The Power of Wikis – Write, Edit, Collaborate, Interact.

My last post touched on ways in which WIKIs can be used in the classroom, using the example of my ‘Visual Art Space.’ However, the extensive opportunities for using WIKIs in the classroom and enhancing pedagogical practice, requires further elaboration.

So, now that I know what a WIKI is and how to create one… the important questions are: how can teachers and students use WIKIs in the classroom and how can this ICT enhance student learning?

One way to use WIKIs in the classroom is to create an online, tailor-made textbook for your subject or class (in much the same way that WIKIpedia is established). Students in a chemistry class for example, could construct a text book on the periodic table/ chemical elements in collaboration with; their teacher, peers and even chemistry classes in other schools. Images, articles, multimedia files, power point presentations and ‘prac’ write ups could all be added to the WIKI. Individuals or groups of students could even be made responsible for creating a page related to a particular element and this, in turn, could form part of their assessment – be it formative or summative. In this way, WIKIs can become a tailor-made resource, designed and edited to suit student’s needs and the learning context. Furthermore, student collaboration would create a sense of belonging as they learn (as recommended by Kunc, 1999) and their active involvement in the learning process would increase learning effectiveness and retention.

As mentioned earlier, WIKIs are designed to be a shared repository of knowledge, which grows over time and in this example, successive chemistry students could add and edit the WIKI – utilising and expanding on the knowledge base established by previous chemistry classes. This example demonstrates the Relate-Create-Donate concept underpinning Kearsley and Shneiderman’s (1998) engagement theory. This is because learning is occurring in a collaborative group context i.e. chemistry class students (‘relate’), is project-based as students are developing a textbook on the period table (‘create’) and there is an external/ authentic focus as their peers and future chemistry students can use the resource ( ‘donate’).

WIKIs would be particularly useful in a primary school context for creative writing and group activities centred on a unit of work theme. A year 5 class could create a creative writing piece on a WIKI were all students have the opportunity to add to and edit the story. The story would no doubt evolve from the original concept and this activity would encourage students to develop their literacy skills and consciously apply habits of mind from the DoL, particularly creative thinking by generating “new ways of viewing a sitation that are outside the boundaries of standard conventions (Marzano et al., 2009, p. 6). In this example, the WIKI would also be a useful tool for extending and refining knowledge as students analyse the errors and perspectives of others (DoL 3).

A WIKI could also be used by small class groups (or the entire class) to collaborate on a project, for example students could create a WIKI all about dolphins during an “under the sea” unit of work. In this example, it would be important to allow students to choose the subject of their WIKI, be it dolphins, coral, whales etc. to further foster ownership and positive attitudes towards classroom tasks (DoL 1).

In our tutorial for ICTs, Scot Alred (the course co-ordinator), explained how WIKIs are being used internationally. Schools in Singapore and Hong Kong for example, have focus on group work and problem based learning. Groups of students at an International School in Singapore frequently use WIKIs to collaborate (often over an entire term or school year) and develop solutions to problems assigned. This is a great example of students using knowledge meaningfully (through problem solving, invention and decision making for instance) as the work towards solving a problem (Marzano et al., 2009).

At the school level, entire curriculums or individual units of work could be housed on a WIKI. Using WIKIs in this way allows staff and teachers to easily access and edit units or lessons and provides transparent information about the content being taught to students, parents and the wider community. Richardson (2006) cites an innovative example - the entire national high school curriculum for South Africa is on a WIKI at wikibooks.org. Teaching professionals can also use WIKIs to create a library of lesson plans or teaching resources – available to other teachers to use (and perhaps fine tune) based on their requirements or experiences.

There are countless applications for teachers and students alike and although I hadn’t heard of WIKIs (with the exception of Wikipedia) prior to this course, I can certainly see myself using this valuable ICT in my career and in the classroom with my learners.

Avatar is More Than a Blockbuster Movie!

Official Avatar Movie

When I first heard the term avatar used in the context of teaching and ICT, I couldn’t help but mentally picture the Na'vi - blue alien-like creatures, bounding from tree to tree in the rainforests of Pandora. However, avatars are more than characters in James Cameron’s latest blockbuster movie. In fact, they can be a highly effective and creative digital tool for learning managers. This post discusses the advantages and uses of avatars in teaching, with specific reference to ‘voki’ – an online publishing tool for creating avatars.

