Learning, Teaching and ICT

 It’s only a draft …. and I condensed 3500 words into this short post so probably didn’t include the important bits either

The steps in the research involved investigating the useful features and barriers when using blogs and wikis and other emerging social software in a supportive online environment. Progress was then monitored. Motivation and formal and informal learning was evaluated. 

Section 1

The range and depth of topics  -

 The blog posts were grouped into five different categories and a coding framework was devised.

The five categories were:        

• Transient  – very short posts containing mainly pictures, or very short miscellaneous statements·        
• Informative – posts containing information about what was learned either at school or elsewhere·        
• Invitational – posts containing some information on a topic and inviting others to respond  (these posts were also either experiential or reflective)·        
• Experiential – posts containing information about the pupils (e.g. ‘let me tell you about me’)·        
• Reflective – longer posts that contain evidence of deeper thinking about a particular topic.

Table 1

The posts covered a wide range of topics and in order to find the most popular, the invitational, experiential and reflective posts were scrutinised. The decision was made not to include the transient and informative posts in the investigation, as it was apparent during the initial gathering of information that the subject matter included in these posts consisted mainly of shallow content. Once the popular topics had been identified, it was noticed that particular themes were recurring in a number of different children’s blogs.

Recurrent themes included:

•          Jobs / choices   19
•          Hobbies   12
•          Favourite music 9
•          Book reviews 8
•          Miss L 6

The fact that these themes were recurring led to further examination. There is evidence that one pupil would write a reflective post and, rather than leave a comment, the children tended to replicate the introduction of the post, then personalise it with their own viewpoint.

Section 2

In this section, a narrower field of focus is established. It provides a descriptive account and analysis of the complex issues involved in the unfolding events. Three topics were analysed:

•        Online Identities / gender issues
•       The relationship between the online / offline environments
•        Any resulting impact on teaching and learning

Online Identities

Jackie referred to the children’s use of WeeMees. It was apparent that the children had great fun designing these characters for their blogs.

In an informal discussion with Courtney, she explained how important it was for her to find strategies to improve her spelling in her new online environment. She had been identified as having difficulties with spelling, but stated:

    ‘I don’t really care about my spelling in a jotter because only me and the teacher sees it, but when I write on my blog, I don’t want a showing up when the likes of Nadine from the AllStars reads my stuff. She’s really good at spelling.’

When Miss L (a visiting student teacher) expressed a desire to set up a blog, the children were keen to help her to create an online identity by showing her the various themes on offer, and by helping her create a blog avatar. They also helped her to settle in to her new ‘home’ by leaving comments such as Rebecca’s:

‘HEY Miss Law congrats on getting your new blog im sure youll luv it !!!it is a bit complicated at first .Jaydean also says heyah !! well al luv having u in the class’

Early on in the study, I had noted in my online journal that two of the boys had been very excited after having received a comment from a boy in an Inverness school telling them about his football blog. When we followed the link, it was difficult to understand the posts on the blog because they consisted mainly of large black squares accompanied by a very short sentence. We later discovered that the black squares contained video clips of football games. The host video site is blocked by our school authority and the boys were very disappointed that they were unable to enter into any resulting debate. It was suggested that they could join in at home, but the consensus was that they had wanted to take part in school as a group.

There were a number of occasions, however, when boys did add comments and posts from home. A comment left by Russell led to a discussion about the relationship between the online and offline environments. Russell commented on Miss Law’s blog:

‘YOU WILL BE PERFECTLY ABLE TO TEACH ANY YEAR BECAUSE AFTER TEACHING ALL OF 7V I THINK EVERYONE AGREES WITH ME BY SAYING YOU ARE A FANTASTIC TEACHER. ’

The Online / Offline Environment

When the comment was noticed on Miss Law’s blog, a reflective post was added to my online journal. Russell would not have felt it appropriate to say something like that in the class, and the comment was not mentioned in class.

During a class discussion about the subject, the children were asked if they thought that the blogs had impacted on their own offline relationships with their peers. Typical examples of the children’s responses are cited here:

• ‘Yes, because in our own blogs we’re allowed to write about what we want to write, so we’ve got to know each other better.’
•  ‘Some people in class don’t talk to me very much, but I can read their blog and find out more about them’
• ‘I feel that I know my close friends even more now because of what they write on their blog’ 

A further example of an instance when the online / offline environment interconnected was when blog posts and wiki writing considered worthy of note was shared during class time. This tended to happen as a result of children coming in to class and announcing that they had posted / written something that they wanted to share with an audience.

