Week 2 - Engagement Activity 4: wiki activity reflection

Activity 4 Blog reflection on wiki activity

My wiki

This(essential) activity is to post a reflection about the learning that was facilitated in the Mobile Phones wiki, analysing it within the context of the learning theories you are starting to consolidate.
Is this forum reflective of Behaviourism, constructivism, cognitivism, connectivism? One, or all of the above? 

Reflection of behaviorism, it is a low level content wiki site, the topic (Bono's Six Thinking Hats) is an well know theory and easy to adapt. The action involved is explained in clear steps, and everyone seems to be able to follow. I found it was a bit hard to fine information and keep the format simple, as the wiki is now full of information but looks messy.

Reflection of constructivism, I think wiki is the open platform for everyone to participate; everyone is interacting with another learner on this communication platform. The only problem for me is that it was not easy to follow who said what, but the conversation history is recorded there.

Reflection of cognitivism, the layout on this wiki has divided into six different section by the different colour of thinking hat. It guides me to see the different parts I need to participate to, the table format was helpful on some level. It was easy to find out what other learners’ idea on that particular thinking hat, it created a space for me to seek relevant information.

Reflection of connectivism, I have learned so much more from other learners’ answers to this topic, sometimes even able to realize my misconception about Bono's Six Thinking Hats in the past. 

What are the characteristics of the wiki design that lead you to that understanding?

The fact anyone can participate and there is no record of who said what?(not sure am I right about that). This gives people freedom to say what we think and we know, and share the knowledge. So if I think each of the thinking hat as the branches for a mind map, then this wiki is an online mind mapping process bring all people’s knowledge to the same “map”. It helps me to gather ideas, and see for explanations before I reach my understanding of each topic, and share my knowledge with others.

Reflect on your own personal participation in the wiki. What are the benefits, issues, drawbacks of participating in a wiki like this? 

Benefits are I can see everyone's answers, I felt there is this connection between everyone by doing this activity together we are a community.
Drawbacks, the lay out was very hard to follow, or it is hard to be interpreted in different ways by different user. It also has no right or wrong on this wiki. I might have said something that is completely wrong, but it is recorded on this wiki as if someone else could think that is correct. Also it is easy to delete someone else’s participation by mistake and mess up the format. Anyway I found it was a bit Messy. 

How would it contribute to the learning of your students? 

This can be used as a good place for students to freely express what they know and what they have learned or even a place to ask questions. They will know once they post something on wiki, it is public information shared with everyone. This helps students who would not share much else where but feel more secure or comfortable to share online. Also this gives teachers and other tool to help to understand their learners and build connections.




How did the scaffold support the collection of a range of perspectives? 

There are certainly some guidance and good connection from doing this wiki activities that helps me to learn this topic, and see other users' ideas. It is categorizes and coloured and easy to follow. I assume there is one person the teacher will be in charge of checking or valid the participation from users, and guide us to the right direction of understanding. This exercise helped me to see how wiki works, and where are the areas I will need to be careful with when using wiki as an ICT tool for classroom learning.

At last, I am not supporting mobile phone in class. Not yet, it is not ready to me.

Week 2 - Engagement Activity 3: wiki task

Engagement Activity 3  Working in a wiki

http://fahe11001-3-11.wikispaces.com/Home 

Mobile phone in class

Judgement:

What is wrong with this??

·         Students can easily get distracted by this tool and not focusing on learning.

Why will this not work?

·         We have not had enough experience yet with how to bring this technology to class, the current students will be just on experiment

Is this safe?

·         It can be safe if there was enough preparation done, I have confident in technology that can make this approach safe but it brings a lot of risk with it.

Can this be done?

·         This can be done; it takes long time preparation and testing it out, because it can easily go wrong. Students may not learn anything if this does not work well.

The Process:

Where are we now?

·         Some school already have done this.

What is the next step?

·         Regulation about who mobile can be used in class.

Where have we been?

What sort of thinking is needed?

·         Security and safety

Information:

What information do I have?

·         Mobile phone is used by people in their daily life, it plays a very important part of our life now.

·         Most of the students would be very excited about having mobile phone in class.

