As my robot friend has stipulated, this week we had a look at online spaces for use as learning tools, particularly wiki's, blogs and Weebly webpages. We have a weekly dose of blog interaction so there is a developing expertise in those but until now I had never created a webpage or a wiki. So diving in I made a wikispace and a Weebly webpage. While both have similar design aspects their functionality differs greatly.
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| Even published for public viewing with a birth certificate |
A wiki can be a fantastic tool for incorporating student opinions and perceptions into the learning environment. It encourages a scaffolding learning environment where the students can build their own knowledge off one another with their different interpretations of the content. This can be constantly added to as knowledge and understanding grows so the students can effectively create a log of their own learning journey. This is something I would like to incorporate into my lessons, as it shows students real results for their learning ...in a science class. There is very little in interpretation when it comes to mathematics, you tend to either get it or you don't.
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| Generated from Fodley.com |
Weebly's
Positive
|
Negative
|
Interesting
|
·
Simple
design process
·
Can be
wielded with aesthetics in mind
·
Can
imbed a variety of different devices including videos, links, and other HTML
code
·
Once
set needs very little maintenance
|
·
Minimal
student contribution, arguably teacher-centered learning
·
Requires
tremendous time and energy from the teacher to create
·
Set
design templates that need to be adhered to
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·
Can
include blogs, to engage students in the learning
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I've
decided to focus this blog post primarily on the functionality of static
webpages (primarily Weebly) within the teaching context of mathematics.
The Blockades to an effective Pedagogy
The
first thing I noticed about the Weebly is that is has very limited formatting.
There are a number of usable templates which define the shape of the page and
there is a defined place for each element within the page that needs to be
adhered to. And even though HTML can be embedded, I was unable to make a Voki
work, as I'm sure there are countless other programs that would not interface
well.
These limitations do irk me a little, the do provide a definite guide to what can and cannot be included. For a structured man like me, this is actually somewhat of a relief as these limiting factors work to keep me on track and focus on the site design, less it becomes a maelstrom of useless clickable gadgets.
These limitations do irk me a little, the do provide a definite guide to what can and cannot be included. For a structured man like me, this is actually somewhat of a relief as these limiting factors work to keep me on track and focus on the site design, less it becomes a maelstrom of useless clickable gadgets.
While
a website such as this can include a blog comment section or a poll, the
majority of the content is very teaching focused. Interactive in certain
components but for the most part the students are simply reviewing the
information you have already provided to them, and are not given the
opportunity to contribute to their own learning in this sense.
Which
brings me to the biggest issue with using a webpage in learning. It requires a
ridiculous amount of time, planning and effort on the teachers behalf for it to
be an effective tool in the class environment. As the interactive components of
the webpage are somewhat limited this means that you need to develop other
means to ensure you maintain the students attention.
How to implement them
For
the most part, I would like to use this tool as an out of classroom learning exercise,
something the students can access after class to broaden their knowledge on a
topic, or include homework assignments within its structure.
My
idea is to have a page for each topic, such as geometry. I would have a number
of tabs, each covering different aspects of this topic like, volumes, angle
relationships, measurement of non straight edges, etc. Each of these tabs have
a detailed description of the subject matter, along with diagrams to assist
students in the process, activities (Problems) for them to attempt and a list
of further resources I have personally vetted for them to follow if they are
still struggling.
The
advantage here is that several of these are taught at differing year levels
which means that it gives some of the more advanced students a chance to
explore content which is above their year level, but not necessarily above
their comprehension. It also works in the reverse, allowing students who may
not be grasping the concepts a chance to revisit stuff they have already
touched on and establish new connections to promote better understanding.
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| Captured via snipping tool, content my own |
Also my wikispaces...space if anyone is interested. There is minimal content there atm however
https://wiki-dscience.wikispaces.com
code 3TD4HPF
References:
Website created from:
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/userHome.php
CQU Australia (2015), ICTs for Learning Design: Study Guide. Retrieved from March, 2015
https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=15519
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