Reflection 1: Web Spaces
Online spaces are a useful tool to engage students in different metacognitive processes. Importantly, these spaces are favoured for their user-centred design and collaboration between teacher-learner, teacher-parent/carer and learner-learner. I have had the chance to experience this mode of teaching through Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams, however, have explored other new web spaces such as Bloomz and Edublogs.
Edublogs
I can see Edublogs being a valuable
resource as an English teacher to make writing activities/tasks more engaging. Furthermore,
I think the blog would work great in conjunction with Google Classrooms. Edublogs
can be used as a space to share work, progress on work and comment on peers’ work.
Teachers can also privately/publicly comment on posts and provide feedback. In
addition to written uploads, students possess the power to upload audio and
video.
Note: the free version of Edublog
has a max storage capacity of 1GB per class blog.
For the teacher:
Upon creating a teacher account, teachers
can view their dashboard and create a class blog where students can
collectively post. It is also an option for students to post on their own
blogs. When creating a class blog, you are asked to set specific user, moderative,
privacy and permission settings. I like the option of approving all posts and
comments. Privacy settings can also be changed at any time.
There are also a range of other advanced settings
that are easily accessible. When adding users/when users join the class blog, the
teacher can change the role of that user to enable the same administrative privileges
as the teacher.
Teachers can also toggle between
different classroom blogs by clicking on the ‘my sites’ tab at the front left
of the webpage and customise the class blog screen and layout.
Note: Click here to access a tutorial
of how to set up a class blog (provided by Edublogs).
For the student:
Upon creating a student account, students
are asked to join a class blog, or the teacher can add the student. Students
can customise their own blogs by editing their themes and widgets. The ability
to personalise their online spaces can enable further engagement. Students do
not need any experience to use this space and are guided through their set up.
Each tab on the left menu provides further options when hovered over. The
layout is quite user-centred and intuitive.
Note: Click here to access a tutorial of how students
can set up their Edublog (provided by Edublogs).
Legal,
safe & ethical protocols:
When using Edublogs, it is the teacher’s responsibility that students are following the above protocols. If students are not sharing their own ideas, they must be referenced appropriately (hyperlinked if a website and referenced if from an academic source) to abide by legal and ethical policies and procedures. When importing images from the web, student also need to cite using a title, author, source and licence sequence.
Teachers
can promote and maintain student safety on this platform by monitoring uploads.
A great monitoring option is to approve all student uploads. Even with the
strictest privacy settings (password-set class blogs), it is important to consider
the explicit teachings of digital footprints and how this may impact students
as their lives progress. Additionally, teachers should raise awareness to cyber-safety
when using this program. Cyber-safety resources can be accessed on the Queensland
Government website.
In
a teaching context:
Pedagogical benefits of working in an online space with students include:
- - Practice safe online learning
- - Literacy and ICT skills
- - Implementation of SAMR model that incooproates Blooms
Taxonomy (SAMR model includes enhancing stages that require lower order skills
and includes stages to use higher order thinking).
The following table addresses how the SAMR model
could be used with Edublogs.
|
Redefinition |
Seek out interviews with sportsman and women addressing
a topic of interest and share to the class |
|
Modification |
Research current and prevalent issues in Australia
within the past year and present in a graphic organiser |
|
Augmentation |
Students create a PowerPoint to briefly introduce
and describe a topic of interest and present to class |
|
Substitution |
Development of a digital library including issues
in Australian sports media (bias, drugs, stereotypes, values etc.) |
Hi Angela,
ReplyDeleteI found this super interesting as I have never heard of Edublogs before. As a fellow English major, I definitely agree that a blog space would add a level of interest to writing tasks for your students!
The only thing I thought I might suggest is that if someone outside of our cohort was reading this, they might not know what the SAMR model is. Maybe adding a bit of a description, or an embedded hyperlink for people to go and read more about it would be a good idea?
Looking forward to your next post!
Juliet
Hey Angela,
ReplyDeleteI thought your exploration of Edublogs was very well done, particularly your consideration of the privacy and legal aspects in how the platform can be used to maintain student privacy and confidentiality to protect them from the wider web. As a fellow english teacher I can immediately see the appeal of a blog space and how it can be used to digitise aspects such as written assessments and writing tasks vs merely writing them in ones books. I thought your examples for how an activity could be reworked using the SAMR model was also well thought through.
Looking forward to the next post,
Jayden