Final Post and Class Review

From exploring the different technologies each week, reading others' reflections, giving/receiving feedback from peers, it was a bit easier to develop the design project. In the area of the Learning Theories since we were able to explore a few ahead of time I was able to utilize my research from past weeks and apply it to that particular section of the final design project.  The Learning Theories and Instructional design Models within themselves would have not been as clear and understood without the opportunity of the weekly online discussions. 

In addition being able to explore the many different technologies assisted me with the opportunity to not spend as much time understanding how to apply those systems and incorporate them into the final project.  For example since I had not thought in a few years, it was of great advantage to get a refresher in how to use EDMODO.  If I had not had the weekly design experiment I believe that I would have been quite lost on what the necessary steps and systems I should use in order to make my project complete.  Honestly, it was still quite a bit difficult to complete the entire assignment, at times it took me hours just to get through the content for only a few slides, but I believe knowing my personality I would have just giving up or done a poorly executed job without the assistance of the weekly assignments.

        For my final discussion post, the following is what I shared with my classmates on what I learned from my experiences in class in these past 4 weeks:

Distributed Learning and its definition was a revelation to me:

Distributed learning is not just a new term to replace the other 'DL,' distance learning. Rather, it comes from the concept of distributed resources. Distributed learning is an instructional model that allows instructor, students, and content to be located in different, non-centralized locations so that instruction and learning occur independent of time and place. The distributed learning model can be used in combination with traditional classroom-based courses, with traditional distance learning courses, or it can be used to create wholly virtual classrooms" (Saltzberg & Polyson, p. 10).

Reference

Saltzberg, S., & Polyson, S. (1995, September). Distributed learning on the World Wide Web. Syllabus, 9(1), 10.

                Dissecting the definition of distributed learning is creating the definition of modern teaching.  No longer are teachers the lecturers standing in front of class spitting out all the knowledge that is stored in their mind or from what they were able to gather, from preparation readings the night before. Teachers now must be creative, prepare not only small brief lectures explaining the lessons, but creating the outlets for students to be able to assess their own learning and access information that can be used independently from what is giving out in the classroom environment.  The Flip classroom model is the new and modern way of having a learning environment that is non-centralized, that can be combined with a classroom learning environment and make additional resources available outside of the classroom, that possible can’t be covered during class time or that students are needing more time to digest.  Currently, at the high school that I thought at students must take 8 classes a day for 45 minutes, so much information must be covered in each class that a flip classroom environment makes sense in order for students to catch up or be able to digest all the information thrown at them each day.  

Week 4 PBWORKS/WIKIS

(T- in TPACK) The idea of a WIKI Space for class is to have a collaborative space where class members could meet, exchange assignment, collaborate, and store files online. I've enjoyed as a teacher using PBWorks wiki as a quick and easy way to deliver content to students in my Spanish classes.  I created a class wiki to house all sorts of information including class syllabus, class schedules, contact information, class pacing, links to important sites, and then class content.   In recent years I’ve used it as platform for students in upper level classes of grammar and literature to create webpages, collaborate (lit circles), present work (slides, videos), submit work (essays, research papers), and build  social media projects (e.g. Facebook-like pages for Don Quijote characters). In order to edit a WiKI it is quite similar to editing and working on Google Docs and includes uploads for tables and for YouTube videos. Similar to our conversation last week with the Flip Classroom class, teachers can set up assignments in a wiki page with mini-lessons, essential questions, directions, hyperlinks, and downloadable documents.

Some of the affordances available via PB Works and WIKIS include creating a lesson that includes text, an image, or even a slideshow; deliver these along with instructions, questions and answers.  Teachers can also teach students how to edit their own pages and submit work. It does take time to set up student accounts, but it becomes after all the set up a time-saving and flexible way to prepare class activities, as long as all students had computer access as was the case at the high school that I thought at. There is an online manual for educators and I have always found the PBWorks support staff to be very friendly and respond quickly.  Through the years of using WIKIS and PBWorks students have gain essential digital literacy skills from the experience of working in the wiki environment of designing pages, formatting and organizing files, and submitting documents online.(C-TPACK)  As we cover a new units of information in class, we would add a page of class content that I would make students in charge of.   

So for example:
Learning Objective:  The student analyses literary and related text in target language.
Learning Outcomes:  Ability to develop and carry out research projects in Spanish, including term papers and biographical research.
Each student would be responsible for their own wiki space and be incharge of a particular literary piece as well as the author, this leads to ownership of that material by the students. Students would then become familiar with ways to add video, links, pictures, etc. and then would present this to the class. We would then discuss as a class the content that was presented by each student to make sure that all information is pertinent and correct and what should be added/changed/deleted, and what other suggestions could be implemented in order to improve and make the page better.
 The page is also a way to assess the assignment as we want to make the page useful to every student, parent, and teacher who came across the lesson on the internet.  Parents could access he page for class information and could instantly see what their students were working on in class. Students will have a place to go to see all work created and review each author and literary piece for the upcoming spring AP test.

(P-TPACK)Looking at the learning theories that were part of our discussion this week - PBworks allows teachers and students a medium in which to create a content rich Wiki, that increases ownership in the learning process and supports the theory of distributive learning as well as distributive cognition.   By creating pages within the Wikispace that can house all sorts of information Distributed learning is a generated by using PBWorks as a  multi-media method of instructional delivery that includes a mix of Web-based instruction.  The learning theory of distributed cognition is also created and fulfilled via this platform by a collection of individuals and artifacts and their relations to each other in a particular work practice.  The collection of artifacts in this case study is an example of the pages created by the Spanish Lit students that would be each students responsibility to manage and upload with the necessary information and research that covers the author and literary piece that they have been assigned.