Unit 7: The Future of Learning

This course has been crucial to me in encouraging and allowing me to consider not only the future of learning but the way the learner themselves is changing.  Technology has created a whole new world and considerably changed the way both teachers and students operate.  Social learning, constructivism and connectivism are all theories in education that have greatly changed due to technology.  We can all reflect back on the qualities of a learner and the interaction with technology to see this.  I am now convinced that education does not merely take place in a classroom – there is a whole world out there to navigate, collaborate, communicate and create with.  Regardless of the digital tools I use I will take this deeper understanding with me from this course.

 

▪   What are the key things you learned during the course?

This PLN course/is has slowly changing the way I work.  I realize that I can learn something new every day – a teaching technique, a new digital tool to try, what’s happening outside my school in the area of education.  All this from the people I join with online.  I no longer feel that I need to wait for the one or two days of PD that may be offered by the school.  One of the key things I have learnt about PLN’s is that they have no borders – no limits. My PLN is not just a collection of ‘websites’ it is not merely information, it is a collection of colleagues and like minded, interesting, motivated people.  The people near and far who are involved in my PLN are what makes it worthwhile.

▪   Were there any highlights?

Highlights to me were the interaction with others through my blog – the comments posted by other PLN participants and the PLN team.  This has encouraged me to persevere and overcome my reluctance to contribute.  I have probably in the past been a follower and now I feel that I may have something worthwhile to contribute to the online conversations of a PLN.

▪   How did you feel during the course – did it change from trepidation to frustration to joy or vice versa? Or something else completely?

I have thoroughly enjoyed this course.  There have been moments of trepidation, frustration and joy.  Mainly when dealing with the technical aspects of using the internet and various digital tools within a school network – this surely has to be addressed by DEECD.  The support from the PLN team and participants has been outstanding and that has made it easy to have a go at some of the more daunting tasks. 

▪      How would you describe the course to somebody else? Would you encourage them to do it? Did anything slow or stop your progress?

I would describe the course as the one PD that you MUST DO, ASAP.  I would encourage others to do it and would like to encourage groups within the school to undertake the PLN at the same time in order to support together and to work with the same tools across all areas of the curriculum.  Certain tasks required a large time commitment and that can be an issue at times but I enjoyed all the work/tasks/blogging reflections and have been able to complete all the units within the required time frames.

LINKS

I completed a presentation on PADLET using Skitch and Evernote.  Here is the link.

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s152/sh/f9936a11-c938-43c1-aaa8-7b3a3fc435a0/bcf41573c4138d40698a06ac72b5c8c5

I completed a movie trailer using iMovie for My PLN Journey.  I think the analogy is interesting.  This PLN course has been a taster – the PLN team have given us glimpses of all that is exciting and left us wanting more.  It is now up to us to continue writing the story.

http://vimeo.com/66141225

Thanks to all the PLN Team and participants for making this one of the most worthwhile PD experiences I have had.

Unit 6: Changing Practice in a Digital Environment

Consider your own attitudes to online citizenship. How do you manage your privacy and reputation? Why?

Citizenship, whether online or in the real world, requires a commitment to appropriate, responsible behavior.  The digital world, and the associated behaviours and legal issues, has and is evolving  so rapidly that I think online citizenship is a matter that needs to be addressed with young and old.  New developments mean that issues change rapidly and users need to learn how to use new technologies appropriately. Online citizenship requires an awareness of access issues, commerce and cultural issues, communication, etiquette, legalities and personal rights and responsibilities. I would like to think that I behave in the online world as I would in the real world.  But if this is true of me then it could be true of others and just as in the real world there are those who commit crimes, steal and deface or damage property then these people can exist in our digital communities. We protect ourselves in the real world with locks and security devices and we need to use what is available in the online world. I protect myself with passwords, various log-in codes and with limiting what personal information I post about myself.

Track down a person under the age of 18 (or a slightly older one if that thought scares you too much). Discuss their attitudes to privacy online: are they concerned about their online reputation and do they take steps to protect their privacy? What tools do they use to stay in touch? Do they have multiple personae? How would they feel about using the same tool for their personal lives and their learning?

I spoke to a Year 10 student about these questions.  He was not at all concerned about privacy online or his online reputation but said that he mainly communicates with his peer group – he does not have parents or family on facebook as friends.  He stated that once he had made the decision to ‘post’ he was happy enough for anybody to see it and for it to stay there for ever.  He uses email, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr to stay in touch. In the past he had used multiple personae and avatars but he no longer does this.  I think it was a case of couldn’t be bothered any longer. Whilst he claimed to have no concerns about privacy or online reputation he said he would not feel comfortable using the same tool for his personal life and his learning, which leads me to think that he perhaps has ‘posts’ that he would rather were not visible to teachers or other adults.  It’s a little worrying because if there are posts that he is not prepared to share with all these are the very things that could cause him some problems in the future.

What are the characteristics of an effective learner? Think about ways in which digital tools can be used to support those characteristics

Active : As well as doing the work the learner stops to notice what is being achieved, what is important and gain new insights and understandings.  Technology allows learners to be active in many online communities and settings.  Learners can publish work, express opinions, ask for information, comment and share sites to others through Diigo.  Digital tools require active participation – they are not static but ever changing and require some input from the learner.  Many students are more than happy to use their smart phones in order to ‘learn’ something and this is the sort of active, can-do attitude that technology can help to develop.

Collaborative: Is able to work in small and large groups, is able to work with others and understand the context within which they work.  Learning has always taken place in a social environment, although for too long the emphasis has been on the individual.  Social technology allows for connections, communities and social learning to occur. Technology and digital tools allow students to participate fully in these environments.  Connectivism claims that we can no longer experience all we need to in order to keep up – therefore learners need to be able to collaborate  and learn from others’ experiences.

