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Even though the class is over, I am not done blogging!

This blog started as a class assignment in the Integrating Technologies into the Curriculum class. I enjoyed it immensely as I like to express myself through my writing. At least for a little while longer, I have decided to keep the blog up and contribute to it.

I was very pleased today to find out I was the recipient of the W.W. and Dorothy Lee Memorial Scholarship. I feel honored to be a part of a great institution where students are valued for hard work. Thank you.

Audio/Video Podcast: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

I admit I never paid much attention to podcasts before this class. I have an iPhone and never even clicked on the “Podcasts” prior to last week. After reviewing the topics I found on there I am certainly going to find different things I find interesting to listen to, especially language ones.

I think audio/video podcasts (from here referred to as podcasts) are a great tool for both the learner and the educator. There are many pros regarding podcasts. The educator has the ability to post important information that the learner can review for tests or post a lecture that the learner can go back and listen to at his/her convenience (King & Cox, 2011). Podcasts are also very convenient and easy to access on a phone or mp3 player. The learner can listen at home or traveling on the go (King & Cox, 2011) basically anywhere now when before the listener had to be at a computer (Turner, Clark, & Dabbagh, 2011). They seem to be great for the student who is more of an auditory learner. Also, podcasts are easy to make and the educator can be as creative as he/she wishes to be. Another pro is that many colleges and universities post podcasts that one can have access to which would be a great learning tool for anyone interested in a topic. The listener would have the same information that a student at one of the colleges or universities would have (Sprague & Pixley, 2008) as part of an informal learning activity (Robinson & Ritzko, 2009).

As there are pros for the podcast, there are also cons. By using podcasts, educators may get away from the idea of facilitative learning and get more into idea of banking education in which the information is given to the learner (King & Cox, 2011). I think it is a great way though to supplement other technologies or explain things that students may have a difficult time grasping. Another con is that the educator has to be careful regarding copyright issues if he/she wishes to add music to the podcast. If music is used that cannot legally be used, it is on the same level as plagiarism (King & Cox, 2011).

I think I am going to make some podcasts as part of my training program. They would be super easy to make, especially for topics that I cannot find that have already been made. It would be easy too to make scenarios for the trainees to listen to. Additionally, the trainer and trainee could record different scenarios that can be used for future trainees. I think as a training tool, the uses of a podcast are limitless.

References:

King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Robinson, S. & Ritzko, J. (2009). Podcasts in education: What, why and how? Proceedings of the Academy of Educational Leadership, 14(1).

Sprague, D. & Pixley, C. (2008). Podcasts in education: Let their voices be heard. Computers in the Schools, 25(3-4), 226-234.

Turner, J., Clark, K., & Dabbagh, N. (2011). Podcast use in higher education: From the traditional lecture to constructivist learning environments. International Journal of University Teaching and Faculty Development, 2(1).

Podcast-Interview with Edith Ramage, Pittsburg State University

I enjoyed making the podcast more than I thought I would. I wanted to try adding music to it but needed to be careful about not adding music illegally. After a Google search, I found www.freemusicarchive.org and figured out how to credit the musician after finding something I liked.  I did the voice recording in QuickTime Player, transferred to iTunes, and then transferred to iMovie where I completed the rest of the podcast.

I enjoyed talking to Edith. Unfortunately, she had been out of town all week and could not catch up with her until the end of the week.

References:

Lobo Loco (Schweizer-Gerth, W.). (2016). Wind Whispers Love BEG. On Waiting for YOU. Göppingen, Germany.

Wiki Lesson Plan

I currently work as a Communications Training Officer for a small police department. Our department does not have continuous openings and will hire as needed. It is very rare that two dispatchers would be in training at the same time. There are three Communications Training Officers that a trainee rotates through. Generally, I am the last stop before the trainee is released and I have to sign off that they can do the job or need more training. Using the wiki, it will give me an opportunity to see the trainee’s progress throughout his/her training.

I have my lesson plan set up considering a trainee is on track to be released at eight weeks.

Title of the lesson/training: Pittsburg Police Department Communications Division Training Program

Target audience: Trainee and Trainer(s)

Learning/Training objectives: Training the new communications officer trainee to be a competent, mindful, and ethical member of the department.

