Week of December 6: Blog Reflection (post #2)

Assignment 2, Task #1: Creating and Maintaining an Individual Blog


Your blogs in the week of December 6 must include one reflection on the experience of blogging. The intent of this task is for each of the students to thoughtfully ponder the experience of blogging.  In doing so, you may choose to discuss the experience of blogging within the constraints of the given assignment.  You may also choose to consider the utility of blogging for pre-service and/or current educators.  Some questions that you may wish to address in this reflection are: What did I learn from this experience? What can I do to improve my blogging (with or without the constraints of this assignment)?
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Blogging in IDE 611 has been a wonderful experience. At the start of the fall 2010 academic semester, I was very nervous about starting a Blog. It was my first time creating a blog and I worried about whether I would be able to find enough information to write about on my selected opening blog topic, Digital Storytelling. Luckily, all my earlier worries were for nothing because there was a lot of information about digital storytelling, not only on the internet, but also via traditional library resources. Later, in the 2nd half of the semester when my new blog topic became College 2.0, I also had a lot of interesting information to draw upon via the College 2.0 section in the Chronicles of Higher Education.

Blogging for pre-service and/or current educators is a very useful and effective way to stay current with the various innovations and new research findings in one's content or specialty area. Specifically, one can add an RSS feed to get updates on all the latest news and events from a variety of blog and news sources. For example, I added the RSS feed of EDUCAUSE and the Chronicle of Higher Education to my "Blogs I'm Following" reading list; it was a convenient way for me to get article updates which I later used for some of my own blog postings. Blogging can also promote social interactions and engagement among educators and other professionals through the comments and feedback that one can leave on a blog that sparks one's interest. For instance, Thinnakorn's "Social Networking" and Wilairat's "Amazing Wikis" were two blogs that had postings that encourage dialogue about the posted topics through their prompt return response and informative commentary. Towards the 2nd half of the semester, I found myself repeatedly commenting on these blogs even though they were not part of my group assignment.  My assigned group members Sue, Leah, and Greg made me aware that blogging can be used to build one's knowledge base. Sue's blog dealt with Web 2.0 technologies, Leah's blog addressed Twitter and Electronic/Interactive White Boards (IWB), and Greg's blog investigated IWBs and iTuneU.

Through blogging, I learned that there are a lot of exciting new innovations and experiments taking place in the world of Web 2.0 technologies. For example, in my November blog postings, I discussed how some academic researchers are using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to engage and motivate students. Furthermore, I looked at Wikipedia and addressed whether or not in the future it could ever be accepted fully as a scholarly resource by the college/university professors and library personnel. Last but not least, I looked at the cultural conflict that arose with Asian students and school assignments calling for them to utilize wikis.

Two ways in which I sought to improve my blogging was by incorporating videos and picture images into some of my blog postings. I think these two items made the topic postings more interesting to my readers and captured their attention in a quick and efficient manner. In addition, with some blog postings, I tried to select articles that were relevant to or in alignment with our online discussion sessions via Blackboard. For example, last week's Blackboard discussion topic was games and games based learning; I was able to find an article for my blog posting in which a university researcher was using video games to secretly assess the learning of some of her students. Known as stealth assessment, many of my fellow IDE classmates found this alternate form of learning assessment very interesting.

In the future, to further improve my blog postings, I think I will include more end of the week review/recap and critical reflection postings that incorporates not only my own thoughts, but those of my fellow classmates who either left return commentary or feedback on my blog postings. On Sunday, November 21, 2010, I did one such recap posting and I found it an extremely useful exercise.

Tech Therapy: USC Writing Class Takes on Cyberbullies (post #1)

Professor Mark Marino

In the story below, listen to the podcast as to how University students took an innovative stance against cyberbullying. Specifically, students at the University of Southern California were deeply affected by the case of cyberbullying that led to the suicide of music student, Tyler Clementi at Rutgers University. Students turned to social networking to engage in social activism and to demonstrate the political use of technology.

Through Words & Social Networking USC students are extending a helping hand to the online community in the following ways:

(1). Students created SOS classroom where individuals who were victims of cyberbullying can access online resources (Crowdsourcing and Resource Collection).
(2). Students initiated a letter writing campaign to Facebook that would allow members to technologially flag potential cases of cyberbullying.
(3). Via Facebook, students proposed an efficient and quick way for individiuals to access suicide prevention and counseling materials ---- On any wall post or status message, one would just have to write "@wallwatch" to access materials.

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Article: Episode 78: USC Writing Class Takes on Cyberbullies

In what could be considered a model of using off-the-shelf tech tools for a high-impact class project, a writing class spent the fall semester creating resources to help victimes of online bullies. The Tech Therapy team talks with Mark Marino, an assistant professor of writing at University of Southern California who led the effort, and one of his students about their online campaign.
Download this recording as an MP3 file, or subscribe to Tech Therapy on iTunes.

http://cdn11.castfire.com/audio/25/81/199/473103/techtherapy_2010-12-06-190103-57-0-0-0.64.mp3?cdn_id=15&uuid=8a12186e41afb1556dd1e86b3fe0a010&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fchronicle.com%2Farticle%2Farticle-content%2F125634%2F

Want to reduce test anxiety? ... Play Video Games! (This week - post #2)

Article - A "Stealth Assessment" Turns to Video Games to Measure Thinking Skills
Avoiding complications like test anxiety is one benefit of a method for evaluating difficult-to-capture abilities


Professor Valerie J. Shute


If you are an educator who notes that some of your students rountinely suffer from text anxiety, there may be a possible alternate assessment option available: Video Games. 

