Your thoughts on using Wikipedia in the classroom

Personally, I have never used Wikipedia as a resource in the classroom, however, I can see how Wikipedia can be used effectively. The major pitfall associated with Wikipedia appears to be that information is ‘crowd sourced’ leading to misinformation as the reliability and credibility of the author/s is ambiguous. What I can determine as its major pitfall, is the very reason Wikipedia could be used as an effective resource. Wikipedia can allow for information literacy skills to be developed as it can be a resource that is scrutinized, analyzed and evaluated to determine its credibility. Wikipedia can contain credible and reliable information with additional links to expand the search criteria of a particular topic and furthermore, Wikipedia can be used as a collaboration tool for students to complete team research tasks. While there are people that criticise the citation and use of Wikipedia who are by far more intelligent than me, I believe if used and modeled correctly, the positives of Wikipedia far outweigh the stand alone negative characteristics.

ETL 501 Learnings 1

Reading the prescribed readings has highlighted a few things as I reflect on my profession as a teacher in the context of the school that I am currently teaching in and as a novice parent of two boys under the age of three.   

Firstly, The description Loose (2016) provides of the revised taxonomy was very thought provoking working through the taxonomy, simplifying its process.  Prichard (2009, p. 11) mentions that the  learning theory Behaviourism, allows for learning to occur without fully understanding a concept challenging my initial thought that Bloom's Taxonony was a lineal process.  

Secondly, some concepts covered by Pardoe, Pritchard and Johnson allowed me to reflect on some of the teaching strategies and programs currently being implemented in the school I work in. The significance of self-esteem and its positive effect on a student’s achievement (Pardoe, 2000, p. 55) is an area of action for the DEC as they are currently implementing the 'Well Being Framework' centered on the wellbeing of students. This concept raises issues of content driven curriculum or the welfare of students. Working in a low socio economically disadvantage school that caters for students of varying abilities I believe balancing a student’s welfare while meeting the educational needs being a major challenge that exists and previously existed. The behaviouralist approach alone is not en effective teaching practice as extrinsically motivating students can lead to students taking shortcuts in their learning (Pardoe, 2009, p. 54). PB4L is a program deeply ingrained in the school I work in. Pardoe's statement question my belief of the program as this program is based on rewarding students for their positive behaviour. I understand that students need to learn correct behaviours, and school is doing this well as it has high expectations of appropriate school behaviours and respect for the school, other students and teachers and perhaps this is a stepping stone to eventually encouraging intrinsic motivation and self-regulation (constructivist theory) regarding a student’s studies, particularly throughout stage 6 studies. Currently an AVID program is running in the school and I see the constructivist approach with student reflection and active engagement through group work and Cornell Note taking practices implemented throughout the delivery of content. 

  

Fourthly, as a parent and teacher, I was very interested in the reasons that could hinder a child/students language and communication development present by Pardoe (2008, p. 19). TV, gaming and eating in isolation attribute to poorer communication skills, a skill identified as an essential skill for future success. Through modelling effective language in the classroom and home I hope to attribute to the success of current and future students as well as my own children. Furthermore, through observing the type of game students play during their recess and lunch break, it was evident that most of the games follow the behaviourist approach based loosely on Skinner's step  by step process known as frame, where the learner progresses to the next stage based on correct answers. Students playing games are subject to this type of learning where they receive immediate feedback and only progress to the next level when the achieve outcomes or get the correct answer (Pritchard, 2009, p. 12) 

  

Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed the analogy used in the prescribed text by Pardoe (2009, p. 93) for  self efficacy and self regulation, a Constructivist approach. Pushing a child on a bike without the stabilisers, the teacher initially doing a lot of work, then letting them ride by themselves falling (learning) while the student is doing the work for themselves. 

ETL 501 Reference Resources activity.

I don’t believe the notion of abandoning reference material, the library at the school I currently work in has two reference sections, resources available for students and a ‘Teacher Reference’ section only available for teachers. Although these sections are diminishing in their physical form some digital resources are being added to these section on the library cataloguing system such as Online Britannica. Perhaps this term should be kept for non-borrowable resources as this also provides security for rare resources such as ‘The Abo Call’ located in library ‘Teacher Reference’ section at my school.

My definition

Digital and print resources used as an initial point of investigation providing users with specific points of interest, enabling further analysis.

Additional:

I spoke to the teacher librarian at my school today about reference material in the library. Our discussion focused more on the ability or inability of students and teachers borrowing reference resources. The TL provided the reason for reference resources not being borrowed, “not allowing reference resource to be borrowed and their location in the library allows for readily accessible and easily available resources”. Interesting.

