Feb 20 2007
Short post, just to link to my 3rd Assignment – On weblogs and using them within Secondary Class
teaching. The assignment follows the initiative from a personal point of view and then discusses whether weblogs could be scaled up as an integral part of school curriculum’s and across departments.
The file is an Adobe PDF – have fun – Click here for Assignment
I will discuss in more detail some of the outcomes from the study, once I have recovered :)~
Feb 16 2007
Will be posting more of my 3rd assignment in the near future (well hopefully today), with some of the more interesting findings and statistics from the student surveys of use of weblogs. It can only be said to be a really mixed bag. But until then I have just come across a sort of Second Life for the educational world. Luckily it is not as bandwidth hungry and already has some web quests and environments set up there. When I get time I might take a closer look and see if this could be of use within lessons, or at least into an introduction to students of what might be coming.
It was interesting as my last Year 9 lesson, I showed Karl Fisch’s ‘Did You Know?’ presentation and the students were amazed at some of the facts, especially the idea of e-paper. They are brining together articles and posts for their weblog in the near future, so head over to SevensVsNines to have a look. I wonder how they would react to a 3D virtual environment that they learn in?
Feb 12 2007
Feb 10 2007
Well this recent set of conferences around Connectivism and George Siemens have been excellent, it is a pity I have had no time to actual go into the Elluminate presentations and fully participate. They keep on pushing my assignment probably a way it should not go, as I think of how weblogs act as the first expert node that a school student would come across on the web.
Even though this environment is controlled if used correctly then students will legitimately participate in a number of ways, whether that is simply reading or more in commenting or beyond to becoming authors and posting with all the responsibility that suggests. Anyway I am posting the first shall we say unedited section below, to at least get some areas out in the open. And maybe clarify where I am going wrong:-
Introduction – Abstract
I will be looking into how I introduced weblogs into my teaching and learning as an example of how ICT change and adoption is managed on a small scale within schools. I will focus on areas that I had to change within my ways of working, organisation and teaching styles and then reflect upon how this could affect a whole school initiative to embed weblog use within teaching and learning.
‘Weblogs’ are one of many new tools that are part of a much talked about Web 2.0 or Read/Write web revolution. As Blood discusses the development of a weblog has been phenomenal with technical advances always adding to a weblogs appeal, even though to some ‘[w]eblogs have become so ubiquitous that for many of us the term is synonymous with ‘personal Web site’…’ (Blood, pg53) What was once a tool that needed coding is now in the hands of any user. The simplest definition of a weblog by another Web 2.0 tool Wikipedia is; ‘A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.’ These new web tools are considered to be most importantly social, and highlight collaboration and easy building of online communities. I will be looking at three case studies and my use of weblogs to see what and if such tools can enhance learning and be placed as an essential part of the school curriculum. I will be able to offer some conclusions that go beyond the usual hype of new technologies within education, to see in practical terms whether weblog use is worthwhile.
The amount of literature that is available both through academic research and less respected ‘grey’ research is phenomenal. Interestingly though there is little based on secondary school education and how weblogs have been implemented practically. This could be due to the inherent difficulties of security and control that figure, much more within school establishments. It could also be that the time factor is more prevalent, and leads to such technological tools only being used by highly motivated early innovators. This jump from innovators usage to uptake by others is then often poor due to pressures or lack of a belief that it will have any positive affect. (Quote here)
Interestingly the literature shows enthusiasm for research into weblog communities, and ideas of connected networks that build virtually online. However often authors seem not to think that building a blended ‘community of practice’ around one blog as of any validity. I will discuss and makes conclusions to this, and suggest that even within a teacher led weblog that is controlled (as it must be with secondary school students in a web publishing environment accessible by all) that levels of trust and freedom can be given to students to improve learning and motivation and lead to digitally literate students ready for the ‘connectivist’ world they are now living within.
From this review I will then describe my own motivations and rationale for starting to use weblogs in an educational context introducing the case studies within my recent school community including:-
• Sevens Vs Nines Blog – to publish work for specific KS3 classes promoting cross-curricular work and horizontal integration of ICT.
• CreativICTism Blog – a human portal for GCSE ICT students, which has grown with two student authors and acts as a virtual extension, a link-log and a support mechanism.
• AS Student Blogs – individually created for their AS Applied ICT E-Portfolios.
• INSET Training – ‘Blog to Teach’ – to introduce the idea of weblogs and see if any teachers would take up the ideas and adopt weblogs. The session was completely practical and only a one off session with guarantees of support throughout the year and links to an online course with resources for support.
