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 …….

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 4:29 am and is filed under Welcome. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.