Bowen's wiki link!!!

Christine Bowen     Week #3

I had an immediate idea as to what I would use a wiki for.  I am going to try and use a wiki for book reviews of the 20 most popular books in my classroom.  I am going to have the students take a picture of the book in the classroom, this will help with their digital camera experience, and then upload it with a review to the wiki.  I will have to play with this and see how it goes.  This week is conferences so our schedule is too hectic but I think I am going to start it Monday. 

I didn’t know what a wiki was before this week.  I assumed it was related to Wikipedia.  After I discovered how easy one was I searched the internet for teacher wikis.  There are some amazing teaching wikis out there!!!  I searched everything from elementary to secondary level.  I found teacher posting videos of science experiments, field trips and written work.   

I was confused as to the difference between a blog and a wiki so I had to search that also.  It appears that a blog can only by altered by the author of the site where a wiki can be altered by anyone.  This could make for some really interesting assignments.  If we were doing an economics lesson, I could have someone from a local bank make posts onto the wikis about checking accounts and where students could go locally to sign up for me.  Another idea I really like is a, “What Do I Think Will Be on the Test” section.  Students can post what they think they will need to know for exam time under this section.  I think this would be awesome if I can get them to post quickly where it doesn’t take up a lot of classroom time.  Maybe, once a week or every other week they could have some time to post what they thought was interesting or important from a unit.  Again, I need more time to play to see if this would be a problem. I didn’t have any problem making my wiki link live in my blog so it looks like the two work well together.     

About a year ago, I tried to set up an English facebook page.  They did not go well.  Some of the students did not have appropriate profile pictures and I wanted the site to strictly be used for English.  This appears to be a good replacement.  I am concerned if my students are mature enough to handle the flexibility that a wiki will provide.

The O’Reilly article was a bit descriptive for me.  I tried really hard to understand all of it but I only understand the popular items such as Google, Amazon, etc. However, if the point was to understand that technology/software is changing then I got it.  The videos were pretty good but I was nervous about the wiki assignment.  However, after doing some reading and looking through other teacher’s wikis I can see why they are so popular. 

bowensparkinglot2.pbworks.com

Articles #2

Christine Bowen  -   Articles #2

                Setting up a blog was actually pretty easy.  Google Blogger made it easy to post the article assignment.  However, my blog is super simple and I am not trying to make a living based upon the look of it or its content.  The RSS reader and feed has been an unpleasant experience.  I have no idea how to put a feed into my blog but I can get it into Google Reader.  I am working on it and hope to figure it out.

                The Cone article was lengthy but valid.  I think teachers are aware of the different learning experiences but have a hard time fitting them into curriculum.  So many teachers work individually and I think if we worked together more that we could provide many of these types of experiences. 

The question of where blogs fall into the Cone model is tricky.  Simply creating a blog could be a direct, purposeful experience.  Students in the class had to learn by creating a blog.  I learned that it was not too hard to create a simple blog and therefore the learning experience was purposeful.  The teacher told us where to go and the software pretty much did the work for us.  What you put on the blog may or may not put you into a different level of the Cone model.  Movies are just one item that comes to mind that someone might place on their blog.  As stated in the article, “Not all the original experience is there, but compression of the experience provides advantages.” (pg.121)

                The RSS is a different story.  I am really unsure if I am doing the assignment right.  I read the history of the RSS and can see its usefulness.  Clicking on feeds lets one browse news article in a much more efficient way than searching the entire web site on a regular basis.  That much I can tell.  I subscribed to a local news station and thought it was really cool how I could peruse the news headlines without clicking on a multiple links and taking the time to travel to the web site constantly.  Again, this experience was more direct and purposeful.  However, due to all of the symbols involved it could be a symbolic experience.  The orange RSS button is a unique symbol that has meaning.    

                A blog could be useful in the classroom.  One advantage that a blog has is that it can be accessed from anywhere.   To answer Postman, the ability to put videos on a blog for students to view would save a lot of lost learning/instructional time.  I show videos for a purpose and there is almost always an assignment to accompany a video.  When a student is absent, the work rarely gets made up because I don’t have time to reshow it in class.  If I could place it in my blog they could easily view it in their credit recovery class or for some students at home.  I might actually try this.  However, I know I would have to create a new blog as my district does not allow Google Blogger.  When I asked why I was told that they could not control the blogs that student access so they said I could not use it at school as it was specifically blocked.    Teachers in my districts do have blogs so I would just have to find out what they use.  I am not sure if my videos would be blocked content or not.  To be imaginative, I might have my students post reviews on books in the classroom to spark student interest.  We could add how many stars out of five, what type of person should read the book, etc. and then students could search the blog for this material.

Christine Bowen Articles #1
First and foremost, the problem with technology in education is that technology is funded through school bonds. Therefore, technology varies from district to district. Some students have access to technology in school for the entire day while other districts have to sign out a computer lab. How do we address a curriculum for all students to access the same learning when the same tools are not supplied?
The Reigeluth & Joseph was interesting in the fact that it described that students were moving from, “sorters” to, “learners”. I understand where the authors were heading with this. I believe that students who used to take jobs in industry will now be taking jobs in retail. Let’s face it; if the great divide didn’t still exist my students would have computers at home. Out of my forty students, only ten have access to computers at home while eight of them have printers. Sixty percent of my students receive free/reduced lunch.
Moving on, the article states that education should move from, “a time-based system to an attainment based system”. I agree that technology has the ability to assist with this goal. I want to strongly emphasize the word, “assist”. I do not think that computers should replace educators. It seems that now more than ever educators are teaching life skills as well as curriculum. However, teacher blogs have been a wonderful tool as far as posting assignments and projects. It then becomes a way for the student to demonstrate their learning themselves where this sometimes becomes the teacher’s responsibility to demonstrate the learning of the class. It would be wonderful to place more curriculum on line but to do so would require more access to computers in schools and districts can move only as fast as the dollars will let them. Overall, I understood the points of the article and do agree with some aspects of attainment based education.
On the flip side, there is the Luddites article. Talk about pessimism. Why can’t moral and social values coincide with technology? Can we not teach values while using technology? I believe so. Educators all know the dark side of technology: texting, facebook and games. I still think when it comes down to it the good outweighs the bad. The article states that, “information has become a source of garbage”. When it comes to education, I disagree. Garbage definitely exists on the Internet but that is not what education and technology is all about. Educators use technology to enhance a lesson not to hurt it. Is Postman saying that dittos and encyclopedias need to make a comeback? Postman also states that the primary function of education is to teach students to behave in groups. I think people are more sensitive to other people when using technology. How carefully are emails constructed? I email so much differently than how I speak. Email makes me think before I speak and in many instances that had me overcome a social dilemma better than if I was speaking directly to the person at the time. I did appreciate Postman’s viewpoint in presenting the flip side but I definitely disagree about its usefulness in education.