Before this week, I never really thought about “learning in the collective.” After our Twitter Chat and reading the chapter, I grasped an understanding of what this really meant. One part of the text that stuck out to me was in the area of blogging. In the past year, I have seen many blog posts, and news articles, passed around Facebook on the topic of the recent election. Thomas & Brown (2011) talk about how blogging is a way for us to express our ideas and have them shared and challenged, therefore creating a collective. They are real thoughts from people without the corporation behind them. Dylan Kissane (2015) points out one reason that people read blogs is, “When a blog reader has reason to distrust traditional sources of information, blogs fill the gap”. With all the news articles flying around, it was hard to know what to think. Reading others blogs helped me see how others thought about topics and helped me form my own ideas in a much deeper way than I ever could on my own.
Thinking about collectives reminded me of a video that I found last semester. It is from a 2009 ThinkQuest competition for children ages 9-19 to create a website. They need a coach and teams of 3-6 people. The cool thing about the teams is that they could physically live near each other, or they could be peers anywhere around the world. They worked together to create an educational website for 7 months. The collective work of the group highlighted is phenomenal. They are working toward one goal and each person is contributing. Thomas & Brown (2011) say, “Students learn best when they are able to follow their passion and operate within the constraints of a bounded environment. Both of those elements matter. Without the boundary set by the assignment of playing the prelude, there would be no medium for growth. But without the passion, there would be nothing to grow in the medium” (Kindle Locations 1055-1057). These children are passionate about their work and have boundaries within the competition to truly learn. In reflection of how I have learned in collectives and seeing examples of how students have learned in collectives, I wondered how this sort of learning could be incorporated into the classroom. Thomas & Brown (2011) made a point of a worry I had about using the internet for a collective, they say, “Left to their own devices, there is no telling what students will do. If you give them a resource like the Internet and ask them to follow their passion, they will probably meander around finding bits and pieces of information that move them from topic to topic—and produce a very haphazard result” (Kindle Locations 1078-1080). Some suggestions to foster a collective in the classroom begin with in-class activities, not necessarily on the internet. McCarthy (2015) speaks of four ways to foster student questions. When students question and inquire, they show interests in the topics. When a group of students are doing this, they have created a collective. One suggestion that he gives is to facilitate a “chalk talk.” This is when students write about a topic by adding onto each others comments on a white board (or any other large surface to draw on). The key factor is that they can only communicate on the board and can ask questions and make comments. I did this when I was in high school and thinking about it now in relation to our Twitter Chats, it almost seems like a precursor to the online version of communication. References Edutopia. (2012, May 08). Retrieved February 16, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsQqoTHZV2Y Kissane, D. (2015, October 07). The Nine Reasons People Read Blogs. Retrieved February 16, 2017, from http://www.doz.com/content/blogs-nine-reasons-people-read McCarthy, J. (2015, August 17). Fostering Student Questions: Strategies for Inquiry-Based Learning. Retrieved February 16, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/strategies-for-inquiry-based-learning-john-mccarthy Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, KY: CreateSpace? Kindle Edition.
3 Comments
Natalie
2/18/2017 01:43:16 pm
I was thinking about all the news flying around too. How can we tell what media to trust? I honestly have no idea. Even when I am researching for our weekly topics, sometimes I have trouble distinguishing websites, sponsored sites and the facts vs. opinions. I can see why students would have the same issue. It is a lot of information to process. I was never taught how to seek credible sources, we were just left to figure it out on our own. I wonder if teachers go over this in middle/high school now?
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larissa
2/18/2017 04:26:10 pm
Hi Andrea,
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Tristan
2/18/2017 05:52:31 pm
I like the idea of a “chalk talk” before letting them loose in an atmosphere such as Twitter to make comments to each other in the virtual world where it becomes part of their digital footprint. I think it could be a very beneficial way to teach kids how what they say online is something that is viewable by everyone, just like what you write on the board can be seen by everyone in the classroom. I think it would work great in upper elementary before they really start getting into the social media and the internet (I guess nowadays, they are getting into at a younger and younger age, before long we will have to teach it to like first graders.).
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