Week 2 - Additional Post
Blogging, Wiki-ing and Commenting Generates Ideas
The value of reading and commenting on the blogs of other students is beginning to dawn on me, and I would like to encourage others to read and respond to, or 'comment' on, fellow-bloggers' posts. In this way, I believe we can contribute to the furthering of our own, and hopefully each others', generation of ideas, as members of this particular learning community.
As I read through other students' posts, I find myself interested in the various learning outcomes students feel they have achieved, and which aspects of the first assessment task they feel were of most value to them in their MeL learning journies so far. I have not managed to read everyone's posts due to my current commitments (3 courses and a family; not to mention Christmas looming and end of year exhaustion - the latter of which I am very committed to ...ha,ha!), but of those I have perused and concurred with, I have found myself wanting to take the time to add a comment. (Or, totally disregarding the above, is this more a case of 'procrastination', I wonder?)
So far, I have commented on Symone Bell's and Sarah Cooke's posts regarding assessment 1.1 and, in doing so, I have come up with ideas for my future teaching practices that, had I not participated in the learning materials and requirements of this course and followed through with reading and commenting on these posts, I might not otherwise have considered.
One idea I managed to produce, is to engage students in a game of musical chairs, utilising de Bono's Thinking Hats. Let's call it ... 'Musical Hats' - I'm sure I will come up with a more descriptive and exciting title somewhere down the track - please feel free to offer more creative suggestions if you would like to!
Musical Hats:
Students are given a topic or, even better, come up with their own topic on which there can be several perspectives. As they play the game of musical chairs - in the old fashioned way, except perhaps generating music from their iPhone or other digital tool - the chair they occupy when the music stops will have a coloured hat on it. If donning a hat that others have previously worn is considered a hygeine issue (and it is, really), perhaps laminated cards representing the various couloured hats can be placed on each chair. Students then give a perspective on the topic question according to the colour hat they found on their chair.
Further, when taking TPACK into consideration:
- Perhaps students could use a mobile phone to record the perspectives given during the Musical Hats game.
- These perspectives could then be recorded in a wiki (as we did) to determine which perspectives are most common among the group.
- Following the game, when students have had a chance to consider the different perspectives presented, a post-game poll via mobile phone (if the technology is available), or post-game vote could be taken to determine the most popular perspectives held after the game.
- The results of the poll or vote could be entered into an excel spreadsheet to generate a graph.
- The most popular perspectives on the wiki (during the game) could then be compared with the most popular perspectives on the poll/vote graph (after the game). As there is likely to be some variation between the two sets of results, due to students changing their perspectives throughout the process, this would demonstrate to students the importance of being open-minded and considering all aspects of an issue, before simply assuming one perspective.
This type of scaffolding encourages students to consider a range of perspectives, which can play a valuable role in either confirming or informing the actual opinion they themselves choose to hold. These types of activities/scaffolding can significantly impact student learning, in terms of critical and creative thinking, while embedded as much as possible in technology.
As I commented to Symone, regarding our wiki exercise ... 'While essentially I believed I was against the idea [mobile phones in classrooms], when it came to considering the 'positive' yellow hat perspective, I almost talked myself into completely changing my mind and believing what I said! It was like having a multifaceted debate with myself ... with everyone else also on every 'side' of the debate!'
In some ways, it sounds more like a nightmare, doesn't it?! But of course, we know the difference!
