Question 2 (d)

d) When conducting and online learning classroom, it is important that learning is occurring at higher levels of thinking, as indicated by Bloom’s taxonomy.    It becomes important to facilitate a classroom environment in which these higher levels – creating and evaluating – are occuring within the students. Social collaboration, constructivism and connectivism are all ways in which this higher order thinking can occur.  This involves students ‘constructing’ their own knowledge, and assuming their own responsibility for their work. By allowing students the opportunity to create blogs, wikis, del.icio.us, facebook and iGoogle accounts for themselves (these are just some examples), students are being forced to operate at this higher level of thinking. It becomes crucial that students are given this opportunity, so as to maximise their learning.

 Wikipedia provides useful information on what is known as ‘e-learning’, and how this learning is useful for students, and the mechanisms for students to maximise their learning.

Question 2 (c)

c)When conducting an online lesson, classroom management becomes a key issue. It becomes very common for students to become easily distracted when they are on the computer. One of the key ideas that can be used for a teacher when conducting a computer class, is to acknowledge that distractions exist, but to incorporate these distractions into the learning. A good way of doing this is introducing students to iGoogle.

iGoogle is a website developed by Google, in which when an account is created, users are able to put nearly EVERTHING they find on the internet link back to the one central place. The can stream research from the site, create links to Facebook and MySpace, and even formulate group of people with similar interests.
When students are distracted in class, are not staying on task and it becomes clear that they are looking at sites that are irrelevant, a useful way is to get students to go back to their iGoogle, and see if whether they are able to link the site they are looking at to their homepage. Also, iGoogle also allows users to customize their page to make it increasingly personal, so this could be a useful way to get students back on track, by allowing them to make their page more interesting, and with the most applications.

Another key issue surrounding classroom management in an online learning environment is that it should be student centred, not teacher directed. Going back to Dreikurs idea of democratic discipline, for a successful online classroom, students must be given the opportunity to take responsibility for their work, and the teacher should only act as the facilitator. For more information on Dreikurs, and his ideas on student autonomy and responsibility, go to the education wiki created for him – http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Dreikurs,_Rudolf

Question 2 (b)

a)     The encouragement of collaboration among students is a key requirement for a successful online learning environment, and through the implementation of Web 2.0 software and hardware. This brings into question the idea of connectivism, which is primarily collaboration in the online sphere.  

Generally speaking, connectivism is the learning process, where interconnections for knowledge must be created, distributed over many actual and virtual locations. What this implies is, is that student collaboration in the classroom can be achieved ONLINE. There are a number of different software tools in which to encourage this online social collaboration. However, following is a video of George Siemens, the man who created the term ‘connectivism’, and he explains what it is and what it means for the online world and learning.

One key software tool in which to promote collaboration among students, and using this idea of connectivism, is a Wiki. One useful website in which to create a wiki is PBWiki. According to Wikipedia (one of the online world’s most popular wikis), ‘A wiki is a type of computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages and Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites.’ This immediately implies the collaboration of students.  

A wiki can be created for students to submit work, create projects, give feedback to other students, and to even make comments on the work given by the teacher. The great thing about the wiki is that it can have multiple contributors and editors, so that all students can collectively have input. If a wiki was created for a class of students, and all students became contributors, all work could be submitted and posted online, and therefore students have the opportunity to converse with each other online. This ultimately encourages collaboration among students.

Another example of encouraging social collaboration among students is through social networking websites. One such example is Facebook.

 

This Web 2.0 software tool allows students to ‘connect’ to each other by adding friends, as well as posting personal information which only your friends can see. Such a social networking tool can be useful in encouraging social collaboration among students in that students can discuss things online, and in their own time. Work can be posted to the site, and students can then have the opportunity to talk about it.

A useful blog which has been created to discuss the impact of Web 2.0 in the classroom can be accessed here – http://www.solutionwatch.com/512/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-1.

Also, on the right hand sidebar, there is an RSS feed to Hey Jude, which is a useful blogs which discusses the issues of Web 2.0, and how social collaboration can occur in an online classroom.

NETWORKED LEARNING EXAM – Question 2 (a)

a)     Throughout the world of Web 2.0, as a student teacher I have realized that there is an immense array of possibilities for the way in which a teacher can convey information to their students. The current era is digital, and it becomes crucial to address the students of the digital and technological age using means that are relevant to them.

 One of the main things that can be useful for the teacher in conveying new information is the ‘centralizing’ of information. Through a variety of online tools and Web 2.0 software, teachers have the ability of putting information for their students in one central place, so that students will then have the ability to easily access information for lessons.  

