skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Video can be “a powerful educational and motivational tool” (Duffy, 2008, p. 124). In more traditional, behaviorist classrooms, video can be used by the teacher during direct instruction to enhance and supplement the content being presented to the class. As well, instructors striving to accommodate the varied Multiple Intelligences of students in their classroom may use video clips to assist those students with visual/spatial intelligence (Kagan & Kagan, 1998, p. 4.16).
When video sharing web sites are used to host student-generated videos, learning shifts from being teacher-centered and delivered, to being a more constructivist, student-centered learning environment. “Knowledge construction has become a key term in describing a more active student role in developing and creating their own knowledge” (Erstad, 2002, p. 429). YouTube and other web sharing sites offer students the opportunity to create learning communities, giving everyone an opportunity to contribute and have a voice. These learning communities, also known as communities of practice, consist of a group of students who come together to share their knowledge while working towards a common objective (Wenger, 2003). Value is given equally to both the content and the network of learners who discovered and shared the content (Duffy, 2008, p. 125). By engaging in the process of producing video that can be shared, students become aware that “knowledge is not constituted simply by individual effort, but collectively” (Lee, McLoughlin & Chan, 2008, p. 518). Social software tools such as web sharing allow students to become “active participant[s] as they construct a learning landscape rooted in social interaction, knowledge exchange, and optimum cognitive development with their peers” (Baird & Fisher, 2005, p. 24), thus supporting the community of practice learning theory.
Creating and posting student-generated videos also supports connectivist learning theory. “According to connectivism, knowledge is distributed across an information network and can be stored in a variety of digital formats” (Kop & Hill, 2008, p. 2). Connectivist learning theory further contends
the learning process is cyclical, in that learners will connect to a network to share and find new information, will modify their beliefs on the basis of new learning, and will then connect to a network to share these realizations and find new information once more. (Kop & Hill, 2008, p. 2)
Creating videos that can be converted into MP3 format and uploaded to video-sharing web sites allows students to contribute to information networks.
References
Baird, D., & Fisher, M. (2006). Neomillennial user experience design strategies: Utilizing social networking media to support always on learning styles. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 34(1), pp. 5-32.
Duffy, P. (2008). Engaging the YouTube – Google eyed generation: Strategies for using Web 2.0 in teaching and learning. Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 6(2), pp. 119 – 130.
Erstad, O. (2002). Norwegian students using digital artifacts in project-based learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18(4), pp. 427-437.
Kagan, S. & Kagan, M., (1999). Multiple intelligences: The complete MI book. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Cooperative Learning.
Kop, R., & Hill, A. (2008). Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past?. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3), pp. 1-13.
Lee, M., McLoughlin, C., & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: Learner-generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), pp. 501-521.
Wenger, E. (2003). Communities of practice and social learning systems. In Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D., Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-based Approach. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Additional Readings on Video Sharing
Berg, J., Berquam, L., & Christoph, K. (2007). Social networking technologies: A poke for campus services. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(2), pp. 32-44. Retrieved February 12, 2009 from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/SocialNetworkingTechnolog/40692.
Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S. & Faceer, K. (2006). Opening education: Social software and learning. Bristol: Futurelab. Retrieved January 26, 2009 from http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/opening-education-reports/Opening-Education-Report199.
Trier, J. (2007). Cool engagements with YouTube: Part 1. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(5), pp. 408-412.
Mullen, R., & Wedwick, L. (2008). Avoiding the digital abyss: Getting started in the classroom with YouTube, digital stories, and blogs. Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 82, pp. 66-69.
A podcast is “an MP3 file that can be automatically downloaded to a computer, iPod, or MP3 player through a podcast aggregator, which is based on RSS and XML technology” (Baird & Fisher, 2005, p. 20).