These case studies will lead into a discussion of the wider issues of adopting such a technological tool within the extended classroom from an individual point of view and how this has changed my ideas and styles of teaching and learning. I will reflect on the successes and failures and how I have evaluated these. The review will be qualitative and quantitative, with comments and data collected from a small questionnaire review with students and evaluative informal feedback from teachers about the INSET. I will also use some technical analysis of the CreativICTism and SevenVsNine weblogs, with the use of Google Analytics software to show numbers and patterns of use.
Background – EABIS and ICT within the School
The base of my research will be within one international school in the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. The school is private and within the last few years has been investing heavily in its ICT infrastructure. However the increase in organisation, support, resources and hardware has not been immediately followed with change in pedagogical style or uptake of ICT within classroom teaching. The ICT department has began to try and change this uptake be leading the first INSET to using ICT within teaching. These are voluntary after school sessions that have only begun to gain rigorous senior management support and be placed within the school policies of adoption of ICT to support teaching and learning.
To begin I had to understand and decide upon the reasons why I had decided to use weblogs in such an extensive way. I will start this process by looking at the areas of academic research that have written about weblog use both inside and outside education.
The literature I have placed into 5 distinct but wide boundaries. I have reviewed and read over 44 articles and papers of which I have then chosen those that have most resonance academically or whose authors are important nodes within highly active connected online learning communities. Often these authors do publish both types of work. I have also discarded those that are general descriptions of weblogs.
Promoting Conversations… (7)
These papers deal with the idea that the most important aspect of a weblog is that it allows for easy discourse between reader and author with the use of comments. They can be written and posted without any technical knowledge and shown often directly below what has been written by the original author. A large amount of academic papers have thoroughly and quantitively researched the amount of comments that particular weblogs have, suggesting that ‘[t]he number of comments per post is perhaps the truest and most diagnostic metric of the nature of communication on a weblog’ (Krishnamurthy) (Gilad Mishne, 2006) Their research suggests that on average from a general sample of weblogs about ‘29% posts had comments.’ This analysis of comments and how they interlink as ‘knowledge flows’ is looked at in detail by Anjewierden although it is acknowledged that ‘[m]any people can read a blog and be influenced by it without ever leaving a trace.’ (Anjo Anjewierden et. al, pg 2)
Some authors go as far as to say a great problem with using weblogs as an educator is that the weblog is controlled by the teacher, and often does not allow discussion to flow organically through the weblog community; if they are in fact part of any community. It is obvious that with a classroom weblog for example the conversation and comments will be mostly between a small and known community within the classroom, or maybe school.
Some more practical based research pointed to the simple fact that ‘…students can log on at any time from any Internet -enabled computer to seek clarification for issues they encounter in their coursework, to discuss topics raised in class…’ (Sarah Horton, 2001) I am interested to see in detail within the communities I create if the lack of motivation to participate and comment does relate specifically to controlled educational contexts or if there is a more complex discussion to whether an online community takes its rules and norms from the actual classroom itself; if a classroom does not encourage discussion and high level thinking and opinion sharing then will the same be true online:-
‘…if there is little exchange in the classroom, there isn’t likely to be much online.’ (Sarah Horton, 2001)
However it is suggested that if the ‘real’ classroom environment itself might not lend itself to discussion and the space and flexibility of weblog commenting could allow students that are quiet and unwilling to contribute’… may find an online discussion area the perfect place to discuss class topics…’ (Sarah Horton, 2001) As with any environment the importance of the activities and how they are conducted is crucial so that discussion is fostered and collaboration encouraged so that ‘…commenting helps foster community..’ (Carolyn Wei, 2003) Within Stephen Downes Educause article he looks at practical case studies where ‘[t]he student who usually talks very loud in the classroom, and the student who is very timid have the same writing space to voice their opinion. It puts students in a situation of equity.’ (Mircille Guay 2004)
Motivations to Blog… (8)
This literature focuses on why bloggers decide and continue to blog. What are their motivations to spend a time posting day in day out? Are the motivations for bloggers that are posting for personal reasons mirrored by the motivations of bloggers that are professional? Does this lead and then link with my motivations within school for technology use in general and was these reasons; my main driving force to use weblogs?