One such example is a blog. WordPress and Blogger are common examples of creating a central place for information. By creating a blog, the teacher is able to post work up in the one place, and then students are given the opportunity top access this blog to retrieve the work given to them by the teacher. A blog could be a useful place for the teacher to post lesson plans and lesson resources, so that if a student is away from class for one lesson, or an extended period of time, they are able to access the work they missed. Teachers can also include relevant links for assignments, overall feedback for students on their work, and even calendars so that students know when things are due, and are able to stay on top of their work. This centralizing of information has become a key characteristic of Web 2.0 which becomes useful for teachers in conveying new information.

 

Another important example of the ways in which teacher conveys new information is del.icio.us. This Web 2.0 software tool allows users to save all their favourite and interesting websites into the one central place, in the online sphere. What this means is that you are able to access your favourites on any computer – you just need to create an account. This becomes an important tool for teachers, as they are able to save websites useful for their teaching, as well as useful for their students and their work, all in the one place.

An important aspect of del.icio.us is that it allows capabilities of adding friends. What this means is that students can create their own accounts, become ‘friends’ with each other AND with the teacher, and then they are able to access all of their favourites. These ideas of ‘sharing’, as well as ‘centralizing’ are key implications for the teacher in conveying new information.

For an example of del.icio.us, on the sidebae of this blog there is a link to by del.icio.us account!

Creating an iGoogle account is also useful for the teacher, in that it centralises all information found on the internet into one central place!! iGoogle is also a useful tool for students to centralise the information they find on the internet, which in turn could help with the work.

Upon browsing the internet for useful Web 2.0 for this exam, I came across a video in which iPods are becoming a crucial element of online learning. Online, students are able to retrieve podcasts in which can be directed to their iPod, and thus they can listen to lessons at home. For a definition of podcasts, click here.

Podcasts have revolutionised the ways in which teachers can convey information, as now teachers have the capabilities to submit oral lessons online, and students then have the ability to listen to these lessons at home.
 

NETWORKED LEARNING EXAM – Question 1

a) http://equalityanddifference.pbwiki.com/

b)

1. One issue we had was that we were unsure as to what topic to do the project on. We had a fair idea of the subject area, but we spent a lot of time discussing on the specific topic for the project, because we wanted to make sure we could create enough activities to keep the students interested.
2. We created the online learning project on a wiki, so one of the issues we faced used this Web 2.0 software was the inability of all of us to access the project at one time, due to the software only allowing one editor at one time. However, as we developed ideas for the project, we realized that each of us could be working on different sections of the project at the one time. Therefore, due to the collaborative nature of working on the project we were able to overcome this problem by being more cooperative, and sharing the tasks. This also allowed us to finish the task more quickly.
3. This leads on to the next issue we faced, being the allocation of jobs. We wanted to make sure that we all played an equal role in the creation of the learning project, so we spent a significant amount of time choosing what aspects of the project each of us were to contribute to, so that the collaboration was equal.
4. Another issues was that we all have different teaching styles, so we had to come to a consensus on how to incorporate all these teaching styles into the learning project. Our different learning styles didn’t result in conflict, however it was challenging to create activities which would suit the way each of us would teach it individually. So we tried to include a variety of tasks so that it would address each of our teaching styles.
5. The final issue we had was choosing the activities to put in the project which would cater for different students learning styles. As part of Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory, students have different ways of learning, so we addressed this by providing a range of tasks. We included, videos, written questions, pictures, and role plays so that all students have the opportunity to maximize their learning to the best of their ability. Most importantly, we included creative tasks so as to promote the students higher order thinking.

c)

Rudolf Dreikurs’ model of classroom management is based on the idea of democratic discipline. A key characteristic of this model is that students should be given a choice rather than be forced to behave as directed. It is important in this model that the teachers provide firm guidance, yet students are to assume their own responsibility for their actions. Based on this model, and as a basis for evaluation for the online learning project, the key human driver for which Dreikurs’ identifies for motivation for learning is individual self-determination. Students like to feel that they have a sense of control and responsibility for their actions, and a key way in which this sense of purpose and responsibility is achieved is through collaborative and cooperative learning experiences.

For the online learning project we created, students are given to the opportunity to choose how they want to present their work. The project gives guidelines and expectations as to what is to be completed so to satisfy syllabus outcomes, however the range of activities and elements of reflection allow students to explore, discover and choose their own way of completing the project. There is also the important element of control, as the students have to assume control over completion of the project, rather than the teacher directing them to when the project is due. This project was created with this sense of responsibility in mind, as we believe that the higher order thinking occurs, and also student enjoyment for learning is achieved when the students feel a sense of control and autonomy over their learning. There are a wide range of activities in the project to be completed in a collaborative and cooperative environment, whereby the teacher only acts to facilitate the class – students are in control for completing the projects by themselves.

