Your Imagination is Your Limit!

This week I decided to look into the world of Glogster. This week there was a focus on Visual Literacy and the use of interactive and multimodal resources. Glogster falls into this category as it essentially is an online poster. It can be made up of so many components with many links to external resources. It is a step up, in classiness, from your average PowerPoint presentation. Glogster has now been around for several years and so many of the creases have been ironed out and it is a great tool.

As a teacher I can make a poster and teach my class, for the lesson, from this one poster. It is an engaging tool that creates a 'fun' lesson and learning experience. It is 'fun' as it can have pictures, information, links to websites with more information and even movie/YouTube clips.

 It allows students to be creative as creative as they want. Not only can I present the lesson with a Glogster presentation but they can also present, submit and create their assignment in the form of a 'Glog' poster as well. Glogster has several different 'basic' formats that you can use or create one completely from scratch - this works if there is nothing that really fits well. As a student I had to create an 'online poster', well more of a poster that was completely created using technology, and if I had known about this it would have made the assignment a lot more pleasant and enjoyable. And yes 'memorable' assignments are ones that stick because you engaged well with the topic, but this is memorable for the wrong reason. Not only can any age get use out of creating a Glogster but it can accommodate to any subject, to any depth! Topics that have previously been labelled by students as 'boring' are now full of excitement and interest levels of the students will be spiked! And therefore learning in an engaging classroom will take place - every teacher's ultimate goal.

http://missemfaith.edu.glogster.com/sylvia-plath/

The Glog I made could be how a Teacher introduces a topic/author/poet for further research or the result of a student's work after reading a book and creating a visual and interactive poster on the author/poet/book. The layout that this one has taken could be the result of any year level but I chose Year 10-12 as the maturity and content of the book is to much for a lower year. Which leads me to say that this told can be used by any year levels, that can use a computer and understand, as it is easy to use and rather quite enjoyable. Both students and teachers have unlimited resources and possibilities  the sky is the limit. No really, your imagination is!

Being safe on the web for students is not as big of a deal as other forms that are available to use. This is because it is a safe and secure location that can only be accessed with the use of a password and school name. For this reason, I feel that it is an excellent choice to use in the classroom or as a virtual classroom. Teachers are able to create glogs (and they do not have an expiration date!!), link them to other online tools, for Wikis as an example, and students are able to access them, at any time, to refer back to. This not only uses the Glogs (brilliant), and wikis (birlliant) but combines them to make the wiki experience even more powerful (BRILLIANT!!).

I guess one minus to a glog is that the creator only has a certain amount of space and this cone possibly be limiting. But on the other hand, that is what the links are for, resizing and the ability to have a certain space for text and the scroll bar rather than having a huge space taken up for text.

I have thoroughly enjoyed puttering about looking at other glogs and creating my own. I will certainly find many places to incorporate this into my classroom. 

What Do You See?

So we have week four coming and now going!

This week I decided to research and create a video. This presented many challenges. One being I thought I did not have enough time to be able to create a video in 2 days - and in our lecture we were told about Photostory...it is brilliant! You can download it from here for free http://microsoft-photo-story.en.softonic.com/ - yes free! It was so user friendly and exactly what a teacher wants for their students; something that is simple to use and will produce great results. It turns out, I didn't need two days to have to make this video - the most time consuming part was cooking (which wasn't that bad because it is one of my greatest pleasures). On the other hand if it is that simple and easy to use students could not spend as much time creating their 'master piece' and 'rush job' it. 

This has great potential in a classroom: 

• It can be used as an assessment piece - create a video that follows procedure or a day in the life of...
• It can be used as a photo journal
• It can show the elements of story boarding and then the creation of their ideas

The creating and developing of a video develops a students metacognitive and higher order thinking. Their communication and presentation, technology literacy, organisational, teamwork and movie-making skills will all be developed (Birt, 2013).

Developing this higher order thinking skills comes about because the students are having to have knowledge, apply this knowledge, analyse, synthesis/create and eventually be able to reflect and evaluate on the process they have just taken place in. The evaluating process can take place on their blog or in their workbooks, even a  verbal class evaluation could take place. Creating a video for an assessment is a valuable one to give, it is also diverse enough to engage students. However it will need to have very strict guidelines to ensure that students do not get distracted but follow the outcomes that they are required to make. The learning outcomes would need to be tight and specific and the student's work would need to be routinely checked to make sure they are heading in the right direction. I don't think you can just say 'Yea, you can make a video.' unless you are absolutely sure it could work. But given the right time and place I think it could work absolute wonders and be one of those assessments you remember.

