Profile Wiki Reflection... (Assessment Item 1) Part 1 of 4

That was meant to be simple and straight forward right?  Well by golly gosh I have got my work cut out for me this year.  I have had drama after drama with my profile wiki.  Another student, (won’t mention names) had managed to save their profile over the template.  Incredible what you can achieve with a wiki, I must add.  Now it’s complete, it’s time to think about the moments I have shared with digital technology so far this term.  

With the profile wiki and the scaffolding that was provided I was able to describe myself and a few things about me.  Now that I have gone back and read what I typed 4 weeks ago, much to my own amazement is shocking and now I’m learning from this.

I most certainly under estimated the usage of ICT’s in the classroom, at the start, thinking it was just about knowing how to find resources to print out for class lessons and also learning how to use an interactive whiteboard.  Now I can see the bigger picture and why it’s important to me and the other students as teachers.  Though I still believe this course requires more clear instructions as to what exactly they want from me each week. 

So how will it help me in a constructivist’s way?

I can obviously work at my own pace, which sadly enough isn’t fast right now.  The students all get the opportunity to have input on my learning journey and all of the GDLT students are heading in the same direction (hopefully) to understanding ICT’s in the classroom.

How will it help me in a connectivist’s way? 

It’s pretty comparable to getting a new job, in the fact that it’s rarely based on merits these days but who you know in the business.  It doesn’t matter exactly how much you know or what you know, but who you know that does have that information and how you can retrieve this information and learn from it.  With the profile wiki, you are able to acknowledge the previous experiences and knowledge of other student’s, and figure out, how they may be able to assist you in your learning journey.  A prime example, is that I now know thanks to the profile wiki that a couple of the student’s are currently teacher aids and have access to thousands of brilliant resources and a brief understanding of how supporting diversity in classroom’s work.  So from this I hope that another student has learnt something about my past experiences and knowledge, which may one day assist them in the classroom.  We are all in this together and should provide input whenever and wherever we can.

How does it support learners with diverse needs?

Hmm, this is a tough one.  In some ways it does provide support and in other ways it does not.  It does effectively provide a network of current students, who are able to share their opinions to allow a wider dispersion of understanding.  In fact it also caters to individual and group work, visual, auditory and interactive resources, as well as colour and multiple formatting opportunities.  At the same time though, it doesn’t take into consideration a learner with no computer literacy or lack thereof. 

    

Does it provide structure for shy people to put themselves out there?

I’m stuck in the mud for this one.  I’m far from being a shy person, so I can’t speak on a shy person’s behalf, though honestly I don’t think shy people would have the right personality to be great teachers.  I believe the profile wiki provides structure but at the same time it’s open for public viewing.  It may seem to be a common issue, but not for me.  People should learn to accept you, for who you are, including your reflections on your learning so everyone can learn from my personal achievements and mistakes.  So what could there possibly be to hide?  In addition, the profile wiki template was left up to the individual’s discretion for how much information they post, so fairs fair. 

Partnering 

It was a great tool to find a compatible partner, another student who shares common interests and so forth.  I think that maybe there could have been some more in depth questions in the profile wiki so that we got to know each other ‘really well’.  However, unfortunately for me, I had a partner but ended up doing the weekly readings and activities all by myself as our work commitments never allowed us to work collaboratively together on uni.  Though that doesn’t blind me to the goal the profile wiki was set up for in the first place which was meant to allow the student’s to share the workload which is a brilliant idea.

Groups

I honestly wasn’t a great fan of the groups.  Therefore it obviously didn’t work out effectively for me.  Considering all students had briefly got to know one another at the first residential, and some already picked partners (as I had) and then in the groups sorted by last name, my partner and I were not in the same group therefore we couldn’t view what each other was writing about.  My group also only had 6 people = 3 partners = limited to only 3 topics being covered.  In essence the idea was there, but not enough students knew how it physically worked before diving in too deep and getting lost.

Behaviourism 

Put shortly, I behaved in accordance with the course profile as it is part of my assessment, so therefore it changes everything about how a student approaches the wiki reflections.  

Overall, now that I can see the bigger picture and grasp a medium sized understanding of ICT's, I believe that the profile wiki was an excellent starting point for the class structure.  It provides good scaffolding and explained many elements which can be used for future reference in a teacher's career.   

Constructivism - P.M.I.

CONSTRUCTIVISM, A LEARNING THEORY

PLUS	MINUS	INTERESTING
All students must participate by actively engaging in a role	Students can construct wrong idea’s about information	Students previous experiences & their own reflections of those
Students are able to process information in their own way	Students may chose to disregard new information	No evaluation through testing
It allows the students to create their own understanding of the information & knowledge being taught	Students may not participate well in collaborating activities with other students	Students still need to be aware of having to ask questions, explore and assess their knowledge
Group work allows the students to collaborate their ideas for a greater perspective	Students may not be very good at the reflecting process	Students who come from different backgrounds, some of which may be privileged to have had outstanding teachers, committed parents, and rich home environments, could possibly take charge of the activities
Students are able to construct their own understanding of knowledge	Students may clash with different beliefs or past experiences	Teacher’s need to ask “good questions”
Teachers use effective pedagogy by guiding the learning	Students may find it difficult to understand if the information doesn’t match their previous knowledge or experiences	The teacher is continually reassessing the students pre-existing conceptions as well as guiding and building on the students own learning
There is a range of different teaching practises utilised	Collaboration may create a majority versus minority of opinions and conclusions	Most activities are based around experiments and real world problem solving
Students get a chance to reflect on their learning and talk about it		What is to happen if the student has no pre-existing conceptions
The teacher’s are encouraging the student’s to realise how the activity could be used in the learning process
Students use their existing knowledge and experiences to help their learning journey
The classroom has a student focus not teacher focus
Students get to view facts as a dynamic way in which ‘how the world works’ instead of more facts to be memorised
Students have the chance to further explore activities at their own pace or will
Students have control of their own learning process
Students learn not only from a teacher, but also from themselves and peers
Students learn more and enjoy learning when they are actively participating rather than listening or reading
Students are able to think and understand more instead of memorising
Students are able to utilise what they learn in a constructivist’s classroom in other learning environments
Students are able to own what they learn due to the learning based upon their own questions and explorations
Students learn to express knowledge through a variety of ways
Students will know how to apply what they’ve learn to a real-world situation
Students can enhance their social and communication skills