So what exactly is a voki and how can they be used in teaching?

A voki is a personalisable cartoon avatar which enables users to create a character/ audio player and express themselves on the web using a customised message (Pearce & Bass, 2008, p. 143). Vokis are one of many ‘plug-ins’ available to learning managers for use on the web (be it on a blog, in an email message, on a site profile, or on an online learning site such as moodle). The voki webiste can be accessed at http://www.voki.com/. Once you sign up to voki, you can begin creating a basic animated voki character for free (or explore other paid options such as 'site pal' - more advanced talking characters for websites).

The capabilities of voki are such, that you can customise a voki to suit your preferences or teaching topic. A voki’s; character style, player 'skin,' facial features, background, skin, hair, makeup, voice, ‘bling,’ clothes, can all be modified (as shown in the screen shot below).

A unique capability of voki, is that you can customise the character’s audio message, using either a microphone (to record up to sixty seconds of your own voice) or the text to speech feature on the voki website. Once the voki character is complete, a HTML code is generated and can be embeded in your webpage for the world to see (and play!).

The customisable and animated nature of vokis appeals to upper primary students and teenagers, who undeniably enjoy experimenting with new technologies. Vokis can be used by students to personalise their work and express themselves, for example by creating a voki reflective of themselves or their personality to their blog as a welcome message. The fun, novel of nature of vokis make them perfect for engaging students through active learning and for motivating them to learn. Given what we know about multiple literacies and learning styles, vokis are also a great way to engage both auditory and visual learners and are thus pedagogically justified.

As my patriotic voki friend from the US Army mentioned above, vokis can also be used by teachers to enhance lessons and engage learners. For instance, teachers could employ vokis on a moodle site or a teacher administered (class or student) blog to introduce; a unit of work, topic or homework assignment.

Please press play on the voki below for an example of how a voki can be customised by learning managers to suit the topic they are teaching and introduce students to online material or a homework assignment. In the example given, Sarah Palin, introduces the topic of misrepresented quotes to an English class, beginning with her (famously misrepresented) statement "I can see Russia from my house." Further instructions and details could then be given in written format on the class site or blog. Students might be asked to research and discuss other quotes throughout history where the meaning intended was lost in translation. From this example, you can see how vokis can be customised to suit a topic and interest students in the topic from the outset with an attention grabbing introduction (or ‘hook’).

Plug-ins & Gadgets - Enhancing the Learning Experience

Over the past few days I've been customising my e.journal.  Today I added a 'gadget' in the form of a Sudoku game. You will find the game towards the bottom of my sidebar on the right, so please feel free to give it whirl and break up your blog following!

After discovering the various gadgets available online, I started considering how various ICTs, gadgets (be it a Sudoku game or a virtual pet) and plug-ins (such ‘voki’), can be used by students to express themselves and feel a sense of ownership.

The ability for students to personalise their blog or wiki for example (with different 'gadgets,' layouts, colours and the like), enables them to be creative and inject some of their own personality into their work, which would in-turn foster a sense of ownership. Moreover, the hands-on and customisable nature of digital tools such as blogs, enables students to become more invested in the learning process through active participation.

As I will discuss in a future post, vokis are one plug-in available to students to personalise web pages or emails, stamping their own personality on their work.

The video below explains how blogger account users can add gadgets.

Interesting Viewing - The Importance of Technology in Classrooms

I came across an interesting YouTube video today. It was created by Carl Anderson in 2007, and highlights the importance of using technology in modern classrooms.

Watch the video embedded below, and feel free to share your reactions and thoughts....



The video really resonated with me and I found the mix of text, images and music quite engaging.

In one section, the text reads "Digital tools improve motivation and are appropriate tools for active engagement in authentic learning tasks." Given what I have read regarding Learning Engagement Theory and Dale's Learning Cone, Anderson's statement about digital tools in this video certainly reflects the academic literature and popular thinking about e-learning.  Furthermore, by actively engaging students in authentic learning tasks as Anderson recommends, the average retention rate would be higher, as learners 'practice by doing' with ICTs and can immediately use what they have learnt.

