Course Reflection

After completing the web 2 course it is easy to become overloaded with the idea of digital applications and the demand to utilise them in the classroom. Although some of the applications have great benefit, others seem to be impractical or not offer much substance compared to their traditional teaching and learning counterparts. Despite this, the course has been helpful in pushing me not only as a teacher but as a learner.

The introduction of Blooms digital taxonomy is a great way to conclude the course. It is an effective way of synthesising the use of the applications that have been presented thus far. After weeks of Blogs, Flickr, Glogster, Nings etc. it is easy to become inundated with digital applications and feel overwhelmed by the push to incorporate them into your own teaching. The digital taxonomy asks you to ‘think outside the box’ when planning lessons and see if a digital application could be a constructive option.

Teachers are always seeking effective ways to engage students with the content they are presenting. I know I am constantly trying to find creative and interesting learning activities for students to gain more meaningful learning. Now that I have completed the course I will use the digital taxonomy to choose the best learning activities possible, digital and traditional. It will also serve as a good reminder of which applications are beneficial for teaching a certain key learning objective.

It is important not to overuse digital applications or use them as a ‘soft option’ instead of challenging students to create meaningful and high quality work- especially written work. However, if they can be used to enhance learning and make tasks more seamless for teachers they are invaluable.

Module 10

Wiki’s:
I had previously seen wiki’s used in another school with great success and have recently experienced a few excellent wiki’s designed by fellow colleagues. After completing the reading in this module I am convinced that wiki’s are an excellent way of sharing and editing information for teachers and students alike. Wiki’s are not only beneficial for professional development uses, as seen in the Web 2 wiki, but also as a tool for monitoring and sharing student work. They also allow you to collect samples of student work very easily.

What role do I see for using Web 2.0 tools (the wiki) in your own life as a learner and in the classroom?

Wiki’s provide a user friendly layout and are a great tool for collecting student work. I can see that they are particularly useful when keeping track of homework and assignments. Another plus is that students can interact with one another and critique each other’s work. Now that I have completed this module, I really need to bite the bullet and get a wiki up and running! I may try one with my yr12 SOR class on Christian Bioethics. I could get them to answer some research questions and then collaborate with each other on them. By the end they would also have a good lot of summary notes.

Nings:

Nings- another platform for creating a social network. I say another, because there seem to be so many social network sites popping up at the moment. I hadn’t heard about Nings before but they look like a good way of creating a social network between like minded individuals.

Thanks to Nick Phillipson’s blog I was able to find an excellent example of a Ning in action- The Floating World. This style of Ning would be a fantastic educational tool for students and the format could be manipulated and used in many subject areas.