Podcasts can be used to support direct instruction, a learning model rooted in behaviorism where a learner is presented with “oral or written discourse that explicitly expresses the target knowledge that he or she is supposed to acquire” (Nokes & Ohlsson, 2005, p. 770). Students and teachers can access third-party content in the form of podcasts from online podcast directories where users search for and download information on a variety of topics (Rosell-Augilar, 2007, p. 472). Baird and Fisher (2005) believe podcasts retrieved “from reputable sources could easily augment the content in a traditional classroom setting, providing students with new and exciting ways to receive content and structure their learning on their own time and schedule” (p. 20).
Lee, McLoughlin and Chan (2008) believe podcasts should do more than deliver content. They advocate “greater student control and ownership of the technology, and its use as a means for encouraging collaboration” (Lee, McLoughlin & Chan, 2008, p. 518). Collaboration is an essential component of communities of practice. Wenger (2003) explains community of practice as a group of individuals who combine their shared knowledge to learn from each other as they work together towards a common goal. When students work together to create a podcast, they share their collective knowledge of both content and technology to produce the podcast.
Instructors using a constructivist approach to learning “look not for what students can repeat, but for what they can generate, demonstrate, and exhibit” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p. 16). In their study on learner-generated podcasts, Lee, McLoughlin and Chan (2008) began with the premise that “the true potential of podcasting technology lies in its knowledge-creation value, and its use as a vehicle for disseminating learner-generated content” (p. 504). Their research confirmed this assumption.
The activities of creating and recording the podcasts combined elements of collaboration and cooperation among participants, and therefore brought together a number of elements common to both constructs, i.e., active learning, student self-direction, participation in group activities and team skills developed through group processes and reciprocity. (Lee, McLoughlin & Chan, 2008, p. 50
Vess (2006) also found student-generated podcasts resulted in “more reflection and a more sustained attempt to improve oral skills than is usually the case in a traditional classroom setting” (p. 486). Through reflective activities, students engage in knowledge construction by being actively involved in organizing their thoughts and building meaning (Du & Wagner, 2007, p. 4).
References
Baird, D., & Fisher, M. (2006). Neomillennial user experience design strategies: Utilizing social networking media to support always on learning styles. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 34(1), pp. 5-32.
Brooks, J., & Brooks, M., (1999). In search of understanding: The case for constructivist classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Lee, M., McLoughlin, C., & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: Learner-generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), pp. 501-521.
Nokes, T., & Ohlsson, S. (2005). Comparing multiple paths to mastery: What is learned?. Cognitive Science, 29(5), pp. 769-796.
Rosell-Aguilar, F. (2007). Top of the pods-In search of a podcasting podagogy for language learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(5), pp. 471-492.
Vess, D. (2006). History to go: Why iTeach with iPods. History Teacher, 39(4), pp. 479-492.
Wenger, E. (2003). Communities of practice and social learning systems. In Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D., Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-based Approach. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Additional Readings on Podcasting
Adam, A., & Mowers, H. (2007). Listen up! The best in educational audio. School Library Journal, 53(12), pp. 44-46.
Brown, A., & Green, T. (2008). Video podcasting in perspective: The history, technology, aesthetics, and instructional uses of a new medium. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 36(1), pp. 3-17.
Campbell, G. (2005). There's something in the air: Podcasting in education. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(6), pp. 33-46. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheresSomethingintheAirPo/40587.
McLoughlin, C., Lee, M., & Chan, A. (2006). Using student generated podcasts to foster reflection and metacognition. Journal of the Australian Council for Computers in Education, 21(2), pp. 34-40.
Windham, C. (2007). Confessions of a podcast junkie. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(3), pp. 51-65. Retrieved February 12, 2009, from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/ELI/ConfessionsofaPodcastJunk/39405.
With the easy availability of wiki hosting and development tools, such as PBWiki, Wikispaces, and Mediawiki, wikis are becoming a favoured social software tool in education (Wheeler, Yeomans & Wheeler, 2008, p.989). They are being used for “collaborative writing of documentation and essays, brainstorming, bulletin boards...project status updates, or persistent discussion boards” (Watson, Boudreau, York, & Greiner, 2008, p.79). However, Cole (2009) suggests the use of wikis in an educational context depends on the teacher’s preferred method of instruction and that Wikis are less suited to behaviourist models and more applicable to constructivist and collaborative learning models (p. 142).