Responsible: Is able to plan approaches to learning, monitor progress , review and make changes if necessary.  Digital tools allow the learner to be responsible for their own learning.  Take the Khan Academy – a learner can use the videos to review work covered at school or to extend their knowledge further.  Digital tools like Daymap allow students to monitor their progress, contact teachers, see assignment and homework tasks and make changes if necessary.  School blogs/facebook groups allow students to compare notes, discuss content and display work.  These tools encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning.

Mindful: Is able to reflect on their learning, what works and what doesn’t work, and understands how to get the best out of themselves.  This one I am not sure about.  Mindfulness is rather an abstract quality, it is a cognitive quality and I am not sure that it can be enhanced with technology. Any suggestions about how to would be greatly appreciated.

 

Unit 5: Evaluating Online Resources

1. Search

▪   Choose a relatively popular term that students might be searching for at your school (such as Ancient Egypt) and compare the results offered by Google and some of the other search engines.

I chose to search for Captain Cook and used Google, Duckduckgo, Bing and Instagrok as search engines.

Google: 26,500,000 hits.  Google Knowledge Graph returned Captain Cook, with a number of links to Australia, Endeavour and a number of images. The first hit was the Wikipedia article.  Following on from this the results returned were mixed with a number of hits for Captain Cook Cruises, an ABC TV series called Captain Cook and also for Alistair Cook (captain of the English Cricket Team, I think) included in the top ten.

Duckduckgo: I attempted to access this search engine whilst at school and got the dreaded red page – Site Blocked and the reason give was Malicious.

Bing: 6,040,00 hits.  The first hit using this search engine was Captain Cook Cruises( actually there were 5 advertised sites at the top of this page and they were all Captain Cook Cruises).  The second site was the Wikipedia article on Captain Cook.

Instagrok: you need to log-in or register to use this search engine and I did not do this.

▪   How would you rate the effectiveness of these search engines?

 The two search engines I managed to access returned fairly similar results although Bing seemed to have more advertised sites listed.  I thought the Knowledge Graph was a fairly useful add on to the Google Site as it would easily allow students to widen their research.  Google has the added benefit of being able to limit your topic by using the – .  I searched both Bing and Google using Captain Cook –cruises and when using Google it eliminated all sites with the word Cruise and left only those sites related to Captain Cook.  Bing did not have this capability, or if it does I don’t know how to use it.  Both were fast returning results in seconds.  Google returned 4 times as many hits but as I rarely venture past the first few pages I am not sure how valuable these extra sites would be.

 2. Evaluating resources

▪   Find and post a trusted web resource

 Well, I am not sure about trusted but I decided to continue this evaluation using the Wikipedia site on Captain Cook.  I felt this would be a useful exercise as some students rely almost totally on Wikipedia for their research.

▪   How do you know it’s reliable?

Wikipedia relies on a consensus amongst editors – hence I can’t say with any certainty that all their sites are reliable.  Wikimedia has in place in administrative controls which means that certain articles are subject to review by their editors before publication.  They also have a pending publication option which allows other editors to correct/check changes before they are published.  It is interesting that being able to see the history of  editing allows you to see how writers have arrived at a particular point of view. Wikipedia do however, say on their website that ‘articles may contain inaccuracies, ideological biases or even ‘nonsense’’.  Research into the accuracy and reliability of Wikipedia articles has found that they contain no more inaccuracies than would normally be found in a set of Encyclopedia Britannica .

▪   Record your findings in your blog post, but also tell us about your thought process – how did you go about evaluating this resource?

 I chose to use the CARS model to evaluate this resource.

Credibility: Wikipedia is part of the Wikimedia Foundation.  There is no author listed for the article on Captain Cook but following the links to contributors you can glean some information about them from the minimal personal information available.  For example, one of the contributors I followed is currently studying History at a university in England.  With only this small amount of personal/professional information available it is impossible to say if the author is an authority on the subject, at least in the accepted use of the word authority.  Obviously all the contributors have an interest/expertise in their topics but they may not have the educational qualifications that we have traditionally associated with the notion of an authority/expert in the field.  There were no noticeable spelling/grammar errors in the article.  Wikipedia uses ‘bots’ to correct spelling/grammar errors and to create a standardized style for their articles.

Accuracy: The information on this site was correct and agreed with on a number of the other sources.  The site did not contradict itself.  The site had been edited as recently as 3^rd May 2013.  In fact for some topics, more recent, Wikipedia could contain the latest information and therefore be more up to date than a set of print encyclopedias.

Reasonableness: There is no real bias evident in this article.  In fact having been created by a number of contributors and constantly being edited could limit this to some extent.  I think though that there is a difference in the level of language used through the article and this would have come from the editing process.  Contributors to Wikipedia articles would generally edit only small sections of the article not the complete article and this could result in a ‘hotch potch’ of language levels/writing styles.  Wikipedia’s motivation is to create a free on-line encyclopedia available to all.

Support: All the sources/references were listed at the end of this article and can be checked by following the links.  It was interesting to note that when I followed some of these links I was taken to Encyclopedia Britannica articles, advertising brochures for a New Zealand ski resort and other Wikipedia articles.  It is possible to contact Wikipedia directly and there is a link provided at the bottom of the page.

Perhaps I chose safely with Captain Cook but the information contained on the Wikipedia page was accurate and would be a useful starting point for a student.  I would encourage students to follow the links or to use the more traditional ‘scholarly’ research sites to further develop their understanding and knowledge

PS. I have used Tags on my first few blogs and had already created a Tag Cloud.  I am, however, going to go back and edit these posts as I now understand that there is no need to be miserly with tagging.  I had initially thought the fewer I used the better.