ETL 501The Dynamic Learning Environment. Bloom's Taxonomy Activity

Revisiting Bloom’s Taxonomy and reading the revised Bloom’s taxonomy was a worthwhile activity as I found the information about “Google Proofing” questions or tasks for students to be a pivotal learning point for myself. Creating and implementing questioning through tasks or class discussion that follow this cognitive process I believe will benefit my students. 

While completing the activity I was easily drawn to the tools Google provide as I currently use some of these tools, however, I consciously sought other tools from sites such as ‘Cool tools for School’ and ‘Web 2.0 Guru’, trying to break the Google habit. The school I currently work in (7-10) implements ALARM, A Learning and Responding Matrix. This Matrix is introduced to stage 4 students with a scaffolding template using verbs similar to the revised Bloom's Taxonomy verbs. With each yearly progress parts of the scaffolding are removed with the expectation that students will implement this scaffolding throughout their stage 6 assessment where applicable, offering reason for the learning level stage 4 and 5 placed in this activity. Further resources could be added with the refinement of my search abilities and better management of my time. 

ETL523 Assessment 3 Part B: Critical Reflection Blog Post.

The concepts that I have learnt from studying this course have influenced my new understanding of what it means to be a Digital Citizen, how Digital Citizenship (DC) can be taught and how Digital Learning Environments (DLE) can aid in the preparation of 21^st Century learners.

My original definition posted on my blog (Edwards, 2015a), was somewhat simple leaving out many key elements such as DLE, Personal Learning Network, Personal Learning Community, habits, attitudes, and leadership towards the effective implementation and safe use of technology in an educational environment. My revised definition combines these key elements, evolving and developing as an individual matures in their participation in digital technology, to hopefully develop a contributing member of society who is aware of local, national and international civic issues participating, creating and collaborating safely and ethically to be informed and inform others.

The concepts of DC provided in this course, Ribbles’ Nine Elements of DC (Ribble, 2015), ISTE Standards (ISTE, 2015), DER-NSW domains and themes of DC (NSW Department of Education & Communities, n.d.) Enlighten Digital Citizen (Lindsay & Davis, 2012) provide the platform for preparing a school’s DLE as they identify key issues.

Students are using mobile devices, creating, collaborating and sharing more information online than ever before (ACMA, 2013). Governments are supporting DC through initiatives such as the Digital Education Revolution, evidence of effective technology integration into the curriculum increases student success in numeracy and literacy (Stavert, 2010), discussions about future issues such as digital information rights of those who are deceased (Coleman , 2015), the cost of cybercrime to Australia (Edwards, 2015), more than half of the Futures top 500 Companies comprising of technology companies (Fullerton , 2015) has occurred on news programs, further highlighting the need for initials step to be undertaken developing digital citizens and a schools DLE.

My knowledge has extended to understand that the preparation and implementation of a schools DLE is imperative in harnessing what students are already doing ie, communicating online, buying and selling, sharing, creating, curating, collaborating, developing PLN and PLC. A key learning from this subject is that a school DLE needs to embed DC into the curriculum and teachers need to accept it for it to be most successful (Chen & Orth, 2013). This new knowledge of DC and a schools DLE I believe will challenge teachers and students, as current pedagogical practices will evolve and change to cater for the changing needs of students and society. Although change is occurring and pedagogical theories are shifting, some educational institutions are behind, hindering the skill development required in the 21st century that will empower students to be innovative, lifelong learners and equip them for the changing needs of the workforce.

From my new learnings, I believe that the development of a school’s DLE needs to be headed by the executive staff, developing a team consisting of faculty members, students, members of the community, parents and a well versed Teacher Librarian. Many challenges and opportunities will arise particularly with staff members that I have expressed throughout my blog (Edwards, 2015b; Edwards, 2015c; Edwards, 2015d). Teacher awareness as well as professional development are key aspects that a TL could undertake to aid the development of the schools DLE. A TL needs to model best practices for teachers to follow providing evidence of how to demonstrate safe and ethical DC qualities. TL’s need to guide teachers from information consumers to information creators and curators, collaborating with other staff members in their PLN to aid the development of a school’s DLE. This is a task that I will need to address as I commented in my blog post (Edwards, 2015e) that my current DLE mainly consisted of consumption other than this blog, as I do not use social media due to my limited understanding of privacy features and my limited knowledge of the power of social media and its ability for teachers to utilise Web 2.0 tools to develop content that is relevant and significant to students bringing local, national and global issues into the classroom.

