Tech Playtesting Assignment 1: Blogs

Ponder. Write. Publish Web Blog.

Blogs are a condensed/combined term that refers to a "Web log." Blogs can be considered a modern form of journaling that is published online via the internet. Through the years, blogs have developed personal journals and diaries, too often used technology tool for online publishing of hobbies, certain topics, and subject matter posts, to community, group, family, library, educational, and many other wide arrays of topics and venues to distribute information online. Blogs often originate from a single author to some platforms that include the voices of multiple authors who collaborate (if you will) on a particular topic of interest. Blogs are created with the use of technology via software programs that are fairly easy to use and only a bit more advanced than your average email programs. Software programs for blogging including the following, which I have taken some time to explore including Blogger, Wix, WordPress, and Tumblr just to name a few are popular blog sites. These four blogging sites just mentioned offer very basic blogging features including templates, easy to use, with similar editing spaces that you can customize as well. Unlike mainstream large scale public websites, these blogging sites are created and published by individual people who can be as creative as they like (within the limits of the software platform users choose) as they express themselves, hobbies, interests, communities….

Using blogs, depending on the software and its available feature for that platform of choice, users can include images, videos, text, and other digital links and files, which differ from vlogs (video logs), and glogs (graphics logs) in that medium is videos specifically or graphics, respectively. Discussion boards are like blogs however they allow for cooperative and collaborative interactions via the reply feature by users. In addition, these replies/comments/responses/questions to initial threads where these replies…, are nested under the original post and they can all be grouped together. Blogs, however, are not conducive to those types of interactions between users, mainly because in general, the focus of a blog is the bloggers message and limited comments are allowed.

It is important to note that using any technology, additional technology tools within those software platforms are enabled based upon the subscription one chooses/purchases/upgrades. In general, however each of these blogging sites mentioned above (as well as others) have free versions of the software with limited features such as the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, templates, layouts, and other minimal settings and features that will be perfectly acceptable for using in the classroom.

Blog Learning Experience

This experience for me as a learner (surprisingly, known for being a proficient tech-savvy user) has been an extreme and intimidating (if you will) one in that we were being asked to learn about blogging technology tools, select one to move forward and use as we learn and incorporate our learning about using technology (such as blogs) including the SAMR and TPACK Models as it relates to our teaching of our academic career subject matter. This is daunting to say the least, but thankfully, I am up for the challenge (this one learning experience being a more difficult one to overcome). This week in my exploration of blogs, I have noticed as a learner (in the moment) as well as a technology user, support resource, and educator that there are lots of things to consider when using blogs and incorporating them into the learning environments. As a learner/user, when I researched blogs, one thing stuck out primarily in my mind which was for the (future) learners in that I wanted to make sure that the specific software blogging site I choose has an easy user-interface, it is free and/or very affordable, and the specific features that the blog site offered to its adopters/users if I chose their application in my journey through becoming a blogger. As a technology support person and an educator, I wanted to make sure that the blogging site had a very user-friendly authoring interface and that I, the educator, wouldn’t have to spends droves of time (which there isn’t ever enough of in the first place for us all) that would interfere with the students time to learn subject matter, but that we just maybe do a quick technology tips session guide and prompt the students on the introductions of this technology tool, do’s and don’ts, and some helpful tips before we dove into the “using of the blog” to incorporate it into the subject matter learning. Sometimes I feel as a user, learner, and teacher that if the technology being used in the learning environment is not very intuitive, then the learners focus inadvertently gets redirected to the learning of and struggle of the software application instead of using it to learn and maintain focus on the learning of the subject matter. Thinking of this experience this week, reading and reflecting on even my fellow classmates and them working with their students of a wide variety of age and grade levels, I can imagine the priority shift and balance between learning the subject matter they are teaching/learning with their use of blogs, in this case. As an avid user of technology in every aspect of my life, when I am working with others beit my family (who are not all tech savvy), friends, students, and co-workers, my thoughts are to make sure that when using the technology in whatever the person is using it for in the classroom, at grocery stores, in our homes…, that the learning curve isn’t huge or intimidating for them, that then adversely affects the focus of learning material and subjects, purchasing items and goods, or whatever the original intended purpose and use that the technology tool was plugging the benefits of adopting/purchasing. Even more difficult in the learning environments and institutions specifically is the often lack of involving the end-users (teachers mainly, and students) in the decision making process when seeking out newer technologies needed to improve the learning process, workloads, and work processes…. These were just some of the things that I was pondering/juggling with this week as I learned about blogs, choosing the technology tool, using blogs for given assignment, how to support learning, and others. Also, the thoughts came up for me as the learner doing this assignment this week, and the guidance, learning prompts, and “choice” of the learners to select whichever blogging site software application that we want to. On that note, my thought shifted to you, Dr. Dondlinger), the professor and how this decision affects  how you, the teacher will review and grade this assignment from us by each of these individually chosen “blogsites.” In conclusion, the struggle, juggle, and balance is daunting and real.

