Week 11 - Educational Blogging

If a blog is essentially used as an online journal, is it really a blog? There are many that say that blogging is defined by the format and process, not by the content of the blog. So, if students are creating educational blogs to track their learning journey, is it really a blog? What if no one reads it?

What are the benefits of educational blogging? This question is often hotly debated. There are many who think that blogging is a useful way of using a tool that students already use and enjoy (social media) to encourage traditional skills such as reading and writing. They point out that blogging is an equalizer, thus giving shy or quiet students a real voice with which to express their thoughts outside the intimidating setting of the classroom. Then there are those who say that assigned blogging is not really blogging, it is a forced experience with no lasting benefits. When the semester is over, students no longer blog.

I tend to agree with the former. I think that students that are hesitant to speak up in class for fear of ridicule still are not going to express themselves freely on a blog that all of their classmates are going to read. And if students want to read and write, they are already doing so. If students dislike reading or writing, they will merely go through the superficial motions of blogging and get it done. Blogging can be used effectively as a way for students to journal what they have learned, but in that case, that's all it is. An online journal. Educators should not place unrealistic expectations on the blogging experience because it usually is no different for students than writing a book report or keeping a handwritten journal.

Week 10: Interactive and Collaborative Learning

For this week's learning on interactive and collaborative learning, one of the articles I read was: Park, Y. J., & Bonk, J. (2007). Is life a Breeze?: A case study for promoting synchronous learning in a blended graduate course. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT), 3(3), 307-323. It offered several helpful strategies for encouraging improved online learning. One of the points that impacted me the most was the discussion on assigning different roles to facilitate online discussion. For example, assigning people to be starters, wrappers, debaters, etc. The article mentions over a dozen different roles. This discussion reminded me of two classes that I took this past summer. Both were online courses, the first two online courses that I've ever taken. Both required a fair amount of online discussion using online forums, but the teachers managed the discussions completely differently. One class was broken up into smaller discussion groups of four students each, while the other assigned starters and wrappers but did not utilize smaller groups. There were about 30+ students in the class, and each week quickly turned in to a free-for-all with countless similar postings followed by very superficial comments. The sheer volume of the postings was not conducive to facilitating in-depth discussion, because everyone seemed more concerned with quanitity over quality. Meanwhile, in the class that was broken up into smaller groups was easier to quickly develop a detailed discussion thread within the small group.

I think this situation highlights the pitfalls that so many teachers encounter as they try to navigate the new world of online learning. There are are so many different strategies that there is no real "right way" that is going to work everytime in every situation. Ultimately, the instructor needs to understand their students and their subject matter and create learning experiences that will be beneficial for everyone.

Week 9 - Wikis, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Collaborative Writing

Wikibooks and wikipedia are gaining popularity as they are used both as references online, but are also used as a forum for discussion and collaboration online. Several facts and statistics regarding WikiBook were very surprising to me....I was surprised when I heard the statistics that only about 2.5% of Wikibookians are female; although females dominate the number of blogs. Most Wikibookians are relatively young, although the fact that many are educationally-oriented and pursuing a college degree seems to be rather intuitive. There are many differences between how Wikibook novices and experts think about Wikibook and how they used WikiBook; such as that novices usually make superficial, technical edits, while experts make broader content modifications. I was surprised that many novice Wikibookians are motivated by the idea of publishing, since Wikibook is a largely anonymous forum; but that Wikibook experts often publish for the greater good of learning.

Many people are predicting (or hoping!) that Wikibooks will eventually overtake traditional textbooks for educational use, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Many of the common criticisms of WikiBook are exactly what will keep WikiBook from becoming a dominant force in educational reading. The quality is too widely varied that it is a difficult resource to depend on, and since no one is really in charge on WikiBook, there are no mechanisms to ensure the validity of WikiBooks; although the content is usually quite good.

I think that as long as Wikibooks are recognized for what they are, as a good supplemental resource, and that users understand the limitations of them, they will continue to grow in popularity and use, but will not overtake textbooks.

