Assessment Task 1: Learning Design Brief

Profile wiki

This task consisted of creating a personal profile and then uploading it into a wiki. The task itself was scaffolded, in that there was a template to follow (Black, 2011) to fill out our profile and a video as to how to upload it to the wiki was made available through moodle (Black, 2011). As this task was our first piece of scaffold for our first assignment it had several learning theories deliberately involved.

The activity had elements of constructivism (Atherton, 2011), in that students knew how to fill out a table but then had to construct the knowledge to be able to upload it to the wiki page. Behaviourism (Atherton, 2011) was inherent in that in order to pass the assignment this activity needed to be completed. In the past when activities were not completed the student would not have passed that course and so through behaviourism, students knew they had to fulfil this activity. This idea will be the same for all three of the wiki postings. Connectivism (Siemens, 2004) was very much evident by the fact that students had to connect with another student to complete the activity.

As a learner I found this activity a decent starting point to ICT’s. However, a few errors were involved in the activity. When choosing a partner for the activity I was only given a group of 6 people. Lucky for me though, one person from the six in my group was sitting right in front of me during the tute and so we partnered up that way. In my undergraduate degree I had several online assignments that involved collaborating with students from all over Australia. Those assignments I found to be very frustrating as there was no face-to-face contact. So through this experience I learned that it is easier to work effectively with someone face to face, as well as through online means. To make this activity more accessible to my students I would modify the group system and have everyone be able to choose someone from the whole class. I would also have the students work with someone they know little about, as it will give them a new perspective.


Learning Theories Wiki

This activity involved creating a Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI) (MindTools, n.d) analysis collaboratively with our partner from the profile wiki. A learning theory was chosen and a PMI analysis was performed. Dave and I worked on constructivism, as we figured this would be the most use to us in our first assignment. There were many technical issue involved in this activity, and as a computer subject this made it very frustrating for myself as well as all the other students. The main issue was that the wiki page where our PMI was to be uploaded would keep disappearing and reappearing with deleted and missing content. I didn’t have any trouble uploading my analysis to the wiki, but when it came to Dave adding his ideas he was unable to access the wiki for a few days. Not only that, but what Dave uploaded to our wiki disappeared after a day or two. I only had the chance to read Dave’s points once, as they were gone the next day.

This activity had various elements from different learning theories underpinning its design. Connectivism and constructivism were the main underpinning learning theories. Connectivism was innate as research into a particular learning theory had to be undertaken as well as connection with your partner to collaborate on the topic. Students used constructivism to determine what they believed are the positives and negatives on their chosen theory, this theory underpinned the whole PMI analysis. Behaviourism as mentioned before was inherent in the fact the activity had to be completed in order to pass the assessment.

The positives with this activity were that Dave gave a different perspective to mine. This was very valuable as it gave me a fresh perspective on the constructivist theory which I would not have had, had I worked alone on this activity. I also discovered the value in creating a PMI analysis. From this experience I learned that PMI’s are an effective eLearning tool when used collaboratively. However, given the inherent errors in technology if I am to use this sort of activity in my own classroom, I will have to become very familiar with the networking capabilities of my particular school. I could see the value in creating an online wiki like this one in a Biology class where some topics have a lot of material to cover. Through the use of an online wiki, students could pair up and create a discussion on just one topic, add it to a wiki, which would then have a discussion on each of the topics needing to be covered.

Mobile phones wiki

The activity for the mobile phones wiki was to watch a video (Pearson Foundation, 2009) as well as read an article (Hartnell-Young, Heym, 2009) on the use of mobile phones as an eLearning device. This activity at first seemed to be a fairly one-sided argument, that phones should not be used in schools, however after reading the article and watching the video many different perceptions and uses came to light. I believe that as everyone enrolled in this course grew up with mobile phones being seen as a distraction in school, the idea of using them for education just didn’t make sense to us. I would be at 20, the youngest person enrolled in this course and I even had that same opinion. That was until I looked and thought about it further. What lead me to my final view that mobile phones could and should be used as a learning device is surely attributed to the use of DeBono’s six thinking hats (Gallup, 1992).

This activity used various elements from each of the four main learning theories. Through the use of DeBono’s six hats, students constructed their knowledge from previous knowledge but also gathered, processed and formulated new knowledge into useful ideas, giving this activity an underpinning theory of not only constructivism but cognitivism (Culatta, 2011) as well. Connectivism was used as students connected with other students to argue the point as well as searched various other sites for information.

There is no doubt that the use of DeBonos hats is a great resource for teachers to use. This would be a great strategy to use in my classroom when discussing contentious topics between students, as it would create a well-rounded and diverse argument. I know I will be using it during my career, however the problem which arose for this particular activity was missing data. I added my ideas to the wiki after doing all the reading and thinking, only to find that the next day, my name as well as all of my ideas had been taken off the wiki. This didn’t only happen to me but another two colleagues that I know of. If I were to use this strategy in my own practice I would have students back their work up onto a word document before adding it to the wiki.

Conclusion

When using technology for learning, I will make sure that I know the capabilities of my schools network so as to not have students get frustrated when they can’t access a particular resource because too many students are trying at the same time. I’ve learnt that when technology works its great, but when it doesn’t it just causes frustration among students. From my own experience so far I feel that if I can use eLearning as a tool rather then the be all and end all of my teaching practice, it will serve me greater. Issues that face me in the workplace are networking capabilities as well as availability of eLearning resources. Ways to overcome these would be different for each case, but in the event of too many people online at once, I would split my class into groups, and if there were only enough eLearning tools for half the class, then a rotational group activities class would be the best way to teach.

From this experience it is clear to me that eLearning is a powerful tool especially in 21st century classrooms and should be embraced rather then ignored, the more I know about the technology the less likely I am to encounter problems using it. Therefore in my career I will endeavour to learn and gain as much understanding of various eLearning tools as I can.

Michael Rose
GDLT Secondary HPE/Biology


References:

Gallup, G. (1992) Teach your child how to think. Retrieved 8 March, 2011, from http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Hats/hats.htm

Hartnell-Young, E & Heym, N. (2009). Mobile phones and student learning in secondary schools: Curriculum Leadership, an electronic journal for leaders in education, 7 (26). Retrieved March 8, 2011, from http://cmslive.curriculum.edu.au/leader/default.asp?id=28526&issueID=11897

MindTools, Essential skills for an excellent career. (n.d) Plus, Minus, Interesting: Weighing the Pros and Cons of a Decision. Retrieved March 3, 2011, from
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_05.htm

Pearson Foundation. (2009, Apr 21). Text2teach: The Bridgeit Solution in the Philippines [Video file]. Retrieved March 8, 2011, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQGXR16dZic

Black, A. (2011). Week 0 Activities, My Profile. Rockhampton, QLD, Australia: Retrieved March 1, 2011, from CQUniversity e-courses, EDED20491 ICTs for learning design

Atherton, J. (2011) Learning and Teaching; Behaviourism. Retrieved March 18, 2011, from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/behaviour.htm

Siemens, G. (2004) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age: Elearn Space. Retrieved March 7, 2011, from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Atherton, S. (2011) Learning and Teaching; Constructivism in learning. Retrieved March 18, 2011, from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/constructivism.htm

Culatta, R. (2011) Innovative Learning: Cognitivism. Retrieved March 9, 2011, from http://www.innovativelearning.com/educational_psychology/cognitivism/index.htm