Adaptable to Your Personal Needs
Weblogs are highly adaptable and can be presented and used in many forms. It is widely acknowledged that there are three main categories of weblog: Filter Blog, Personal Journal and Knowledge Log (K-Log) (Menchen, 2005). As Menchen suggests maybe the simple publishing power of these forms might be the motivation for their popularity; ‘simple: people read them.’ (Menchen, 2005 pg 14) Only a few years ago the Internet did not promote such activities as personal publishing but hid this behind a miasma of technical wizardry. Now the Read / Write web has been born the era of media as ‘a one-way street’ (Rosenbloom, 2004) is almost forgotten.
The Filter Blog is written by an author who trawls the Internet for information, and relates their findings back in ‘a log of web surfing pre-digested with commentary for the reader.’ (Blood, 2000 pg 2) A personal journal is like a diary placed online, where each new page is a new diary entry and posted as the first article on the front page. The Knowledge weblog, is one in which the author or authors writes about a specific domain of knowledge giving their viewpoint on this and usually hoping for some kind of community to build around this domain.
These categories are not cemented, as Nadi suggests the mix of what happens on a weblog can lead to all manner of different contexts and uses. In fact almost as many as there are authors. The author suggests a widening of categories of uses: Blogs to document my life, Blogs as commentary, Blogs as catharsis, Blog as muse, and Blogs as Community Forum. (Nardi 2004, p41) It seems that maybe the wide variety of uses acts as a motivation allowing the user ‘power over the web site’ (Menchen, 2005) and the ability to follow their ideas and methods to communicate with an audience.
Needing Feedback
Not all but most bloggers want their blogs to be read, and to know they have been read through feedback of some sort. Almost all weblogs encourage their readers to comment on posts, to say what they think. As such authors want to be heard and become part of a network of people that are able to communicate and share knowledge and experience.
A weblog must be able to pull readers into their world, both real and virtual. They would like their weblog to be at least ‘partially interconnected and sporadically conversational.’ (Menchen, Herring et al., 2005) Unlike most computer mediated communication the act of ‘blogging is the most convenient ‘pull’ medium where people who want to can ‘check in’ with the blogger…'(Menchen, 2005), on a regular basis to see what has been written. This ease and simplicity with which blogs pull in readers may suggest why bloggers continue to be motivated to write.
To Communicate with Those Known and Unknown
Bloggers feel they control the power to publish and this is seen as an essential factor to them continuing to post. The need to start a community can come from either the need to find and branch out to new people or to continue and improve already existing relationships. The motivation can be seen ‘as either intrinsic, that is, started to contact the people on the Internet or extrinsic, to maintain relationships formed elsewhere’ (Menchen, 2005.) The author considers the ideas of Csikszentmihalyi’s extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and is important especially within the context and use of blogging as the medium offers both ideals.
Whether students feel that they are either improving relationships with piers and groups from within their local school community, or beyond this students’ can see that the public – the anonymous people surfing the Internet are interested and coming to view and participate within their work.
Social Vs Technological… (6)
I found little research in the area of weblog design and how this affects the readership and effectiveness in keeping a weblog vibrant able to encourage return readers time and again. This is an important aspect of any weblog, as without considered thought within this area a weblog initiative could easily fail in an educational context. Students are as such controlled to be within a face-to-face classroom situation, but a virtual weblog environment can not be forced.
The technological aspects of a weblog in how it is designed and what it can do have led the ‘social’ uses that engage communities. The weblog revolution is part of a wave of ‘social software’ including social networks , wikis and social bookmarking. These have been driven by the ’…desire for more features that enables conversation and community such as comments, trackbacks, and web feeds.’ (Menchen, 2005) The research of Wagner suggests the success of a weblog, is down to the way the background technology reinforces and makes the social aspects of a community improve. (Wager et al., 2006 )
How these social communities evolve is an intriguing and ultimately selfish process in which the needs of an individual must come first, before participants commit and contribute to any online social community. An example of this is the use of social bookmarking site del.icio.us discussed by Sessums showing that if it is ‘…is useful for the individual using it, they’ll use it…’ (Barnett, 2006) Examples of tools that add this value include shout-boxes, community trackers and RSS feeds. This seems an arbitrary comment, but one which affects all social software and so weblogs, and must be part of how the weblog is designed to incorporate tools that add this value:-
‘The one major idea behind del.icio.us is that personal value precedes network value. What this means is that if we are to build networks of value, then each person on the network needs to find value for themselves before they can contribute value to the network. In the case of Del.icio.us, people find value saving their personal bookmarks first and foremost. All other usage is secondary.’ (Joshua Porter, 2006)
These pointers argue therefore that not only does the design of a weblog have to pull school students rather than be able to force students to take part in a community, but also that a student must first and foremost be given something that is important to themselves and then only from this premise will they begin to contribute and continue to return to the environment.
