Animoto tester

What's next? Tackling a WIKI

The same religion class are going to have a go at making a wiki next. This task, to be done in pairs, requires the students to create a wiki on Judaism. They were easily able to create the wiki initially and have invited me to be a moderator on their sites. This means that I can access their wikis at any time, see how they are progressing and makes comments on the wiki. The wikis are done at wetpaint.com, a site which enables free wiki creation.

I have given the students access to several resources within the content management system and have structured the task in detail. Each person in the pair has been allocated their own pages to work on and I have made a calendar in the CMS, detailing when each section of the task is to be completed by. The first task was to create a page of Jewish beliefs. Many did not finish this and I told them to complete it for homework. So far, there has been no further work done by any of the teams. Out of sight, out of mind?

Feedback from the students on using a CMS and Web 2.0

These were the comments that were given by the class during the feedback session:

Positive aspects about doing all of the work on the computer, using a variety of programs and the CMS.

• I felt more proactive in getting my work done.
• Can type faster than can write.
• Everything was in one place, which was easier. More organised.
• No excuses for loosing things.
• Not as repetitive in terms of drafts: easier to edit.
• Programs like Toondoo were enjoyable, it was not just writing.
• Writing is antiquated: this is more economical - saves paper, can understand students' work (especially those who have bad hand writing)
• Google docs: gives you no excuse for leaving the work elsewhere.
• Everyone will need to learn to use a computer because they are becoming a regular part of our lives anyway.
• One student uses Studywiz (CMS) a lot, but thinks that a lot of teachers are not able to use it. If everyone was using it, it would be a lot easier for everyone because there would be more of a routine. Info can be accessed at home.
• Studywiz was relatively easy to use.

Negative

• Annoying, when the program didn’t work*, then work was lost. (*slow/overloaded Internet)
• Too many temptations: games, videos, etc.
• Harder for students who don’t like/understand computers (there was one!)
• Some students don’t like doing homework in front of a screen.
• Slow Internet usage was really annoying in iLab and H1.

The majority of students would prefer to do assignments on the computer again next time.

My conclusions:
The students see the benefits of using the computers. There is a great deal of room for variety and for opportunities to differentiate tasks.

A few drawbacks though from the teacher's perspective:

• students should still be consulting books for information - the Internet is not always the most suitable/reliable source. The students will need training to keep a balance.
  
• it definitely requires a great deal more energy from the teacher: not only are you trying to keep the class focused on the task, but you also have to deal with any issues re use of the computer/programs that arise. The students are generally very needy in this area. In addition, those who are easily off task (every class has a few) need to be carefully monitored otherwise they could easily spend most of the lesson entertaining themselves 'elsewhere'.
• The CMS needs to be working as a matter of routine (the more teachers and students using it the better). Some of the students still have a bit of difficulty navigating in it.
• There seem to be a whole range of excuses as to why work could not be submitted.
  

Some good points from the teacher's perspective:

• Behaviour management for those few who have a habit of acting out was not so much of a problem. The students were mostly on task.
• Those who need a bit of stretching have the opportunity to do so.
  

Working through and finishing a task.

Throughout the process of working through a scaffolding worksheet, proceeding to a variety of choices for presentation, the students appeared engaged and worked well. This took about three lessons during school time. I made sure the students understood the due date of the task and that they could access all of their work at home. Assignments were to be submitted through the College's content management system (CMS).

After the due date, only six assignments had been submitted. This became very difficult to follow up, as many gave a variety of excuses as to why the work was not given in: couldn't upload to the CMS was the main one. I made it known to the students in the lesson immediately following the due date that not submitting the assignment is not acceptable. They were to submit a hard copy or bring it in on a USB if they were having difficulty using the CMS. I am about to proceed to sending messages home for work not handed in. (Ten students out of a class of 26!) This is by far the highest number of students not handing in work for ANY assignments done this year. On the other hand, marking the assignments was easy enough to do in this format and allowed the students to access a detailed comment and their grades by logging on to the CMS.

I think that, because they are not working with concrete documents, they forget that the work must be done. Also, because they are not using the CMS all the time, they are not constantly reminded that the work needs to be completed - through reminders and use of the calendar provided in this format.

The presentation of the task also required the students to go a step further in their cognitive processes. In order to do this task successfully, they had to assimilate all of the information and give it back in a different format. Many have had a great deal of difficulty with this.

Completing an assignment using Web 2.0

Most of the students in my Religion class have successfully created a Google docs account and a Toondoo account. This did not work effortlessly for everyone. They were shown how to upload and edit a word processing document in Google docs. They were also shown how to invite collaborators to view or edit their document.

The document they are working on is a scaffold for a Christian Decision Making scenario and model that they need to follow. Each student has invited me to view their document, so I can keep track of their progress at any time. Having looked over a large selection of these documents, I can see that many are almost finished gathering information for the decision making process.

About half of the students took the opportunity to go into Toondoo and explore the resources and the way in which the program works. One of the boys constructed a cartoon that was not appropriate for the situation and it was necessary to have a talk to the class as a whole about the appropriateness of what they present in the content of their work, and about the appropriate use of IT in the classroom.

There is gathering support in the College for screening of the internet (apart from obviously adult content sites) to be lifted so that staff and students can access the many tools and resources that are available. If this is to happen, then there will have to be an education of staff and students in the light of this new freedom. I am hoping that this will make using IT within my teaching easier too!

Making a start

Today I attempted to make a start on the up skilling of my students in the use of IT. The aim was to use the content management system to give them electronic copies of the assignment and accompanying worksheet that would scaffold the information they are going to gather. A number of obstacles arose: 1) a student did not have access to the documents in the CMS because the class list had not been updated since he moved into the class. 2) The students' access to Google Docs was blocked, which meant that they were not able to upload the worksheet.

One of the students mentioned that she would not be able to complete the worksheet at home because her computer would not recognise the Word document. I explained that with Google docs this would not be a problem, but could not let her experience this for herself.

It is becoming obvious that if we are going to utilise any Web 2.0 tools, then the screening system in our school will have to be reviewed.

Harnessing the technological know-how of my students

Having recently returned from the ACEC'08 conference in Canberra, I have been particularly inspired to be creative and step out of my comfort zone to include more IT in my teaching. One particular point that arose at the conference was that the students that we teach today have a range of technologies at their disposal and so are able to present work in a variety of ways. We should allow them to do this, even if we (the teachers) are not 100% knowledgeable about the programmes they may use. We cannot possibly be expected to be the experts on everything that is out there.

With this in mind, I did a survey of my year nine religion class to find out about all their technological know-how. Their understanding of blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools, of which I had only been vaguely aware pre-conference. To my amazement, all but 1 had no idea what a blog is. Nobody had heard of a wiki. Two had ever made a podcast (one of those learnt to do that in my music class) and none of the others had any idea what a podcast is. Google docs? Don't you use that to find stuff on the Internet? Nope, nobody knew what they were either.

I can only conclude that, if I am going to include technology as a way of teaching, then I am going to first have to teach my students about all the wonderful things that are out there.