Resulting Impact on Teaching and Learning

The desire to share what they had written with their classmates impacted on the delivery of the curriculum. Stories the children had written were shared via the interactive whiteboard. These showings resulted in class discussions about what makes a good story, directing the children’s attention to nice use of descriptive words, etc.

Other ways in which the blogs and wikis directly influenced teaching and learning came about after the sharing of blog posts in class. For example:

•  As the pupils began adding more posts about what jobs they would like to choose, we began to seek out people from the ‘World of Work’ to come in to class and tell us about their job. We interviewed them and posted the videos on the class blog
•  Some of the children shared their love of reading books in their blog posts. As a direct result of those posts, a book club was formed. The club was run by the pupils themselves and they shared their favourite books on ‘library loan’ basis and discussed their favourites.
• During her placement, Miss Law agreed to set up an art club. This arose because a number of the children had written blog posts about their love of drawing

The evidence shows that the posts and comments on the children’s individual blogs and the stories written on their wikis did indeed change the offline context of the classroom. The curriculum changed to one that was more ‘child led’

Condensed draft Conclusion and Implication sections to follow …….

The Edublogger post about using RSS appeared recently and it got me thinking about how I used to track the blogposts of my previous class bloggers. These blogs were set up with the help of David Gilmour from East Lothian Council. I had no knowledge of RSS (hadn’t even heard of it!), but I soon discovered that it was possible to track the children’s new blog posts by visiting certain East Lothian blogs. The sidebar would show information about the latest ‘edubuzz’ posts … just like the example below.

Latest eduBuzz Posts

Happily, I’ve now discovered how to use ‘Google Reader’ and today I found that Stuart – 4th from the top on the list above – from last year’s P7 class decided to put on a new blogpost (10 months since his last one!). You can read his post here:

‘Sorry, not been in touch much because couldn’t find a computer to get on. LHS is the best high school ever people talk about getting your head getting flushed down the lavvy isn’t even true.The work isn’t too hard and you get 2 go up the street 4 u lunch and get anything you want up there. Me and Marc were in a talent show but him and Iona never won and I never won so boohoo. High school is really great but some subjects like french, english/language, R.M.E, H.F.T (writing part) are all a little boring. P.E is brilliant but if you pick it 4 2 nd year it isn’t always physical sometimes it can be writing, Tech is excellent too but same again it’s not always practical work some is writing. High school isn’t scary but it is FUN. You barely even get lost because after a few weeks you know your way round but I will admit sometimes it will just slip your mind where your going. And you’ll need 2 get use 2 not skiving out class saying yuo need the toilet only sometimes if you are really bursting or if you have got a toilet pass which lets you go to the loo any time you can only get one if you have a medical problem. And you don’t get golden time up here. HUB cards are used to buy food at the hub but if you lose it you need 2 go 2 the front office and ask 4 a temperary card until they order a new one. Mine broke at first then I got a new one and I lost that one. I am absolutely tired so am going 2 ma bed cause it’s 5 in the morning and am at a sleepover so catch you later.’

I really appreciate Stuart’s post …. the incentive for writing the post is obviously to give a message to the present P7 class that they shouldn’t fear moving on to High School. I’ll make a point of sharing the post with the intended audience as soon as we return to school!

Meanwhile - what is Feedburner?? ….. and what is twitter about??

I came across this video via John (I’m not sure why some people’s delicious entries end up in my ‘google reader’ – but I’m glad they do!). It’s a pity I won’t be able to show it in school because youtube is blocked.

I’ve never fully understood copyright but I was a bit concerned that some children were getting pictures from google images for their blogs. I tried to explain about copyright, but the children were indignant that if it was on the internet anyway, then anyone could freely use it.

Since then, however, little ‘copyright’ messages have been appearing on some of their stories on their wikis. For an example, click on this icon

If someone writes a story at home on their wiki, they’re usually keen for it to be shared in school. We often find some time to do this on the whiteboard (it’s also a great way to instigate discussions about what makes a great piece of writing ….. sometimes we’ll use ’2 stars and a wish’ to peer assess the writing. The children will often voluntarily go back and edit their stories as a result of these conversations).

