I thought I would end my blogs on teachers leveraging off social networking with a research article on success in the field. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a research article that provided a summary of teacher experiences. Instead here are a few sites and articles on teachers using social networking that I found interesting.
A simple way of using Facebook in the classroom is to create a Facebook page for the class and use the page as a tool for listing homework and for communicating with students (Hart 2010). Students are informed of new posts on the page (such as a reminder that homework is due). Students can send messages asking for assistance or clarification. By not posting any personal information about the teacher or students, the page can be an effective communicator without any of the usual concerns of social networking. Such a Facebook page still keeps the teacher as the central actor and therefore does not encourage peer to peer learning.
An English teacher had his students create Facebook pages for characters from a novel (Featherstone 2009). Each page should have attributes appropriate for the character. Does this mean that there aren't 500 million real people on Facebook?
A Victorian Government report (2009) describes an online science fair and a maths books as projects successfully completed at schools. The report refers to the use of the SuperClubsPlus social networking site. This is a site designed for school children 6 to 14. Enrolment is restricted to children and requires validation from the child's school. There are on-line mediators monitoring the site 24 hours a day. Such a site obviously addresses the security and privacy concerns of sites like Facebook. The report contained positive teacher feedback on social networking in the classroom.
And my final thoughts? I think that social networking has some great advantages but the security and privacy concerns will not go away in a public site. Restricted sites such as Nings and the SuperClubsPlus address these concerns. Eventually the learning management systems (LMS) that schools seem to be using will be extended to have social networking within the LMS. The only problem then for students and teachers will be keeping up with all the different on-line communities to which they belong.
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. (2009) Teaching and learning with Web 2.0 technologies. http://www.education.vic.gov.au/ Accessed 15 April 2011.
Featherstone (2009) Mr Featherstone's Class Blog http://mrfeatherstone.blogspot.com/2009/04/unit-project-facebook-character.html Accessed 15 April 2011.
Hart L. (2010) Using MySpace and Facebook Pages in the Classroom http://www.brighthub.com/education/k-12/articles/18955.aspx Accessed 15 April 2011.
Showing posts with label ELPC G1 Journal 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ELPC G1 Journal 2. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Social Networking to Help Teachers
Social networking in the classroom is usually the main focus of teachers using social networking, but can teachers also leverage off social networking to help themselves?
Cloudworks (Conole et al, 2009) is a social network "for sharing learning and teaching ideas and designs". Teachers would be able communicate and collaborate on teaching and learning. The Cloudworks project expended considerable effort in the design of the network. Clouds are the "social objects" of the site. A cloud is the basic unit in the network - it could be an idea about teaching, or a particular resource. The site allows connections to be made between clouds. A cloudscape allows users to aggregate clouds around an idea or an event.
Going to the Cloudworks site however, is a little like visiting an empty shopping mall. The mall looks great, has all the facilities but no shops and no people. The Field of Dreams approach "If you build it, he will come" unfortunately did not seem to work for the Cloudworks project. A quick look at the tags shows the focus of the site: virtual worlds, PhD skills, research, etc. The site is a research tool, not a working network.
The Ning in Education site was established as a community of educators discussing how to use Nings in education. Going on the site, however, the first forum that caught my eye was a discussion on why the site was not being used by educators (Shapiro, 2011). The point of the discussion was "People are joining this NING, however there is a very low participation level after people join." Several of the blog entries however noted that teachers want to be able to access material (how can I use a Ning in the classroom?) and get on with teaching. Many teachers are read-only users of Web 2.0 as they don't have time to post resources for others.
Conclusion? Social networking may be a great tool for teachers to collaborate and communicate. However, smaller communities of teachers with common interests, setting up their own Ning, may be more effective than trying to build a "one size fits all" solution like Cloudworks.
Conole G. and Culver J. (2009) Cloudworks: Social networking for learning design. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 24(5) pp 763-782.
Shapiro, R. (2011) What are you looking for from Ning in Education? http://education.ning.com/forum/topics/what-are-you-looking-for-from. Accessed 15 April 2011
Cloudworks (Conole et al, 2009) is a social network "for sharing learning and teaching ideas and designs". Teachers would be able communicate and collaborate on teaching and learning. The Cloudworks project expended considerable effort in the design of the network. Clouds are the "social objects" of the site. A cloud is the basic unit in the network - it could be an idea about teaching, or a particular resource. The site allows connections to be made between clouds. A cloudscape allows users to aggregate clouds around an idea or an event.
Going to the Cloudworks site however, is a little like visiting an empty shopping mall. The mall looks great, has all the facilities but no shops and no people. The Field of Dreams approach "If you build it, he will come" unfortunately did not seem to work for the Cloudworks project. A quick look at the tags shows the focus of the site: virtual worlds, PhD skills, research, etc. The site is a research tool, not a working network.