What are the facts?

·         Mobile is mainly used as a communication tool, now it can also be used as a personal organisor and much more.

What information do I need?

What do I want to KNOW?

·         I will need to know what type of mobile phone is it.

·         What class we are using mobile phone.

·         How often we are going to use it.

·         What type of applications we are going to use for class room?

·         Who has approved those applications for the class room?

Benefits:

What are the good points?

·         Create connection between students, students and teacher.

·         Enhancing learning outcome

Why can this be successful?

·         It can help teaching to be more effective.

Why is this a good thing?

·         This shows that our education system is evolving through time, technology going to classroom is essential because we are living in the world of technology (most of the time), why hide our children from it when they have to face it one day.

Feelings:

How do II feel about this?

·         Very exciting but also see it is a big challenge for teachers to make it work well.

What do I like about the idea?

·         Students will be hooked. Connected the class with students’ life.

What don't I like about the idea?

·         There are expect and unexpected risk with this idea, we may have students isolate themselves and just communicate with people by mobile which is not the intension.

Creativity:

What new ideas are possible with this?

·         We have a new of connecting learners, this would encourage students to communication support each other, this may help students to improve their behaviour in class since we have something that’s related to their life outside of school. Children are the most creative group of people, they may suggest some new ideas as well.

What is my suggestion for success?

·         Make sure the safety control is set up really well.

Can I create something new?

·         Maybe I am not sure yet. Could get students to txt their answers to me instead of paper.

Week 2 - Engagement Activity 2: TPACK

What I think TPACK is ?

Technology Pedagogy and Content Knowledge.

With subject matter knowledge and understanding learners, teachers select the teaching strategy for the learner group, and carefully choose digital tools to improve the learning outcome. The digital tool is the technology that involves in the pedagogy that will bring some fun and excitements to the classroom, also helps to make connection between classroom and the world, create links between students, and build another invisible bridge between teachers and students. Teachers choose the right and appreciate technology to for their class will enhance the understanding for students.

When teacher shows they are making an effort to connect students with the real world, it will be noticed by their students, and this is a hook for teachers to get the students attention. Students may see a computer or using cell phone in class, that is also a part of building a save and supportive study environment. TPACK is describing the interaction between content, pedagogy and technology, it is when all those three working well together to help us increase the learning outcome.  

                  

Week 2 - Engagement Activity 1: Pedagogy

By doing this activity I have learned that even teaching a very straight forward a tasks, the pedagogical knowledge behind it can be quite complex.

Using the links between the pedagogy and learning steps, it helps me to realize which pedagogy I have covered too much or too little. Or it is a good guidance to adjust my teaching strategies.

Week 1 - Engagement Activity 4: connectivism reflection

 Reflection on Connectivism

Mind mapping, play :)
Text 2 mind map
bubble

1.     A number of authors contest Siemens' ideas. It is unsettling to be challenged about existing perceptions of "knowing", in particular, the lack of purpose in asking our students to KNOW and be able to RECALL what they know in assessment. Many academics contest these ideas because they are not yet supported by research, rather, they are a position about the nature of learning. They also contend that learning is a state within the individual, and therefore connectivism cannot be regarded as a theory of learning, rather a theory about how learning is best supported. 

Do you agree with them?Can you see Siemen's point of view? What is your position?

On some aspect I do agree with the contest side, because learning definitely heavily depending on the learners themselves. However connective is the learning theory to support and encourage students to share what they have learned, by sharing and discussion students will re-enforce what they have learned. This theory support student to link their own knowledge to others, this practice is important. If there is no connective, the purpose of learning only ends with the learners themselves.

2.     Give an example of ways in which you could use this theory in your classroom/learning context? Optional Blog posting - add your reflection to your blog.

Student can have their own blog to keep a record what they have learned, or questions out of the daily classroom learning. Teachers can take this as an opportunity to encourage students associate with each other online, not just the same classmate, it can be from another class or even another school. We can do some live exercise during class to find out what students have learning from their blogs. The community students goes back to contains students from all different kind of school, to be able to prepare students realize the similarity or differences between what they have learned will prepare them better for social skills later in their life.