Field Study # 2

#1 - WHAT AM I LEARNING ABOUT THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS? “I am learning that engagement and learning increases as familiarity with the technology and access to it increases.” Students noted throughout the field study that NING was easy to access and was very similar to other social-networking sites they had used. This familiarity and unlimited access led to a level of activity that I had not seen before using a classroom learning forum. Student activity on the website remained steady throughout my inquiry.

 Discussion Forums

 Student Additions

#2 - WHAT AM I LEARNING ABOUT TEACHING AND STUDENTS? “I am learning that motivation and engagement doesn’t always have to be linked to assessment.” Some of the educational research I used for my inquiry suggested that one of the biggest motivation factors for student engagement is assessment. I found this to be true in some cases, however throughout my inquiry students went beyond what was required of them. This activity led to an increase in collaboration and learning among students. Student motivation was coming from something other than assessment (intrinsic, ownership, pedagogical shift)

The data I have collected shows my students using the site on a number of different occassions for various reasons. Many of these are not required by me in their assessment, and seem to be for intrinsic value. I have given them a lot more access to my website in this field study, and have told them that this is a site for them to use as they please(within reason!). They have had to complete a couple of requirements set out by me, however they have definitely been motivated beyond this and are using the site on a regular basis. I’m not sure exactly what is causing this extra motivation. It could be because they have more access to it and are familiar with the site. Perhaps there is some motivation to show how much they actually know about certain topics and are genuinely interested in helping other students. Whatever the reason, it is definitely not all about assessment!

#3 – WHAT AM I LEARNING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY? “I am learning to critically evaluate the technology I am using in my classroom.” Although I found many advantages to use NING as an online tool for the classroom, I also found some disadvantages. Some aspects of NING were not user friendly. In particular, the ability to post and organize documents, and use the calendar and announcement features were not as user friendly as other social-networking sites. NING recently announced it was shutting down and going to pay only. This has affected my motivation to incorporate social-networking sites into my teaching.

 Uploading Documents

This was a debate I had in class. I simply wanted to put it on the calendar but the only way I could do this was to create an event and then invite all my students. This seemed very much like Facebook. I found the calendar feature on SharePoint much better for this type of task. CALENDAR AND EVENTS

“I found out today that NING will be shutting down its free site and going to pay only. One of my colleagues told me and I thought he was joking. Apparently not. Fortunately my inquiry is finished however I was hoping to use this site with future classes as I have had some success. I spent quite a bit of time monitoring the site and getting my students familiar with it and now that effort is wasted. I guess this is reality when we are dealing with hundreds of competing social-networking sites. Free sites were obviously not profitable enough for NING to continue. I think they jumped into the market late because it is very similar to Facebook. What to do now? I have heard some very good things about Moodle and I know it is something that will be around for a while because there are universities and schools using it. Definitely some background checks before I tackle anything new!”

Giving students more freedom on a class website had a positive effect on student motivation to use the site.

Individual student profiles are not needed to increase student engagement. Student activity was done on common pages. Individual profiles were simply a novelty.

Students learned from the class website, most of this learning coming from the contributions of others.

Ownership of a class website had a positive effect on student engagement.

WHAT DID I LEARN? Increased Learning Among Students Pedagogical Shift Student Ownership Increased Engagement and Motivation

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO ME!