My previous post on wiki reflections was getting a little long. In terms of focussing on how I could apply my learning as an e-learning design for use in a primary school environment, the original use for my wiki was not very effective.
I was aware of that soon after creating the wiki, having carried the lessons from that wiki learning experience into the first steps at creating a ‘static’ website (see this blog post for benefits over wikis). I have since started (definitely a work in progress) a new wiki, aimed at Grade 7 students (my first Prac is in this year). Click here. The first aim is to engage (rather than merely entertain), bearing in mind the limited amount of engagement in my first attempt at a wiki. I have set up certain preliminary “ice-breaker” pages, including:-
Book review – bad or brilliant, a scaffolded page for reviews of school library/reading list books
- Includes inserted, manipulated images and self-created podcast
Fave Funnies, an easy one to contribute to, simply asking pupils to add their favourite joke;
Pets' Park asking pupils to post a photograph of their pet, or an unusual pet
- Includes inserted, manipulated images
Various Vids “A place to store cool and crazy videos, for those study breaks!” with a view to encouraging the creation of pupils’ own videos in time
- Includes inserted videos, both user-created and public
Technology Tips (computer tips to share with the class to make our lives easier), with a view to trialling various ICTs there too (similar to the GDLT course).
I included lots of exclamation marks in an attempt to excite! Whilst the primary intention of these pages was to break the ice and engage the pupils, you’ll notice technical demands were included – resizing photos, embedding, uploading – and some tasks aim to develop higher order thinking (such as comparing, critiquing and creating), through different learning styles – pictures, texts, audio/visual, etc.
Tying it all in to QCAR's priorities. By the end of Grade 7, wikis should be able to help students in:-
Inquiring with ICTs
Wikis enable students to explore, inquire and research across boundaries, identifying, accessing and sharing data and information sources; organise and analyse, experiment with and test data and information from a variety of sources, evaluate data and information gathered for usefulness, credibility, relevance, accuracy and completeness and, to an extent reflect.
Creating with ICTs
Wikis enable students to develop understanding, demonstrate creativity, planning, thinking, learning, collaboration, communication, and develop, organise and present new ideas.
Communicating with ICTs
Wikis enable students to collaborate and enhance communication with individuals in their class, parents or community groups, or wider, global audiences, to enhance interpersonal relationships and empathise with people in different social and cultural context, in addition to establishing their own (or a group) identity.
Ethics, issues and ICTs
Whilst being introduced to wikis, students must be made to understand and apply ethical, safe and responsible practices, including codes of practice for safe (including health), secure and responsible (including ethical and legal) use and respecting individual rights and cultural differences
Operating ICTs
Wikis enable students to apply operational conventions, develop their own strategies for learning new ICT operations, managing personal resources and customising their interfaces and online identities.
Wikis provide a unique opportunity for collaborative working in groups of all sizes, located anywhere. Work on wikis needn't be synchronous, enabling a) pupils to work at their own pace and b) contributions from overseas, for example.
Once pupils have developed the basic skills of locating and retrieving (remembering – say searching) and summarising and explaining (understanding – maybe blogging), their thinking can be extended to, say, editing, organising and questioning (applying and analysing – say commenting on blogs and discussing); to collaborating on group projects or experiments online (evaluating) and creating their own, student-centred and student-designed wiki pages and content (creating). [There would be no restriction for those faster learners, moving up the hierarchy, or peer-assisting others to do so]. In terms of Engagement Theory, this would lead not only to “relate” and “create”, the pupils directing their own learning, but “donate” too, albeit perhaps in a limited context within a private wiki.
See coloured table for specific examples of wiki-activities ascending Bloom's ladder, or Ctrl
click here for a clearer view.
Having spent the last few weeks exploring various information and communication technologies (see Blog postings in Appendix 1), I can see how easy it could be for teachers to be attracted by the entertainment and novelty values of some available tools. Fisher’s oft-displayed hierarchical pyramid (Visual Bloom's, n.d.) seems right on point here. It is oft-displayed as it looks good, just like another attractive, oft-displayed image: Edgar Dale’s Learning Pyramid (Dale, 1954, p. 42). The problem here is one of presentation vs. content. The addition of unsupported percentages to Dale’s pyramid has lead to it being taken as fact: whilst an attractive, even useful visual, the percentages are “myths” (Metiri Group, 2008, p. 3). Fisher’s attractive visual reflecting digital tools’ use alone as a reflection of Bloom’s Taxonomy is just as misleading. As Fisher states, he wanted “the visual representation to be more fluid...where web tools can live on different levels and change levels, depending on their usage. I'm sure we could make a case for each of the tools to live in each realm of the hierarchy” (Visual Bloom's, n.d.). For example, Blogger is at the top of the ‘static version of Fisher’s image, but blogging can be at the bottom of lower order thinking: listing; describing; collating (see Andrew Churches’ “Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Summary Map” (Educational Origami, n.d.)). It all depends on how you use the tool.
