Week 3 - Creating a Website

Website's are widely used and readily available resources for everyone. The use of a website as a learning resource can be advantageous to students if it is created and used suitably. I have created a SWOT analysis below to assess the suitability of Websites as a learning resource.

Strengths:

• Can be created by teachers to provide activities to students 
• Content such as videos, photos and links to other websites can be added
• Students can access them anytime and they can be completed and viewed outside school hours

Weaknesses

• They can not be edited by anyone but the creator so it does not allow students to work collaboratively 
• Teachers cannot provide questions for students to answer

Opportunities

• Students have the opportunity to show their creativity and what they have learnt by creating their own websites

Threats

•  Anyone can access the websites making a possibility of it being unsafe for students to use

Week 3 - Creating a Wiki

This week, the task of creating a Wiki proved to be a valuable exercise in my learning journey. Wiki's can be used in a number of different ways to provide fun, exciting and new ways to present learning exercises to students. The creation of the Wiki was easy, and during creation the site asked if the Wiki would be used for educational purposes, as well as providing a button to protect your Wiki. This ensured the Wiki was safe for students and teachers to use. I have created a PMI below to assess the suitability of using Wiki's as a learning resource. 

Plus: 

• They can be easily edited 
• They are easy to create and use
• Videos, pictures and links can be added to them 
• Multiple students can contribute to them allowing for collaboration 
• Teachers can control, contribute to and view what is being added to the Wiki.
• Teachers can lay foundation questions for students to answer and expand on to create higher order thinking
• They are safe for students to use
• Students can use them anywhere and are not restricted to school hours

 Minus:

• They are not an interactive resource that provides learning activities for students
• Students may add inappropriate content
• They do not allow students to have face-to-face collaboration 

Interesting:

• They are a different resource for students to use adding variety to their learning activities

From completing the Wiki task in weeks 1 and 2, it proved to be an effective exercise in getting students thinking and collaborating on a particular topic. The overall use of Wiki's as a learning activity proves to be an effective, efficient and advantageous exercise for both teachers and students. 

Week 3 - Teaching Using Blogs

Using blogs as a learning tool can be a great way to see students' progress and thoughts through their learning journey. By allowing students to create their own online space and add their own individual features including images, links, colouring and backgrounds, it lets students creatively express themselves in an area of technology they can feel comfortable using. Students can also collaborate their ideas and findings to show their research skills and showcase what they have learned from the course or topic. A major advantage to using blogs as a teaching tool is that teachers can monitor what a student is adding to their blog and can monitor students' learning progress. Teachers and other students can also give comments and feedback to students online. Another advantage to using blogs is students can complete them anywhere and at anytime, so learning is not limited to the classroom. This may lead to further investigation of topics and a more in-depth analysis.

Disadvantages to using blogs may be that students are not using them appropriately for educational purposes, however if this is monitored by the teacher these problems can be easily fixed. Another disadvantage is that blogs don't give students much of a chance to work collaboratively with each other. 

There are many ways in which blogs can be used as a learning material. One way they can be used is by asking students to reflect each week on their thoughts of the learning material so far. A way this can be arranged to promote higher order thinking is by asking the students to create a KWL chart (Ogle, 1986) http://www.readingquest.org/strat/kwl.html in their blog. This allows them to express what they already know, what they want to know and what they have learnt form the topic. 

Another way blogs can be used as a learning material is by asking students to take different components from what they are learning and each week provide an analysis of each component in their blog. for example if students are learning about planets they could choose a different planet to discuss each week. 

These reflections may also help students when completing assignments as it provides them with a virtual set of notes and ideas from what they have been learning over the duration of the course. 

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. 

Welcome

Hi Everyone,

I am studying a Bachelor of Learning Management (secondary) and this is my first year with CQU, however my third year as a UNI student. I transferred to CQU to continue my studies externally as a have my first baby due in July! There are many firsts for me this year, including this being my first ICT education course. I am excited although a little nervous as I am not exactly 'tech savvy'. I hope this course will increase my knowledge in using technology in teaching and in the classroom, and expand my range of teaching methods for my future as a teacher.