Week 2 - Learning with Wikis and de Bono's Six Thinking Hats

This weeks wiki task was an excellent introduction to the use of wiki's and technology in general as a teaching medium. By encouraging collaborative thinking, it allowed me to draw on my fellow students' ideas and build on my own knowledge. The use of de Bono's Six Thinking Hats provided me with a great base of questions to use my own knowledge to create new ideas and solutions. 

I believe the forum was a reflection of a combination of Constructivism, Cognitivism and Connectivism theories. The forum reflects the characteristics of Constructivism as the exercise allows the learner to draw on their own knowledge and experiences to build new knowledge and create new ideas. Cognitivism can also be seen within the activity as it uses an active learning approach to open the mind to new ideas. It provides the tools required to create further consideration and thought on a subject to produce new ideas. Connectivism is characterised in the forum by it allowing learners to draw on other learners ideas to create an educational experience for themselves. The forum also allows students to work collaboratively to enhance their learning. 

The benefits of participating in a wiki like this are that students can work together to create new ideas and new solutions. The teacher can also monitor how much each student has contributed to the learning activity to ensure all students are contributing equally to the exercise. Issues with using a wiki like this may be that students may use other students ideas and fail to contribute their own knowledge to expand on ideas and create solutions. 

This wiki would provide my students with a base of questions to stem ideas from and work together to create new ideas and solutions. It would also teach students to work together to achieve new ways of thinking. The wiki would also use technology to engage students in a new way and teach them to use a new form of technology. 

This scaffold supports the collection of a range of perspectives by placing each of de Bono's different Thinking Hats and questions associated with these into individual boxes in a table and instructing students on the layout and how to add their knowledge and ideas, it allows students to add their own thoughts and add on to other student contributions. The scaffold values students individual ideas but also encourages them to work together. The medium used also allows students to try a new way of learning with technology. 

Overall this weeks wiki task was an excellent way to create new thinking and ideas while working collaboratively with fellow students and using a new form of technology to enhance learning.