Engagement Task 1 - Mobile Phone Wiki

The first reflective task saw myself and other students engage with an online Wiki to answer a question in relation to using mobile phones in the classroom. Our responses to this question were variable using De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. To begin with the task felt quite over whelming having not engaged with Wiki too much but I soon learnt,  there was not a great deal to be worry about.

The practice of the Wiki promotes a Social Constructivist approach to learning, while incorporating the use of Connectivism. On reflection the use of an online forum such as a Wiki, encourages working collaboratively which is beneficial to learning via distance, and up to date with 21^st century learning. It is set up as a social classroom environment – the learning manager asks the questions and the students answer accordingly in writing. You are able to view each participating individual’s perspective as they update the Wiki, which in a normal classroom setting there would be no time for. It is heavily reliant on the participation of the students, who are active participants in expanding their own knowledge and understanding.

There will always be benefits and drawback in participating in a learning forum such as Wiki. The layout of the Wiki was very easy to navigate and a great introduction to the site for those not familiar with using online technologies or ‘tech savvy’. The features contained as part of the Wiki are similar to those of other sites making editing details easy to find. The benefit of using a Wiki within the classroom allows students to work collaboratively with one another to share ideas, yet they can still be completing the task individually. It is another was of presenting topics and ideas as an engaging tool for the 21^st century. I did experience difficulties with the internet connection while updating the Wiki. However, luckily a feature of the Wiki is to automatically save current work (even if you didn’t click save), which is recovered next time you access the site. Also different colours were matched up with names enabling the reader to identify the ideas of each individual; however it did cause confusion for those who chose to use the standard black font consecutively. It was difficult to tell if comments were separate paragraphs or from a new person. As mentioned the downside to using an online forum is the irregularity of the internet connection.  In the classroom this may make it difficult for the learning manager to monitor the responses of the students on Wiki, which may result in behaviour management issues. Luckily the simple editing tool makes it easy for any inappropriateness to be removed.

This Wiki activity was well scaffolded in conjunction with the use of De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. Using this higher order thinking tool enables you to look at issues from different viewpoints such as a negative approach, the benefits, an emotional and creative approach along with looking at the process and the facts.  It provides a clear approach to higher order thinking allowing the user to focus on one hat at a time to further develop their thoughts. This has also been done by providing guiding questions relating to each individual hat. The learning outcomes are demonstrated through the use of De Bono’s Hats by enabling the respondent to look further into an issue, instead of just taking a once sided stance which is intuitive to us.