Motivations for Change…
Stakeholders in Initiative
There can never be an isolated initiative within a school environment as there are many other stakeholders concerned with the learning process of the students; including the Senior Management Team, the ICT Teaching Team, Parents and Students themselves who were all affected adversely or positively by my practice and initiative. In fact even though it was an individually driven iniative a real motivation for its introduction was cross-pollination of ideas across departments and a more natural discourse with often sidelined stakeholders.
These stakeholders not only demand communication and their thoughts on teaching and learning, but also view and have their own thoughts on the use of new technologies within a school environment. There are many reasons new technologies in general are brought into schools and classrooms including: – ‘Vocational, Social, Pedagogic, Catalytic, Industrial, Cost Effectiveness, Symbolic and Special Needs.’
As one stakeholder and a technology enthusiast I can be seen to be an ‘optimist rhetoric.’ (Reynolds et al., 2003) That is one that allows the allure of technology to override sensible analysis and research into how technologies are really affecting the quality of teaching and learning within schools. The teacher element of technology adaption in schools is imperative. Also that I as an early adopter and innovator was able to easily realise and implement my iniatives was of paramount importance:-
‘…the early adopters of ICT tended to be people who were technologically confident and competent. Secondly, they tended to operate on a small scale, which enabled them to avoid many of the systemic constraints that act as barriers to larger-scale adoption of ICT.’ (Twining et al., pg 70)
For this study I will focus on the following personal rationale that maybe reflects my points of view for adopting technologies within an educational context as a whole. I will reflect on the success of these after my case study analyses and how this will impact on the school as a whole.
Enable Communication with All Stakeholders
The school as most has ways to link different stakeholders together within the school community. Often the measure of success of well a school is delivering and supporting learning comes from the communication between these stakeholders. The British National Curriculum often compartmentalises departments and sections of the school, and beyond this the subject and pastoral section often has to specify particular tasks and communication. Within the current school the pastoral side mostly deals with contacting parents and discussing issues and so often leaving the department teams less able to specifically show what they and they sons/daughters are doing within the department.
The initiative of using a weblog would provide a natural way to communicate what is happening and often what there sons/daughters are doing within the classroom in a positive way. The use of ‘…social software could end ‘teacher isolation’ by building networks within (as well as outside) the school infrastructure between teachers, students, parents, principals, school boards and district personnel.'(Sessums, Cultural implications of Social Software) This is a very bold statement but one in which I would at least want to begin a process of better communication. Tyson reiterates these thoughts although does begin to worry that the time taken to fulfill this communication role may end up with teachers’ blogging way into the night due to the anytime, anywhere nature:-
‘….says that his blogging teachers ‘welcome parents into their classrooms by facilitating active at-home participation in the child’s educational experiences at school’ (Dr. Tim Tyson, pg 2)
Educational Blogging… (13)
This was the largest section of research that I found, also having the widest variety. It was interestingly skewed towards the study of weblogs within further education or with professional ‘edubloggers’ discussing and journaling their work or studies. Studies from secondary schools or associated teachers were sparse, and most of my reviews came from looking at existing case studies and ‘grey’ research. I have also combined this section with my own motivations and rationales for learning for brevity, and so I was able to combine the theoretical aspect with what I felt I would achieve and more importantly the students could achieve and learn from their experiences.
The reasons for the initiatives have partly been retrospectively thought through, but were always the underlying my underlying ideals. It must be understood that the nature of weblogs is that they are highly flexible and can be configured and used in numerous ways and forms and so can lead to many different motives for using them. Those that I have concentrated on might not be the same as other practitioners when implementing weblog environments.
Uses and Blending
Most research focused on the variety of uses that weblogs can bring to teaching and learning, that mirror those spoken about in my research. What is most interesting is the way that these are then blended within current practices and ‘real’ classroom activity.
