Week 29

           


           

Week 29 

For this Weeks blog I will look at my professional use of online networks using the Jay and Johnson’s reflective model.

Descriptive

At the moment I find great inspiration from browsing and liking ideas on the social curation site – Pinterest for ideas for resources. When incorporating blended learning tasks the use of Youtube clips is great for enhancing students synthesising skills. Since joining mind-lab I have found the social interactions within the google plus community to be invaluable through the feeling of camaraderie and the opportunity to learn from colleagues. The use of google docs within the school is such an efficient and effective way to communicate and collaborate with team members. I have incorporated the seesaw app with the early adopters in my class and I will need to be more confident to use this more effectively with the entire class. I will also need to connect with other classrooms and develop stronger home-school partnerships with families as their children could share their work and clips of their learning . I definitely think that as a practitioner I need to connect with other educators throughout the world. I would have to troubleshoot any potential problems before implementing blogs or twitter into the classroom and beyond, as I do have concerns for safety.  

Comparative

It is vital that we develop 21^st century learners. The digital age is evolving at an incredible speed, faster than the change experienced during the Industrial Revolution, schools need to be able to adapt and change to suit these needs (Whitaker, Zoul, & Casas, 2015, p. 10). Change does not happen without educators becoming the agents for change. I am guilty of not being more adaptable and I need to be more connected with social media. I could start with a classroom blog and then share this with the school and then share within a wider community. To prepare students for the future we as educators must move beyond the past 50 years of education and become lifelong learners, we need to be connective educators. (Whitaker et al., 2015). There is also a need for agency so that students are motivated to drive their own learning. According to Melhuish whostates that the flexibility to facilitate learning using online technologies is vital for sustainable learning. As lifelong learners we as educators must also drive our own learning and lead this change.

Critical reflection

The great thing about mind-lab and google+ is that we have been exposed to the potential use of 21^st century learning in the classroom, and we have the support of our online community. As Mishra’s (2009) research stipulates that, “if you’re not going to change your pedagogy, then technology use makes no significant difference”. (as cited in Wright 2010, p 31).  I am the person who can make a big difference to the learners in my class and I definitely could be utilising technology in a more meaningful way by incorporating a connective platform for the learners in my class.

References

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han…

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054.

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What connected educators do differently. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wright, N. (2010). e-Learning and implications for New Zealand schools: a literature review. Ministry of Education, New Zealand (p. 55). https://doi.org/10.1.1.617.4373