5 Weeks later

It has been 5 weeks since I completed the Web 2.0 course and thought it would be a good idea to reflect upon what has changed for me since learning more about Web 2.0. My strategy has been to allow some of this knowledge to leak into my teaching rather than make wholesale changes, which I don't think any experienced teacher should feel pressured to do. I focused on Year 10 because they have the laptops and I felt the need to create opportunities for the students to use them constructively.

I teach the year 10's Geography and History. For Geography, I have asked the students to use a blog to write a reflection on some new learning or to answer a higher order question based on a lesson. Students have enjoyed the opportunity to develop their writing skills and to also constructively critique each other's blog entries by leaving comments on each other's blog. You can keep track of each student's work by being a follower, or you can use the RSS feed into Google Reader. It's a quick way of ensuring that students are doing their homework and make reference to individual student's work in class discussion.

Initially, it was tedious to get all students to the same point as believe it or not, many students had no idea how to set up a blog. This immediately made me feel better because we tend to assume that all kids know more about technology than us - not true.

The fun part has been preparing the Wiki for the same group of students but this time for History. I have been able to have students post their group work findings on this wiki for the study of different Australian governments. I have also posted a lot of my own resources, Youtube clips, Scootle learning pathways and other website links. The students also record their opinions and questions which guides our discussion in class. It is amazingly easy to do with only a limited knowledge of Wikis. So far, I haven't come across any student who knows more than me which makes me think that they don't know as much as I thought they did about technology.

The benefits: Students are now working, communicating outside of class hours and apparently....dare I say...enjoying it!! This has made it less of a rush to get through content, and I still make time for traditional lessons where we construct a class notes to document the learning as I would normally do.

Module 10

Before I commenced this Web 2.0 course, my understanding of web tools was very piece-meal. I can't say that I am fully proficient, but I feel I have a good understanding of the purpose and practical elements of most of these tools. It gives me great confidence to be able to think about how lessons for my Year 10 class could be repackaged to make better use of their laptops - which was my original aim for enrolling in the course.

During the course I had a go at making my own Wiki (http://hsiecasimir.pbworks.com/). I used this to present information, work samples, student interviews and syllabus and career information on the range of subjects that are offered in HSIE at my school. This information was targeted to Year 10 as they contemplate their subject choices for next year. This became a far more effective way of communicating opportunities for students who were keen to do more research using their preferred methods which included the laptop. It was also ideal to be able to check on comments and questions that students could raise about specific subjects. I will be putting together more wiki's in my classes, but I see it as a window to reach the students when I don't have them in front of me. They also seem interested in opening that window to have a look, more often than not.

Where do I go from here? Well firstly, I intend to make use of the Web 2.0 tools that I have learned to start redesigning my lessons for my Year 10 laptop class. There is potential to promote higher order thinking in the classroom and at home but only now that I have a good understanding of the tools they are using and being asked to use. Yes there is also potential for students to let time slip away by misusing their computers, but time wasting has been standard practice forever, any you have a better chance of engaging the students if they can also exercise some perceived control over their learning. Over time, I can see that a classroom culture could be developed that might not only increase engagement, but may also be used to increase accountability for individual and collaborative learning.

Secondly, as I consolidate my own learning, I would like to start to share my learnings from this course with my faculty staff. Some are more proficient than others, but there is a culture of "having a go" which I would like to capitalise on. It helps by having students who are usually generous with their appreciation when staff try to be inventive for benefit of more effective learning.

My thanks to Helen and Diane for their efforts in putting the this Web 2.0 course together. It has been an interesting journey that, on mass, is likely to make a real difference in bringing teachers up to speed with Web 2.0 and make a positive impact on learning in Catholic schools.

Module 9

In learning about this module on Scootle and Second Life I must admit that the opportunities for varying the learning methods for students with access to computers is appealing. The Learning Federation is a reputable entity that provides self paced and interactive learning for students that can be started in the classroom and finished at home, providing all students have Internet access and capacity. Creating learning pathways allows teachers to design inter-connected and specific outcomes based learning modules. Sharing this with other teachers, again, allows for consistency for students across multiple classes, although I'm not sure how this sharing can occur between schools.

Second Life is less attractive to me, because it was initially established for entertainment purposes prior to finding an educational use. I think that that for subjects like History and Geography, and maybe even Business, immersing students is an excellent way for them to learn. The problem is that after a little while, the students will want to use Second Life more for what is was designed for - entertainment! I attended a lecture with Dr.Torsten Reiners from Hamburg University who explained how virtual worlds work and how they can be used in teaching and learning. While it was interesting, the opportunity for users to disengage from their real life in favour of their Second World life could cause social problems ranging from addiction to bullying. This was probably not what Kevin Rudd had in mind when he announced his Education Revolution in 2007.

This brings me to an issue that has been getting some airtime lately. Do learning standards improve with allowing students access to Web 2.0 tools like Second Life?? I have my doubts, because there is an overriding assumption that students will be naturally drawn to to the educational elements more than the entertainment elements. Kids haven't changed that much! The distracting elements for students have just grown exponentially and some major thought needs to be put into this. The major newspapers carried a story on the effectiveness of public dollars being spent on putting laptops in front of school students on 20 July, 2009. See the link below:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/rudds-laptops-send-standards-backwards-20090719-dpkv.html

This article claims that the key component of Kevin Rudd's educational revolution, the laptop rollout to students, may be not derive the benefits that were first thought likely. Studies in the US show that literacy and numeracy standards have actually gone backwards. This seems to clash with the Federal Government's focus on Naplan and the intention of using this to provide information for school league tables. Skeptics might say that this reflects a poorly thought out national educational agenda, and one that is currently being driven by the political scrutineers that advise the PM on the best way to secure votes. Some educationalists are maybe swayed by the large amounts of money available. Have a look at the Four Corners report that announced the laptop rollout program 18 months ago. Some of the issues raised then have still not been addressed.