"They [children] want to learn with the tools that will shape their future" was another key statement for me. Children use computers and digital media, including blogs, mobile phones and i-phones everyday. So, why not enhance and motivate student learning by engaging kids with the tools they; regularly use, enjoy and are familiar with? Particularly when we, as teachers, are preparing them to live and work in a 'knowledge economy' where digital tools are the foundations for the knowledge and information, society so greatly values.

Learner-centric and Teacher-centric Education

What does it mean to be a Teacher in the 21st Century? There has been a paradigm shift within the teaching profession over the past decade. The role of teachers has changed to reflect the current focus on learning management and learner-centric approaches to education. As a pre-service teacher at CQUniversity, my education and professional preparation will be underpinned by the learning design process, the dimensions of learning, as well as other concepts and approaches we now know to be integral to the achievement of learning outcomes in 21st Century classrooms, including; learning engagement and information communication technologies.

Teacher-centred (direct instruction, deductive or expository) learning, dominates the traditional view of what teachers ‘do’ (Killen, 2003). Here, the teacher controls what is taught and how information is presented (personified by a ‘chalk and talk’ approach). There is minimal student interaction or substantive conversation between teachers and students. At this end of the teacher-centred – learner-centred spectrum, it is easy to see, that with such minimal participation, students would find it difficult to engage in learning experiences. From what I recall of my own primary education in the early 1990’s, the teaching of curriculum generally gave way to my individual needs and preferences as a learner. My teachers had the class copy information from a blackboard and their pedagogies tended to concentrate on imparting the knowledge they deemed important. In relation to Dale's Cone, my primary education in particular was quite passive, as verbal and visual symbols dominated. Mind you, I was generally more interested in sport and athletics when I was in Primary school. At the bottom of this post you will find an image of me when I was in Year 5.

In a learner-centered approach to teaching, teachers (or more precisely, ‘learning managers’) act as facilitators of student learning, negotiating with students what path their content learning will take. In devising learning design, teachers take into consideration what their students already know, what their students want to know, and how their student’s best learn and want to learn (Lynch, 2003). Nonetheless, as Scot Alred, pointed out in an ICTs tutorial earlier this month, teacher-centred practices have their place in modern classrooms and can be used alongside more learner-centred approaches.

For example, in a Year 11 IT class, a teacher might ask their students what they would like to know more about and the class responds, basic HTML. The teacher might then proceed to outline how HTML codes are created for websites - writing an example on the whiteboard. Although the explanation of HTML in this lesson was essentially didactic in nature, the teacher was responding to their student’s learning request. Thus, the students were at the centre, and the learning experience can be deemed learner-centric, even though didactic teacher instruction was included.

As learning managers, we must keep in mind that the ultimate goal of education is learning (and indeed, learning for understanding). As Killen (2003, p. 2) puts it, “[our learners] should be at the centre of all teaching.” This learner-centred approach is reflected in the process of learning management, Learning Engagement Theory, Lynch’s 8 Learning Management Questions and Marzano and Pickering’s 5 Dimensions of Learning.

So what is learning management? Over the past decade, learning management has emerged as a dominate approach to teaching. Smith (2000) describes learning management as the capacity to design pedagogic strategies that achieve learning outcomes in students. The Learning Management process involves asking 8 learning management questions (LMQ's), spanning three stages (Profiling, Strategising & Delivery, and Ascertainment). The emphasis of the learning management process is on achieving learning for students, and the teaching strategies we use, are the keys to successfully achieving these learning outcomes. But what teaching strategies should we use to teach the youth of today, and how can we apply them in a motivating and engaging way? Are purely teacher-centric teaching strategies a ‘thing’ of the past?

As teachers of the 21st Century, we are teaching the youth of generation X, the ‘I want everything I want it now’ generation, children and young adults who were born into a digital revolution, people who seemingly can’t live without their mobile phone or the internet and not to mention a multitude of other emerging technologies. To successfully achieve student outcomes, learning managers need to learn how to spark the curiosity of young minds, connect with our students, and cater to their diverse learning needs. This can be achieved through the integration of ICTs. My future blogs will address the issue of learning engagement and ICTs can be applied in the classrooms of today.

Image source: Personal Photo