NETWORKED LEARNING – Web 2.0 Essay

Web 2.0 is essentially an increasing range of software that supports a variety of technologies for open and collaborative communication, learning and creativity. Discuss.             Over recent years the internet has undergone an intense transformation. The current technological era has evolved, with second generation technology and software influencing how we access and utilise the internet. This second generation software has resulted from the fairly recent transformation from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. This essay will look at this transformation by first looking at the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, and the key characteristics of each. By looking at this transformation first, it will then be feasible to look at the various applications and software examples within the Web 2.0 sphere, and how this has enhanced collaborative communication, learning and creativity, particularly in reference to education.             Web 1.0 is often referred to as first generation technology, or the first wave of the World Wide Web or Internet. What this involved is the simple process of extracting information from static sources on the internet. Examples include online encyclopaedias and personal websites. Most things were in plain text and in read-only format; therefore interaction wasn’t a significant aspect. However, in recent years, there has been a development of the internet to Web 2.0, or second generation technology. ‘Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users’ (Wikipedia, n.d.). This wave of the World Wide Web holds primary importance on online interaction and collaboration as a means of sharing information, as opposed to simply extracting information from static, plain text websites. Examples include blogs and wikis. With increased development of various software tools like these, this new generation of the internet has enforced the idea of an online community, with concepts of constructivism and connectivism, which will be later discussed in this essay.             It has been asserted that due to the establishment of the Web 2.0 sphere, the web is now ‘alive’ (Levy & Stone, 2006). Levy & Stone (2006) further state that ‘what makes the Web alive is, quite simply, us’. This implies that we as consumers, online users and participants have played an active role in the development of Web 2.0, as over time there has been an increased need to sharing capabilities. Furthermore, when Web 2.0 was initially developed, one of the founding ideas as indicated by one of the early promoters of Web 2.0 Tim O’Reilly, ‘the central idea is harnessing collective intelligence’ (Levy and Stone 2006). Therefore, by using various software tools to promote learning and creativity, the internet provides a space for users to collectively share and extract information and knowledge, by creating a collaborative environment online.             Popular examples of online software tools which epitomise the intent of Web 2.0 are social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook and Flickr. These softwares involve users to create a web page in which they create a profile for themselves, post journal entries, personal information, photos, videos and web links, add friends and receive comments. By having the capability to do all these things, social networking websites establish what is known as online communities. Using Web 2.0 software like MySpace, communities can be established by various users online sharing a common interest and becoming friends. It has been suggested that online communities depend upon social interaction and exchange between users online, and this emphasizes the reciprocity element of the unwritten social contract between community members, as Web 2.0 is essentially characterized by these online communities (Wikipedia, n.d). These online communities thus provide the avenues, and primarily the space, for social collaboration and online sharing between users, which are key characteristics of the Web 2.0 phenomena. Linking on from this idea of communities, is a crucial element of Web 2.0 that can be related specifically to education and learning, that being the notion of social constructivism. As identified by Vygotsky, social constructivism involves a network of social collaboration; in which higher order thinking develops out of social interactions and combined experiences.            Tying in all these ideas of social constructivism and online communities, and interesting software tool that would be useful for learning and creativity particularly in relation to education is a blog. The term blog was derived from ‘web log’, in which an individual can create an online space in which to publish thoughts, information and web links. However, what makes a blog different to an ordinary website is that the individual creator constantly updates the content on their blog, and external users or visitors have to ability to view their blog and leave comments for the blog’s creator. This therefore allows online discussions to occur, in which different web users can connect with each other.             Creating a blog provides a useful tool for educators and students. ‘Blogging has quickly become one of the most effective learning tools in education today’. (Benzinger 2006). Using a blog for learning and creativity will allow students to post homework and assignments online, and the teacher is able to go to one place to retrieve all the students work. Also, with the comment capabilities, teachers are able to leave students comments on their work. Furthermore, a blog often consists of journal entries, so for the students a blog could be used as a domain for students to engage in reflective activity, which promotes educator Bloom’s theory of higher order thinking.             Online communities can also be created through establishment of wiki’s, and can be a very useful tool in the classroom environment. A wiki is computer software that allows users to easily create, edit and link web pages. According to Wikipedia, probably the most popular wiki that has been created, a wiki is a server program that allows users to collaborate in forming the content of a Web site. With a wiki, any user can edit the site content, including other users’ contributions, using a regular Web browser (Wikipedia, n.d). For the purposes of the classroom, a wiki can provide a central place for a teacher to post work done in class, whereby students can access the work in case they miss a class. Homework and Assessment tasks, supplementary links and means of contact can all be posted on the Wiki, which emphasises the idea of information being placed in a central place. It becomes useful for teachers to provide links to online tasks and activities on the wiki, as another means of centralising educational activities into the one place. Furthermore, the wiki can be used as a sharing domain, because as the wiki allows a number of different editors and collaborators, students can post ideas and feedback on the wiki, in which all and the teacher will be able to access.             There has been establishment of a new term to describe the advancement of social constructivism in particular relation to Web 2.0, known as ‘connectivism’. According to Siemens (2004), connectivism primarily involves learning and knowledge resting on a variety and diversity of opinions, as well as learning being a process of connected specialised nodes or information sources. So ultimately, connectivism relies upon a mixture of knowledge received from a collaborative and communitarian system, in which Web 2.0 provides the framework for this collaboration to occur. Users have to ability to share information with other users online, as new information is continually being required and these connection enable users to learn more, which are more important than our current state of knowing (Siemens 2004).             Sharing information online is another crucial aspect of Web 2.0 in coalition with the idea of online communities and social collaboration. Social bookmarking websites are also crucial for this Web 2.0 principle of sharing information. One such example is del.icio.us. This software tool enables users to save their favourite webpage’s onto the online domain, thus giving them the ability to access their saved webpage’s wherever they have access to the internet. This becomes a useful and significant tool in Web 2.0, as users have the capabilities to save all their information in the one central place for easier accessibility.             This placing of information and knowledge into a central place brings into the picture a domain, developed by Google, known as iGoogle. This is an individually customised web page, in which users are able to add web feeds and links, interesting backgrounds, and collectively centralise information to be accessed in the one place. Similar to social bookmarking, iGoogle creates a web page, password enabled, where information can both be saved and streamed into the one place. Furthermore, you can access your documents anywhere at any time and work on them as you normally would.In conclusion, Levy & Stone (2006) provide a useful summary describing how Web 2.0 has transformed the internet and how we utilise its software.