Being a teacher, if we were to create a video of the year that was, for example, we would need parents permission to include their child and their artwork before assuming that we can. Any other pictures that we include would be best to be acknowledged. Teachers would also have to be wise with who they show the video to and just give it to anyone.

This video that I have created could be a student’s result of an assignment. The assignment could be ‘Create a Meal for Two’, ‘Follow a procedure’ or several other things.  A video has potential in both English and Home Economics classes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Mmb6xOCIg

I ran into a lot of difficulty uploading this movie straight into my blog and it took 1/10 of the time uploading it to YouTube then linking it, so that is what I have done. I do not know why it would not upload, I even tried uploading it to my Wiki.I will have to work through it myself before I get my students to do it and they either all stress or all can do it. Otherwise the submission could be via USB or some other manual way.

Wikis - the Virtual Classroom

I find that Wikis, Blogs and Websites are all grweat tools that can make a class more engaging and bring it into the technological 21^st century.

However, there needs to be scaffolding for the students to be able to ensure these tools are used as effectively as possible. Guidelines and rules should be established as a class, with guidance by the teacher. Not only the rules but also the punishment for when the rules are broken. So in the unfortunate case when these rules are crossed and broken the student can not complain, as they created them.

Blogs and Wikis develop a student’s higher order thinking which is beneficial to all parties involved. However, when students are just regurgitating information we have given them or they have found instead of digesting it and figuring it out for themselves and then coming out with their own opinions this higher order thinking is not occurring. Websites on the other hand display information for students to link and follow rather than have influence and create themselves.

WIKI http://missemilydornford.cquniversityschoolofeducation.wikispaces.net/

There is a lot of potential for a wiki within a classroom. Not only for that year level but possibly for future years to look at and reflect upon themselves.

Some of its potential includes group assignments and as said before, students can upload ideas and work for within the year but future students can also look at it and get ideas. Other ideas are:

• Electronic portfolios,
• Discussion forum
• Video playlist
• Analysis grid
• Lecture or poster session slides
• Bibliography

This wiki would be great to use in a classroom for students who are in a groups working on assignments. They would be able to all upload ideas and comments. They are all able to take an equal role in participation, as the more reserved students are able to contribute to the group. And when students work on it for homework, or over the holidays, they have not ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’ all their information. All the information is in one place so they all have it. And if students are away for the day - they haven't missed out! There is also opportunity for the teacher to start research points and include starting links for the information that they are required to find (this could also depend on the age range of the students and their mental capabilities.

Setting up a wiki for any class is a brilliant idea however it can be done within an English class too. For example, Year 10s are studying ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ – each student can have a character and they, for each chapter, write how they are feeling and the emotions, experiences and all that jazz that they are going through. Students are able to, for this component of the subject, replace their writing books with the wiki.

However it would have to be moderated carefully as bullying and downgrading ideas could become an issue. In order to hopefully eliminate but definitely reduce these issues, rules and guidelines would be in place that all students understand. It would be unwise for students to include other people to their wiki space. Especially people that they do not know – a class list could be given to the students and their respective wiki names, so if names do not match up, do not talk to them. This privacy issue can be resolved by making the wikis private and only allowing access to certain names. All students would have access, in some cases, to the one wiki so this privacy issue mentioned above does not really matter as much.

Wikis, within the classroom are a good idea for teachers as storage for the syllabus and their information and resources but also for students as they:

·         Provides an easy and simple to use interface

·         Centralizes multimedia sources related to paper/project

·         Facilitates collaboration with peers on group projects and activities

·         Offers anytime, anywhere access (Smart Teaching, 2008)

Many positives, negatives and interesting things have been mentioned along the way but here are some of them just to see that wikis can definitely improve a classroom:

·         

          PLUS

An up to date learning tool

A changeable source of information on what interests students

Relevant information can constantly change, so can the wiki.

Each student is an author.

It is free,

Easy to create and use

 It can be used as a collaborative tool to gather individual research and notes and share these with rest of the class/group/teacher

It is great for students who are too shy to contribute their ideas

Teachers are able to monitor students’ progress and offer help

Students are able to access at any time, day or night, anywhere!