The Ning in Education site was established as a community of educators discussing how to use Nings in education. Going on the site, however, the first forum that caught my eye was a discussion on why the site was not being used by educators (Shapiro, 2011). The point of the discussion was "People are joining this NING, however there is a very low participation level after people join." Several of the blog entries however noted that teachers want to be able to access material (how can I use a Ning in the classroom?) and get on with teaching. Many teachers are read-only users of Web 2.0 as they don't have time to post resources for others.
Conclusion? Social networking may be a great tool for teachers to collaborate and communicate. However, smaller communities of teachers with common interests, setting up their own Ning, may be more effective than trying to build a "one size fits all" solution like Cloudworks.
Conole G. and Culver J. (2009) Cloudworks: Social networking for learning design. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 24(5) pp 763-782.
Shapiro, R. (2011) What are you looking for from Ning in Education? http://education.ning.com/forum/topics/what-are-you-looking-for-from. Accessed 15 April 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Educational networking
The use of social networking tools for educational purposes faces obstacles with privacy and safety concerns. Can the use of "educational networking" sites address these concerns?
Holcomb et al (2010) studied the use of a Ning in Education SNS (Social Networking Site) for distance education courses at the University of North Carolina. The study wanted to see if the more restricted Ning would address privacy and safety concerns but retain the advantages of educational networking.
The results were positive: The Ning "provided numerous educational values and benefits for learning within a secure environment" (Holcomb et al 2010). As distance educational students, the participants were able to communicate and collaborative more easily with their peers.
The biggest problem was the time commitment required to use the Ning; "the time to keep current was a significant drawback".
I found these results to be consistent with my observations of using a Ning in PPLE. Due to the closed community, I was much more comfortable submitting work, knowing that the community was a small, trusted group. I benefited from reading other students' thoughts and also from thinking about my thoughts in order to write. However, the time taken to write and read the Ning has meant that my participation has dropped off during the semester due to other demands on my time.
As well as the Ning, the article suggests Elgg and Classroom 2.0 as other educational networking tools.
These tool appear to address the concerns about privacy and safety from the outside world. The tool do not directly address problems that could occur within the group. Moayeri (2010) states that the perceived need for teachers to police Nings used in a classroom setting was a major time burden for the teachers. Maybe education and the idea of a closed community will reduce the need for teachers to police such educational networking sites?
Holcomb L., Brady K. and Smith B. 2010 The Emergence of "Educational Networking": Can Non-commercial, Education-based Social Networking Sites Really Address the Privacy and Safety Concerns of Educators? MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol 6, No. 2, June 2010, pp 475-481.
Moayeri, M. 2010. Classroom Uses of Social Network Sites: Traditional Practices or New Literacies? Digital Culture & Education, 2:1, 25-43.
Holcomb et al (2010) studied the use of a Ning in Education SNS (Social Networking Site) for distance education courses at the University of North Carolina. The study wanted to see if the more restricted Ning would address privacy and safety concerns but retain the advantages of educational networking.
The results were positive: The Ning "provided numerous educational values and benefits for learning within a secure environment" (Holcomb et al 2010). As distance educational students, the participants were able to communicate and collaborative more easily with their peers.
The biggest problem was the time commitment required to use the Ning; "the time to keep current was a significant drawback".
I found these results to be consistent with my observations of using a Ning in PPLE. Due to the closed community, I was much more comfortable submitting work, knowing that the community was a small, trusted group. I benefited from reading other students' thoughts and also from thinking about my thoughts in order to write. However, the time taken to write and read the Ning has meant that my participation has dropped off during the semester due to other demands on my time.
As well as the Ning, the article suggests Elgg and Classroom 2.0 as other educational networking tools.
These tool appear to address the concerns about privacy and safety from the outside world. The tool do not directly address problems that could occur within the group. Moayeri (2010) states that the perceived need for teachers to police Nings used in a classroom setting was a major time burden for the teachers. Maybe education and the idea of a closed community will reduce the need for teachers to police such educational networking sites?
Holcomb L., Brady K. and Smith B. 2010 The Emergence of "Educational Networking": Can Non-commercial, Education-based Social Networking Sites Really Address the Privacy and Safety Concerns of Educators? MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol 6, No. 2, June 2010, pp 475-481.
Moayeri, M. 2010. Classroom Uses of Social Network Sites: Traditional Practices or New Literacies? Digital Culture & Education, 2:1, 25-43.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Is Social Networking a New Literacy?
Social networking is a powerful tool, but are teachers using social networking to do the same old thing using new technology, or are they using social networking to create a new way of doing things? This week I am looking at an article by Moayeri (2010) that explores this question.