Week 8 - YouTube, TeacherTube and the future of shared online video

YouTube holds many possibilities for use in Web 2.0 learning environments. Positives of YouTube is that it holds a wealth of information and allows for teachers and students to view subject matter that they will otherwise not have access to, all for free. It also can provide authentic and rich learning experiences for students, allowing them to learn, while they create YouTube clips for posting; in a learner-centered educational environment. YouTube can also create common experiences that encourage interaction and discussion, although YouTube is not the best medium for this interaction. That brings us to the negatives of YouTube. There is so much information on there, but because it employs a largely user-managed system of tagging and labeling video clips, the search function can be ineffective and frustrating. There are also varying degrees of quality of both content and execution, so although it may be a very good concept, the clip quality may be so poor that some of the effectiveness is lost. The biggest negative of using YouTube in an educational environment is that a lot of the content on there may not be appropriate for use in a educational setting; which is why TeacherTube may be a better resource for some teachers.

For this week, one of the articles I read was about Alex Juhasz, who created an entire course at Pizer College in California called Learning From YouTube. It was a student-led course, in that the students chose the content, which shows you how much Web 2.0 tools are changing learning conditions. For this course, it was held entirely on YouTube, all research had to be conducted on YouTube, and all assignments had to be posted on YouTube. Alex Juhasz said that she wanted to use this forum to encourage students to question why serious, political uses of media were not often represented on YouTube; which is largely because it exists for entertainment.

I'm curious to see how YouTube and TeacherTube becomes increasingly common in educational environments, and whether it will be YouTube or the schools that adapt more to fit the other.

Week 7 - Open Educational Resources

As part of my preparation for class this week, I viewed several of the lessons available on OERCommons.org (Open Educational Resources). I was most interested in the Physics lectures by Walter Lewin of MIT. I was amazed that all of this material is available online, but it made me wonder how many traditional classroom teachers are actually taking advantage of these incredible resources? This concept is another take on the digital divide, that traditionally refers to the gap between the haves and the have-nots when talking about technology and accessibility. However, another take on the digital divide in the huge gap between the digital knowledge of many of today's teachers and today's students. Students out there are so knowledgable in the ways of the web, but many teachers are not even aware that these resources exist so they don't use them. Also on the OER Commons website was a survey, that if you participated, you could view the results. As of the time I took the survey, there were 2483 responses. I found these results very interesting, because in answering several of the questions, the importance of knowing whether the materials were of high quality was reflected as the highest priority of those using the website. I think these results are indicative of a broader problem online right now, that teachers are hesitant to use many online materials because they are not aware of them, but also because they are unsure of the quality. Everyone right now is concerned with putting material online, but there doesn't seem to be a long term plan to police and maintain this material. This has the potential to become a real problem.

Week 6 - Free and Open Source Software

Free and open-source software has changed the software industry in ways that I don't think we can truly realize yet. The amount of skilled "hackers" out there who are continually working individually and together to create high-quality programs is truly amazing. On a side note, I found it very interesting to see the term hacker used in a positive way, when we are so used to seeing it used by the mainstream media in a negative way. I agree that free and open source software can be an excellent resource; but I think that many large corporations will be hesitant to use it; and traditional software will still be dominant in the near future. Also, as many of the articles this week pointed out, "free" can be a very deceiving term when used to describe open source software, because it doesn't accurately reflect the time that goes into developing and maintaining it; which has to be accounted for somewhere. An essential characteristic for open source software to be successful is the community that goes along with it that continually updates it.

Week 5 - Neo Millenial Learning

My main question is, just because you can get online almost anywhere, does that mean that people will use all of that accessibility for learning? Or are people just using it for entertainment and communication? One of the articles that I read this week was by Dieterle, E., Dede, C., & Schrier, K. (2007). “Neomillennial” learning styles propagated by wireless handheld devices. I found the portion of the article explaining Harvard's Handheld Devices for Ubiquitous Learning (HDUL) study interesting, mainly the fact that particpants did not correlate the use of handheld devices with online learning. As this study showed, people are still stuck in a rut where the believe that online learning occurs only while sitting at a traditional computer. We now know that you can learn anywhere, anytime. Although I found that part mildly interesting, I was fascinated by Schrier's Reliving the Revolution (RtR) experiment that was conducted at MIT. The study was designed to enable partipants to relive the Battle of Lexington through the eyes of 1 of 4 historical figures and play the part of historical detective as they are presented with different information at different points throughout their journey. Although I see the historical significance of this learning experiment as important, more important is that this exercise is also designed so that participants are encouraged to determine the validity of information that is presented to them throughout their journey through the battlefield. Thus, this is linking back to a critical digital literacy skill as was discussed last week, that although it is important for learners to be able to research for information, it is essential that they are able to examine the validity of the information. I like the fact that someone was able to capture this concept in a dynamic learning environment that provides such a rich experience for the learner.