Glogoff considers that there are two ways in which weblogs can be blended either as a receptive or directive tool, where either the weblog is used to set and deliver interactive assignments or as ‘… a directive learning tool to provide students with equal access to important information, to expand students’ understanding of specific issues, and to direct students to explore additional material. ‘ (Glogoff, S. 2005 pg 2) The idea that the teacher can be a guide ‘…to encourage guided discovery and knowledge construction'(Glogoff, S. 2005 pg 2) both inside and outside the classroom is a persuasive one. Especially when most educators today are bound by very restrictive curriculums that skim the surface of topics and allow little flexibility or creativity, the idea that there is a route to motivate and stretch students beyond this curriculum is important for student development and learning enabling ideas being linked together and finding their relevance within real world situations:-
‘Students that have been used to surface learning display some resistance towards reflection and deep learning and these issues are often noted in their blogs’ (Bartlett-Bragg, 2003 Rosie 2000 pg 2)
So the use of the weblog can ‘…offer students and teachers a support tool to promote reflective analysis and the emergence of a learning community that goes beyond the school walls.’ (Downes, 2004, pg 14) A weblog can not only allow for a higher level of thought on a particular domain but also reinforce and develop new skills and literacies.
Guiding to Digital Multi-Fluency
In the current age of information technology, research has begun to focus on ‘what is literacy?’ Is literacy simply a term to describe the ability to communicate well with other people in a variety of ways? Other research would say you are literate if ‘…sufficiently capable to participate in our technological society’ (Prestridge, 2005)
Have we passed the ‘print’ age and associated print literacies are now only one of a number of ways we need to be literate to live and communicate? Some researchers believe that ‘…blogging is a set of intellectual habits and skills that ARE worth learning for themselves.’ (Miguel Guhlin, Dec 2006)
Has it already changed in the last centuries to mean different things depending on the technologies of the time? Sade discusses the role of a teacher as a gardener that maintains a set of technological tools that not only improve the quality of the learning process but enable students to discover, explore and improve their technological literacy:-
‘Gardeners are viewed as important roles in the maintenance of a sustainable information ecology, and are described as playing important roles in the maintenance of a sustainable information ecology, and are described as liking to help other people solve problems as well as explore the potential of the technological tools and processes themselves.’ (Gavin Sade, 2005, pg 10)
The new literacy skills are suggested as very important to students that are leaving a formal educational environment needing to be able to use these skills on their continual lifelong learning journey. They often need to become independent and less reliant on a gardening guide so that ‘… the skills they obtain will transfer to environments in which an instructor and evaluation system are not present.’ (Oravec, 2003, pg 226)
Digital fluency includes the daunting skill of finding information from an increasing bottomless ocean of knowledge; ‘It is estimated that 1.5 Exabyte’s (1.5 x 1018) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.’ (Karl Fisch, 2006) The ability to search and find the correct truthful sources of information on the Internet is a difficult skill and one which a weblog can ‘…help to make the Internet more human scale, providing access to a ‘human portal’ who carefully selects web resources for consideration.’ (Oravec, 2003, pg 231)
In short the use of a weblog can help students with developing new skills and ways of thinking, which should be of ‘…great value in terms of developing all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills and information literacy among other things.’ (Richardson, Downes 2004, pg 24). Simple tools like blogrolls will lead students even if ‘… occasional readers [to] find trusted ‘sources’.’ (Efimova, et al, 2004 pg 492)
These information literacy skills within the Read/Write era can be categorised in ways that describe people that are part of the communities: – collectors, creators, editors and distributors . Ohmuaki discusses in depth these activities suggesting that weblogs can fulfill most of these roles. Students become ‘…users and creators of information rather than consumers and receivers of information’ (Prestridge, 2005)
For example in the act of a student reading a post about technology and its advances in 2007 by a teacher, they are already collecting information as the post also links to different sites and weblogs. When a student that comments upon this post which asks the student to find and think about what would be their future idea that will be the technological breakthrough in 2007, they are not only creating they are also finding information, editing that information and then distributing that information to the whole of the class. The remixing of information into small packets of data is often very difficult and needs to be taught carefully so that plagiarism does not become a norm. Simply through the nature of using a practical weblog ‘…students learn about web page creation, idea sharing, hyper-linking, and the nature of the WWW in an intuitive way.’ (Wagner, 2003)
To Publish and Filter the Web
This could be considered part of my rationale for enabling the students the opportunity to develop ‘digital fluency’ but I believe that this is important enough to be considered separately. The idea that the web is now becoming so vast that it takes a very skilled researcher to find out information that is truthful and peer reviewed is beyond discussion. As suggested by the recent Fisch presentation remixed by Dyer ‘We are living in exponential times. There are over 2.7 Billion searches performed on Google every month. To whom were these addressed B.G. (Before Google)?’ (Fisch / Dyer 2006) The way a student is able to find and analyse and then use this information is becoming increasingly complex:-
‘Beyond search and retrieval, information is contextualised, analyzed and synthesized – complex skills that require critical thinking.’ (Lorenzo, pg2)
The earlier those students realise this and begin to take part and understand the wider interconnected networks of knowledge led by expert nodes the better. The weblog I hoped would be a filtering portal enabling them to slowly branch out onto the web but at the same time not become continually frustrated when they could not find something. As other k-log authors I hope to ‘become ‘human information routers’ for like minded readers.’ (Efimova, et al, 2004 pg 492)
Believe it or not more to follow, and hopefully in a more compact and efficient way…..