Moayeri describes a study of two teachers in the same school using social networking (a Ning) as a part of the classroom work. Although both teachers are "digital pioneers" (Moayeri 2010) they used the Ning in different ways.
The first teacher would post questions on the main blog page and students would be required to respond on their own page's blog. Students were required to comment on other students submissions, but had to move onto the other students' blog pages to read their work.
In contrast, the second teacher used a single discussion forum for students to discuss topic questions. All students could then easily see the whole discussion and other students' thoughts. The forum was soon also used for social announcements. As well, the Ning site used for non-textual material and for students to share work (such as videos made by students).
Moayeri classifies the first classroom as using new technology for traditional practice. The second classroom however used the new technology to create a collaborative multimodal learning environment and was therefore using a "new literacy".
The article is an honest overview and does note problems using the Ning in the classroom. Assessment was difficult, how do you grade collaborative work and how do you make the amount of effort required for Ning activities commensurate with the assessment weighting? The Ning also required more work of both the teachers and the students. And because of the use of the Ning, oral discussions in the classroom were reduced in the class - effectively reducing oral literacy for another literacy that is heavily text based.
There were some strong positives. Most students enjoyed having their work seen and being able to see other students work. Students liked the idea that they could see another student's piece of assessable work before they submitted their own. Students liked the idea of building a product - the final Ning - over a semester.
The second classroom reported that a stronger classroom community was developed by using the Ning as a social tool. The Ning helped break down barriers between student groups: across gender and across popularity. Given the importance of learning communities in developing positive learning environments (Charles 2005) this is a significant advantage.
The experiences in the article are consistent with what I have observed in the Grad Dip. The use of the blog in ELPC (for example) has really replaced a paper submission with an online submission. There are additional advantages, such as students learning how to use blogs and in course administration, but I would not call it a new literacy. In PPLE however, a Ning has been used as a discussion forum and it has been interesting to read other students' thoughts about discussion topics set by the lecturer. The lecturer has made the Ning submissions non-assessable, avoiding the assessment problems described in the article. As well, only about a 25% on the tutorial group posts on the Ning, either due to not wanting their work public or because of the time it takes to contribute. Would I consider it a new literacy? It is certainly different to writing an essay and different to an in-class discussion, but few people on the Ning have actually commented on another student's posting. We submit, the lecturer comments. Maybe it will only become a new literacy when we become brave enough to interact and work as a collaborative community?
Charles, C.M. (2005). Building classroom discipline (8th ed.). Pearson.
Moayeri, M. 2010. Classroom Uses of Social Network Sites: Traditional Practices or New Literacies? Digital Culture & Education, 2:1, 25-43.
Moayeri describes a study of two teachers in the same school using social networking (a Ning) as a part of the classroom work. Although both teachers are "digital pioneers" (Moayeri 2010) they used the Ning in different ways.
The first teacher would post questions on the main blog page and students would be required to respond on their own page's blog. Students were required to comment on other students submissions, but had to move onto the other students' blog pages to read their work.
In contrast, the second teacher used a single discussion forum for students to discuss topic questions. All students could then easily see the whole discussion and other students' thoughts. The forum was soon also used for social announcements. As well, the Ning site used for non-textual material and for students to share work (such as videos made by students).
Moayeri classifies the first classroom as using new technology for traditional practice. The second classroom however used the new technology to create a collaborative multimodal learning environment and was therefore using a "new literacy".
The article is an honest overview and does note problems using the Ning in the classroom. Assessment was difficult, how do you grade collaborative work and how do you make the amount of effort required for Ning activities commensurate with the assessment weighting? The Ning also required more work of both the teachers and the students. And because of the use of the Ning, oral discussions in the classroom were reduced in the class - effectively reducing oral literacy for another literacy that is heavily text based.
There were some strong positives. Most students enjoyed having their work seen and being able to see other students work. Students liked the idea that they could see another student's piece of assessable work before they submitted their own. Students liked the idea of building a product - the final Ning - over a semester.
The second classroom reported that a stronger classroom community was developed by using the Ning as a social tool. The Ning helped break down barriers between student groups: across gender and across popularity. Given the importance of learning communities in developing positive learning environments (Charles 2005) this is a significant advantage.
The experiences in the article are consistent with what I have observed in the Grad Dip. The use of the blog in ELPC (for example) has really replaced a paper submission with an online submission. There are additional advantages, such as students learning how to use blogs and in course administration, but I would not call it a new literacy. In PPLE however, a Ning has been used as a discussion forum and it has been interesting to read other students' thoughts about discussion topics set by the lecturer. The lecturer has made the Ning submissions non-assessable, avoiding the assessment problems described in the article. As well, only about a 25% on the tutorial group posts on the Ning, either due to not wanting their work public or because of the time it takes to contribute. Would I consider it a new literacy? It is certainly different to writing an essay and different to an in-class discussion, but few people on the Ning have actually commented on another student's posting. We submit, the lecturer comments. Maybe it will only become a new literacy when we become brave enough to interact and work as a collaborative community?
