Blogs and Wikis in Education

Today’s classrooms are becoming increasingly interactive through new communication technologies. Two of these are Wikis and Blogs. Different ways these technologies are being used are explained bellow:

Keeping Parents Informed Teachers can use blogs as a public forum so parents can be informed on what students are studying and when assignments are due. This frees up time for teachers who would be putting effort into communication with all the parents in a class. Blogs may also serve to answer similar questions that multiple parents may have. Parents may also post concerns and questions to subject matter or class activities.

Introducing Technologies to Students Teachers may decide to create blogs for individual students. By doing so, students take control over that part of their class. These can be open to the public, or private. The instructor can use the private blogs to collect homework or see what individual student’s commentaries of their work are. By using public blogs, students can display their work for commentary to the general public. Other students can then examine and comment on the work.

Wiki as a Group Consensus Teachers may create a wiki in which students can enter information, data, or conclusions from class work. In this manner, students build a single information source from the group as a whole. This can be in the form of vocabulary lists, experimental designs and outcomes, and any other qualitative or quantitative information.

RSS Readers/Aggregators One way to use this technology in the classroom is to set it up to show the latest updates from popular magazine-journal sites. An example of this could be the introduction of new articles from the Discovery website in a Biology class. Students will then be updated on the latest advancements in the field. The class could then open up into a discussion about the latest news.

Pros of this Technology

1) Students can feel that they have control over their work and progress. On their blog sites they decide what is and isn’t to be published and read by others.

2) By introducing this technology in the classroom, students become aware of the latest communication forms. This will give them an advantage in higher education and work environments. Companies will be more likely to hire those applicants with the ability to use the latest technology and don’t need extra training.

Cons of this Technology

1) Not all students have access to technology in their homes. This will prevent them from equal participation. In the case of blogging for parents, some will not be as informed of the activities as others.

2) Preexisting knowledge of technology use may also influence who is successful in the classroom. In some cases this may parallel cultural, racial, and socioeconomic lines. Effort must be made to make sure that all students regardless of their background have an equal opportunity to learn and succeed.

Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

After taking a multiple intelligence and learning styles test, the highest relevant category returned was that of a naturalist. In order to analyze this learning style in further detail, the website http://surfaquarium.com/MI/profiles/index.htm was consulted.

From this website some core characteristics of a naturalist which best defines me were determined. These included Natural Orientation and Hierarchical Reasoning. These fit my personality in that I assign value to items or situations according to their intrinsic states.

Students who share these characteristics will tend to excel in science classes where naturalism and environmental factors are studied. They will enjoy collecting specimens and organizing them according to physical, organic, or zoological categories. They will learn best by analyzing figures and graphs, and sorting the information into comprehensive systems.

As a teacher, in order to accommodate these students, I would use teaching techniques that included the grouping and sorting of organisms according to their genetic closeness or place on the food chain. Other exercises will include the construction of ecological webs in order to demonstrate the interactions between organisms. In order for these students to reflect on their work, they will develop a portfolio according to different scientific disciplines.

Some of the instruments that the students will use include microscopes, sample boxes, and specimen bins. The students will also be introduced to newer technologies such as genetic databases online.

In order best accommodate students who are naturalists, I will have many lively prints and figures on the walls. As allowed by regulations, there will also be small live animals that exhibit social interactions that can easily be observed. An example would be an ant colony within a thin glass enclosure. There will also be stuffed zoological specimens so that the students can observe outer physiological characteristics up close.

Because not all students share my method of learning, other teaching strategies will be employed. These will include more hands on experiments, discussion groups, and independent work.

PUPS