Reflection on the use of a blog as an online personal learning tool.

Since the start of the Melbourne University Semester I have been using a blog as an online learning tool/space. Through the use of this tool I have discovered that while it can at times be useful it can also be time consuming.

One of the main issues that I had with the blog software that I used for the duration of the assignment was adding links into the blog. Blogger does not offer a very user friendly tool for hosting other pages on the blog and outside sources have to be used to present the pages in a user friendly format. If I was not aware of this issue, or not able to work out the issues on my own I would not have been able to host other pages on my blog in the view that I wanted using other RSS feed software. From viewing other blogging software I have been able to determine that not all sites that host blogging software have as many issues in hosting RSS Feeds and if I was to ever need to create a blog that hosts RSS feeds again I would most likely not use blogger, but find another blogging site that hosts them more efficiently. 

Another of the issues that could arise from having an online learning space as a blog is the need to maintain regular posting. For some people this may be any issue; not having the time to continue posting or simply not having much that they would like to blog about. I found this to be the most challenging aspect of the blog.

On the positive side of using blogs as an online learning tool; it allows users to keep track of all that they have added to the blog, as a result information is not as easily lost, and the creator of the blog is always able to view previous posts and link ideas from different posts through the use of tags (tagging). 

Bloggers are able to connect with other blogs of a similar type or that they have an interest in, thus allowing for more scope in the level of knowledge and information they can obtain. Blogs also allow for users to blog about anything that they find interesting, and to organise the blog to whatever layout that they find the easiest to navigate. 

From my use of the online blog over the past few months I have also thought that it would make a excellent learning tool in schools for enhancing peer-to-peer learning. If students were to use a blog/s to communicate ideas for school projects and finishing assignments they would be able to use it to connect when they were at home or at school if they had a computer with an internet connection. This would mean that they would be able to communicate with their classmates in real time or over a long period of time using comments and blog posts no matter what distance there was between the students. This would also be very helpful to students who are overseas at the time and still need to complete the class assignments. 

From Williams and Jacobs (2004) stated that “blogs have the potential, at least, to be a truly transformational technology in that they provide students with a high level of autonomy while simultaneously providing opportunity for greater interaction with peers” This I could see as being a very important way of expanding student learning and increasing students interactions with each other as well as other in an online community. It is thought that through the use of blogs the intellectual quality of the students interactions would increase.

Ferdig and Trammell, 2004 believe that blogs are ideal spaces for students to make meaning and publish their reflections, thoughts and understandings for an authentic audience.

Blogs have become a place for many people to write down their thoughts on particular matters and feel safe about spreading their ideas to the wider community. They enable individuals and students to express their views, opinions and reflect on their work/practices.

Robertson 2011 states that one of the most important advantages of blogs in schools in the emphasis on self-directed learning. Due to the nature of blogs, posting content is all up to the owning individual and while comments can be made, most of the learning is done on an individual basis. It also allows for a greater use of reflective writing which can be referred back to at any time to improve information flow and the reflective process. 

As stated in Robertson 2011 “As well as providing opportunities to practise self-directed learning, the blogs enabled students to express their emotional experiences of learning and to exchange social and cognitive support with their peers. The emotional support of peers was valuable to the novice learners in this study and represents a useful strategy for enhancing the experience of first year students. The affordances of educational blogs could also be used for peer coaching of meta-cognitive skills”.

In conclusion, it can be seen that many individuals can see the benefits of using blogs as a personal learning tool/space. From my experience of the past semester I also see the benefits, but believe improvements need to be made along with teachers becoming more aware of the technology before they bring it into use in their classrooms. Self-directed learning is an important skill and if blogging is able to provide an environment in which students can self learn I will support that idea.

References

Ferdig and Trammell, 2004 R.E. Ferdig and K.D. Trammell, Content delivery in the “Blogosphere.”, Technological Horizons in Education Journal (2004) Retrieved from http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/articleprintversion.cfm?aid=4677.

Robertson J, 2011 “The educational affordances of blogs for self-directed learning”, Computers and Education, Vol. 57; Iss. 2; P. 1628-1644

Williams and Jacobs, 2004 J. Williams and J. Jacobs, Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector, Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 20 (2) (2004), pp. 232–247.

Boolean Searching [Resource]

For one section of the unit the students will be learning about the uses of boolean searching and advanced searching techniques. Below are some links as to what could be covered under this part of the unit and one possible task that the students would be able to complete to confirm their understanding. 
Boolean searching is an important part of reseaching and should be taught to all students who will be doing any type of searching in future, whether just in VCE subjects or university classes. This part of the unit would also cover other forms of advanced searching such as the use of quotation marks/phrase searching and the different terms used in advanced search options in place of bollean terms as laid out in teacher resource 1 below.