‘Less than a decade ago, when we were first getting used to the idea of an Internet, people described the act of going online as venturing into some foreign realm called cyberspace. But that metaphor no longer applies. MySpace, Flickr and all the other newcomers aren’t places to go, but things to do, ways to express yourself, means to connect with others and extend your own horizons. Cyberspace was somewhere else. The Web is where we live’ (Levy & Stone 2006).

Overall, Web 2.0 has proved to be an innovative and significant transformation to the World Wide Web, in which being online means engaging technologies which require a collective and collaborative effort, promoting learning, communication and activity, and as such, provides useful tool for the future of education.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Benzinger, Brian, Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0: Part 3, Solution Watch, October 28 2006, retrieved from http://www.solutionwatch.com/519/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-3/ [29^th October 2007] Levy, Stephen and Stone, Brad, The New Wisdom of the Web, Newsweek, April 3 2006, retrieved from http://www.newsweek.com/id/45976 [31st October 2007] Siemens, George, Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age, elearnspace, December 12 2004, retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm [31st October 2007] Wikipedia, Web 2.0 , retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 [29th October 2007] Wikipedia, Wiki, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki [31st October 2007]   

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

This video is a fairly light-hearted yet descriptive viedo about the world of Web 2.0. It explores how it is different to Web 1.0, and how the internet is now a world of collaboration in which to connect with communities!

Writing and paper is a thing of the past!

Hey Jude’s Blog

Hey Jude‘s web blog is a blog created totally devoted to the world of Web 2.0. It is a very attractive blog, thoroughly exploring all the avenues available when you engage in Web 2.0.

REFLECTION

I was very impressed when I first looked at this site. I had no idea about all the facilities available in Web 2.0, however this blog provided me with insight as to how complex, yet rewarding this online sphere is.

There is an immense amount of information available, including recent innovations in the Web 2.0 culture, as well as strategies to implement Web 2.0 in everyday life. She has utilised all the charateristics which are part of a good blog – primarily that she is constantly updating, recording recent innovations and benefits of collaborating online. There is much to explore on Hey Jude’s blog, and I find this to be a good place to start when beginning to look at Web 2.0, and how it can have an impact on your life.

How to use this technology in the classroom…

• Must be a highly structured activity
• All students are to be included
• Students should be educated in how to use the software in order to maximise the utility
• It could be useful to go through using Web 2.0 as a whole class first – a social constructivist effort.

my del.icio.us

This was quite a tricky task – above is an RSS feed which connects to my del.icio.us website. On this site you will be able to view all the important sites which I have bookmarked, access them, as well as seeing you I have added as friends!