The Power of Social Networking

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I think that Classroom 2.0 is an awesome social networking site for educators. There are so many ways I can see this being useful; just from going to the main page I was intrigued by three different posts! This site is super practical in that it has educators sharing their experience of what works to encourage, motivate, and show other educators the great things that can be done in the classroom with the help of technology. I even found a group within the site for Spanish teachers. Not only can I find great ideas for my own teaching but I can learn about the trends and new styles of teaching that I had not heard of before. This is a great, very useful tool.

We are the Pieces to this Puzzle

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A learner is like a puzzle piece. Just like a puzzle piece needs the other pieces to form a complete picture, so learners need other learners (people) to connect to in order to make meaning out of their lives and contribute to something bigger than themselves. In his article, “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age,” George Siemens states, “meaning-making and forming connections between specialized communities are important activities.” As a piece to this puzzle, learners need to know how to form connections so they can make meaning and extend their pieces for others to connect into. When we don’t become connected, we miss out on the plethora of knowledge and wisdom we can gain from others.

Siemens addresses the importance of connection in his video “The Network is the Learning” with the comment that “adding a node to a network increases the entire network exponentially.” Each person can contribute to these networks of knowledge with their own personal expertise and experience and thus move universal knowledge forward for the benefit of all. Therefore, we need each other to create the bigger picture, one that can only be truly seen when all the puzzle pieces are connected into the right pieces. 

Meaningful Washback

I am currently taking a class on assessment. After my long-term subbing position I had quite a few questions on meaningful, valid assessments and was determined to learn how to better evaluate and provide feedback to my students. While we've discussed washback briefly, we haven't discussed the best methods yet. Well today I came across a post on the Blog of Proximal Development on my Google Reader that dealt with this issue succinctly and positively.

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The Power of Feedback  outlines a great way to provide positive, learning-centered feedback on student work. We've all experienced the returned essays with overwhelming red marks: we searched for the grade, threw the paper in our folders, and completely ignored the teacher's comments. Or perhaps we've been on the other side, spending hours upon hours correcting student work. Don't we love to see our hours thrown into the back of the folder-or worse, the garbage can-as students rush out of class? Well this post offers an answer to our dilemma.

Konrad Glogowski points out that feedback should respond to what the student did correctly, not incorrectly. When we point out all their mistakes they aren't as motivated to change things. Sometimes they don't know how! Instead, Glogowski offers this advice:

"As teachers, we must help our students answer three questions:

1. Where am I going?
2. How am I doing?
3. What actions do I need to take next?"

Feedback is about the process, helping out students get to a great end result on their own, and encouraging them on the way. He offers a great example in his post of what this can look like. These three questions should be found in the feedback; however, "it’s important to keep in mind that our role here is to guide, not to answer these questions for our students." 

I really appreciate seeing this in action. It just makes sense. I can totally understand why a student would be more apt to respond to feedback that guided and encouraged them versus circling all their mistakes. I think this would still take some time to do, but perhaps it won't take as much time as the previous attempt and the results will be worth it. I am willing to try it. Effective feedback can be empowering and truly transformative in the way our students learn. 


Reference:

Glogowski, K. The Power of Feedback. Retrieved February 12, 2012, from http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/2012/02/09/power-of-feedback/

Social Media in the Classroom?

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It is amazing to think of how far technology has come within the past 5-10 years. In watching Social Media Revolution 2011 by Erik Qualman I was able to realize just what kind of impact social media alone has on the world today. Can you believe that Justin Beiber has more followers on Twitter than there are citizens of Australia? I find that astonishing. In this day and age when social media is being used by children through adults and 93% of markers for business, it is important to consider how this can be relevant and useful in the classroom too.

Two interesting points for me are that peer recommendations are so highly valued and the vastness of Wikipedia. I think an authentic activity/assessment in my Spanish classroom could be to have students write reviews/recommendations in Spanish about different restaurants in our area. This could be a whole section on a class blog and could include hotels, museums, etc., for when students take vacations or class trips. This would be a way to incorporate a real world task as well as teach students how to read and write reviews to make more educated choices. If peer recommendations are so valued in our world today, students should learn how to write and review them with discretion and honesty.

When I was in undergrad I did a neat activity in my Educational Psychology class pertaining to Wikipedia. We had a selection of topics based on current class content that were under cited on Wikipedia. Our task was to add to Wikipedia with research and citations of scholarly articles to support our evidence. This was a beneficial task because it taught me 1. how to edit Wikipedia 2. that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone 3. the importance of citations and evidence in making research claims. I would love to incorporate this project into my own classroom, teaching my students to research, write scholarly, edit Wikipedia, and again, use discretion when using online sources. There is something really fantastic about students having done work that is instantly published and available for everyone in the world to use. I think this realization for students is the goal of social media and the read/write web, as discussed in Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.


As far as Facebook, is it appropriate to make a class page? I have never investigated this but it could be interesting. If any of you reading this have insights, please share. Seeing how powerful these tools are, I am really going to be thinking about how I can best incorporate them in my classroom to make my lessons as meaningful and engaging as I can.