Rationale for the use of wiki: I set up the wiki for the trainee to have all available material at fingertips as well as assignments that need to be completed within the training program. The trainer(s) that are next in line to train also have access to see how well the trainee is doing. This will also make the training more uniform for trainees and will get the trainers on the same page.

Details on how wiki is used: During the first two weeks, the trainee is given general information as well as links to various resources. During the following six weeks, the trainee is given assignments to be completed during those respective weeks. Every week in which there is an assignment, the trainee will have the information provided in which to study within the wiki unless otherwise specified. I set the wiki up for knowledge construction (West & West, 2009). The wiki will not be open to the public and the only people with access are the trainee and trainer(s) with a password needed to enter (King & Cox, 2011).

Suggested wiki-related learning activities/practices/schedules:

Week 1:

Provided with links to the following:

• ·      City website and policy manual.
• ·      Self-assessment form that has to be completed every shift worked.
• ·      DOR (Daily Observation Report) that is completed by trainer every shift for reference. The trainee will be presented with a completed DOR in which he/she will sign after reviewing it with trainer.
• ·      Journaling activity that is recommended throughout training program.
• ·      Provided with list of ten codes and phonetic alphabet.

Week 2:

Provided with links to the following:

• ·      NCIC manual and worksheets for NCIC entries in which the trainee is required to read.
• ·      Ethical responsibility and duty.

Week 3:

Given assignment to see how well trainee knows city boundaries and city layout; i.e. what section of town is the mall in or what section of town is Kansas/Catalpa in? The use of the map is highly recommended during assignment so the trainee is hopefully learning the map while he/she is looking for locations.

Week 4:

Given assignment to match the crime with the code; i.e. what is the code for burglary? Answer 220. What is the code for aggravated assault/battery? Answer 13A, etc.

Given a list of “what if” questions (West & West, 2009). For example, what do you do if you receive a 911 from a residential phone and there is no answer when you call back? What if you call back and a female answers? She said it was an accident but you can tell by her voice that she has been crying. The trainee is not expected to know all the answers and is an opportunity for dialog between the trainee and trainer. This exercise will be done on the wiki and the trainer will respond on the wiki.

Week 5:

Given an assignment regarding prioritizing calls. The trainee will be given a list of different calls and asked to prioritize them from most important to least important.

Given link to various recordings of 911 calls. Asked to detail what went right or what went wrong during the call by writing responses on wiki.

Week 6:

Given links to various training videos to watch regarding officer safety.

Policeone.com has various training/tests that can be assigned for training purposes. Will be assigned training/tests to complete through a link from wiki.

Week 7:

Given assignment of “What should I do?” For example, you receive a 911 call of a house fire. What do you do? You receive a call of an injury accident with entrapment. What do you do? Answers will be typed in the wiki.

Week 8:

Given assignment of various topics covered in training as a final test.

Opportunity given to trainer to check off competency in the different areas.

Release from training that is printed and added to personnel file.

Wiki Activity Evaluation: The only way the trainee can access the assignments that are mandatory to the training program are through the wiki. The trainee has to pass each assignment with an 80% or it has to be completed again until 80% is reached.

Lesson/Training Plan example:

I found a lesson plan titled “Wikis in Education.” For me, it was a little hard to read with the white letters on the black background. It reminded me a little of when the screen was black with green writing several years ago.

http://www.wikiteach.org/index.php/wikiteach/action/lessonplan/iVar/189

References:

King, K. & Cox, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

West, J. & West, M. (2009). Using wikis for online collaboration. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

I wanted to experiment with adding graphics to my blog.
-Jen

Wikis: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

I did not realize previous to this week’s reading but I have worked on an additional wiki and not even know it until now. In a previous class I had, our group utilized Google Docs to share our ideas with one another. At the time, I thought it was a great way for our group to collaborate and for each to contribute to our project (which seemed to go very well, by the way). I guess I did not really realize fully what a wiki was.

