Blogging (again) in a different light
I'm a Computing teacher, in Scotland. And I'm interested in using new technology to teach. I love teaching but since I'm a massive geek I find it very hard to leave computers out of teaching. This can lead to problems. This isn't blasphemy - I am a Computing teacher who doesn't believe that computers are doing it for kids as well as they should be - but I know that can be changed, and this blog's here to keep me writing and doing and updating. I've had blogs since 1998 - but this is the first time i've used one to document something.
I had a search about on the internet to see who else was interested in new technology in education (in Scotland) and found there was a lot of interest and a lot of information. I'm still weeding through it as we speak. But the reason I'm writing this just now is because I want to track the path to enlightenment - post up what I've found and where I've found it, so that I can go back and maybe use this to guide others who plan on undertaking similar ICT endeavors.
I shall be following this with something more substantial later, but just to introduce myself - my name's Peter, and I'm a computing teacher. I am fully qualified as of this year, and am working in Fife. I've been using online revision materials and online assessment for the past year, but I really don't feel that the material most schools are using is anywhere near good enough to be fully effective. For example:
1. Revision websites. I have yet to come across a revision website with an easy to understand structure. Why? Because teachers aren't web designers, and most websites feel linear at best (random at worst). WebCAL, highly popular and recommended in a Scottish Exec report, isn't particularly easy to navigate, and is unsearchable and unindexed. Can you imagine a textbook without an index or contents?
2. While teachers are effectively using Hot Potatoes and other programs to create online assessment, these rarely offer the teacher feedback. Only observation can be used to monitor this. Can you imagine this being the case with any other class assessment?
3. Pupils have very little input to what could be an interactive process. Pupils often use computers to make revision materials, but these are rarely available for sharing to other pupils.
Points one and two are the most important to me. Bear in mind that I'm just an ordinary classroom teacher. I'm talking about what I've seen in the schools I've visited or worked in. There may well be much more advanced solutions out there.
What I want to do is this (and it's a mixture of personal and political):
1. Establish a functional demonstration of how important structure is to online educational materials, through Moodle. Can you imagine how effective revision would be with cross-referenced terms/concepts AND easily to navigate through topics?
2. Create a set of online assessments with full statistical recording of success for teachers. These will fit into the structured materials in the Moodle site. They will offer monitoring of every individual, and show patterns with answers.
3. Produce creative commons materials in a standard format (an educational XML format of some kind). That corresponds to SQA arrangements. This would make it much easier for teachers to share and improve the standard of online materials. This could easily be incorporated into a national wiki for a particular subject. How quickly could a high-quality set of explanations and examples be built up?
4. Involve students in the process through opening feedback channels within the resources.
5. Work on ways to take the resources and individualise them for each student- resorting and filtering information until it meets the student's needs.
6. Make it possible to format materials for offline use.
I realise how grand this sounds, and I'm nervous about that, as I'm so new to my profession, as well as this particular are of technology. But I also know that these questions need to be answered. While I don't doubt that they will be answered in time, how likely is it that solutions will be free, and easily applicable to Scottish education?
I'm looking for as many comments as you can muster - just now all I'm after is more signposts, to find out what I'm right about, and what I'm wrong about.
P.S. - I realise that many of my concerns could be addressed with GLOW - but what do I do till then?
posted by Peter @ 1:53 PM
4 Comments:
Hi Peter,
You've asked a bucket-load of questions in your post, and it would take me a long time to address all of them in one go... so I'm going to cherry-pick if I may! Also, I am not sure how up-to-speed you are with the buzz words associated with Web2.0 tools, so if I sound as though I am being patronising it is not meant... similarly, if I mention something you haven't yet encountered, feel free to ask me! ;0)
I get the impression that you have realised that there are all these amazing possibilities, but haven't yet worked out a route through them. You are not alone in this respect! The speed of change and adoption is exhillarating, but also can be confusing at times.
A really good starting point is Vicki Davis' blog, Cool Cat Teacher. Vicki has a number of brilliant posts and observations on how to use Web2.0 technologies in the classroom, and you will probably find her name cropping up time and time again in your research.
One of the best edubloggers is Will Richardson of weblogg-ed fame. Will's recent article for Edutopia has the potential to be a major force in the adoption of Web2.0 tools... or at least, I hope so.
Another very thought-provoking site is Christian Long's think:lab. I always come away from think:lab full of ideas.
Closer to home, Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com is required reading.
There are countless others that you will find, some are subject specific, others are more general about Web2.0...
Anyway...
To address some specifics:
Revision websites are (as you've discovered) variable. YacaPaca is pretty good and can give good stats to the teacher, but it really needs an offline editor as it is cumbersome to enter questions.
