Month: March 2011

What are the relevant design affordances that shape how learning happens in a wiki?

Everyone can build on each other’s contribution in wikis. Papert (1984) eluded to this when he described a fragmented learning process in Logo which allowed students to share bits of knowledge which led them to reaching goals collaboratively. Well edited wiki entries are reviewed and discussed by a number of people which increases its accuracy. However, there is still debate over whether or not the input by the collective is correct or not. Another affordance is the open access to current knowledge because people are regularly updating the pages.

How could we provide a kind of critical media literacy that would assist students’ to evaluate the quality of knowledge – both their own, and the knowledge retrieved from online sources, or textbooks?

In a radio interview, Jimmy Wales (2005) said that students shouldn’t be citing Wikipedia or any other in academic papers. He goes on to say that we need courses that teach students how to recognize valid sources and think critically about where the information is coming from. Cummings (2009), who asked his university students to write for Wikipedia, defined this as a teachable moment. Personally, the Research Methodology course in the MET Program has helped me evaluate whether a source is reputable or not. This includes peer reviewed articles that should be credible but have faulty methodology or logic.

Cummings (2009) and Beasley-Murray (2008) encouraged their students to evaluate the quality of their own knowledge by writing for Wikipedia. The publication of their writings motivated their students to produce accurate work. Students made revisions based on feedback from other Wikipedia editors. Their work was more meaningful to them than simply handing in a paper or writing an exam and receiving a mark.

How would you assess the quality of students’ own contributions in a wiki?

Firstly, I would give explicit instructions on my expectations for the wiki. For example, instead of groups of students splitting a wiki page into parts, I would instruct students to build the page collaboratively. I would evaluate students’ contributions to a wiki with a self assessment where students would write about the improvements they made to the wiki and why. I would also use the history function to compare the newest revision to the old version for significant improvements.

How can arguments about the quality of knowledge impact educational decisions about appropriate media usage?

Arguments about the quality of knowledge encourage people to reflect on what is appropriate to use as credible sources. Perhaps, discussions like these will help us redefine what is credible and what is not.

I think it’s important for people to read multiple sources before making an informed decision about a topic. I think Wikipedia can be used for everyday questions or serve as a “general introduction to a topic” (Cummings, 2009). However, currently, I would only use primary sources from peer reviewed literature in an academic paper.

Papert, S. (1984). New theories for new learning. School Psychology Review, 13(4), 422-428. Retrieved from: https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/RelativeResourceManager/Template/PDF/S%20Papert_New%20Theories%20for%20New%20Learnings.pdf

Cummings, R. (2009, March 12). Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/03/12/cummings

Giles, J. (2005). Special Report: Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature, 438, 900-901. doi: 10.1038/438900a

Beasley-Murray, J. (2008). Was introducing Wikipedia to the classroom an act of madness leading only to mayhem if not murder? Retrieved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jbmurray/Madness

Wales, J. (2005). Wikipedia, Open Source and the Future of the Web. NPR. Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4986453&ft=1&f=1019

I am going to relate the following questions to our Design Project for this course. We created a social network for teenagers to encourage discussion about bullying.

How intuitively easy to use is the technology by both students and teachers?

I think the project is very intuitive for students to use because it is designed similar to social media that they are familiar with. It links to accounts we created on facebook, twitter, flickr etc. so they can participate in our project by using their existing social media accounts. After reading Bates and Poole (2003), I was concerned about how complicated the site would be for teachers to manage. Teachers with social media experience should have no problem but otherwise the site could be intimidating. However, our site has a variety of tasks to choose from so that more advanced members are still engaged and inexperienced members are not overwhelmed. For example, the former might create a blog on our site and then link to a mind map that shows their definition of bullying. The latter might post a comment about a video embedded in our site. Bates and Poole (2003) say that if students and teachers are motivated enough, they will learn to use the technology. Perhaps, the students could take a leadership role and help the teachers learn the technology.

How reliable is the technology?

We used Ning.com to create our network. They claim to be the “world’s largest platform for creating social websites.” Ning was launched in 2005. Over 2 million Ning networks have been created since then. Therefore, it is a stable company that is not likely to go our of business in the near future.

How easy is it to maintain and upgrade the technology?

The technology is maintained for us since our site is hosted with Ning. We are able to upgrade our plan by paying a higher fee. Ning used to be free but recently started charging their clients a small fee for their sites. A downside to being hosted by Ning is that we will have to comply with any future price hikes if we want to maintain our network.

Do you have adequate technical and professional support, both in terms of the technology and with respect to the design of materials?