Student Resources:

1. http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/researchingskills/workshop2/techniques2.html
2. http://bellevuecollege.edu/lmc/handouts/boolean.pdf

Teacher Resources:

1. http://www.internettutorials.net/boolean.asp
2. http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=1221265&answer=136861&rd=1
3. http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=1221265&answer=136861&rd=1

Assignment 3 - Assessment Plan/Timeline

As stated on Shannon's blog, she and I will be working together to create a unit of work for a year 10 level IT class.
For this post I will be adding our ideas towards the assessment for our unit of work that we are planning.

Before Learning Activities begin:
Students are expected to at least have basic ICT skills from previous years of study thus a short research test at the begining of the unit could be done to determine level of research skills of individual students. This test would cover basic searching using google or a similar search engine and have the students answering some simple questions using the selected search engine. The students could then be assessed by the level of research knowledge used when completing their searches, i.e. did they use the advanced search option, were they able to locate the correct information.

While students work on learning activities
For ongoing assessment of the students learning and researching capabilities each task that they complete would be assessed for completion and depth of understanding. Their progress would be monitored for the duration of the unit and qualitive questioning will be used to gather information on student's understand of the topic and tasks.

After Learning Activities End
For the final assessment of the unit the students will complete a final research task in which they will have to use the skills that they have learnt over the course of the unit to complete.

CPE

I completed my CPE on Monday the 6th of June in one of the afternoon sessions.

While I was very worried about it before I got there, once I started my talk I was able to relax and I felt that it went over very well. I know that I have come a long way since the beginning of this course in regards to public speaking and presenting. Due to all of the practice I have had standing in front of classrooms filled with school children and delivering a lesson. My confidence is much higher than it used to be.
Another reason that I think I was able to do my CPE well was due to my knowledge of the topic. For my interventionist practice I used theroists that I was familar with from my first assignment for LTP, this helped with my confidence and in preparing for the presentation.

The basic outline for my CPE was:

An advanced student in a year 7 IT class at a middle class South-Eastern Secondary College. I used Vygotsky's theory of social constructivisum to promote growth and learning for my student. For the language side of the interventionist practice I looked into visual literacy and digital storytelling through the creation of storyboards and powerpoint animations.

For the intervention I felt that it was a success on a basic level as the student was able to have work to do through each lesson that kept them learning and was able to make progress with social interactions between himself and his peers which he sometimes found difficult.

The slides that I used for the Presentation have been added below.

Presentation Slides

Professional Placement Reflection

For the duration of my placement I was at a large public school in the South Eastern Suburbs.

While at my placement I had the opportunity to work with a year 7 class and a year 9 class. With both classes I was teaching basic IT skills. The project that the year 7 students were to be working on during my time at the school was creating animations using Microsoft Power Point. I was able to have a hand in designing the project for the year 7's and guiding them through the whole assignment.

When teaching the year 7's I found that it was a very enjoyable experience. The students were all mostly willing to do the work and were very interested in the subject. Some of the students were very advanced in the subject and were able to expand on the assignment task to extend their own learning.

The year 9 class that I taught I only had for 4 lessons. They were finishing off an assignment using Photoshop; creating posters for their favourite movie or game. While it was enjoyable I was not able to conect with the year nine students to the same level as with my class of year seven students as I did not teach them for as many lessons.
My mentor teacher was extremely helpful for the entire process and was able to provide me with tips and information for the best ways to deal with certain issues, students and to teach the different systems.
The entire experience was very interesting and I look forward to going back to my placement school in August.

Lesson Plan Idea

I have decided what topic I will do my lesson plan on. It will be on the issue of Copyright and the impact of movie and music downloading.

I would make this lesson plan for a class of year ten students and would focus of the social and economic implications of free movie and music downloading.

I may start with a question to the class; "What is copyright?" or "who here has ever downloaded a movie or music before?" and then go into an explanation into what is copyright, or I may be able to find a short video that describes it.

I would then maybe either move the students into small group, or I may do it as a class discussion on what the students think the problems that downloading illegally may cause.

I would then finish with students either presenting their groups ideas to the class and giving feedback or getting them to write a short Argument as to whether or not they think that downloading is a good or bad thing using the ideas presented in the discussions.

This is only a preliminary idea, I will be making a more firm outline of the goals and tasks of the lesson later.

Lesson plan

I still have yet to decide what to do my lesson plan on. Keeping the topic relevant to the students as well as covering the necessary requirements for the assignment is proving a little difficult for me. I think I will need to take more time to think about it.

I may ask my mentor teacher for some ideas for my lesson plan, she may have some suggestions on what issues in the uses of ICT could be related to the classroom. It is important to be able to relate in the topics back to the students as they learn better when the lessons relate back to their lives'. Once I have began observing some lessons I may acquire some ideas for this assignment.