Based on your reading of the case studies and exploration of learning artefacts as provided by Tolisano (2011-2013) and Miller (2012-2014), choose ONE of these ideas and critically reflect on your blog. Find other student blog posts and interact with their ideas by leaving a comment or two.
- The interplay between formal and informal learning across the physical and digital classroom environments
- Ways you see these connected educators successfully build on knowledge networking to strengthen school-based classroom engagement and learning as part of instructional design
I decided to look at the case study on Tolisano’s work as I could see some connections between informal and formal learning across the digital and physical environments. In terms of being a connected educator, Tolisano knew what was going on in classrooms within her school, namely what the 4th Grade teacher was doing. The 4th Grade Teacher was also a connected educator because she was using her class blog to share work with the community and other educators. Tolisano meanwhile, saw an opportunity to strengthen school-based classroom engagement as part of the instructional design and went about setting up a Skype meeting with an author whose book had featured as part of the original post from the 4th grade teacher. Another activity was the rewriting of existing poems by Mike Fisher.
From here I noted a highly structured and collaborative approach to conducting the Skype calls. Some formal lessons that took place included the structuring of interview questions, developing interview technique, reflective writing and feedback on this writing. Informally they were also developing their netiquette, body language and articulation of ideas. Different methods of collating the information were used including writing/typing notes, posting tweets and even drawing. There was little discussion about grades and marks.
By incorporating the Skype call into the instructional design, it created a dynamic classroom that appeared busy but active in the technology and collaborative skills being used. It also seemed reasonably simple to set up because all of those connections and tools were at the teacher’s fingertips.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
