog. This
prezi is available to download in my public dropbox folder at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/48bquw8022col9j/aR-eE6qUT7. As with any
presentations in your class they must adhere to your schools ethical
guidelines.
During week four we were given the choice to analyse a number of
technologies that could possibly be implemented into the classroom but I found
that those technologies were to simplistic for my background in technology so I
chose to focus on a website called Edmodo. Edmodo allows teachers to set up
digital classrooms where every student has a their own profile and login. The
websites is best described as a safe and easy way for your class to connect and
collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices.
This platform will give me the ability to introduce a theory that I have
had a long term love with, flipped classroom. Flipped classroom is the theory
that instead of the typical school model of teaching kids concepts at school
and having them complete worksheets at home the teacher records him/herself
teaching the concepts and the children view the videos online at home. As well
as watching recorded lectures at home, students are given access to a digital
classroom whereby they post question about the concepts. The biggest upside of
children accessing lectures online is they can take notes and rewatch the
lecture to gain a better understanding.
When students go to school, teachers engage with concepts, which they
will already understand. The flipped classroom model has become very popular
with free websites such as the khan academy hosting over 3000 videos on
subjects ranging from year 1 math/English to year 12 physics/biology. Edmodo
have premade policies that help teachers rollout the website to thier
classroom. Appendix 1 is the Edmodo Code of Conduct; its only a basic form that
is meant to be adapted for your particular school and students. Appendix 2 is
the Edmodo guidelines, these guidelines cover the rules and expectations when
posting/replying to messages, working in groups and punctuation and
grammar. Appendix 3 is a parental
permission letter that allows the children to sign up to Edmodo. All 3
documents are very valuable in this type of ICT as it allows a set of
structures rules that students must follow.
Appendix 1 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/8qqcnbjo5c9pflh/Sample_CodeOfConduct.doc
Appendix 2 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/xba6ea0g2bucou1/Edmodo_Guidelines.docx
Appendix 3 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ja2iqgxjkjl4sbp/edmodo-permission-slip.doc
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