Learning, Teaching and ICT

Question:

• Can Weblogs and Wikis and other associated emerging social software tools be used to create an effective on-line learning community?

Aims:

• To investigate the useful features, and barriers, when using blogs and wikis in a supportive on-line environment
• To set appropriate tasks and to guide and monitor progress
• To evaluate motivation, as well as formal and informal learning

The survey results mentioned in the previous post prompted me to look for alternative blogging tools for those pupils whose frustration at not being able to master the codes for wordpress was affecting their motivation to blog. I used Blogger before migrating to edublogs (I still use it occasionally to experiment with posts for the class blog). In many ways, it’s much more user friendly and when I demonstrated this to the pupils, there were actual shouts of, ‘Hooray!’

Everyone now has a new ‘blogger blog’ and will have the choice of whether or not to stay with their learner blog or move everything over like Adam has begun to do. Adam is clearly delighted with his new ‘easier to use’ blog (and has admitted to being one of those who chose no.1 in the ‘blog popularity’ survey question).

I’ve also been reading how Conrad Glogowski, mentioned in a previous post, encourages his pupils to ‘grow a blog’. I really like this idea and have been wodering if I can adapt his worksheet to suit my own pupils’ needs.

Meanwhile, I need to come up with a more refined research question ….. and clearer aims. Lots of thinking to do!