UserPage:Stacey

Link to my facilitated page:

iPods, Education and You

Pages I have contributed to:

7 Reasons to avoid wikis and what you can say to counter them

Classrooms vs Learning Spaces The Changing Face of Education

Practical Applications

Google much more than a search engine

Nomads as Learners: on the move and out of range?

Strategies for facilitating my wiki page:

• Creating links to my page in the TOC section of knowledgeGarden, in both the Tools, Technologies, Tools and their application section; and FET8611 Emerging Learning Environments section.

• Making other members of our course aware of, and ask them to contribute to, my facilitated page by providing them with links to my page by:

• Informing them through our FET8611 course discussion forums.

• Sending messages to my “friends”.

• Using the Shoutbox.

• Inviting others to contribute to, and comment on, my wiki page by:

• Adding “URinvited2” contribute in my wiki page.

• Adding a comments section in my wiki page.

• Inviting my “friends” to contribute to my page.

• Seeking contributions and feedback from members in my workgroup, and other members of our course.

• Acknowledging the contribution of others to my page by inviting them to add their name to the contributors list on my page.

• Re-organising the information contained within my page, as needed.

Problems I foresee

There may be a limited number of contributions to my page, and the pages of other students, as there are a limited number of people in our FET8611 course. In addition, I may find it difficult to contribute to the pages of some other members of our course due to facilitated pages being unavailable to edit as a result of user access permission levels that have been set. Further, technology can be unpredictable. If kG becomes inaccessible again, this may also affect the number and quality of contributions to my page.

Other Information

By researching to contribute to other students’ wiki pages, my knowledge has continued to increase, I have found out a number of interesting things and I have been exposed to new technologies, some of which I did not even know existed. A very worthwhile task!

What I am going to do:

In May this year, I began to explore virtual classrooms using Blackboard, which is part of the Learning Place website. Since then I have set up a virtual classroom for my students to utilise both in school time and in their own time. However, there are many features within Blackboard that I haven’t yet explored including the use of wikis, Respondus and StudyMate. I would like to explore these Blackboard features and, where possible, apply my newly acquired knowledge to benefit my students within my virtual classroom.

How I am going to do it:

In order to achieve my goals, I am going to undertake research on the Learning Place website to ascertain information on the purpose of each of these tools, suggested ways for using these tools and how to set up these tools. I will also liaise with the Learning Place staff via email or telephone, as needed, to assist me in finding answers to my questions. As I am a member of the newly formed Middle Phase of Learning eLearning (MPEL) Community which was set up in July this year for teachers in Hervey Bay, I will liaise with colleagues in this group to find out whether or not they have used these features in their teaching practices, and if they have I will seek their support and ideas, as needed. Further, I will test out the functions of each of these tools. I then will peruse units of work that I am currently implementing or about to implement to actively and creatively look for ways of using these tools in a contextually relevant manner. Where possible, I will then use these tools to create activities for my students. After implementing these activities, I will reflect on, and seek feedback from my students regarding the positives of each activity as well as improvements I could make for next time.

What I will produce:

I will produce an enhanced virtual classroom which contains activities that utilise some or all of these tools, including wikis, StudyMate and Respondus.

People I will work with (if anyone):

I intend to work independently this project. However, as mentioned above, I will utilise the support tools available to me from the Learning Place, and the support of MPEL colleagues, as needed.

How I would like my work to be evaluated:

I would like my work to be judged according to the progress that I have made in achieving my goals. Consequently, I will keep a journal of my progress using Mahara. I can then include blog entries as an appendix to my final report as well as screen dumps from within my virtual classroom which can be used as evidence of my use of these tools.