MINUS

Other students posting on your thoughts may
not be so kind.

Students may not participate - ust like a normal classroom

It is possible for students to change other students' answers

Can be difficult for some students to use/grasp the concept of

Internet connection  to be able to access

Cyber bulling and harassment could create problems,

INTERESTING/IMPLICATIONS

Incorporates many multi media forms ie,links to web pages, videos etc

Blogging can be both formal and informal learning in an alternative way
Can be used in number of teaching areas and across all ages
Able to create opportunities to collaborate with other classrooms and school across the planet!
Every student will get something different out of it
It is student directed and therefore promotes higher order thinking – which teachers love!!

     When I am in my classroom, I want to be able to use Wikis to promote, encourage and engage learning! Maybe even on placement!

There is an excellent amount of information and examples on these websites:

M, Truong & A, Zanzucchi. (n.d.) Center for research on teaching excellence teaching and technology workshop series using wikis to enhance learning. Retrieved from http://crte.ucmerced.edu/sites/crte/files/public/documents/Using%20Wikis%20to%20Enhance%20Learning%20-%20Final.pdf

Smart Teaching. (2008). 50 ways to use wikis for a more collaborative and interactive classroom. Retrieved from http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/

An Avatar...and Weebly

I was doing the weekly reading and became distracted with the comment:
PS. Have you considered the role of avatars in your own context? The first is a free program I got with a PC magazine (called Crazy Talk). Keep an eye open for these types of magazines, sometimes they offer little gems on their DVDs. The second is a Voki. You can click the Voki link within the object, and it will take you to the Voki site to try your own.

So I did just that - I created my own avatar! I think that they would be great when creating a weebly website. It is a FREE web-hosting service. Essentially it is a website that teachers can create as a 'go to' centre for their students. It has so much potential within a classroom. And I have personally experienced it; my Year 12 Chemistry teacher used it - and he has not got other teachers using them.

Although I have not created my own here is the Website! http://www.weebly.com/


Just have to figure out how to upload it...the voki that is

So, upon further reading I noticed that Weebly was our website creator for the week - fancy that!

More to come then on Weebly, Wiki and blogs!

Mobile Phone Wiki

My engagement over the past week with the Mobile phone wiki was an interesting one. It was an experience to be able to 'talk' about an idea without talking about it. Still being able to voice your own opinion without being interrupted...but on the other hand...when you are faced with a different view it is difficult to read as they disagree with you.

I think this forum reflects three of the four learning theories: constructivism, cognitivism, connectivism. 

This is the case majorly so with connectivism as we are allowing access to a range of nodes of information and displaying it on an online interactive face. Students are able to get resources online and link them to to prove their point.

Social Constructivism is used as the learning that occurs is founded upon social interactions within a community or wiki. Students all palce their opinions, yet they can read others and form new opinions when they see other student's points of view.

Cognitivism allows the process of thinking to occur and mental processing their changes of thought. After reading another student's ideas and opinions they are able to re-evaluate their own and change, agree or still disagree.

Although  Behaviourism could still be counted as included, it is not as much so. It does not targeted for the 'development of higher order thinking' which this wiki exercise would hope to achieve. 

When I initially posted in the wiki I was the first one so I was able to begin the ball rolling, however, when I came back other people had posted and they had differing opinions to me. Not that it matters as we are all different but I felt a bit odd writing something for all to see that wasn't the same as others. If I were in a normal classroom I either would not have said my opinion, told my friend next to me and had a side discussion or if, and I want to be truly honest, got the courage to say my opinion and have enough reasons to back myself up I would have said that I disagree.

I stepped outside my personal comfort box, knowing that I know no one and for the purpose for the exercise I wrote my different opinion - and it wasn't that bad. Apart from that I found the entire process of participating in a wiki quite exciting and engaging. Issues that could possibly arise when using this form of learning in a classroom is that students may not write what they truly think but 'people please' and therefore, not only the purpose of this exercise has gone down the drain but students do not learn. I feel that it certainly does have it's place in the classroom as a very viable learning tool.

Using the de Bonos Thinking Hats as a scaffold provided a range of answers that allows the students, us, to be able to think of concepts that we may not have thought abut before - which in turn allows our own 'higher order thinking' to be developed.