Utilizing social bookmarking in education will be of great value to students, teachers, and administration. To begin with, teachers will be able to provide bookmarks for website that they want their students to use for purposes such as a research project. In this same regard, students could bookmark websites that they found useful, so as to share them with other students. Administrators and teachers could also mark websites that they recommend for professional utilization.
I am already impressed with the idea of social bookmarking. I found sites that I would have love to have known about earlier this school year. It was exciting for me to find a couple of these because they will help me present some information in a new and different way. They have also given me ideas for varied lessons so I can reach more students. I have already spoken with a teacher who teaches some of the same classes that I do about some of the websites I have tagged.. Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Macbeth are all literature that we have been teaching so far this year. This curriculum is very difficult for some of our students and some of the websites I have found will add to our repertoire of tools. She thought this would be useful because we can just add to the website instead of emailing every time we find a site that is useful.
The definitions for instructional technology in chapter 1 of Trends and Issues seem to become broader with each definition. When I first thought of a definition for instructional technology, I figured it would be somewhat along the line of the 1977 definition, which included the process but also people, procedures, devices, ideas, and organization. The definition I am more familiar with because of the educational aspect is the most recent one involving "facilitating learning and improving performance." In today’s education system, we hear definitions along this line frequently that include facilitating learning and improving performance through creative means.
Personally, I like the 1977 definition better because it actually gives more descriptive detail. The more recent one is broad and may involve technology being implemented through appropriate curriculum design. I believe both definitions have the same goal – the integration of technology into the education curriculum our students receive. The definitions have probably changed over time to match the consistently changing field of education. It seems as though every year or two there is a new definition for an old teaching strategy, lesson plan design, or application process to better the learning of our students. If it works or not, we don’t change it completely–we just modify it to make it sound better.
The definition that the book is using appears to cover the whole range of instructional design and technology, almost a complete definition. The one thing that I find lacking in all of these definitions is that none of them mention "students" or "learners." How can we talk about defining learning in any concept unless we consider who we are teaching? The whole basis for the development of instructional design and technology or any other type of curriculum should always mention and consider the learner in its definition.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Pat,
ReplyDeleteYour idea of sharing literature related websites with your colleagues through social bookmarking sounds like a great idea. You certainly sound like you are utilizing this to benefit the needs of your students. Would you ever open up social bookmarking as a means for your students to share information?
You make an excellent point regarding the "learner" being absent from any of the definitions. Perhaps that will come out in the next version of the definition! :-)
~Jennifer B
Pat,
ReplyDeleteYou have a wonderful attitude when it comes to these new tools to aid your students, colleagues, and your administrators. It will be interesting to see how your tagging grows or changes for the literature you teach. Initially I was resistant to leaving my folders behind. But now it’s easy to see how these different tags can be used to both expand and narrow the areas I’m looking for in all of my bookmarks. I was nervous at first about the social part of this site but now realize I only have to make public what I wish. From the “Delicious” home page you can see the most popular bookmarks. What a tool this could be for a teacher to reflect with students, “This is what people want to know about”. The 5 most popular “Tags” as of this second: Apple, Architecture, Media, Reference, and Investing (it changes every time I refresh).
What an excellent observation of the lack of mention of students/learners in these definitions. We are hearing so much more these days of the process of learner centered or learner focused teaching. I am hoping we will hear more of this in readings to come.
Jim W.
Hi Pat,
ReplyDeleteI think that is so great that you have found you can collaborate with a fellow faulty member using social bookmarking. I can see real value in that and I plan to put it to good use next time I have to work on research with someone else. As I have probably mentioned (frequently) before, I am not a teacher, but I think there are probably aspects of this tool that can be quite successfully used in the classroom. How extensively would depend on the grade, I'm sure.
I also especially liked your observation that the definitions all lacked in their failure to address the learner. Since they are the object receiving the action, it would seem that this should be a vital part of the equation when in comes to writing a definition of the field.
Hi, Pat:
ReplyDeleteBoth you and I have the same idea about the social bookmarking - it is to interchange the personal knowledge between users. We all know that it is not easy to accumulate many useful links or websites in just couple of hours, sometimes it will take days or weeks, even months to research those websites to determine whether they are useful, but with social bookmarking, we can interchange those valuable URLs with just couple of minutes. What a nice feather that the social bookmarking can provide, isn't it!
Thinking of the learner perspective in the educational technology definition is a very good point that you just pointed out. Indeed, education is the two-way communication between instructors and students, and both of them play the very crucial part in the whole educational system, so the learner perspective is the point we definitely need to address.
Shiao-Min
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI would be open for students to share information through social bookmarking as long as I could control what they are sharing. Being in an alternative education site, a few of my students tend to choose inappropriately at times.
I love the idea of using technology to increase and to help my students achieve mastery of objectives. I want them to learn in any way that can that I can help them.