Charles, C.M. (2005). Building classroom discipline (8th ed.). Pearson.
Moayeri, M. 2010. Classroom Uses of Social Network Sites: Traditional Practices or New Literacies? Digital Culture & Education, 2:1, 25-43.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
How Can Teachers Leverage Off Social Networking?
Social networking (Facebook, MySpace, wikis, blogs) is at the heart of Web 2.0 - a powerful medium for people to communicate and share knowledge. For my second ELPC G1 topic, I will look at the question, how can teachers leverage off social networking?
This question follows from an article by Klopfer et al (2009) (which I also used in my first ELPC G1 topic). The article looks at games, simulations and social networking and how teachers can leverage them. (And before the grammar police start getting excited, I know leverage is not a verb but it sounds technical!)
Klopfer (2009) argues that social networking is more than just entertainment; social networking is impacting the way we think, learn and interact, and even shaping the way we think, work and live. The article is a call to arms. The article observes that there is a disconnect between the way students are taught in school and how social networking is used outside school - "It is critical that education not only seek to mitigate this disconnect in order to make these two 'worlds' more seamless, but of course also to leverage the power of these emerging technologies for instructional gain" (Klopfer et al 2009).
The article notes that collaborative learning is contained within the Social Constructivism pedagogy. Social Constructivism (this week's topic in Educational Foundations) holds "that meaningful learning occurs when people are explicitly taught how to use the psychological tools of their culture (like language, mathematics, ..) and are then given the opportunity to use these tools in authentic, real-life activities" (Snowman 2009, p340). It could be argued that social networking, despite its recent appearance, has now become one of the psychological tools of western culture, especially teenage culture. The Social Constructivist would then say that students should be using social networking in authentic activities to enhance their learning.
An example of a teacher using a social networking tool, a Ning, in a class is described in the article. The use of the Ning allowed students to continue discussion outside of the classroom, gave the teacher a way to communicate a range of information to the students, and an easier way to see other students' work.
As usual I remain cautious and a little skeptical. Just because something is good for encouraging people to communicate, and communication is important in education, doesn't mean that something should be used in education (alcohol is one such example that springs to mind on a Friday afternoon). However, the use of the Ning as described in the article does appear to offer some realistic positive outcomes that a teacher can leverage off social networking.
Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., Graff, J. and Haas, J. (2009) The Instructional Power of Digital Games Social Networking Simulations and How Teachers Can Leverage Them. The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Snowman J. et al (2009) Psychology applied to teaching. John Wiley & Sons.
This question follows from an article by Klopfer et al (2009) (which I also used in my first ELPC G1 topic). The article looks at games, simulations and social networking and how teachers can leverage them. (And before the grammar police start getting excited, I know leverage is not a verb but it sounds technical!)
Klopfer (2009) argues that social networking is more than just entertainment; social networking is impacting the way we think, learn and interact, and even shaping the way we think, work and live. The article is a call to arms. The article observes that there is a disconnect between the way students are taught in school and how social networking is used outside school - "It is critical that education not only seek to mitigate this disconnect in order to make these two 'worlds' more seamless, but of course also to leverage the power of these emerging technologies for instructional gain" (Klopfer et al 2009).
The article notes that collaborative learning is contained within the Social Constructivism pedagogy. Social Constructivism (this week's topic in Educational Foundations) holds "that meaningful learning occurs when people are explicitly taught how to use the psychological tools of their culture (like language, mathematics, ..) and are then given the opportunity to use these tools in authentic, real-life activities" (Snowman 2009, p340). It could be argued that social networking, despite its recent appearance, has now become one of the psychological tools of western culture, especially teenage culture. The Social Constructivist would then say that students should be using social networking in authentic activities to enhance their learning.
An example of a teacher using a social networking tool, a Ning, in a class is described in the article. The use of the Ning allowed students to continue discussion outside of the classroom, gave the teacher a way to communicate a range of information to the students, and an easier way to see other students' work.
As usual I remain cautious and a little skeptical. Just because something is good for encouraging people to communicate, and communication is important in education, doesn't mean that something should be used in education (alcohol is one such example that springs to mind on a Friday afternoon). However, the use of the Ning as described in the article does appear to offer some realistic positive outcomes that a teacher can leverage off social networking.
Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., Graff, J. and Haas, J. (2009) The Instructional Power of Digital Games Social Networking Simulations and How Teachers Can Leverage Them. The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Snowman J. et al (2009) Psychology applied to teaching. John Wiley & Sons.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)