Week 3 Tool 1 Blog Reflection

Hello All I thought I would start today's topic of using ITC tool with this clip, It just goes to show you that you can get stupd on using ITC tools.

This week we are asked to reflect on creating a BLOG,  and how we would use the blog in a classroom, I have started with a PMI chart.
Well as I have newly discovered Blogs are not just about blogging,
No sir re there are all types of blogs to utilise in a learning environment.
So firstly WHAT is a Blog?
Well you are engaging in a blog right now, it is an informal web tool that is a is updated by the creator/ creators with information, links, journal entry anything that the creator pleases. What are the PMI of using a blog in the classroom?

PLUS

•    It is free, easy to create and use
•    It promotes literacy in the classroom
•   They are a great reflective tool where you are able to bring together your thoughts on different  topics or ideas
•   It can be used as a collaborative tool to gather research notes and share ideas with other class members or teacher
• It is great for students who are too shy to contribute in class to add ideas
• Teachers are able to monitor students’ progress and offer ideas
• Only the students who created the blog is able to edit the blog
•  It gives parents access so they are able to keep up to date with what their child may be learning at school
•  Provide links to different websites etc. that other students can also use
•  Students are able to access them in and out of school

MINUS

• Can be difficult for some students to use
• Must have internet connection to be able to access
• Limited blog set out options
• Blogs are not confidential, everyone can access them worldwide so anyone can post a comment, spam and not to mention hackers can access your private information.
• Cyber bulling and harassment may be a problem and would have to be monitor with guidelines.

INTERESTING

• Blogs can be used in a varied number of teaching areas, engaging students from all year levels (early years through to university)
• Can provide an opportunity to work in unison with other schools in the area or further abroad.
• Every student will have a different journey
• Teachers and parents can view students work
• It is student directed, promoting higher order thinking
• Supports and promotes productive pedagogical practices

After further research I believe:
 

Blogs can be used in the teaching environment to engage all students were learners can create a journal, personal reflection or portfolio to present to the class. It is some were teachers can put informal information or instructions, however that means students would have to flick back and forth between pages which still allowed for students to say they could not open the instructional page. It would be perfect to use in practical hands on subjects were students are frequently ask to keep a running journal for their work. (Art portfolio) Blogs can also be used as a class portal where students can access supplement material, links, podcast, homework and assessment tasks.  Best of all Blogs are really easy to use great was to promote literacy in the classroom.Literacy remains paramount in learning, not only for language development, but also as the foundation of all academic disciplines.

Resources used and retrieved from:



http://www.editlib.org/p/5680

http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/gallery/activities/blogs.htmhttp://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/weblogs/
htt://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/documents/strategy/pdf/scbyte-elearning.pdf

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.

Learning theories brief out line

How long does it take to learn a meta-skill? 366/138 May 17, 2012 (Photo credit: ConnectIrmeli)

OMG I have just discovered a new tool. It is Awesome you can find it in something called Zemanta. It’s a tool you can use in your blog to highlight certain words that will then take you to Wikipedia site. Yes I know this site is to be taken with a grain of salt but I think it is really cool.

Below you will find below a quick outline of

·         Learning theories,

Questions	Behaviourism	Cognitivist	Constructivism	Connectivism
How does learning occur?	Observable behaviour main focus	Structured, information	Social, meaning created by each learner (personal)	Distributed within a network, social, technologically enhanced, recognizing and interpreting patterns
What factors influence learning?	Nature of reward, punishment, stimuli	Existing schema, previous experiences	Engagement, participation, social, cultural	Diversity of network
What is the role of memory?	Memory is hardwiring of repeated experiences - where reward and punishment are most influential	Encoding, storage, retrieval	Prior knowledge remixed to current context	Adaptive patterns, representative of current state, existing in networks
How does transfer occur?	Stimulus, response	Duplicating knowledge constructs of "knower"	Socialization	Connecting to (adding nodes)
What types of learning are best explained by this theory?	Task-based learning	Reasoning, clear objectives, problem solving	Social, vague ("ill defined")	Complex learning, rapid changing core, diverse knowledge sources

Source: Ireland, T. (2007)



This site will take you on a learning journey through the different learning theories and technology.

https://sites.google.com/a/boisestate.edu/edtechtheories/Home/emerging-theories-of-learning-and-the-role-of-technology

My participation through the wiki task (on mobile phones in the classroom), in week 2 along with further research on the net of learning theories and technology has brought about my idea that mobile phone in the classroom as a learning tool is linked with Cognitivist, Constructivism and Connectivism theories. I am a believer that behaviourism is something you learn through modelling. That someone can watch a process and repeat that process.

Below are some links to helpful web sites on how to utilize mobile phones as a learning tool in the classroom.
http://www.teachhub.com/how-use-cell-phones-learning-tools

http://12most.com/2011/12/28/12-ways-kids-learn-cell-phones/


Lookout for my next blog on De Bono's thinking hats and the week 2 wiki task

Learning style results

Learning Styles Results

Results for: Jacqueline Petersen           ACT      X                                            REF            11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11                               <-- -->         SEN              X                                    INT            11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11                               <-- -->         VIS                  X                                VRB            11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11                               <-- -->         SEQ              X                                    GLO            11  9   7   5   3   1   1   3   5   7   9   11 At Jamie's, August 1976 (Photo credit: Alan Light)                               <-- -->  These are the results of my preferred learning styles, I have to say that I have done this activity a number of times and my chosen learning styles does change depending on my mood at the time. Today I am a active learner I do like to be active in my learning I learn best when I can explain it to others and bounce around ideas and try them out. Brainstorming with others and group activities strategies will help me retain information as Felder and Soloman describe in there learning style results.    I am leaning more to the sensory learner, I like things that are logical and that have a proven method of working. I relate well to information that connects to the real world. In lectures I like to write at the back of my book strategies the lecture may have used. This helps me to relate my strategies to real life situations.   Very visual person who likes verbal explanation of tasks and assignments, I love to mind map assignments out first it gives me a visual edge on what I am doing and what I need to achieve. Being visual learning and loving mind maps it supports me being a sequential learner. I like steps, I like to go from A to B no side trips when I am discovering new information. It is a challenge that I will face with on line learning. On line learning there are many side steps along the way.

About Me

 

 

I am currently in my third year of BLM Secondary Education, I started studying with two young children 8 months and two years old. I can't believe I have made it this far. I love the classics, the new and the unreal. 

This blog has been created for the purpose of E Learning.

I used this for a lesson for my year 12 hospitality class and it worked wonderfully.
I am amazed at how easy it is to use a blog.
Enjoy.