Week 2 De Bono's six thinking hats in a online wiki

Six Thinking Hats® (Photo credit: JadiKreatif)

Week 2 Edward De Bono six thinking hats   in the collaborative wiki on mobil phones in th classroom.

 

The class wiki on ‘the use of mobile phone in the classroom’ divided the university in two, while there were a few fence sitters. Some fearing distraction from students, fearing that the students will be constantly engaged with the mobile phones, fearing bulling. These distractions already exists in the classroom. Majority of secondary schools, students already process lap tops rather than books. So mobile phones are just another tool to be utilised. My stance is clear I believe that if we are to keep up with the future generation we must leave a lot of what was once main stream teaching practices behind and reinvent new teaching practices.

Utilising De Bono’s thinking hats allows for people to think outside the box. Some people struggle to think outside the box, but De Bono’s thinking hats allows for scaffolding; support to guild the learners on their quest. The use of the six thinking hats in the wiki link on ‘Mobile phones in the classroom’ allowed for scaffolding. It allowed for students to put on their best hat and contribute to the wiki.

Reflecting on my participation in the wiki, using Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats with the statement ‘using mobile phones in the classroom’. The leaning designed framework encourages the learner to participate in the learning process using De Bono’s 6 thinking hats as a guide, to post comments to a collaborative wiki, using ITC tools. This discussion is where the learner actively takes part in the learning process of higher order thinking skills. The discussion is initially about mobile phones (content of learning). This is where the learner examines their own comments, through comparing, organising and deconstructing of all other comments made. All leaner's contribute to the discussion forum.

How does this wiki work?

Firstly the initial of question posed ‘Using mobile phones in the classroom’.  The teaching tool used was a graphic organiser, where students place their name and comments under the proposed headings. Teacher scaffolding was used with the colour hat, the colour perspective (a brief outline of what the hat represents) and finally the student’s ideas, research, perspective and argument. The combination of the wiki and Using De Bono’s thinking hats can be seen as celebrated teaching tool. However after reading some of the other student’s comments, it can be viewed as students inscribing their personal view point with little research. The positive aspect is that students can use other student’s options and construct an option as well. I wiki can be classified as excellent tool for engagement from all students, were no judgements are made. It is a tool that has had the initial scaffolding from the teacher; however the soul contributors are the students allowing for the students to take control over there learning.

How would I use De Bono's thinking hats in my classroom?
I am studying to be a home ec and hospitality teacher, it is perfect in so many ways. It can be used to scaffold students in there process and reasoning journals.By using the hats as a guild to look at there procedure from different perspectives. De bono hats can be used in limitless avenues within the classroom and also through blogs. media diaries ect.  
There are many benefits to using a wiki easy to learn, it can be used on a global scale, can be used for a vared number of applications and its Free to set up. 
Drawbacks anyone can edit the documents, vandalism of peoples work, you need internet connection.

Along with contributing to the wiki using Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats we also looked at learning theories: behaviourism and constructivism, cognitivist and connectivisum. In relation to the use of ITC. In my last post you can see brief out line explaining how these theories are used.

I understand that contributing to the wiki it uses some if not all of the learning the theories in some form. Connectivism is a theory founded by George Siemens and is "the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories," (Siemens, 2004).  Translated, this means learning is about knowing what resources to use and how to use them to find the information we need, rather than the actual information itself. It is impossible in today's world to know everything but, by staying connected, we can easily access the answers to any questions we may have. Constructivism students learn in different ways depending on their experience, constructionist theory require students to be actively engaged in their learning by using ITC and wikis sit well with constructionist theory.  Behaviourism requires students to learning through behaviour conditioning. Behaviourism works on a feedback system, giving feedback through positive and negative feedback.
I personally love the green hat; not only is it my favourite colour but it also allows for creative thinking. Where I can lay down any boundaries and contribute to a discussion without fear of rejection. Even if no creative ideas are forthcoming, the green hat asks for the creative effort.

If you want to find out ways to use mobile phones in the classroom take a look at these sites.

Mobile phones in the classroom -  http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2012/sep/10/mobile-phones-classroom-teaching

4 Ways of using mobile phones in classroom - http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/11/four-smart-ways-to-use-cell-phones-in-class/

 Bibliography :

Skinner, B. F. (1976). About Behaviorism. New York: Vintage Books.
Perry, W. G. (1999). Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Piaget, J. (1968). Six Psychological Studies. Anita Tenzer (Trans.), New York: Vintage Books.

De Bono Thinking Systems. (n.d.). Dr. Edward de Bono. Retrieved from http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/about/Edward.htm.

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm.