VLE Evaluation Questions

Please answer the following questions using the comments tab for the VLE assignment 2.

1. I created a Wiki for the topic Investigating the mortality rates for the sinking of the Titanic as a collaborative tool for students to use and as a teacher resource. Do you think Wikis make a difference in the way students collaborate? Why?

2. What other web 2.0 tools could be incorporated into the Wiki to make it more of a virtual environment for flexible learning?

3.What restrictions do educators face when using/setting up a Wiki in a school?

4. How could assessment instructions or tasks be set easier for everyone to follow?

5.Instead of a Wiki whatelse could have worked better for this assessment?

6.What are the benefits of Wikis and do you think they can be improved? What could make them better?

7.Could the topic have a second part as an extended investigation learning assessment for students of higher order thinking?

8.How did this assessment cover both the integration of History and Mathematics in a virtual learning environment? What could have improved?

9. Do you think the Wiki created was being used to its potential in educational setting? Why?

10. How would you alter this assessment to cater for all student needs?

VLE - Assignment Update

Wiki is a major component of Web 2.0, the emergent generation of web tools and applications (Adie, 2006). Web 2.0 has the potential to complement, enhance, and add new collaborative dimensions to the classroom. Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS feeds have been dubbed 'social software' because they are perceived as being especially connected, allowing users to develop Web content collaboratively and open to the public
(Alexander, 2006).

Investigating the mortality rates for the sinking of the Titanic Project can be accessed via http://www.raghda.pbwiki.com

Audience/context description

All students studying Mathematics and History to correlate both subjects by the integration of ICT. Students with low literacy skills, ESL students and students with learning difficulties they may have difficulty with mathematical/ history terminology

Catering to students with a range of learning styles ~

Sociological

The students whom benefit greatly from group activities, the collaborative element of the web technology caters for their needs.
Auditory
Some students learn best by listening, so participating in the vodcast over and over again will enable them to cater for their needs.
Visual
Visual learners benefit from a variety of ocular stimulation such as images and written information. They like to be able to read instructions or the text on their own to increase their understanding.
Tactile
Most people learn best with hands-on activities, but some gain a lot more from it than others. Some students really increase their learning potential when they are given the opportunity to do something by themselves.

Software

From the many wiki software packages available, peanut butter (Pb) wiki was chosen. This is a particularly simple to use example, incorporating features allowing comparison of previous versions, discussion pages, and user authentication, with the additional important features that it was free and that settings could be managed so only invited members could edit the content. These features are important because the teacher wants the groups to take ownership of the wiki without public interference, and wants to be sure that the content had been produced like discussion and results by the students without outside help. It is also important to the teacher that they could track who had made which edits and comments and so identify the authors of any abusive or offensive posts and take appropriate action

Online technologies to be used

Blogs
Wikis
Vodcasting
Navigation links
Google Docs

References

Adie, C. (2006). Report of the information services working group on collaborative tools. http://www.is.ed.ac.uk/content/1/c4/10/46/CollaborativeToolsAndWeb2%200.pdf

Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? Educause Review, 41(2) http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0621.pdf

Assignment 2 VLE - Investigating the mortality rates for the sinking of the Titanic

Task/Aim:
A wiki intended to provide a resource for mathematics and history teachers that they can use with their students to help them understand the correlation between the two subjects, as well as some helpful resources for teachers of VCE General mathematics and history to use with their students. To create spreadsheets and interpret bar graphs based on data from the sinking of the Titanic.

Rationale:
The purpose of the project is to give students an opportunity to use interactive tools to create and analyse graphs and make decisions about a real life scenario: mortality rates for the sinking of the Titanic. By representing data in the form of graphs and analysing the graphs, students can apply their knowledge to investigate the death rates and survival rates of males and females. Also, students can explore the death rates of adults and children during the sinking of the Titanic.

Description modification:
This project is divided into three tasks to make it easier for the teachers/students to follow.

Students will be using Google Docs to create spreadsheets and charts and using background information on the titanic to write a brief report on the sinking of the titanic including findings and graphs from the task to correlate both mathematics and history into this wiki project.

Podcasting in Education

Podcasting is a combination of the words IPod and broadcasting. A way for people to be able to selectively subscribe to audio or video content over the internet. This content can then be automatically added to a mobile device or mp3 player.

Podcasts in education I see a few main arguments to support the use of podcasts in education:

1. The ubiquity of iPods and other MP3 players provides a ready base of users of this tool.
2. Support for students with low literacy skills or other learning difficulties
3. Catering to students with a range of learning styles
4. Providing material to vision impaired students
5. Allowing for self-paced learning
6. Empowering students to create and distribute their own music, poetry, etc.


Links:
http://www.csiro.au/products/CSIROpod.html
http://www.abc.net.au/services/podcasting/
http://www.podcards.com.au

The Future of Online Learning and Personal Learning Environments » SlideShare

The Future of Online Learning and Personal Learning Environments » SlideShare

Personal Learning Environments » SlideShare

Personal Learning Environments » SlideShare

What does a Personal Learning Environment look like?

A PLE is comprised of all the different tools we use in our everyday life for learning.

Many of these tools will be based on social software. Social software is used here in the meaning of software that lets people connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. It supports networks of people, content and services that are more adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals. Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software. Social software underpins what is loosely referred to as Web 2.0. Whereas Web 1 was largely implemented as a push technology - to allowaccess to information on a dispersed basis, Web 2.0 is a two way process, allowing the internet to be used for creating and sharing information and knowledge, rather than merely accessing external artefacts.

Social software is increasingly being used in education and training through such applications as web logs, wikis, tools and applications for creating and sharing multi media and tools for sharing all kinds of different personal knowledge bases including bookmarks and book collections.If we are to use different applications, individually configured then standards are critical for allowing one application to talk to another Rather than monolithic vendor driven and designed applications, Web 2 and social software is based on the idea of ‘small pieces, loosely connected’ utilising commonly recognised standards and web services for linking ideas, knowledge and artefacts.Social software offers the opportunity for narrowing the divide between producers and consumers. Consumers become themselves producers, through creating and sharing. One implication is the potential for a new ecology of ‘open content, books, learning materials and multi media, through learners themselves becoming producers of learning materials.

Social software has already led to widespread adoption of portfolios for learners bringing together learning from different contexts an sources of learning and providing an on-going record of lifelong learning, capable of expression in different forms.The idea of a Personal Learning Environment is also based on being able to aggregate different services.

The list below is of the software I use for my personal learning environment:

- Word processor for writing papers
- E-mail client for communication
- Audio for making podcasts
- Video editor for making multi media presentations – iMovie
- Personal Weblog
- Photo editing programme - iPhoto (and plug infor uploading to Flickr)- Photo sharing service
- Instant messaging – Skype, Msn
- Search engines - mainly Google

Personal Learning Environments - intent and use the development and support for Personal Learning Environments would entail a radical shift, not only in how we use educational technology, but in the organisation and ethos of education. Personal Learning Environments provide more responsibility and more independence for learners. They would imply redrawing the balance between institutional learning and learning in the wider world. Change is difficult but it is probable that the rapid development and implementation of new technologies and social change make change in our educational provision inevitable.There are also many unresolved issues, including who provides technology services, security of data and of course the personal safety of students. Notwithstanding these issues, we are beginning to see how these new tools might practically be used in education, especially through wide scale experiments in the use of blogging.

Personal Learning environments are not an application but rather a new approach to the use of new technologies for learning. There remain many issues to be resolved. But, at the end of the day, the argument for the use of Personal Learning environments is not technical but rather is philosophical, ethical and pedagogic.PLEs provide learners with their own spaces under their own control to develop and share their ideas. Moreover, PLEs can provide a more holistic learning environments, bringing together sources and contexts for learning hitherto separate. Students learn how to take responsibility or their own learning. Critically, PLEs can bridge the walled gardens of the educational institutions with the worlds outside. In so doing learners can develop the judgements and skills or literacy necessary for using new technologies in a rapidly changing society.

References

Cross, J. (2006). The Low-Hanging Fruit Is Tasty, Internet Time Blog, retrieved 3rd April, 2008 from http://internettime.com/?p=105

Nonaka, I. & Konno, N. (1998). The Concept of "Ba": Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation, California Management Review, 40, 3, 40-54.

Seely Brown J. & Duguid. P. (2002). The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press (2002).