BLACK BLUE RED WHITE GREEN YELLOW
I just Googled ‘what
is a wiki’. Before today, I had no idea what it was. Well, I though I had no
idea. Then I realised I have been using wiki’s since I did my first Google
search. It only just clicked to me that my favorite (not so reliable) source
‘Wikipedia’ was just that. A wiki. Somewhere that people can collaborate
information.
This week we used an
embedded wiki from the E-Learning moodle site to construct – or deconstruct ‘De
Bono’s six thinking hats’, on the topic ‘Mobile phones in the classroom’. Edward
De Bono’s six thinking hats encourage lateral and higher order thinking to what
can simply be ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions.
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https://debono11.wikispaces.com/file/view/wordle1.jpg/155102701/495x290/wordle1.jpg
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Wiki’s pull mainly
from the underlying learning theory that is social constructivism; learning
from others and collaborating between a group of people- peer education. This
is portrayed through De Bono’s hats wiki because each person has the
opportunity to input information, thoughts and feelings about the topic- the
scaffold supports a range of perspectives this way. Connectivism also comes
into play in this setting; connectivism being the learning theory of the
digital age. I think of it as, the path to finding the information, knowing how
and where to find it, is more important than the information itself. In a ‘wiki’
environment, all the information is readily available to be edited and added to
when needed. Any information relating to the topic is right there, even if you
can’t remember it all.
At the start of the
activity I had NO idea what I was meant to be doing, thrown in the deep end and
I really hoped I could swim… or at least make it to the side without drowning,
and that I did. As I read through the opinions of my classmates, it all sort of
clicked I finally ‘got it’ - going back to last weeks lessons of Felder &
Solomon’s learning styles of a Global Learner. This activity gave everyone in
the group an equal opportunity to participate and share their views on the
topic. This was excellent for me, as a first year working along side second and
third years, gave me insight into views of fellow future educators.
Although putting on my
‘black hat’ so to speak, an issue of this activity I found was that some of the
points were repeated multiple times, making the reading quite repetitive. On
some of the pages, there were a lot of people’s ideas, making it quite hard to
comprehend at times. Overall, the activity worked quite well and was set up to
model very well and could be easily adapted to other topics.
This could be a great
tool in the classroom for brainstorming or the like group situations. It uses
ICT to encourage parallel thinking and expand the mind. Using the six thinking
hats in a wiki activity gives students the ability to learn off each other and
collaborating ideas in a neat and tidy webpage. Because wiki’s are so
accessible, students could easily gain access at home to continue the
brainstorming or to reflect back on in times of revision etc.
I went in to the
activity thinking that mobile phones in the classroom were a bad idea –
probably because my schools have always reinforced that – reflecting back to my
behaviourisms. After the activity, I still wasn’t 100% convinced that each
child should have a mobile phone sitting beside them on their desk, although my
mind wasn’t closed to the idea that students couldn’t use them to positively
effect their education in the classroom. I believe that this shows really, how
successful this activity has been, the ability to open your imagination and
feed off others’ views and thoughts.
here is a link to our wiki about mobile phones in the classroom using De Bono's hats.
Thanks for reading. Hope it wasn't too long :)
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