The story in the link above is an imaginary tale involving lots of people in the class. This inspired some more children to write imaginatively about their friends, too. One particular story, however, was very similar in content to the original. This led to discussions about just how much of someone else’s work you should be allowed to ‘borrow’ from.

One of the useful things about a wiki is that it’s possible to look at the history of edits made. I receive emails whenever a wiki is edited, and it made me smile when I saw the changes made to the original story above. As she went on to finish and edit her story, she made some changes to her ‘copyright’ message.

You can follow how the story progresses here

After we had explained yet again sophie said that she was dreaming of what it would be like to draw pictures of famous people and so she ended up drawing the queen. We spent a little more time with the queen and then ran to the final picture which was the one i drew.

Copyright!

The story was continued at a later date:

I checked my watch to find it was almost midnight yet none of us felt tired at all!

“Guys,” I said, ” Its almost midnight!”

“Wow!” they all replied including our new-found, famous friends. Just then one of the city clocks struck midnight and the castle from DisneyWorld appeared with Cinderella ,and Johnny Depp with the balloon, at the front of it looking for her glass slipper. At the other side of us Nina’s elephant and African sunst appeared. Everywhere around us was covered with the pictures we drew

copyright!

……. And Finally:          

Nina wailed for the second time, “Oh no! This time we really are locked in and we don’t know who will help us!” Just then Miss Law came running to the door with a key to let us all out.

“I am back and with the key!” she shouted as she turned the key in the lock.

We all smiled as the door opened and we walked out of the art room. “That was some adventure!” Anna commented.

“What was?” Miss Law asked, “You can’t have had a big adventure when you have only been in there for 10 minutes!” We were all absolutley speachless once we found out time had hardly changed but i managed to say with a wink, “You’d be surprised Miss Law. You’d be surprised!”

THE END!

COPYRIGHT!

She should be really proud of her great story. I think she’s learned lots about the importance of copyright …… and she’s sending a very clear message out to others, too :)

Miss Law was in our class for almost 10 weeks. In that time, she set up a blog so that she could be part of our set up (community?).

In one of her posts she wrote:

‘I’ve just looked back at my first ever blog post and I remembered how unsure I felt when I was writing it! It’s really strange because I had never thought of having a blog before and now I have one I enjoy writing on it.

It’s strange to think that only a couple of months ago I was really nervous about knowing what to write and now I just write about anything I fancy.

 Does anyone else feel this way? That you used to be really unsure of what to write and now you’re not?’

In a more recent post she wrote:

‘………Before joining 7V I would never have dreamed of having a blog but it’s been great. I know I haven’t written many posts, as I have not had the time, but I’ve loved reading everyone elses. It has allowed me to get to know the class really well………’

Yesterday, I asked the class If they thought that having their own blogs had helped them to get to know their own classmates better. 

They gave permission for me to jot down some of their responses and add them on this blog.

They said:

• Yes, because in our own blogs we’re allowed to write about what we want to write, so we’ve got to know each other better
• Some people in class don’t talk to me very much, but I can read their blog and find out more about them
• I feel that I know my close friends even more now because of what they write on their blog

The informal discussion touched on some other related issues.

For example, we’ve been using a variety of wikis this session. How?

•  We’ve used wikispaces  to work collaboratevely with our Australian friends (this project was started last session).
• I’ve also used wikispaces in the past when I was involved in the Photo-a-day project. It was when I was involved in this project that I was introduced to Wetpaint. I read recently that wetpaint is now ad-free for education and P7V have been experimenting with wetpaint
• During this session, we’ve also been using Pbwiki to ‘showcase’ our writing and to host our podcasts.

Here’s the children’s views on our wiki use:

• I like the PB wikis because I like when we read the stories that the people in our class have written on there, and how good they are
• You get to know what people’s thoughts and dreams are through their stories
• I prefer our new wetpint wikis because there’s more opportunity for discussion there. It’s a whole class thing
• Wetpaint is better, but it’s harder than pbwiki
• Pbwiki is for writing and wetpaint is for discussion
• In wetpaint I don’t get stuck on what to write about because I get to work with a partner
• Pbwiki is good for fonts and smilies, but wetpaint is better for teaming up and for adding videos

Please respond by commenting …..maybe the P7V’s will take this opportunity to use their voice too