Jan 28 2007
I have also just come across a great INSET ready set of resources for making a school and its staff think about how it is teaching and adopting the use of technology. Just head over to Scott McLeod’s weblog. The resources look at different quotations, podcasts and facts that are affecting the ideas and the way we teach. Or should I say should be affecting the way we teach, the way technology is being used…the way the world is now communicating. Anyway I unfortunately still have not finished my assignment so will have to get back to that, but hopefully the above resources will form part of a future INSET within my present or a future school.
Jan 26 2007
Please check this page to see my initial statistical review of the questionnaires filled in by students.
As I suggested in my last post, the technique of trying to find out through questionnaire design if a technological innovation within the classroom is working, and effective in improving learning is very difficult. With younger students this became even more obvious as it is difficult for the students to understand what their learning is. What is a weblog for?
An obvious answer from Year 7 students when they were asked is the weblog fun, was simply of course not they are no games. What more did I expect. This carried through into Year 9 comments around how there should be more Flash animation. Although Year 9’s in particular those that are either less able or shall we say less successful within a school environment have shown the weblog to their parents as a way to say ‘look here this is what I have done isn’t it good’. Several comments relate to this which definitely suggests that some links and communication between what is going on in their ICT classroom and home has improved which is pleasing.
On the area of ‘digital fluency’ what the students are understanding that they are learning and getting out of using a weblog comes another surprise. It is almost only the Year 9 sample students that relate different skills including editing, posting, writing, podcasting, typing and so have an idea that maybe within the act of producing a learning object like a weblog the process itself involves a great deal of skills and learning.
The Year 9 group also came up with some more surprises and consensus when it came to online safety. Out of all the other students only 1 mentioned or even said they understood and were worried about online safety. The Year 9 students were not only worries and had thought the problems of the weblog through, but suggested ways to improve online safety. However they often suggested password protection and other intrusive protection techniques. Although one perceptive student suggested not using names at all, and one I will take on board from now on giving class students nicknames that can become there online names. This will not only be fun, but much safer in the long term.
On the issue of control KS3 students were very much behind having more control over their weblog and what it contained. And an issue that will need to be taken seriously if thinking in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for weblog use and writing within schools. After the complete failure of using weblogs for logging progress and discussion with AS Applied ICT students, due to the fact that the students had little control over content even though they had complete control over construction.
Well enough for now, time to actually write some of this up within my assignment.
Jan 24 2007
The more I look at the questionnaires the more I worry and think about the science of collecting data from students is incredibly difficult. Designing questions that don’t lead a student one way and are easily understood is the initial hurdle. But beyond this it is very difficult to explain and set the environment to be one that allows the students to understand that their teacher as researcher does not want them to be ‘nice’ but you want them to be truthful and explain exactly how and what they think about an online learning system.
It is evident to some extent that students shall we say try to either second guess what you want or ,without a necessary reason that this is helping within their education (exam results?), do not think through their answers so that they are valid. I had a few answered with put more football on the weblog, which I suppose in some ways is valid but really is only saying that the student hates a particular domain and subject not that learning or motivation has improved due to the use of an online tool.
Tomorrow will see the younger students filling in their questionnaire and I wonder if probably it would have been better to organise a set of focus group interviews rather than this method of questionnaires. Unfortunately I am off on a trip to Microsoft so am not able to be around.
The questionnaires I created are linked here Year1011Questionairre, Year79Questionairre and have been designed to be easy to access, but enabling any student who wishes to answer with comments in fuller open questions.