Valerie J. Shute, an associate professor of educational psychology and learning systems at Florida state University, recommends employing stealth assessment - the administering of tests without students' knowing via video games. Specifically, students playing video games will allow educators to watch students solve complex tasks while immersed in virtual worlds. Ms. Shute also hopes that stealth assessment might engage students unmoved by traditional teaching and testing. She states, "we have this whole group of kids who are not engaged with school, and appropriately so, because schools are so antiquated."

College 2.0 - 5 Teaching Tips for Professors - From Video Games (This week - post #1)

This week in IDE 611, we are discussing online games and their educational uses.
The video below has commentary from Will Wright (game designer), the Creator of "the Sims" Talks Educational Gaming

• Mr. Wright maintains that "Play" is a fundamental educational technology.
• He sees games as a great way to "motivate" students to investigate/follow-up on different subject areas as oppose to "educating" them.

Education and Gaming

1. Give frequent and detailed feedback
2. Test before going live
3. Narrative can answer the question "Why are we learning this?"
4. Don't be afraid of fun
5. Not every subject works as a game

Reference: URL Address: http://chronicle.com/article/5-Lessons-Professors-Can-Learn/63708/

Advocate of Online Education - Bill Gates Predicts Technology Will Make ‘Place-Based’ Colleges Less Important in 5 Years

K-12: Advocates a longer school day. 

Students: Full immersion in the learning process & ethic via weekday + Saturday school or Boarding school (Must capture 80% of their waking time).

Life-Long Learning: Sees self-motivated learners as consistently on the internet and using Web 2.0 technologies as well as dialoging with others.                             

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URL Address: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/bill-gates-predicts-technology-will-make-place-based-colleges-less-important-in-5-years/260926092 (Original Article)

This Week's Recap: Wiki and Twitter (Post #3)



This week in review



This week I blogged about the Web 2.0 technologies, Wiki/Twitter and college students.  For the Wiki posting, I discussed how the use of wikis in Singapore clashed with the Asian cultural perception of correcting/editing other individuals in a public setting. Basically such a practice is frowned upon because it might result in an individual feeling embarrassed or humiliated (i.e., losing face). Wiki researchers now seem more sensitive to cultural notions and are working with students closely to finding common ground for technology to be in alignment with cultural beliefs and practices.

The second blog posting dealt with an experiment with Twitter and 1st year college students. One research found that students who were instructed to Tweet about their course assignments earned higher grades than those student who only engaged their course assignments via Blackboard discussion type interactions. The feedback from my fellow IDE classmates on this topic was split. My two Thai classmates seemed to readily accept the research findings and one stated that she will also try to integrate Twitter use into her on class instruction and assignment for her one personal experiment. In contrast, my two American classmates suggested that further research and study had to be conducted into this area/topic. they were both hesitant in accepting the research experimental results, but found the overall experiment quite interesting.

I truly enjoyed blogging about these two topics this week because they demonstrate the versatile impact that Web 2.0 technologies are having on students and in college/university settings. In addition, some of my topics seem to be interesting and engaging to my fellow IDE classmates. I hope that this upcoming week's blog will continue to be as interesting to my classmates as well.

Want to earn a good grade?...TWEET!!!! (Post #2)

Article - The Wired Campus: Tweeting Students Earn Higher Grades Than Others in Classroom Experiment

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that "students chatting on Twitter both inside and outside the classroom got higher grades than their nontweeting peers in a recent experiment conducted at a medium-size public institution in the Midwest."  Specifically, with a student population consisting of 125 first year pre -health - professional majors participating in the voluntary experiment, researchers divided students into two groups: 70, experimental and 55, control.  The experimental group were instructed to use Twitter to "access information and complete four class assignments required in a first - year seminar course. In contrast, the control group were informed that they would complete "the same tasks on a Web-based program that functioned like a typical course - manage system's discussion board (i.e., Blackboard, Moodle)

According to researchers, "at the end of the semester, the tweeters had grade-point averages half a point higher, on average, than did their nontweeting counterparts. And students who tweeted were more engaged." Also, "Twitter users scored higher than those who didn't use the tool on a 19-question student - engagement survey over the course of the semester - using parameters like how frequently students contributed to classroom discussion, and how often they interacted with their instructor about course material."

Despite the above research findings and announcement, some faculty members have expressed skepticism and doubts over the above Twitter results. For example, Dave Perry, an assistant professor of emerging media at the University of Texas at Dallas, "questioned whether the tool was the cause of the improved grades" and called for additional study and research.

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                                                  What's your opinion?