Question One

 a) The Wiki address is: http://ed2203.pbwiki.com/

b) My main struggles were:

i.

Designing a learning project that involved adequate skills and was interesting for my students to complete.

ii.

The added use of parents meant that students could now swap role and become to teacher. I was a bit worried about this step but I think it shows the students a bit of insight into my job, and also with the added responsibility they would be more motivated to complete the assessment.

iii.

I had trouble with the design of the page, I felt like there was too much writing, this was solved by adding in pictures and web address links to help the student focus on what task they have ahead of them.

iv.

Trying to decide on a suitable topic for the students was an interesting task. As they are only in year Seven, I was trying to find an easy task which could challenge them. It also caters for the students who do not like using computers too much and the ones who are very creative with their ICT knowledge

v.

And finally working out how the parents could work in this assessment. Parents are a key figure in their child’s learning and are sometimes underutilized. By combining the families, I think the students may struggle with the combining of work. But in class time I will give them a chance to confer with the others in their group and talk about the assessment. The students know that it is not a competitive class and that I will be marking on the group work and the students ability to teach their parents, not how much their parents have done on the assessment for them.

c)

The collaborative worth of this project is high. I believe that the students will not really like the sounds of it at first, but once they realize that they really have the power to teacher their parents something they will warm up to it. Students thrive on responsibility and will be more inclined to complete their assessment with added power. It also gives the students a forum to show and learn from their fellow peers. One student may know how to do things better than the other students. Dreikurs’ Key Human Driver revolves around the fact that a personal drive will kick in and a student will suddenly find a new motivation to excel in a subject.

Question Two

a)

The way a teacher conveys new information is crucial when using web 2.0. The computer age allows teachers and students to connect with others from around the world, share information, stories, pictures, movies and even talk to them through the computer.

Instead of having just a picture like this:

The writing is often next to the picture or below it. BUT, you could have a link like this!

This picture is different because it links to a particular site and can be accessed all the time. Students love the fact that they have found something new in their learning. If you move your cursor over the picture you can see the link and all you have to do is click and you are taken to yet another spot in the World Wide Web. But it isn’t just pictures that you can use.

What about Videos? You could inform your students about the basic knowledge of a subject like the Great Wall of China using a video! TeacherTube is a great site for this type of learning. Here is an example:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=42eb8b44650bcbe38456

For my assessment for ED2203, I used a Wiki to complete my task. Wiki’s are a great way for encouraging students to interact online. It is very safe and password protected which adds an added sense of security for the teacher and student alike. is a great site that teachers can use for students to complete work or assessments or for general discussion about something they have learnt. A couple of sites called Animoto and Slide are other ways to display pictures or information. Students may have gone on a field trip or you may wish to show them some images of your own trip of new information through pictures.

Please Click to View my Personal Videos and Slide Shows

Animoto

Slide

A page like iGoogle could also be an asset to teachers who are getting used to the Web 2.0 format. It is free to sign up to and you can make your own pages, choose what information you would like to display and even play games too. With these applications, teachers who are uneducated in the Web 2.0 software will take some time to get used to all the new features, but eventually they will find it to be a great asset to their teaching.

b)

Encouragement of collaboration will come from within each student. The sharing of a workload is very appealing to many students and teachers can effectively mark and understand how the particular students came to that understanding. A teacher should always motivate their students to work, but using Web 2.0 will challenge and excite them to learn. Slideshare is a fantastic website that can show you tutorials on anything you desire. One I found is particularly suited to this course and Web 2.0 http://www.slideshare.net/tcc07/maximizing-classroom-collaboration-using-web-20-technology/

Many people have joined in the Web 2.0 buzz and are continually writing about it. Bryan Alexander is one such person. This is his article of Web 2.0:http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0621.asp?bhcp=1

What was enforced in our classroom, and will be a key feature in my future classrooms is the idea that you give the students a task to do then let them explore it. If you said to them I want you to create and iGoogle account and add ‘Google Reader’ to it as well as a tab for ‘Social Networking’, explain to them the basics then let them explore, to collaborative learning that ensues is almost immediate. Instead of asking to teacher they ask their peers, learn from each other and even help each other out. This is a great feature of Web 2.0 because you can always find information about how to do something.

c)

Classroom Management methods are tough to explain through Web 2.0. Often students will get distracted and off track when they have a computer in front of them. But if you set the task out clearly and give them a bit of free time to explore and create then they should stay on task. Many products have been developed to put the teacher at the centre of the learning, making them a pivotal figure in the students learning. Classroom management is key in deep learning as students do need boundaries to excel. but using constructive approaches and a happy and collaborative learning environment, the management of the classroom should be easy and maintained.