Wikis are collaborative by design and “it is the collective (e.g. class) activities that give rise to content formation, structure, and (indefinite) growth” (Lund, 2008, p. 41). Traditionally, writing activities have been undertaken as individual assignments. The use of wikis, where “interdependency is not an option but its rationale” (Lund, 2008, p.41) will require a shift in practice from instruction that focuses on individual learning towards more collective, social learning. Wenger (2003) identifies communities of practice as “the basic building blocks of a social learning system” (p. 80). Communities of practice consist of groups of individuals who share their collective knowledge and learn from each other as they work together towards a common goal (Wenger, 2003). Achterman (2006) supports the use of wikis for knowledge acquisition. He finds “some of the most exciting research happens when students collaborate to pool their research and analyze their data, forming a kind of understanding that would be difficult for an individual student to achieve” (Achterman, 2006, p. 19).
A key feature of the constructivist model of learning is that each individual “constructs his or her own unique meaning through his or her own cognitive processes” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p. 20). In their research on the use of wikis in a social studies classroom, Heafner & Friedman (2008) found wikis had the “potential to shift student uses of the internet from the static recollection of facts...to a scenario in which students are actively engaged in the subject matter in order to develop their own understandings, and thus become generators of knowledge” (p. 300). Further, Brooks & Brooks (1999) state “when students want to know more about an idea, a topic, or an entire discipline, they put more cognitive energy into classroom investigations and discussions and study more on their own” (p. 20). However, Heafner & Friedman (2008) also reported students who created wikis did not perform as well as the control group who received more traditional teacher-centered instruction when administered end of term tests. Nevertheless, they found students who created wikis retained more content knowledge and had a broader understanding of the topic being researched (Heafner & Friedman, 2008, p. 300).
References
Achterman, D. (2006). Beyond "Wikipedia". Teacher Librarian, 34(2), pp. 19-22.
Brooks, M. & Brooks, J. (1999). The courage to be constructivist. Educational Leadership, 57 (3), pp. 18-24.
Cole, M. (2009). Using wiki technology to support student engagement: Lessons from the trenches. Computers & Education, 52(1), pp. 141-146.
Heafner, T., & Friedman, A. (2008). Wikis and constructivism in secondary social studies: Fostering a deeper understanding. Computers in the Schools, 25(3/4), pp. 288-302.
Lund, A. (2008). Wikis: A collective approach to language production. ReCALL, 20(1), pp. 35-54.
Watson, R., Boudreau, M., York, P., Greiner, M., & Wynn, D. (2008). Opening the classroom. Journal of Information Systems Education, 19(1), pp. 75-85.
Wenger, E. (2003). Communities of practice and social learning systems. In Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D., Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-based Approach. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(6), pp. 987-995.
Additional Readings on Wikis
Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning?. EDUCAUSE Review, 41(2), pp. 33-44. Retrieved February 6, 2009, from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/Web20ANewWaveofInnovation/40615.
Bryant, T. (2006). Social software in academia. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 29(2), pp. 61-64. Retrieved January 26, 2009, from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/SocialSoftwareinAcademia/39976.
Choy, S., & Ng, K. (2007). Implementing wiki software for supplementing online learning. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(2), pp. 209-226. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/choy.html.
Morgan, B., & Smith, R. (2008). A wiki for classroom writing. Reading Teacher, 62(1), pp. 80-82.
Weblogs, or blogs as they are more commonly known, were originally developed as a “personal journaling tools” (Wang & Hsua, 2008, p. 81). They are characterized by content that is usually listed in reverse chronological order, are web-based, and can be linked to other websites and blogs (Du & Wagner, 2006, p. 790).