Module 8

I've been banging on about efficiency of time in my previous postings, and Module 8 has heard the call and responded like a shepherd tending to his flock. Nice one Google Reader! After registering with Google Reader I am able to keep an eye on things that I should be aware of....... like what module my brother, John, is up to. I don't what him to get his nose too far in front!

More importantly, I can use Google Reader to get a handle on news, announcements, decisions and changes that can influence what I am teaching that day. Being a HSIE teacher, this state of flux makes the job interesting but also challenging to ensure that I am up to date with the correct information. Students also find learning more relevant when they see change unfolding on the day they first learn about a topic.

When I think about how this could be used by my students, I first think about my Year 10 laptop class. Having RSS feeds from their subject learning blogs to my Google Reader account allows me to efficiently keep tabs on who is posting and who is not. I can also share blog postings from one student with others to make the learning more collaborative, and also offer my own feedback.

Module 7

With over 15 billion websites, it makes sense that more thought should be put into the organisation of the storage of favourite websites. I find Delicious to be an excellent way of doing this although I experienced some trouble in obtaining the "My Delicious" link in my toolbar despite following the instructions for Internet Explorer 7. I was able to import my existing favourite websites and have begun tagging these.

The social networking aspect is a great way of sharing resources in an efficient and organised manner that will add efficiency and consistency when teachers in a faculty are planning their lessons. It also opens the door for more collaboration between teachers from other schools. In the past, when meeting up with colleagues at inservices, the best of intentions about passing on a good website has evaporated once the busyness of school resumes. Networking Delicious users overcomes this problem.

Module 6

As a student, I was prone to mental blanks in an exam as anxiety and pressure would have the effect of emptying the contents of my head down the proverbial toilet. I can remember as my pen was poised to write pearls of wisdom, the brain suffered ignition problems similar to an old clapped out car on a cold winter morning. Thoughts of asking for a jump start from my peer were quickly shot down by a knowing glance from my teacher who was mentally writing a comment on my next report.... "Grant must revise his work more thoroughly".

The problem back then was that the time I spent studying really didn't help me to process information in a way that I could easily retrieve facts in an exam or a vital trivia competition much later in life. What I like about Bubbl.us is that students can get a visual layout of how existing and new knowledge are connected. This will surely help them to construct substantive and logical answers in exams. It also makes their studying more efficient and effective and this reinforces positive attitudes to exam preparation and studying.

Bubbl.us works the same way as Inspiration, except it is free. Inspiration does also allow mindmaps to be converted into notes at the click of a button, which, strangely, students seem to find comforting. Bubbl.us has advantages over Inspiration in that student work can be shared and it therefore makes the whole mind mapping interactive, thereby increasing the learning potential. I see this as a valuable tool for all students, but particularly senior students who really need to structure their revision on a detailed syllabus.

Glogster appears to be the most engaging tool I've seen so far. The creative opportunities for students often equates to fun and could have a significant impact on attitudes to learning in the classroom and at home. I think it is best suited for primary and junior secondary classes because of the time constraints, but I wouldn't rule it out for senior students.

Module 5

Do I think vodcasts, podcasts and Youtube could enhance student learning in and out of the classroom? Absolutely. Does it also present challenges in the effective use of classroom time and allow students to filter information from entertainment and create evidence of real learning in a short period of time? Absolutely.

If I asked students to find a video from youtube that reflects how animals adapt to their environment, I am pretty sure that they would use their school-issued macs to laugh about while they watched the following youtube video of a cat flushing a toilet.

This is not meant to to be a slur on the commitment of students to their homework tasks; just a fact of life that as technology moves forward, the way it is utilised by society can give the appearance of going backwards and we are inadvertently dumbing ourselves down.

EdPod (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/edpod/) has a collection of podcasts from ABC radio. An interview on Thursday 25th June 2009 between host, Richard Eady and guest Marco Torres caught my attention. Marco is an educational advisor to President Obama. He talks candidly of the need to make students creators of information rather than recipients of information, as was the traditional model of educating young people. He acknowledges that there is too much hype around the tools of technology rather than focusing on the outcomes of relevant learning. Podcasting can be achieved by anyone who has the technical experience, but like good journalism, the quality of the product is defined more by the level of research prior to creation rather than by mere fact that it was published. I think the cat video supports my view.

Having said that, poor research methods, plagiarism, and under-developed thinking skills are time honoured problems experienced by students of all generations. Podcasting could actually help students tackle these problems should they be given enough time and direction to synthesise course content. At the very least, it can create a hook for student engagement. The problem is that curriculum content, particularly secondary schools and increasingly also in primary schools, is getting broader rather than deeper and this can undermine the opportunities for students and teachers to effectively use podcasts because of time constraints. In the meantime, I see real potential for my students in accessing podcasts and vodcasts and then using this as a model for maybe creating their own vodcast so long as it doesn't involve cats and toilets.