This Video about Power Teaching is another way to have classroom managment skills and imporve on them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WpiueGP5s

Refer to HeyJudes Blofg on my Sidebar for more information.

d)

Ensuring that learning occurs on a deeper level is a key issue in teaching in general. It is now more important that a student learns through the highest levels rather than a lot of content in little detail. Blooms taxonomy is structured like this:   

What we can ensure for higher learning to occur is that a student is connecting with their subject matter, Using computers is a way of life in our technical age. We use them for banking, talking, shopping, informing and learning. And it is not just for the younger generation. The digital Immigrants – ones who have not grown up in this technical age – are slowly becoming aware of what new and exciting inventions are occurring. The digital natives are already growing up in this era but are constantly learning new and exciting things. I believe that if a student learns the basics of a new theory or technology, then they play around or discuss it with their friends they will be more inclined to understand and remember what is being taught. 

Through this course we have discovered the new online world of Web 2.0. It is a new and exciting immersion of technology that allows the user to, for example:

·        Create their own webpage with a group and collaboratively edit the work

·        Create moving videos and movies

·        Blog in a safe and interactive space

·        And learn in accordance with all the multiple intelligences that Gardiner stated. 

Such programs that Web 2.0 is linked with are:

·        Flickr

·        Anitmoto

·        Myspace

·        Facebook and so on. 

As teacher in training, I am surprised at how well this online invention can be an attribute to my future teaching. In our Education course of Networked learning we were asked to design an assessment for a student in our major teaching field using the Web 2.0 technology. Searching through the Web there are many programs that I can use to my teaching advantage and I myself can learn from. 

To understand how Web 2.0 can aid a teacher in their job I will go through a couple of different advancements in programs that are correlated to Web 2.0. A great blog site to lookup is Heyjude on WordPress. This site is a personal reflection of someone who has though about Web 2.0 and how to use it in everyday life. It is up to date and easily to access. This table has been added by Tim O’Reilly, a recognised name in the development of Web 2.0

 It clearly shows the differences from Web 1.0 and 2.0. Digital natives have already grown into this type of online world. Whereas the digital immigrants would be still trying to get used to the ways the new technologies work. One of the most fantastic this about the internet and Web 2.0 is that you can generally always find what you are looking for! If you do not know how to tie a knot or can’t embed a video onto your blog, all you have to do is go to Google or your preferred search engine, type in your question and up pops thousands of answers. This way you can sift through the bad to find the good, or take a little from each answer. 

Other programs like IGoogle, YouTube, Blog, Wikipedia and RSS Feeds allow the users who have signed up to them to freely use and collaboratively work on assessment, comment on pictures, change layouts and add games and tools to enhance the Webpage. The definition of collaboration means to work together, a joint intellectual effort. This is an important factor of Web 2.0 as it encourages communication between the participants. And with the advancements in technology, the participants do not have to be near each other to work on their assigned task. Using a site like pbwiki, you can create your own, free, webpage that can be accessed all the time and also edited whenever. Each participant has the same access and can leave their personal mark on the page. As a teacher this tool is very effective in seeing group work skills and to help students understand the new style of online learning. This site also lets you see who has edited or added to the page and when so that you can monitor their progress over time. 

Sites such as WordPress allow the user to create their own free blog and post thoughts, pictures or videos they have found in a safe online community. To sign up only takes a couple of minutes, you the user is free to choose their own layout and style. You can link your blog to other programs and the other way around. The blog is essentially an online diary or journal. This can be used effectively from a teachers perspective as you could ask the students to write their personal thoughts and general thoughts about the course, subject, teaching style or find their own additions to the subject. 

Using tools such as iGoogle, Facebook and Flickr, creativity is enhanced. The user can put up their own photos in Flickr in different folders with captions and headings and also arrange them anyway they want to. IGoogle allows the user to add certain ‘tabs’ to their homepage which is suited to the users own taste and needs. The user can show their personal interests and also gain valuable information and also play online games and trivia. Flickr is a photo sharing/storing program. It allows the user to display their own photos of themselves friends, family events or places they have taken or just want to show in their online community. These are just three sites that enhance creativity in an online way.

Myspace and Facebook also allow creativity as you can change the layout and move applications around on your own personal page. What is amazing with Web 2.0 is that it is open to the public eye but at the same time is very personal and is protected by passwords and login names. Facebook and Myspace allow you to add and delete friends when you want to. By sending a ‘permission’ box for the user to accept or decline shows how these programs cater for the users needs. Facebook allows you to show where you know your friends, how you met them or you can write you own explanation of them. By adding games, networks, and certain pictures you account can show the online community a bit ‘about you’ whilst still having lots of privacy. As the trend of online learning is growing, we have to be wary of the sorts of information that is available to each student, user or common browser. The ‘pen and paper’ style of education is slowly being phase out and a new generation of highly skilled students will soon emerge. The competition between programs has already started, especially between Myspace and Facebook, and will only continue into the future. (SMH, 2007).  