Constructivism centers on the premise that learning is “a process of knowledge construction by an individual (Du & Wagner, 2007, p. 3). “Deep understanding, not imitative behavior is the goal” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p. 16). In their research on the use of weblogs as a reflective writing tool, Du and Wagner (2007) assert “keeping a log of learning experiences, insights, and reflections has long been accepted by educators as an effective pedagogical practice to enhance students’ learning” (p. 3). They contend that the use of blogs as a medium for presenting learning supports knowledge construction by requiring students to be actively engaged in organizing their thoughts and building meaning, promoting ongoing and continuous learning, and by encouraging improvement through self-reflection (Du & Wagner, 2007, p. 4).
When blogs are used to support discussion, Wang and Hsua (2008) suggest, “interacting on the blog may help to stimulate the cognitive conflict among participants and provide participants with opportunities to express different perspectives” (p. 82). Although blog access can be restricted, there is the potential for global interaction to occur and students may receive feedback from individuals in another class, another school or even another country. On the basis of the collaborative constructivism model, interaction and collaboration become significant because “learning is achieved more effectively through social interaction and collaboration with others than through individual effort alone” (Du & Wagner, 2007, p. 4).
Perhaps the greatest asset in using blogs is the ability for students to become part of a community of practice; an “interactive social learning environment, as students learn from the ideas of others, as they share knowledge resources, and compare/compete with the work of each other” (Du & Wagner, 2007, p.4). Community of practice theory regards learning as a social activity where individuals share their knowledge and learn from each other (Wenger, 2003). Anderson (2005) believes tools such as RSS feeds contribute to the success of blogs since “contributing to a learning community and not receiving feedback or acknowledgment of that contribution quickly discourages and tends to extinguish further participation” (p. 5). RSS feeds allow blog readers to subscribe to sites that contain information and articles of interest to them. In that way, “readers can gain insights regarding a topic and build dialogue with other bloggers and ... develop a deep understanding of and take more responsibility for their own knowledge” (Kim, 2008, p. 265). Subscribing to blogs through RSS feeds allow learners to become part of a larger community of practice.
References
Anderson, T. (2005). Distance learning – Social software’s killer ap? Paper presented at the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, Breaking the boundaries: The international experience in open, distance and flexible education. Retrieved January 26, 2009, from www.unisa.edu.au/odlaaconference/PPDF2s/13%20odlaa%20-%20Anderson.pdf
Brooks, J., & Brooks, M., (1999). In search of understanding: The case for constructivist classrooms. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Du, H., & Wagner, C. (2006). Weblog success: Exploring the role of technology. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 64(9), pp. 789-798.
Du, H., & Wagner, C. (2007). Learning with weblogs: Enhancing cognitive and social knowledge construction. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 50(1), pp. 1-16.
Kim, H. (2008). The phenomenon of blogs and theoretical model of blog use in educational contexts. Computers & Education, 51(3), pp. 1342-1352.
Wang, S. & Hsua, H. (2008). Reflections on using blogs to expand in-class discussion. TechTrends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, 52(3), pp. 81-85.
Wenger, E. (2003). Communities of practice and social learning systems. In Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D., Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-based Approach (pp. 76-100). New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Additional Readings on Weblogs
Ferdig, R., & Trammell, K. (2004). Content delivery in the Blogosphere. T.H.E. Journal, 31(7).
Kajder, S., Bull, G., & Van Noy, E. (2004). A space for writing without writing blogs in the language arts classroom. Mining the Internet. Learning and Leading with Technology, 31(6), pp. 32-35.
Leslie, P., & Murphy, E. (2008). Post-Secondary students' purposes for blogging. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3), pp. 1-17.
McGee, P., & Diaz, V. (2007). Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs! Oh, my! What is a faculty member supposed to do?. EDUCAUSE Review, 42(5), pp. 28-30. Retrieved January 31, 2009, from http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/WikisandPodcastsandBlogsO/44993.
Witte, S. (2007). That's online writing, not boring school writing: Writing with blogs and the Talkback project. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(2), pp. 92-96.
With the growing use of social software in education, it is prudent to analyze the effectiveness of these tools. This blog is a critical reflection, linking learning theories with four different forms of social software: weblogs, wikis, podcasting, and video sharing.
