Digital Citizenship - Week eight

As I come off a week of vacation, or disconnecting to connect, I have really enjoyed this session. I have been reading everyone's blogs to try and catch up as well as get some ideas to determine who they are tracking on their feeders. I have again made adjustments to mine as I fine tune it so that I am getting the information I want and need while not having to wade through stuff that is just not interesting or relevant. I think that this tool will always be part of my learning. I have also enjoyed examining the different styles of writing. It has all been very interesting. This I believe should be a key piece to the reflective process as we look back at our own blogs.

The past couple of weeks have been very interesting as we have started to work on projects and collaborate online. Some of these have been very interesting. I unfortunately missed the hangout session with the group but believe it would be very similar to the one I did a few years ago on Skype, which was very cool. I look forward to making the next one. I see so much value in this from an educational point of view in the post secondary world. The professor could set up a weekly time when they are available, just like office hours, and answer questions, help work through problems with assignments or just check in. Then by exposing the students to this, I can see them creating study groups to work together. No more booking a room and trying to get people together face to face.

This week we looked at wikis and I must say that I was a disappointed with them as I was with description given in the text. As an educational tool on the surface they seem fine but I think that it would allow more students to ride the coat tails of others. My initial thought was that an instructor could put a set of problems or questions up for the class to work on but all that would happen is the students who want to learn would log on and actually work together to solve the problem or get the answer while others would just stop by after to see the finished result. It may afford greater opportunities for learning for a few but then remove them for rest. Even those students who wished to jump in have actually work through the problem but showed up after it was solved would not have had the opportunity. The other piece is that these sites are not secure so anyone could access them if they happened upon them. I am always aware of what information I want to share and I think that this bothers me as well. I do not think that a wiki will be part of my PLE.

I have however totally enjoyed working through both the todaysmeet and with Google Docs. I actually found that they were very simple to use and that I did connect online to connect with a project partner a few hundred kilometers away. Last week I disconnected to connect but this week I connected to connect. The balance in life is so very important. I enjoyed them so much that I have actually set up a couple of similar shared documents at work in very secure locations that at least two of us are working on. With out the need for so many e-mails with so many copies of just a slightly different document floating around it has been great. A quick communication about updates and suggestions and it has been very effective. I know that Google Docs will be part of my PLE and I will introduce my faculty to them as well in the hope that they use them with their students.

This week started for me with a presentation at Lambton College by a professor from Ottawa University on data collected around student retention. Now most of you might be thinking what has this student retention piece have to do with the last two weeks in which we examined ways to collaborate online. Well it really did. In part of the information it showed the first year retention rates of those who lived at home, to those who were out of town and not living at residence and those who were living at residence. Those who lived in residence had the highest retention of the three groups. Now I was shocked by this data as I thought that they only thing going on at residence was extra curricular activities. It occurred to me that the reason why was the connection with other students and the learning institution. this connection is a face to face interactions. One of the leading factors was how a student preformed in the first term. If you are always interacting with class mates you are going to be reminded about the quiz or assignment. When you are prepared, you will do better.This makes it so important for students who are not on campus 24/7 to have access to online types of collaborative and interactive spaces so they can connect with the learning institution and other students after the lights have gone out in the lecture hall. Most of the true learning happens after the lights are out anyway as students reflect on what was taught.

While looking through the information on my feeder I did come across a good blog on ways students can learn from others. I found it very interesting as it speaks to the way these students connect so effortlessly online. When I reflect on this I think that without being shown or taught younger students have figured out that if they can connect with me digitally, when I am responding it will be directly to them. In some cases, the student can actually have captured my full attention. Something that will rarely happen in the class room.

As I start to reflect and actually become a digital citizen I think I am going to have to figure this out. At Disney World I will not only be enjoying the hand in hand discoveries and interactions but also the ones that involve capturing something in a photo and sharing it with my grandchildren as well. They would not even actually have to be there with me.

Have a great week.

Jeff