Through all of these examples we can see how Web 2.0 is being used as an effective tool in communication, creativity and learning. Through this course, I personally have learnt cast amounts of information about what I can do with Web 2.0 and how I can eventually use it as a teaching aid. I found that Web 2.0 is a source which also enforces deep learning. The great thing about this type of learning is that it often is unconscious. The users do not realise that they are learning because they are having fun and enjoying what they are doing. This way there is less effort enforced on the user and less pressure. The user can learn/use the free outlets of Web 2.0 and learn at their own pace and discover new and exciting technologies. Adding videos, an mp3 player or just writing thoughts about anything you like, once a daunting task has now become a part of everyday life. I know I use them everyday! Do you!?  

Reference List 

O’Connell, Judy, Heyjude Blog, Retrieved October 2007 from, http://heyjude.wordpress.com/. 

O’Reilly Tim, What is Web 2.0, Retrieved 30^th October 2007, http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Reuters. (2007, November 1). Spurned Google rolls out its Facebook killer. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved November 1, 2007, from http://www.smh.com.au.  

Tech Soup, Everything you need to know about Web 2.0, Retrieved 30^th October, http://www.techsoup.org/toolkits/web2/     

JStor is an online journal artical source that allows studying students who have access to the site to be able to read and discover new and exciting internet journals.

Through Jane’s Blog page, i discovered a site that she has found that has effective strategies for earlier teaching methods in Technology. Although this article was published in 1990, it is still valid for finding out some interesting methods of teaching skills that were used and can be re-adapted to newer days technology.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1546%28199005%2F06%2961%3A3%3C294%3AELTMSA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9

Online communication can provide:
 flexibility of access anywhere, anytime
 student interaction
 enhancement and complements face to face educational activities
 prompt and efficient feedback
 sharing of information including electronic files
 a sense of group community among students.
 group task accomplishment
 collaborative learning and problem-solving
 peer review and tutoring
 opportunities for critical and creative thinking
 opportunities to develop written communication skills

This was retrieved from Melanie’s Blog. I think it really tipifies what we as aspiring teachers should be using Web 2.0 in our teaching and how it benefits many aspects of the educational side of things.

What were the struggles in developing this site?

What is it that makes it collaborative? How did you ge tit to work?

Will it work?

What has occurred from this way of teaching?

By combining all of our knowledge that we have learnt through Web 2.0, we are now about to design a project collaboratively using all of these programs.

This project is to be designed as mainly a homework task. The students will also gain help from their parents as they complete this task.

As a teacher, you are not only getting to students to complete this project, but they in-turn become teachers to their parents, teaching them how to use Web 2.0 programs.

We want to achieve:

• Use Web 2.0 technologies
• Students help their parents to use these technologies too
• Gain an understanding about new technologies, and for the students to re-enforce the learning they have conceived by teaching others

PROBLEMS

1. Parents may not have time
2. Child may struggle trying to teach their parents
3. Students may not have enough access to computer/internet

COUNTER ACTIONS

1. Send a note home to inform the parents about what they are to achieve
2. Give clear instructions so that the students understand how to tactfully go about this task
3. Suggest certain strategies that students may use to help teach their parents

Students and Teachers will have to work hard to get the respective parents to understand how this new technology works, but it can be achieved!

AFFIRMATION AND REAFFIRMATION ARE THE KEY CONCEPTS TO THINK ABOUT WHILST COMPLETING THIS TASK!

Styles in an Online

Environment.

The article focuses on the importance of providing optimal learning experiences in an online environment for librarians and instructors. It outlines four of the common theories and models used to explain how students’ learning styles vary such as the single learning-style continuum and the multidimensional learning style. It discusses the implications of the theory of field dependence and field dependence cognitive styles for cross-cultural learning and its impacts on a user’s information processing.

Through various subheadings like “Emerging types of Learners” and “Enhancing Teaching for the Online Environment” Lori Arp and Beth S. Woodard endeavour to show the reader how the various learning styles are catered for in an online environment.

The article discusses the significant role of educational technology in the professional and personal lives of students. Ken Kay, president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, looks at how students will use information and communications technology (ICT) skills in relationship to technology as workers and citizens in the global economy. Barbara Means, director of the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, cites the obstacles policymakers face in creating a technologically-adept classroom. The article also assesses the effectiveness of the E-Rate program in enhancing a school’s ability to access the Internet and other telecommunications outlet.

Written in 2007, Kay writes about the how students will use the emerging new technologies being brought into schools. Means writes about the obstacles that teachers and students may face in the classroom, not just the internet – but other communication outlets.

This site, found on word press is an engaging and interesting blog about Web 2.0 and new discoveries. Judy O’Connell is the author of this Hey Jude website. She is fascinated about new discoveries in technology and how we can use them in education and in libraries in schools today.

Judy also has a del.icio.us website, allowing the public to view and click on her favourite links. She also has a link to web 2.0 information as well. She also has some of her lectures on Slideshare . This allows the public to look and be educated about her certain learning areas and understand the ever expanding online world.

Judy also has a link to a site School 2.0 . This site gives you a low-down on what schools should use Web 2.0 for and effective ways of incorporating it into your teaching.