Assessment 1: Embedded task 2 - Reflection on Blogs, Wikis and Websites

Embedded Task 2 - Reflection on websites.

It is interesting and perhaps a little embarrassing to say, that while I was researching some educational websites to trial. I forgot that I actually had my own website already through Weebly
One was made in 2012 called a bike ride and is a record of my cycle trip across America. 
The second site is from last year and my textiles unit, where we had to create a site and update it with certain aspects of the course content. 

To have a look just click the relevant links below;

 A bike ride 
 Cycle Life

The digital tool I have choosen to investigate is websites. 

Overview of websites.
Websites are about collaboration and help with student lead learning. The most common form now is web 2.0 tools (the 'read-write' web). For teachers, this means it is interactive, as stated on (Moodle week 2 Topic 2, notes). It is owned by people, Individuals and groups can publish, share, network, download, upload to create user-generated content. 


I have decided to look at one specific website tool for education that I have heard about, it is called Socrative. http://www.socrative.com

Overview of Socrative.

Socrative is a web-based smart student response system that teachers can use with computers or mobile devices.

Below is a table that represents some of the key aspects of this web tool and shows a comparison between websites and Socratives.

Websites (general)		Socrative (specific program)
What can this technology do?	Website can help you interact with others e.g. collaboration between students and teacher.	This site lets teachers engage and assess their students with educational activities. Through the use of questioning with instant results. Can help students to collaborate and discuss their learning
What do the settings of the technology allow you to do?	Have many functions, can be one page or numerous pages. Hyperlinks to other pages/sites	-There is personalised content. -Instant class and student level reports. -Can be used on a variety of devices. -After an activity, results are downloaded to a spreadsheet and emailed to the teacher.
Can you multi author, are there privacy settings?		Yes privacy settings, as students need a login. One login for all students. he teacher has their own personal learning network.
Can you customize the space?	Yes, this can depend on the platform you are using or the design of the site. E.G. upload photos, add video clips	Yes, by editing your own library.
Any other technical considerations
Is it easy to use		From the research it seems to be straightforward.
Level of experience required.		From what I have read it seems straight forward for teachers to set up and for students to use.
Other		It’s free to get an account.

The table below shows some general examples of how Socrative can be used in the classroom and potential uses in HPE.

Socrative
General examples
	Answer group questions.
	Solve problems together.
	Quick warm up questions.
	Spelling competitions.
Specific examples to HPE	Check Understanding of Rules.
	Fact or Fiction questions on nutrition.
	Questioning and assessing students on sport history.

Below shows the creative 'space race' tool in Socrative. An engaging way to show student and whole class understanding in the moment.

Below is an informative you tube clip on how to use socrative, from registering for an account to setting up class questions and getting results.

Socrative, where might it fit into the SAMR model.

S -

A – Socrative

M -  Socrative ?

R –

At first thought I thought that Socrative would be in the transformative stage, however  looking more closely at the web tool I think it fits more under Augmentation as it provides functional improvement but it is a direct tool substitute. This is because it really helps the efficiency of the teacher, providing a great way to get results. This process of providing quiz’s and questions could help to engage students and help to keep them on task.

For the Socrative tool to move into the transformative stages, it could be more student driven, where students propose questions and it becomes a type of discussion board. There could be the opportunity to add links as evidence for there work e.g. other websites, video clips etc. 

This would need to be carefully managed and monitored by teachers to prevent any misconduct of language and the potential for bullying other students.

A few learnings from this week.

• This week has shown me that there are many web tools and apps available, but once you really look at them, how they work and what there objective is, they may not actually be any better, it could be just another method of presenting. If teachers want to be transformative in there teaching and student learning then we need to step outside the box.

• It has also made me realise that as teachers we may not be as tech savvy as students, this is ok, though it is important to make ICT work for students, be it in a classroom or on the sports field. Teachers need to be given appropriate PD and time to learn the technology and succeed and fail at it and consequently not he way working out what is really appropriate for the class.

Digital pedagogy, SAMR model and Blooms Taxonomy Mind Map

Although this diagram may not look like much it has taken me several hours to work out how to create a mind map using Apps, i tried several: Mindomo (www.mindomo.com) Freemind (freemind.sourceforge.net) SimpleMind Free (Apple App). However I soon realised that it was hard to upload them to my blog. Thus I created this on a word document, so not quite how I wanted it to be. I then worked out how to convert it to a PDF format, then researched how to upload this to my blog by embedding the URL. Although the end product is not my original design, I have learnt how to add a PDF and thus open up doors of content I can add to the blog. Im sure there is away to add a web link to the blog to show work done and saved online, the fun continues.....

Embedded Assessment 1. Reflection.

Reflection Embedded Task 1, Assessment 1: de Bono’s Hats/Mobile phones wikispaces activity. Reflect on the learning design of the wikispace activity not just about the consideration of mobile phones in the classroom.

Once I got my head around understanding what was expected of this task, I thought the concept was really engaging and really made me think about that particular ‘hat’ and thus look deeper at the subject, this then helped me to form a more rounded and educated personal opinion on mobile phones in the classroom and thus effect my current educational pedagogy.

One of the drawbacks form participating in this Wiki type forum, is feeling intimidated by others being able to read your content, not understanding what to do, scared by the technology to be used, it can be overwhelming and daunting.

I felt the actual activity was a great way to consider and learn about a subject, the six thinking hats provides perspectives from all angles thus widens students minds to think outside of their norm and provoke critical thinking about a subject, if done in a collaborative manner then can lead to student directed learning and problem solving.

I have learnt about wikispaces as a valuable method to use in teaching students, I had heard about it but finally realising what it is and the possibility’s with it is exciting. A social writing platform that can help in engaging students in a way of learning that excites them and perhaps even learn with out even knowing it. Plus I think the teaching would be two fold in that learning about the task/subject set, but also the process of using the wikispaces site as their vehicle and process to display their thoughts.

While researching online about wikispaces in education I found these points to constantly reoccur in the reasons why wikispaces are beneficial to use in classroom practices and something i hope to adopt in my teaching methods.

The diagram below is adapted from an article by knox networx.

Access and Equity	Relatively simple technological environment provides a high level of access with a low level of technical knowledge and expertise required
Collaboration and Distribution	Ongoing sharing and discussion. Information can be easily distributed to group members.
Engagement and Connection	Accessible technology is engaging. Teacher and students can work closely together regardless of geographical location.
Authenticity and Relevance	Shows the link students have with social media. Enhances working in teams and working collaboratively.
Production and Relevance	Shared work by students giving reflection, comment on and evaluate on.
Identity and accountability	Encourages a sense of team and empowers all students to participate and belong.
Flexibility and Diversity	Can be a choice of structure of open ended teaching approach.

  

Pedagogies in practice

A start of my personal key pedagogies in practice. 

Pedagogies	What does if “look like” in practice	What does it NOT look like in practice?
Facilitate understanding through problem solving and questioning.	Allow time for question. Provide situations and tasks that involve problem solving connect to the subject and then relates to real life. Time to work out problems.	No time to work things out, being told the answers.
Support interactive learning with peers.	Group tables, tasks that need collaboration between students.	Individual seating. Discussions of possible answers to questions, or scenarios.
Relevant and real to the world students live in today.	Real life links to society today. To the students age group	Old examples.
To be a ‘guide on the side’ not a ‘sage on the stage’.	Assist not lead, promote self learning	Dictating at the front of the classroom
Practical learning.