Monthly Archives: March 2015

A knowledge building project

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I described this idea to the leader of the Delivering Excellent Learning & Teaching strategy in the education organisation I work for . He thought it was a great idea. Let’s see if I’m on the right track.

Proposal: Knowledge networking artifact proposal

Proposed topic:

The Knowledge networking artifact will be an instructional text for the teachers in my school about how to collaboratively build a knowledge base about the teaching pedagogies that frame the school’s Delivering Excellent Learning & Teaching strategy.

Proposed digital tools and/or spaces:

A combination of a podcast created with Audacity, and slideshow of images(created in wordand/or PowerPoint) to create a video on Vimeo. This video will eventually be embedded on the school’s Moodle site.

Brief description of nature of artifact –

The targeted audience is the whole teaching community in my secondary school. The Leadership team, together with teacher-librarians will facilitate access to information about the learning and teaching pedagogies. The other teachers will make responses to the information, collaboratively building a knowledge space about these pedagogies.

The teaching community needs to engage with this information collaboratively, discuss, share ideas and resources and build a knowledge base together about the pedagogies that will allow them to implement the school’s Delivering Excellent Learning & Teaching strategies.

There is a concern that not all members of the teaching community will engage or see the importance of building this knowledge base. There is a variance in the teaching staff’s ability to work collaboratively and existing knowledge. There are a lot of new requirements being made of staff including goal setting and sharing professional practice and including the school’s Delivering Excellent Learning & Teaching strategy. The aim is to help the teaching community see the how this knowledge building activity will be beneficial and helpful for these new requirements.

Assignment plan –

 

 

Major Steps  Resources Projected timeline
Collate information about specific learning and teaching pedagogies in consultation with Leadership at school  Documents and Information about pedagogies Week 5
Learn how to use Audacity and Vimeo and set up accounts  Audacity and Vimeo online technologyColleagues on staff you have knowledge in this technology Week 6
Collate images for slideshow  Documents and Information about pedagogies Week 6
Write podcast to accompany slideshow and record podcast  AudacityReferences for podcast Week 7
Upload both podcast and images onto Vimeo  Audacity and Vimeo online technology  Week 7
Share Vimeo publically online and promote to teaching staff  Vimeo online technology  Week 8
Embed Vimeo on school Moodle page  School Moodle pageSchool IT staff Week 8
Upload information and collaboration tools on Moodle site. School Moodle pageSchool IT staff Week 8
Assess school communities’ response School Community Week 8/9
Write Exegesis. Collated information about use of Knowledge Artefact Week 9

A new culture of learning

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Thomas and Brown’s article Arc-of-Life Learning  describes a new culture of learning that has evolved with the development of technology .It involves a digitally networked infrastructure where learners interact, form connections and collaborate whilst accessing the huge information network on the internet whilst participating in a variety of structured social media formats or web 2.0 tools.

As an adult  learner who is participating in my second online University course in less than ten years I can say that I have experienced this learning culture. Some of it has been supported by online forums on the university sites and at other times on social media eg. Twitter. Working in an online world I have reached out through this media.  This seems a common element in the stories shared in this article.

As an educator though, I have seen the education system be slow to take advantage of these opportunities in the digital world. Students don’t always share openly, unless they have to for an assessment task. I think it takes some practice and students have to experience the positive feelings and success described for themselves.

I know that students interact in this culture of learning out of school for  personal interests eg. computer gaming and coding.We need to encourage them to create knowledge in this way for their school studies.

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). Arc-of-Life learning. In A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change (pp. 17-33). Lexington, KY: CreateSpace.

 

New Models of Information Production

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As the Internet continues to grow and evolve it has become obvious that our interactions with the internet are going to become more and more personalised and customised. I’m not sire though that I want companies such as FaceBook, Linked In and Google to follow me so carefully. Yes I would agree that people generally have more devices, combine this with the way we are using the internet to distribute information and there is no surprise that some companies are taking advantage of this type of behaviour.

Blogs. Blogs continue to be criticised by some, including fellow educators who have not realised the potential in the benefits of public reflection. I along with other students have experienced the knowledge creation that can come through sharing blog posts and comments. I am a fan of The Huffington Post because the articles are interesting and relevant to me. It remains a challenge though in my experiences to get students and other teachers to take on blogging and wikis. I have been trying for 5 years. They need to see value. Some students and teachers still are only driven my assessments. Maybe we need to start assessing their knowledge that is being created in these networks. As an organisation we are now tapping into the potential of social networking and social media.

More reflections to come…

 

 

Being a Student – new models of information

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As my first post for this subject Knowledge Networking for Educators I thought I would share my response to the slides about ‘Being a Student – new models of information’. I am describing where I am at right now in what had stood out to me first up, what I need further explanation of and also topics I would like to elaborate on.

The slides that I could relate to or had meaning to me in particular were

(3) Shift Happens – The progress that humans continue to make in the use of technology is interesting and there are many positive and negative points to consider.The place of technology in learning and in schools remains a hot topic of conversation amongst educators and the wider community.

(6)The information (r)evolution – I first enrolled in this subject for first semester last year, but changed my mind and decided to just do one subject at a time. Over the last twelve months I have really become extra aware of all the interconnections between knowledge and the people that create and use it.

(10) Sharable content – learning Management System- delivery device – learner. This process of organising and sharing information has become a big focus for the educators I work with.

These slides are those that I’m seeking more explanation about

(5) Ontology? – Information can be in many places at one time is a concept I understand , but what is Ontology about?

(15) The person being the expert who can edit. I want more explanation about how to encourage my learning community to take on this challenge.

(35) Being a student today – What do I need to do to become a great student? What should I be focusing on more with my students?

Over the course of this subject I want have a chance to elaborate more about

(8) & (9) The information revolution- preservation of information and getting students to work with information

(12)PLN and PLE – How to expand them and encourage others to do the same thing

(21) Information in the cloud – cloud computing and what is it going to mean in the future

(31)The Cult of the Amateur– What should I know and be aware of ? what is the role of the amateur?

There is a lot of learning to look forward to.