Course Reflection and Feedback

Well, what a journey this has been - a huge learning curve where I've been taken right out of my comfort zone! At times I have been overwhelmed or frustrated and at other times excited about the seemingly endless possibilities. With some modules such as glogster and bubble.us, second life and scootle,  I could see immediate applications for my young charges; other modules were more useful for me as an educator, such as delicious and google docs; and yet others like facebook just made me feel I have finally been dragged into the 21st century!

Using ile@rn and blooms digital taxonomy models really puts the Web 2.0 tools in perspective. I feel Second Life would fit into the area of creating. Flick'r could be used at the applying and analysing level and mind mapping, being fairly straightforward would be at the understanding level. Our school uses Blooms to differentiate our programs. The Blooms digital taxonomy map is very helpful, particularly the new verbs and where they fit into the world of technology.

My only reservation is that the use of technology might become the 'be all and end all' instead of a useful and engaging tool. Many children will benefit and become more engaged in their learning, but all children are unique and learn differently and some may not learn best this way. Although it has been proven that short term memory and IQ scores have increased across the last decade (attributed, in part, to use of technology); when you gain in one domain, you often lose in another. In the UK children spend 900 hours a year in class, 1300 hours with their family and 1900 hours on screen time! (Baroness Susan Greenfield 2010). We must be careful that children do not live just in the moment, but are exposed to deep thought and consequences. Screens have only visual and audio - they are not a real experience. When speaking face to face, only 10% of understanding comes from words; the rest is attributed to body language, eye contact and intonation. We want our children to be exposed to as many different tools and skills as we can - role playing (in person), illustrating, speaking, writing with pencil and paper are also useful and necessary.

Having said this, technology definitely provides opportunities for learners to continue to communicate, collaborate, question, reflect and think critically and creatively, just in a different way. After all learning is always evolving and it is the world our children will grow up in, so we must prepare them to get the best from it. Susan Greenfield described it as the machine versus the garden. We need and want the machine - it helps and enhances mental processes, it engages and motivates, it is the here and now; but is this offset by the deficit in true understanding and deep thought, empathy and care about consequences?  There must be a balance.

This course has been a challenge, and an eye-opener. I am grateful for the opportunity to experience it and know I am better for having become an e-learner. It has kept my little grey cells active and now I am motivated to keep more in touch with our ever-changing world.

Module 10

Wikis and Nings; The video clip about wikis was very clear and easy to understand.
I thought the wikis sound  similar to Google Docs, but they make a lot of sense - emphasising connectedness and collaboration. Let's face it - our younger children know nothing of  life before the internet. They expect and get global communication at the touch of a button. And why not? As Sir Edmund Hilary put it ( and I paraphrase) - I did it because it was there.

As far as Web 2.0 goes assisting in improving learning outcomes for all students - my first thought is that it is their world so it is already intrinsically motivating and fun for the students. They can have some say in the content, and that again is a motivating factor for learning. They can network with their class peers and  work within their comfort zone or to the best of their ability. There is open participation and there are many choices, leading to problem- solving and even higher order thinking. They are able to access the information that they need quickly and easily. They can connect with the whole world as part of a massive community.  There can be open communication and lots of collaboration -  very useful skills for now and for the future. Web 2.0 has also given me, the teacher skills for the 21st century, so I can help facilitate their learning. The future is theirs, here and now.

Module 9

Scootle: I signed up to Scootle a while ago and promptly forgot about it. So when I looked at it again I was quite suprised - it has changed since I first saw it - very user friendly and so much more content. It's great!! I very quickly created several Learning Paths for topics I am doing in class right now, and found many more useful activities that I wish I had earlier in the year!

Second Life: This took ages to load and was cumbersome on my slow old laptop. However I can see educational applications for older grades as well as being a lot of fun. When I have some free time (lol) I would love to have a decent play with it.

Facebook: Finally I have begun to learn what the fuss is all about. So many people speak about Facebook. I'm actually quite amazed at how many people I know use it. I'm not sure about Facebook etiquette yet, or lingo for that matter, but I do feel it is a great way to stay connected and I've already found out things about my daughter that I didn't know. (It's OK, I'm her 'friend'.)

Twitter: I've always thought this sounded so useless or at the very least unnecessary, since Facebook seems to do the same thing. After viewing it, I haven't changed my mind. No-one I know uses Twitter anyway. But each to his own!

Module 8

RSS Feeds - sounded like something I didn't really want to know about - too technical, however the video clips were really clear and made it very easy to understand the whole concept of RSS feeds. So much more convenient than clicking on each site individually to get an update! Information comes to me automatically. I often follow several educational blogs always looking for new ideas and I had always wondered what that little orange RSS sign was! Now all I need to do is utilise my Google Reader. So many sites to manage, so many ways to do it! Delicious for general websites that are not usually updated; Google reader for those that update regularly.  Sorted!

Module 7

Delicious - I really liked the concept of this module - I have had many favourites saved on my home computer, and gone through a lot of rigmarole and lots of cutting and pasting in order to have access to them at school. Now I can access them from anywhere! Great idea. Although I don't personally like the actual page format of Delicious, I definitely like the idea of the tags and their ease of use;  and especially being able to access the bookmarks of other colleagues. We already have a school Delicious account - now I know how to use it. Anything to make life easier!

Module 6

I couldn't wait to get to this module as I had read how others had thought it was such fun. Well, they were right. Bubbl.us is easy and quick to use and straight away I could see application in my classroom - for me more than for the students, although I'm sure they'd have fun playing around with it. It could be a good organizational tool for them to use.

As for Glogster.....what fun!!! This one I can definitely see the children using, creating, inventing and disseminating information in a really enjoyable way. We often say, create a poster about a particular topic, and the children with artistic flair get on with it, while those less creatively gifted (I have always been one of those) look on enviously and tense in frustration. No more I say. Who can go wrong with glogster? So many possibilities! This module is definitely my favourite and I can't wait to try it out in class. Technology? No worries. Bring it on!!