Digital Immigrants

I firmly believe that I grew up in the computer generation where digital technology comes naturally to me and I know a lot about it but this subject has totally blown me away.  I know anyone has the ability to learn but the scaffolding hasn’t been enough for me so far.  I’m lost in a far away land.  I need help!  I strongly think that each activity needs to have a clear demonstration and set out step by step instructions before being expected to not only complete such tasks but the so many with time limitations and detail including reflections is taking a toll on my life.

Profile Wiki...my thoughts & reflections...

To be honest when I first read my course profile, I had never heard of a wiki.  So as a virgin wiki creator I tried over and over again before finally ‘getting it’.  I have spent a lot of time thinking how I could present my wiki neatly and different from everyone else.  Just to be an individual, but I found it too difficult to change the format so I eventually kept the same basic style.  

I had an idea when I finally realised how wiki’s can be useful and operate, that as a group activity, we as students can share the reading and provide a quick outline of the most important parts for everyone else to read and when everyone adds their reflections on the readings, then hopefully we should get a gist of all of the topics required from week to week.  Therefore, what could have taken me weeks to get through, I could do in 1 day with a wiki.  

Then there's the thought of privacy, to be honest, it hasn’t even crossed my mind.  Is this a bad thing?  I don’t believe that there is such a thing as over sharing your personal reflections or opinions on teaching topics.  However, I hope I’m not one of those people who write way too much and repeat myself ten times.

So, what have I gotten out of the profile wiki? 

I think in a students way of understanding, I feel the other students needed to know how I will successfully guide my way through this year.  I wanted them to know a bit about me, my work hours (FULL TIME) plus study hours (FULL TIME) and how I manage to fit this in with family commitments and 'my time'.

Reflecting also can be a bit of a stress reliever for me in terms of getting it off my chest.  I have spent many of nights lying awake with ICT's for learning design running around in my head.  Now I am starting to realise how as a teacher, reflection for students is a major achievement for learning.  In ICT's for example, even though I thought myself to be computer literate, I still find weekly tasks extremely daunting, my limited knowledge and abilities of stepping out of my comfort zone and for that matter the experience over the last 3 weeks that I have endured with ICT's and the experience and abilities of other students in GDLT.

Teacher's can then reflect on the student's reflection and hopefully become better for it.  Whether it be to slightly alter a learning experience plan or completely scratch one and start over.  Ultimately I see the future in our hands..


 

Learning Styles cont....

After doing some extensive research into the learning styles and theories, I have theorised, in a good way, that being a strong combination in several learning styles is the best way to be.  Being restricted to one strong preference of a learning style can ruin your effective education if you don't have the opportunity to get a flexible teacher who is able to design effective pedagogies for a range of different learning styled students.

I do believe that I am currently a mixture of kinesthetic and visual with a pinch of auditory.  However, anyone who really knows me would know that sometimes or most of the time if you say something to me it's likely to go in one ear and out the other!  I know, truthful and honest, that is what I am all about.  Unless of course it's something that I'm interested in, which I would use my whole body concentration to retain the information you've just told me (or I would write a list in my mini notepad).  This could also be due to the fact that I have terrible memory, so my notepad was the best solution.

In addition, the learning styles tests seem to me to be somewhat reflective of what your own 'personal beliefs' are instead of being true to the test.  For example I may have answered some questions with the responses of what I thought would make me sound good, and then there were some question's which I had to just pick randomly as none of the above reflected me personally.

All in all, I do understand the meaning of the tests from a teaching perspective and how it relates to our pedagogy in the classroom.  Being able to cater for all learning styles is extremely important in primary education and I hope that i can achieve such a difficult process.  

Reading, Reading, Reading

My only day off work and spending it reading has not been the most invigorating experience.  Most of which that context has gone in and out of my brain in a flash!  I have been following some other student's blog pages to get some insight as to how far I am behind and low and behold, looks like I'm doing okay so far.

4th Post - Profile Wiki

After many, many and many more failed attempts I have officially created my profile wiki and uploaded it onto the Moodle site with the help of another student.  We have been establishing several difficulties as some students have managed to over-ride the wiki system and saved their profile on top of the table.  Now this has been fixed, I was able to make a start. 
Next, was in Group B, to chose a compatible 'study buddy' to work collaboratively with and 'share' the immense amount of readings.  My group only had 6 students in which we would eventually only have covered 3 topics, and my study buddy wasn't in my group so we couldn't see each others work we had posted.  So now I am led to believe that the groups are open and we are all now classified as 'Flex'.