Jan 23 2007
Well finally getting my questionnaire analysis together. And it is very interesting some of the answers. It has brought to the fore how difficult it is to conduct survey questionnaires with pupils. Trying to explain why you are doing it is bad enough. And then students find it difficult to grasp you would like them to answer truthfully but explain what they are saying. Most of the Year 10 students, very much focused on the technical and design side of the weblog often thinking that through criticisms of this side that it would be annoying to me. Most of their points in fact were relevant, however the wider issues were difficult for the students to grasp. Although there was the occasional ‘I don’t care’ put more football articles on there.
The year 11 and 12 students had some more preceptive comments to make, and were thinking through ideas of communication and collaboration. But maybe as the schools ideals and styles of working individually and writing as the main element of assessment the idea of collaboration and commenting seems a waste of time. Anyway more to come when I get Year 7’s and 9’s comments in…..Have only about a week to write this thing, which is a shame as I am actually really enjoying the study and analysis. Below you can see what I wrote on the student blog to allow the students to see the analysis. Including a link to the spreadsheet online.
”I have placed the initial results on a spreadsheet for you to look at. This might be a hint as to how Business Studies students can begin to analyse their questionnaires for their coursework projects. Have not had time to think through the results that will come later on. Interesting early thoughts are simple things like those that used the email method to read the blog posts found this made the weblog more useful and reminded them when to look. Almost all of you thought that the weblog was good to find information, but very few of you related this to using links found on the site. It also seemed those that had used or are using other web tools like my Moodle or YacaPaca seemed more inclined to reap the benefits of such a weblog.
Only two of you thought deeply about what you were learning from the weblog in terms of transferable skills like research, analysis, clear writing or relation of and use of publishing as a strong medium for communication. These skills might be needed throughout your life?
Can you imagine even ten years ago being able to publish your work to the whole world. As one student put, I would love to write to the weblog if their were a million readers…hmmm….is this the egg before chicken scenario. Most weblogs build up a readership over a period of time, you cannot expect suddenly a million readers to appear can you? Anyway more to come, and I will be comparing this to the Year 7’s and 9’s view who are using their weblog in a very different way by being able to publish work and writing of their own rather than as a communication portal and tool.”
Jan 20 2007
And my first consideration is to consider what my rationales were. Why did I decided to use weblogs within the classroom. Is it simply because I am an ‘optimist rhetoric’ and believe that whatever tools and technology I use it will have a positive effect and outcome on the learning and success of my students? Or is there more than that?
The time of procrastination is over – 16 days to sen off of my assignment and I have to stop reading and start writing. I cannot help myself and I suppose this is in some ways part of the problem of these online communities and weblogs – they are addictive and there are so many interesting points of view and blog posts that can be read and alter your opinion about a certain element of your knowledge.
Oh well this Slideshow from Slideshare should keep you interested and shows a great new Presentation sharing site that I have just come across -and has given me hopefully my final morsels of food for thought.
Jan 12 2007
Well in between playing with animation at PICTAPS below I have finally finished brainstorming and categorising the literature review for my assignment into using blogs as a particular example of how difficult ICT change and adoption management is within schools.
The amount of literature that is available both from academic research and ‘grey’ (web) research is phenomenal. Interestingly thought there is very little based on secondary school education and how blogs are implemented and used. This maybe due to the inherent difficulties of security and control that figure ,much more highly within school establishments than say university establishments. Beyond that the TIME factor seems very prevalent, and leads to such technological tools often used by highly motivated early innovators and then little uptake by others due to pressures or lack of a belief it will have any positive affect.
The areas of literature I rounded into 5 broad areas:-
Interestingly their was a great deal of enthusiasm and research into weblog communities, and ideas of connected networks that build virtually online. But often authors seem not to think that building a blended community of learners around one blog as of any validity or worth. I will undoubtedly disagree with this, and suggest that even within a teacher led weblog that is fully under control (as it has to be with secondary school students) levels of trust and freedom can be given to students to improve learning and motivation and lead to digitally literate students ready for the connectivist world they are entering.
Hopefully from this review I will then draw out my own motivations and rationales for starting to blog in an educational context introducing the variety of ways I have used blogs within school communities including:-
This will hopefully lead into some of the wider issues of adopting such a technological tool within a classroom setting from an individual point of view (apart from the INSET) and how this has changed my ideas and styles of teaching and beyond….I will reflect on the successes and failures and how I have evaluated these. Mostly the review will be qualitative, with comments used from students and maybe questionnaires from teachers and students.