The challenges of teaching DC and implementing a schools DLE such as the complexities of educational institutions, changing technologies, changing employment opportunities, terms of services, privacy policy, age limits, training and professional development, policy development, infrastructure, funding, leadership, implementation, just to name a few, are challenges that I am willing to endure as an aspiring TL to help students become effective 21^st century digital citizens.

Reference:

ACMA (2013). We like, we post, we share the online lives of Young Australians. Retrieved from

 http://acma.gov.au/theACMA/Newsroom/Newsroom/Media-releases/we-like-we-post-we-share-the-online-lives-of-young-australians

 

Chen, E, & Orth, D. (2013). The strategy of digital citizenship. NAIS Indpendent School Magazine.

Coleman, C (2015, April 6). How do we protect our digital legacy after death? BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32151999

Edwards, S. (2015a, March 13). ETL 523 Digital Citizenship 1.1 [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/etl-523-digital-citizenship-11.html

Edwards, S. (2015b, March 13). ETL 523 DC 1.2 [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/etl-523-dc-12.html

Edwards, S. (2015c, March 19). ETL 523 Module 1 DC [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/etl-523-module-1-dc.html

Edwards, S. (2015d, April 1). Module 2 Curation [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/module-2-curation_1.html

Edwards, S. (2015e, April 1). ETL 523 Module 3 DLE [Web blog post]. Retrieved from http://scotttl.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/etl523-module-3-dle.html

Edwards, M. (2015). Identity theft: More than 770,000 Australians victims in past year. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-14/identity-theft-hits-australians-veda/6390570

Fullerton, T. (Presenter) & Sammartino, S (Guest). (2015, April 27). Episode 36 [Television series episode] The Business Series. Australia: ABC Television. Retrieved from http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/business/NU1504H036S00

International Society for Technology in Education. (2015). ISTE Standards. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards

Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. (2012). Flattening classrooms, engaging minds: Move to global collaboration one step at a time. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Chapter 5: Citizenship.

NSW Department of Education & Communities (n.d.). Key DER-NSW  domains and themes of digital citizenship. Retrieved from http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/lrrSecure/Sites/LRRView/13774/documents/Digital_Citizenship_briefing.pdf

Ribble, M. (2015). Digital citizenship: Using technology appropriately. Retrieved from http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.htm

Stavert, B. (2010). One-to-One Computers in Schools. Sydney: Department of Education and Training NSW

Module 4: Supporting the Digital Learner

Why is it important to foster a global approach to digital citizenship?

Information is readily available to students from other global participants around the world through numerous tools and social media applications. This is also the case with students who are passionate enough about an issue, topic or recreational activity that they seek other like minded people online including people from other countries to discuss, share and create.

Therefore it’s important students are aware of global issues, sensitivities, safe practices, legal issues when communicating to people from different countries and cultures.

What are the most important considerations when developing a professional personal brand?

Or supporting students to develop their personal brand? What is your school doing in this area?

How do you want to be perceived online? Get in first and post positive things about yourself not negative or incriminating information. Regularly check and search your name and act on information that is misrepresenting you, keep account secure and ask mates, family and colleagues not to represent you in a negative way with image or comments posted online

What do you see as typical challenges within a school when balancing ‘educational networking’ with ‘social networking’?

Correct use of Web 2.0 tools by students and friends outside of an educational setting

Module 3 reflection

Many question proposed in this subject asks,how do you, what are your beliefs with regard to implementing Digital Literacies, Digital Citizenship concepts, DLE and PLN. Reflecting on this, I believe that the tools I currently use with students and how i Instruct students on how to use is limiting their creativity. I inform them what websites to use, the program to use to present this information and an inflexible criteria for the presentation of this knowledge. I assume many of the students know what is a credible and reliable source of information and most social media tools are blocked. Referencing sources of information is the only activity I participate in and I’m sure there’s room for improvement instructing students on how to successfully do that.

I have just looked at Skoovile and it looks like an amazing resource for a teacher like myself as it provides a great introduction to safe digital practices and allows for students to collaborate and create work through social media tools, play educational games and be actively monitored to help reduce bullying issues and help mold positive attitudes towards responsible digital use. This resources and its key objectives combined with subject area programs I believe will help develop my PLN and understanding of digital use in the classroom , furthermore, help mold positive digital responsibilities among students.