You're right about pupils having very little input, but that does not have to be the case. I've started to use wikis and have found that they are beginning to be popular with my classes... this is something I will be developing more as the year progresses.
Ironically, cross-referenced terms/concepts are very easily achieved using basic html. This is also something that you can easily use a blog for.
I like the notion of a standard format (XML) for producing materials, but I would also urge caution. One of the reason my handouts stand out is because they are different from other handouts used in my school...
There is a definite place for standardization - SDPs, DDPs, etc... but I like the freedom to produce worksheets that echo the content (them again, I teach English and so am automatically deemed an arty-farty type!)
Individualization of the materials is laudible, but sometimes it is easier to set a common task and differentiate according to the finished artefact/work/essay/task. I should add that I am thinking about a system whereby the pupils' work is assessed according to agreed goals and objectives (ie: different for each pupil) rather than by assessing against GRC...and, yes, I have been influenced by A Curriculum for Excellence.
Anyway, I hope this gives you some food for thought. Feel free to ask further questions, and don't be surprised if I ellaborate further on some of the points you make!
Welcome to the blogosphere!
Hello there
Interesting first post. Lots to think about and lots to do. I was going to reply much along the lines that Neil has already outlined. Especially I was going to suggest that you check out the many free tools that already exist. It may be that Glow will do some of the things that you start doing with the free tools, but as you imply - why wait. Start now and hopefully you will be able to transfer the concepts, if not the actual work, into the Glow environment when it arrives.
I therefore have a slight difference of opinion with Neil about standards. I don't think adherence to standards necessarily means boringly identical sets of resources. If I start using a new word processor, I want to know that it can read and write Microsoft Word format - not because I want my new word processor to be identical to Word but because I don't want my work to be stuck in a format that nobody else can use and that I can't benefit from the work of others. Standards at the level you are talking about (I think) are more to do with inter-operability and less to do with look and feel. All I would add to this is, don't re-invent the wheel. For example, there are already standards to support the transfer of online assessment items. Find out if which of the free tools support these standards and, all other things being equal, choose the standard compliant tools over the mavericks.
I think online assessment is inevitably limited in scope - especially when you are relying on automatic marking and feedback. However it is an aspect of revision that pupils seem to value highly. (The results of a survey of pupils' use of SCHOLAR seem to back this up.) Are there benefits in involving pupils in the creation of revision material? Rather than dismissing Hot Potatoes for its lack of feedback to the teacher (which is true) is it worth investigating as a pupil resource - a tool to allow pupils to create and share their own revision tests?
Finally, you kind of marginalise your point 3: "3. Pupils have very little input to what could be an interactive process. Pupils often use computers to make revision materials, but these are rarely available for sharing to other pupils." I think that blogs and wikis would be very powerful tools to enable this sharing. They can be used to involve pupils in this process. They are tools that even "ordinary classroom teachers" can use and that are not particularly "advanced solutions". I think they would also help with (at least) points 4 and 5 in your to do list.
Hope this helps. I'm looking forward to seeing how your thinking develops.
Thanks for the comments. I'll be reading up tonight on those blogs.
Neil, thanks for the comments. I agree that wikis etc are the way to go in terms of pupil involvement but I feel that pupils can only benefit from this sort of social software being built into a VLE - I have yet to decide on how much is too much in terms of supplying information to pupils. It's important to let pupils investigate, but it's also important to supply them with valid information set at their level. As I say, I'm still very much investigating this!
David, you're right in thinking that I was meaning file standards. Types of wiki information often have a DTD of sorts now, so that the information is transferrable. It is possible to tie a resource to a particular concept in the SQA arrangements - indeed, everything discussed in a class must be at least remotely linked to one - I don't think this stifles creativity - a good example being GIFT format for quizzes - there are methods of assessment that we all use, and this does not make the material similar.
And briefly:
I love Hot Potatoes - but I think that online assessment can also be used to further effect with teacher feedback. As you say, each tool has a place, I think i failed to clarify what aspect of assessment I was talking about there :)
And I agree that point 3 comes across as a little naive - as I said, I really am not sure what teachers are doing with things like wikis.
I'm currently trying to work out where I step out and pupils take over. There can be a lack of structure or linking in any resource - be it a pupils' wiki, a number of pupils' blogs, or a teaching resource like WebCAL. That's the 'social' part, in a way, but I think providing extra structure round such tools can only provide a crutch that pupils can choose to use.
However, it's only day 2! Please check back to see if I'm any clearer!
My mistake with regards to standards (it was after 2 in the morning when I posted it!). I was thinking you meant a uniform style for the look of the documents rather than a universal file format.
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