Click here to find my overall mind-map/brainstorm and yes it is as massive as before – but as usuals has helped me to bring connections between my research and my practice (Warning the mind-map will take a while to load and you will need to scroll around a great deal…sorry.)
Jan 4 2007
Well this is just a quick message to say I am back from Upper Egypt and will now be blogging away my results and work for my upcoming deadlines for my assignment on Blogs and their actual effectiveness within a class setting in a secondary school.
Yes I know it already seems I’m blogging about blogging, but after my literature review it seemed very obvious their has been a great deal of academic research not just ‘Grey’ literature about blogging but very little actually deals with the qualitative outcomes of using blogs in a classroom. And especially within a secondary classroom. There is a great deal of quantitative analysis related to posts and interconnectivity of blogs with each other to form a community – but it almost seems that creating a community around a single blog within a school is considered a more lowly pursuit. Anyway more soon…
Hopefully tomorrow I will place up all the literature that I managed to find related to my assignment and provide finally the preliminary outline of thoughts, why I use blogs and why I probably don’t think they have a wide future use within education but will be used sporadically as a tool. Until then I hope you enjoy my photo from Karnak temple, a beautiful part of the world even if a little cold at this time of year?
Dec 15 2006
Well below you will find some other links…..they seem to be getting a bit random at the moment. The worlds worst website as much for my GCSE students as anything. But the other two are more interesting both new as such Web 2.0 services. Swivel is a place in which you can enter data and find connections between different sets of data. Worth a look.
Even more interesting is ZapTxt that allows you to set up a search for certain words which will then check a particular RSS feed and if they find the search word will either email, instand message or send a text to your phone. As usual the txt message feature is only for certain mobile phone services in the USA, but the Instant messaging idea could have great educational use as so many students are always on Messenger at home and so could be recieving RSS feeds to there account. Great idea will see if it works later….
And before you ask you are quite right, I am putting off my assignment on how to facilitate communication within secondary schools though the use of weblogs….outline coming soon.
Dec 10 2006
Well busy times, and I seem to be back to my Del.icio.us bookmarking best……most of the links below relate to blogs and their use as communication tools with students. I have been trying to look for academic papers related to weblog use and communication – which in the end is kind of difficult as most discussion about weblogs is on weblogs which as such is part of the so called ‘grey’ research and discussion. Hopefully my assignment can focus on the fact that weblogs can be used in a number of communicative ways including use of chatbox, comments, many authors, as portal….and how these different ways facilitate or in fact are poor at helping with communication.
Beyond this I came across this weblog called Purselipsquarejaw which has some great papers on such things as ‘Collective Remembering and the importance of forgetting….’ This weblog came to me via the edublog awards which you can vote on at this moment in time – definitely worth a look….Edublog Awards.
Finally related to ICT adoption and development within secondary schools there is a very good alternative perspective on looking at schools as ecosystems and how this can then effect and allow a framework to be organised on how to implement change and obviously ICT change being one of those in a far more effective way. Yong Zhao is the man, and his video even though not very invigorating is worth a long leisurely look.
Dec 3 2006
Well crunch time is coming soon, for the third Modules outline to the assignment. I have still not made any firm choices into what to base the study on….my brainstorm still hangs over my head with too many ideas….Recent research, links below to reviews, have been interesting and really focus on the difficulties of change management in schools and specifically if adoption and change of teacher practices when it comes to the use of ICT. The article surrounding the problems related to growing up in a High Tech society although very negative does raise serious issues about technologies and whether they are taking over not only adults lives, but also students lives. Here I am writing this blog, it does not take much time but still eats into time for relaxation and rest during the evenings.
ICTadoptioninMathsScience
Maybe more use of software related to having time off and proper breaks from technology use needs to be looked at. But as the article suggests are we as adults disciplined enough to do this, I doubt it. So what hope to students have in our schools. Workrave linked below is an interesting and simple program that ensures once setup that you have regular breaks and also you set a top limit to time spent on the computer. Could be useful, but am I disciplined enough to install and use this. Time will tell, especially with a assignment looming, application for jobs and piles of ICT department work to be sorted out.
Final news is that Elgg has recieved an upgrade, and sometime this year I am determined to set this up on the my server and hopefully link with CICT Moodle. Fingers crossed I find time, within the four hours limit one day.
Nov 22 2006
A short post today, as I have come across a great tool from Nottingham University that is free to use and seems to simply produce Flash Learning Objects which are much more accessible featuring colour changing, font size changing tools and much more..
Will post more when I have had a proper play.
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