Ning has a FAQ page, help videos, and a support forum. In order to email a Ning representative directly, we’d need to upgrade our account. Other sites we’ve connected to like facebook, twitter, bubbl.us etc. provide adequate technical support as well.

Do any of the categories or questions provide you with insights concerning the implementation of educational technology in your local context (school district, university or private organization)?

My main concern with the implementation of a Ning network in my district is about privacy issues. We can moderate any photos, blog posts, and video that our members upload but we can’t control inappropriate content they see on twitter, flickr, or facebook. There is danger that students might leave the accounts we created on these sites and wander onto pages not condoned by their school. I’m not sure what types of school filters and/or rules are put on these sites across the schools in my district. We put a disclaimer on our site for teachers that they should send a permission letter home to parents describing the site and possibility of coming across undesirable content.

Bates and Poole. (2003) “A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology.”  In Effective Teaching with Technology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pages 75-105.

Ning Inc. (2010) Retrieved from: www.ning.com

Consider what Anderson means when he describes the attributes of learning in terms of being learner, knowledge-, assessment- and community-centred. How might we use technology if we are thinking about creating learning environments that exemplify these attributes?

We should not rely on traditional teaching methods when integrating technology into the classroom. It isn’t the technology itself that is improving student learning and motivation but the affordances that the technology allows. Shank (1993) as cited by Anderson suggests that technology allows students to make their own meaning by guiding their own learning (as cited by Anderson, 2008).

I found it interesting that Anderson (2008, p. 47) described learner centred contexts as meeting “the needs of the teacher, the institution, and of the larger society that provides support for the student, the institution, and often for a group or class of students, as well as for the particular needs of individual learners. When we are considering implementing technology in class, we can refer to this quote which leads to questions like:

• Does the teacher need professional development?
• Does the technology fit within the schools budget?
• Can the school maintain and update the technology in the future?
• Is there IT support?
• Will the students learn useful skills from using this technology?
• Does the technology build upon students’ prior learning?
• Can students direct their own learning with this technology?

The vastness of the Internet is overwhelming. Therefore, knowledge-centred online learning provides appropriate content at just the right time along the learning journey. This means providing enough content for ideal learning to occur but not too much that drowns the learner (Anderson, 2008).

The focus of assessment should be “to motivate, inform, and provide feedback to both learners and teachers” (Anderson, 2008, p.49). This would mean going beyond marks by reporting on progress and suggesting ways to encourage learning. Assessment should be the responsibility of the community of learners with self and peer assessments as well as teacher feedback.

Community centred learning replaces competition with collaboration. Students have much to gain from the “expertise of peers and external experts (Anderson, 2008, p. 49) Technology can improve upon classroom discourse by breaking time and space boundaries. Thus, a community of online learners has the potential to be very diverse which would offer a multitude of perspectives to challenge each others’ thinking about particular concepts. Discussion boards allow for students to reflect meaningfully and participate as often as they like. Public postings of assignments follows the notion that “two heads are better than one” where students build new knowledge together instead of replicating the same response.

What kinds of interaction will we need to create?

“The greatest affordance of the Web for education is the profound and multifaceted increase in communication and interaction capability” (Anderson, 2008, p. 54). Anderson (2008) refers to three common interactions in distance education as discussed by Micheal Moore (as cited by Christenson & Menzel, 1998) which were: interactions:student-student; student-teacher and student-content Anderson then added: teacher-teacher, teacher-content, and content-content interaction (Anderson & Garrison, 1988).

Examples of Interactions

-student-student – student-led teams present learning outcomes in project format

-student-teacher – teacher welcomes students

-student-content – “immersion in micro-environments, exercises in virtual labs, and online computer-assisted learning tutorials” (Anderson, 2008, p. 58).

-teacher-teacher – professional development opportunities

-teacher-content – updating content based on course evaluations

-content-content – tagging and RSS feeds

And how might our networks extend the contexts into which our educational institutions reach beyond the traditional and isolated space of the classroom?

Wilson (1997) as cited by Anderson (2008, p. 51) states that online communities create a “shared sense of belonging, trust, expectation of learning, and commitment to participate in and contribute to the community.” Online communities allow all members to participate equally whereas certain personality types may be overbearing in the traditional classroom. As stated previously, these networks may be culturally diverse, thereby contributing multiple perspectives. Students can instantly access an array of online resources and experts to draw upon. Overall, online learning has the potential to be more effective because it allows students to engage at a deeper level after mindful reflection about the topic.

Anderson, T. (2008). “Towards and Theory of Online Learning.” In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.