Reflection 2 Week 3

ICT for Learning Design Week 3 Reflection 2

This week we students of the Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching are asked to provide reflections on three forms of Information Technology tools.  They are:   Blog;  Wiki;  and   Woodle.  Provided is a short description of each.  One will be considered the best tool and that will be: the wiki.


(Note to marker: a voki was tried here to introduce but I cannot get it working. Further instruction will be needed next tutorial.)

ICT Tools Advantages

Below is a concept map for a SAMR model showing why ICT tools are good for learning.

Figure 1.  SAMR model for use of ICT in education.

Blogs  

Blogs are log entries (a shortening of the words web log) and have similar features to web-pages.  The concept is that they regularly have new information put to them in separate postings.  They are like web-pages because only one person puts new posts on them, like a webmaster would to a web page, in the form of a diary entry, and only that person can edit them.  Others are allowed to post comments.  They can have all sorts of multimedia added to them, such as videos either uploaded or embedded from a site like youtube or flicker; vokie’s or Foley devices; rolling ticker banners; pictures; links to other pages; audio; robots; tables; charts; etc.  Basically everything that has been seen on a web-page can be provided in a blog.     

• They are a good learning tool to share information with groups of people.  They can be used for research tasks, for example, where someone is exploring a subject and/or needs to update a group on a regular basis.  They go live straight away.
• They are useful for supporting Behaviourist (Hammond, et al, 2001) theory where someone is learning facts can express them in their own words and can get positive feedback from their peers or the teacher.  
• They can delve into Cognitivism by having a blog as a means of using the information so that it can be transferred into long term memory as well as use of learning tools (shown later this blog) within the blog.

They fall short in the learning spectrum by

• Not interactive
• Not supporting Social Constructivism (Hammond, et al, 2001).

	*Good old fashioned Web-Sites and Forums are still a good source of learning*

Web-Sites and Weebly

Web-Sites are a very good source of learning.  The internet is populated by Web-Sites where people, not just students, learn about things.  Web-Sites best fit Behaviourist theory of learning (Hammond, et al, 2001), a lower order of education, and there is nothing wrong with that.  They are a good means of researching a topic.  Web-sites are unable to be updated by the viewer and usually do not change much over long periods of time, sometimes up to a year; and sometimes the changes are minor.  One can say that some web-sites do have some interaction with their “Shopping Carts” that are on sites where they are selling, or answering of questions/quiz through means of ‘radio buttons’, etc.; however the user is unable to contribute or edit the site.  This make them considered a generally more solid form of information to use in a reference where-as a wiki, for example, is considered a weak form of reference due-to anyone being able to edit them: the information has the authority of the web-master/author.They can have all the types of media added to them as has been mentioned for the blog: videos, banners, robots, pictures, audio, links. On sites such as Jonnos's Science, a science web-site aimed for about grade 7, http://www.johnnosscience.com/biology-videos.html) the site can be used as a learning tool by a student: they can be given free time in a class to peruse Jonno's Science web-site how they like; it is also a resource for teachers.

Weebly is a web-site tool for creating sites. It can also be a forum on a website. Forums are a very good source of socializing a topic. My experience with forums are that I have been addicted to them. They usually work by a question being placed in text format. Once you or a student makes a response it is almost an irresistible feeling to check on the post and see what others have put down after you. It is even additive to see what questions your like-minded peers are putting on the forum. It is a good way to "nut-out" a problem. Unfortunately, I have seen forums where it is like the saying "The Blind leading the blind"; they lack scaffolding techniques and one always hopes the known regular poster, who is considered an expert on the subject, makes a post on your question. It is open to, like the Blog and wiki, malicious comments and therefore the moderator needs to keep a close eye on the posts.

Wiki

A Wiki site allows for interaction.  Wiki are an important tool for education as they support theories of Social Constructivism (Hammond, et al, 2001), which is the higher order of learning that we as teachers are supposed to support.  It allows teachers to push students just beyond the range of existing experience with assistance from the teacher.  It allows for discourse and cooperative learning in the classroom.  In this way it extends the learning ideas of Piaget and Vygotsky (Hammond, et al, 2001) where the student are in charge of their own learning and the teacher is merely a guide for them.  Visitors (students) are able to edit and contribute to the site.  Links to other wiki pages are possible which extends the usefulness of the interactive wiki.  

With wiki pages the teacher is able to provide the following sample of interactive scaffolding techniques:

• PMI (Positive, Minus, Implications)
• de Bono Six Hat
• Collaborative authoring
• SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats)
• Ranking Tool (Everyone ranks a series of ideas)
• Tchart (paired descriptors are discussed)
• Compare and Contrast Chart (Difference between descriptors 1 & 2, Similarities between 1 & 2).

Wiki's fall short in one area, they are open to malicious people editing the site.  The author of the wiki needs to therefore be aware of their audience and keep a close monitoring of the site.  They have other technical difficulties such as only one person can edit at one time because they can save over (and therefore delete) another's addition to the site.  However as a tool of use in the modern education sector, they provide the best means of learning.

L-D Hammond,K Austin, S Orcutt, J Rosso, (2001) How People Learn: An Introduction to Learning Theories, Episode 1, The Learning Classroom: Theory Into Practice, A Telecourse for Teacher Education and Professional Development, Stanford University School of Education.  (http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?name=EDED20456_2141)