Week 3 Reflection

Reflection Week 3-wiki

As education continues to move away from standardization and towards customization working collaboratively has been emphasized. I really find wiki a beneficial web 2.0 technology in this area.  As Wikipedia noted, “it can be used to work in a collaborative manner for things such as community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems, and note services.”  I can really see the benefits of using wiki in the classroom with students and for collaborative use with other teachers.

When I think of wiki in the classroom, at the secondary level, projects come to mind. The wiki page would allow individual groups to collaborate both at school and off site. Access for each member to add, subtract, and edit information would be highly beneficial. The teacher could have access as well to check on each individual group’s progress on their given task. The other benefit would be the ability of group member to add links for others to confirm the quality or need for specific information. From a grading and fidelity standpoint it would also be beneficial. It is very hard to monitor who is actually contributing at times and students in high school generally do not rat out their classmates even if they were forces to do all the work.  With teacher access to each individual group’s workspace it would be much easier to confirm the contribution of each individual student.  The other thing I could see it used for is in a debate situation where the working groups could fashion and shape their debate collaboratively. Overall I can really see the benefits for use in the classroom both for the student and instructor.

The use of wiki as a collaborative tool for educators is awesome. I have had the opportunity to work with it in this fashion and I thought it was great. I was very impressed with the total contribution of all to complete a truly collaborative document. I really see it as a valuable tool moving forward as a working smarter not harder. The reduction of at school meetings would probably be viewed as a plus for any educator and I believe wiki could be used in this fashion.  Here is the situation, you are at a staff meeting and everyone is ready to go and that one hand comes up with a 3 part 5 minute question requiring a 20 minute answer. What if staff meetings were question free and question were addressed on the principal wiki page? Look I am not against questions, but not all things addressed at staff meetings apply to everyone. What about a committee meeting from the comfort of your home as opposed to the schools facilities? As we move forward into this age of funding issues wiki could really be a way of easing some of the extras that go on in schools. Departments could also do their collaboration on wiki as opposed to having to set meeting times. This could make these meetings more fluid and relevant to day to day issues.

Technology is not going away and we as educator need to not only learn to incorporate in our teaching, but also to make the other day to day aspects of teaching better.  As the video said, “We are the Web, we are teaching the machine, the machine is us, and the web is linking people.” Let teach it to not only make our profession better, but easier as well.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A204JcGQiY0

“Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us”
http://pbworks.com/

PBworks Wiki Link

http://mcedtech.pbworks.com/

Reflection Week 2

Blogger and RSS reader were very simple to use, but labor intensive at the front end. Now I am not complaining, because they are designed to save time in the long run. I like the RSS reader and thought it was perfect in a limited format. I am a history guy by trade, so I find the process of searching through material somewhat fun. Sometimes I find other things of interest while I am searching and find the RSS somewhat limiting in that process. In the format of receiving information in a limited way by design, lets say as an example my classmate’s blogs, I find it great.  In mobile form I find it a little more interesting, because it is such a pain to navigate on mobile wireless and it gives you the ease of access to what you want. If one is looking for a simple update of self limited material then I guess I can see the point.

            I am not knocking the Cone of Experience, but I will be the devil’s advocate here. This is a standard model, which I think most people instructing already know. Students who lack experience with concepts, items, people, etc. have trouble identifying, spelling, working with, and understanding those things and need to be led through the process. Yes and each child in your classroom may be different as the article points out “the Cone may suggest the most appropriate method for teaching an abstract concept in accordance with the child’s needs and abilities at a particular time.” That being said I suppose it is o.k. to have a road map or directions on how to address each student’s unique needs and abilities. The Cone and or differentiated instruction are simply best practice in the new world of customized education.  I think as Dewey who once made the quote of “sorting the wheat from the chaff” as a bad form of educating and promoted learning through experience or doing.  So where does a blog or RSS fit into Dale’s Cone of Experience? I am not sure and can’t wait to read others reflections. I mean it looks great in respect to personalized information to specific students (including various media formats) as well as maybe being incorporated into paperless formative assessment. I also see that there are many issues that would need to be addressed.

            I found Falling Asleep at Your Keyboard: The Case for Computer Imagination very interesting. First, let me say I am a little biased because like books and find readers like Kindle ridiculous. As the article points out, “e-books don’t have enough advantages over print” and “unfortunately, most Web-based training follows e-books example.” The problem is in my opinion is Web-sites like Skillsoft are not really doing anything different than a person or video can do. The other issue is access at school or at home. Most schools have limited 1 to 1 computing and students may not have access at home. Not all schools allow student access to the web 2.0 tools needed to incorporate the Cone. This and many other reasons are why maybe very few educational technologies answer Postman’s question in the positive. These technologies, while advancements, fail in the educational field to allow ease of access, true customization, and the parent that sense of security and say they want for the children’s online computing.

Edgar Dale (1969)

Siegel (2003)

Reading Reflection 1

The two articles this week do what it is so hard for we as educators to do, which is strike a balance. The article Of Luddites, Learning, and Life by Postman does not necessarily call for the elimination of technology, but does ask why are we using it and what do we need that for? Beyond Technology Integration: The case for Technology Transformation by Joseph discusses the move from standardization to customization and the how technology fits in. I really enjoyed both articles and shared them with a few colleagues at work. I work in a newly remodeled school with technology enhanced classrooms and many in the staff are struggling with this new technology in different ways. Some are struggling because it is new and different, which always requires some time to adapt and learn. Others remind me of the Postman's reference to buying a new car in which he states, "What is the problem to which this is the answer?" The nice thing about the new tech our staff is experiencing is that we have training available for not just the hardware and software, but also on how to incorporate it into what we teach. We are now incorporating our technology, with the PLC's (Professional Learning Communities) we use and our building initiative with RTI (Response to Intervention).  These are all designed to move us away from the Industrial Age model cited by Joseph and towards the student customization of the information age.  We do struggle with some of the same questions in the Joseph article, such as "How can a teacher help 30+ children to all learn different things at different rates and in different ways utilizing authentic task?" So what is technologies role in these transformation? Some things are in place like Michigan Virtual High School for credit recovery, but just as there are individual students with individual needs there are individual schools with individual needs. There is of course fear of the unknown and change. Then of coarse there are the "Luddites and the indifferent", which like to see it works before putting fourth the effort.  As Joseph states in his article, "transformation will not be an easy task".

Postman, N. (1993). Of Luddites, learning, and life. Technos Quarterly, 2(4).

Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation. Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13