Blog Learning Experience Affordances

Once the learner (me…) has persisted through the choice of, and learning process of the online blogsite content platform, then the learner begins to proceed through the experience/assignment at hand. Blogs allow learners to have an online published site where they express their creativity through their individual writing through journaling for example, or assignment. It also allows students to have and maintain an online visual artifact of their learning experiences, whether they are personal, academic, or even in preparation for professional that can be access from anywhere in the world providing that the learner and/or reviewers have a successful internet connection. This tool of blogs allows students to document, publish, and ultimately trace their journey of learning through their time and experiences in academia (if kept up, even beyond) for future use and reference. They can own these experiences as well as to store, review, update, collect and share these experiences as testimonies of their learning not only with the teacher, but parents, friends, job searches, or anyone for any reason, which is great. Continued advances in technology make this possible which is a transformation in and of itself for all users. If technology like the internet and blogs were not available, over time, students would not otherwise be able to document, store, review, collect evidence… of their learning experiences. In fact, this lifelong learner, me, in my formative learning experience did not have any technology to use within the classroom and through the years, my parents or me never “saved” the physical evidence of my education. (Global reflection) So when I look back at my early education years followed by those I have experienced (as a student, tutor, mentor, teaching assistant, technology trainer, and teacher) vicariously of my nieces/nephews, classmates, and colleagues, up to today, I can say that the droves of technology introduced through the years since 1970 for example, there is no doubt that learning experiences and environments have truly and optimally been transformed and completely redefined by the vast amounts of technology being used in conjunction with the “lessons/classes/subjects of learning” through time.

TPACK

This year I am not teaching classes, but the content that I would address is science and technology in general. The content and student learning outcomes in general chemistry I & II we addressed.

As mentioned in week 2 discussion, in 2004, I was working at Eastfield College as Science Learning Lab Coordinator where I taught high school chemistry and prepared experiments for our college level chemistry experiments. My colleague and I wrote and were awarded a Hewlett Packard (HP) Technology Grant in Chemistry. Back then, in general, teaching chemistry with the use of technology was not common. As a result of being awarded this HP Technology Grant in Chemistry, my chemistry faculty colleague and I wrote experiments for CHEM-1411 course (12 experiments) as well as CHEM-1412 (12 experiments). Hewlett Packard gave our chemistry department 24 laptops, and our college purchased LabWorks, chemistry computerized interface (including: conductivity probes, colorimeter probes, temperature probes, gas pressure probes, pH sensor probes, voltage probes).

The benefits of using MBL include, improve other abilities like interpretation of graphs, comparing data upon collecting data from everyone per experiment, integrate graphs. as well as contribute to higher order learning skills by incorporating equipment mentioned above. Experiments can then be repeated quickly, which allows for the collection of more data to be analyzed. Using this type of technology equipment in college affords the modeling (if you will) of how experiments are done in research laboratories. This method allows students to study maybe four reactions safely and quickly per day as opposed to the traditional manual methods offered in chemistry labs. In addition, these experiments affect students’ perceptions and interpretations of those experiments as well as those done in other environments. Students can view this data obtained in such experiments in new ways that in turn, increases their understanding of the subject, chemistry in this case. Students become interested and motivated to do the experiments as they make connections during experiments using this technology, and it assists them in beginning to think critically during and after these experiments about chemistry. When chemistry experiments in college are done without the aforementioned technology and equipment, students rarely comprehend and/or make “big connections” during the experiments.

When doing the above-mentioned experiments within our chemistry labs as we incorporated the technology of the LabWorks digital probes and sensors, this allows a higher level of thinking from our students as the technology used transformed the way we learned the chemistry objectives within lab. The students were able to analyze the data they obtained from the experiments, to then take the data, collect and combine all the data where they could then review this combined data to propose addition questions, improve their understanding of their increasing knowledge of chemistry that they were able to formulate from the reports they wrote in conclusion of each week’s experiments.

As for the pedagogy, I have learned what I use from outstanding educators that I had when I was a student at Richland College. It was there, in one role or another, (i.e. – student, student assistant, scribe, tutor, instructional specialist, lab coordinator to name some…) through the years since I began higher education in 1996 through today (prior to “corporate” overall and restructuring of DCCCD) that faculty modeled successful, optimal, and some even innovative approaches to teaching and learning at the time. The methods they used in their classrooms and the way that they interacted and engaged the students was such that it fostered practicing critical thinking, problem-solving necessary to be successful learners, not only within their course to learn the subject they were teaching, but then the students became better equipped use those strategies moving forward in other classes and subjects. They truly modeled and fostered those approaches to learning (anything), that students left that college upon completion of their academic requirements as lifelong learners that continues in other aspects of their lives to this day including in their careers.

Finally, the technology used in our chemistry courses during the above-mentioned example, was a valuable asset to these learning experiences as I reflect on my numerous biology and chemistry courses as a student in that same college district prior the incorporation and use of technology and it is eye-opening. I even thought about when I took those science courses as a student then, that I fully grasped the concepts of the topics we covered in those labs compared to years later when I start working in the same district (another campus, Eastfield) and we wrote, created, and maintained the chemistry experiments with the incorporation of the technology. I had several occasions during the later experience at Eastfield helping my faculty colleague facilitate those digital based chemistry experiments and I had several times where I had additional “lightbulb moments” regarding the chemistry concepts that I “thought” I already knew/learned. This was directly accredited to the technology that obviously I was unable to see/understand years prior to that even in an outstandingly awesome (very limited technology used at that time) chemistry learning experience. Technology genuinely made a difference. This is amazing to me. These were such wonderful experiences, educators, and combined with the later incorporated technology that contributed to this student’s higher order of thinking through those lifelong experiences!

Obstacles

Through this learning experience, I have recognized the technology blog online content platform learning-curve for the students, but not at all outweighing the benefits of using blogs in the learning experiences. In addition, time it may take to learning the blogsite user-interface (not enough of it) could be an obstacle. The assignment of learning blogsites incorporated with the SAMR and TPACK learning topics of the week helped me visualize ways that using blogs in the classrooms would be optimal for the students, not only their learning of the content for that term/semester but moving forward in future academic courses and beyond.

With the use of technology, the guidance from the professors/teachers who create and facilitate the learning experiences, and openminded, eager, and willingly learners will definitely increase the level of higher-level critical thinking skills that could not otherwise been afford without the use of technology. Case in point. I worked it out!