Embedded Task One - Digital Spaces - What's what?

This embedded task requires us to explore in greater detail one of our web spaces we have set up over the last three weeks. I will be exploring the use of blogs further. I have chosen blogs because I think there is such great potential to cover so many things using them - I will discuss below. I have tried to use examples from my own blog as these are my personal learning experiences about this tool;

Photo Source: Personal Blog Screenshot

In terms of construction, blogs are reverse chronological, meaning that the most recent post is at the top and then follows down in date order. Further to this, they can be set up so that there is a sidebar allowing you to quickly search through the blog archive by month or year. I have mentioned in a previous reflection that I think that this tool becomes a great revision tool, especially when students have had to use their blogs for topic summaries and activities. All posts are dated as well which means that marking for deadlines is easier because you definitely know when it was submitted.


The posts themselves are ordered:
- Title
- Post content
- Comment section

Photo Source: Personal Blog Screenshot

This comment section is a great way for students to have input on each others work. In a classroom setting you could request that a student provides constructive feedback on a blog space and then students have to take those changes into account. As I say this, I think to myself "but what if the student doesn't agree with the suggestions" ... well this would be a good time for a healthy debate and justification of why the particular choice was made. This in itself could be a great learning tool. The comment section also allows teacher's to give feedback in a quick way that can be applied without having to wait for a submission date etc. Comments can be turned on and off as the activity requires at the discretion of the student and teacher. The down side to blogs is that they are single author, however I think with commenting enabled, it still gives the students chance to have input and collaborate with each other while being solely responsible for their own works.

It's also beneficial that students can save their work to publish at a later date if they wish. This means they don't have to post their work immediately and can work on it and build it over a couple of days/weeks depending on what the topic requires. This saving as a 'draft' is really handy.

Within the posts...

Within the blog posts themselves the possibilities are endless for what students can submit. Pictures, audio, video media, google docs, hyperlinks, screenshots the list goes on, I even learnt how to embed an interactive mind map. This gives them a wide platform of which they can a) reference their media and sources but b) instead of just telling us about a really great Ted Talk (or any video), they can show us! As we learned when having to embed a google doc in our own blogs, this is a great way for students to share graphs/charts/spreadsheets/templates etc.

Making it your own...

Blogs can be personalised. This is a great way for students (including us) to get creative and make the domain really feel like our own. There are set themes are layouts that you can chose from, or if your skill set permits, you can design your own. You can even customise your colour scheme (I picked red because it's my favourite colour).

Privacy...

One of the great features I found with using my Blogger Blog was that you can limit the audience. This is great in terms of cyber safety for students. You can choose your setting that only permits certain users to be able to access your blog. This would mean that when blogs were set up in class, you have a class list of user names which will determine who can and can't access student work. This is a great tool, because the internet can be a scary place!

It is important while student's blogs are their own, they shouldn't have their actual name as their display name. Personal details shouldn't ever be published to protect student privacy.

Obviously even in a restricted domain, you need to have talent and media release forms from your students to say that parents/guardians give permission for photos or videos of students to be shared, even for educational purposes.

The pedagogy...

As discussed in our first week, it doesn't matter how fancy the technology is, it still has to be what best serves the pedagogy and the learning outcomes for the students. Reading Skill for the 21st Century: teaching higher order thinking higher order thinking is not just the process of retention but the process of transfer. In other words, it's one thing for a student to be able to tell you what something it, but to be able to use it effectively and in a correct manner is more important - this is were we come to higher order thinking and high level pedagogy. Instead of just reading texts, students can engage with them, read other peoples thoughts and connect directly to people with first hand experience in their topic. The internet and positive use of it, is making the world a smaller place which makes it easier to build connections and networks.

You will find in my reflection 2.2 I have discussed the SAMR Model and how I could implement this to one of my drama classes. There are a world of possibilities to use ICTs in the classroom to further learning and understanding, the SAMR Model (Substitution, augmentation, modification, redefinition) is a great tool to follow to implement these successfully. 

One of the greatest aspects of having a blog is that it can connect you to thousands of other bloggers around the world. Blogs that link directly to your topic. For example, while reading about the SAMR Model I came across a great educational blog, that although the information is informal (like most blogs) to gives good reference for further reading and it a good resource. If I was a student, I would save it into my blog, so other people could access it too. I have linked it for you here.

To see a working model of how these tricks can be implemented, please flick through my previous reflections to find video resources, google docs, pictures, links etc. The possibilities really are endless.