There are many pros for adult learners to use wikis. The wiki allows for the sharing of knowledge between collaborators (Biasutti & El-Deghaidy, 2012; Romeo, Brennan, Rothman, & Mitchell, 2010) as well as engaging learners (Hazari, North, & Moreland, 2009) in a web-based format. By using a wiki, the adult learner is able to work with others in a collaborative way. Each person involved in the wiki project has the ability to add, edit, or make changes so that each participant has a larger stake in the project. It seems much easier to work on a collaborative project by using the wiki rather than another method such as a discussion board, which also results in “higher quality submissions” (King & Cox, 2011, p. 126). An interesting study by Altanopolou, Tselios, Katsanos, Georgoutsou, & Panagiotaki (2015) found that a student with a lower initial performance (based on a pretest) scored significantly more improvement (based on a posttest) than a student with a high initial performance even though the student’s role within the activity showed no affect. The authors concluded “the results strongly indicates that students learn with wikis regardless of the activity’s class and subject” (Altanopolou et al, 2015, p. 519).

I have tried to think of a con regarding adult learners using wikis and having a hard time with really coming up with anything other than the learner may be afraid of messing something up as I was during my last class. The learner may be a bit apprehensive and nervous of using technology he/she is not familiar with, but that goes away with practice and becoming accustomed to the program being used.

References:

Altanopoulou, P., Tselios, N., Katsanos, C., Georgoutsou, M., & Panagiotaki, M. A. (2015). Wiki-Mediated Activities in Higher Education: Evidence-Based Analysis of Learning Effeciveness Across Three Studies. Educational Technology & Society. 18(4), 511-522.

Biasutti, M. & El-Deghaidy, H. (2012). Using wiki in teacher education: Impact on knowledge management processes and student satisfaction. Computers & Education. 861-872.

Hazari, S., North, A., Moreland, D. (2009). Investigating pedagogical value of wiki technology. Journal of Information Systems Education. 20(2), 187-198.

King, K. & King, T. (2011). The professor’s guide to taming technology. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Romeo, L., Brennan, M., Rothman, T., & Mitchell, D. (2010). Innovative cooperative learning. The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin.

Blogging: Pros and Cons for Adult Learners

Blogs and discussion boards are similar but there are marked differences. In the field of adult education, both blogs and discussion boards give the learner an opportunity to make an original post and then comment or enter into a discussion on another learner’s post, thus exchanging information and learning in a facilitative and collaborative way. That is really where the similarities end. On a discussion board, all posts are on one page and it can get confusing and jumbled with so many different conversations going on at once. There is not a way to change the layout of it (at least that I have found) and it is set the way it was designed. On the other hand, a discussion board can be a universal tool in that it is most likely going to be the same layout for each class an adult learner has in a particular program. This may lead to less confusion for the learner. On a blog, the creator of said blog has ownership of it; he/she can create it as he/she likes and add information the creator has deemed worthy of including.

Blogging has both pros and cons for adult learners. Blogging gives the adult learner more of a voice (Oravec, 2002). The learner can let his/her personality come through more in way of how it is designed and written. Depending on the blog and the reason for it, the learner can write anything he/she deems fit. Another pro I see with blogging is the opportunity for the adult learner to market him/herself. He/she can get his/her name out there in the field and make connections, which may lead to employment opportunities down the road, which Zhang (2013) refers to as an “underused strategy” (p. 268). Also, the learner is exposed to a larger audience that extends past classmates and the instructor for the course. Another benefit of blogging for the adult learner is that it can increase “satisfaction in both traditional and online courses” (Top, Yukselturk, & Inan, 2010, p. 214) by allowing the learner to become as active as he/she wants to be and by exchanging information in a meaningful way.

Blogging can be seen as being similar to a reflective type of journal, not unlike what we kept in the Characteristics of the Adult Learner class, which is made public. I think that is where a con perhaps comes in. Because the blog is public, more people have access to it. I think this can make learners uneasy knowing that what was written is out there for the world to see. In my opinion, this could do a couple of different things; either make the author more timid and tone down his/her writing, advance the writing, or make no remarkable change, which probably sounds obvious but think it depends a lot on the individual. Another con I see, more so in the eyes of the instructor, is that it is possible to read other classmate blogs before the learner writes his/her own regarding assigned topics. On the discussion board, it can be set up for the learner to make a post before seeing other classmates’ posts, thus maybe a learner might look for help in how to write his/her post.

References:

Oravec, J. (2002). Bookmarking the world: Weblog applications in education. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 45(7), 616-621.

Top, E., Yukselturk, E., & Inan, F. A. (2010). Reconsidering usage of blogging in preservice teacher education courses. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(4), 214-217.

Zhang, S. (2013). An empirical study of the factors affecting weblog success in higher education. Journal of Information Systems Education, 24(4).