The Affordances of Blogs

In order to analyse the affordances of various online tools, I spent a fair amount of time investigating possible frameworks to assist with this process. I will use the DiAL-e framework in conjunction with Bloom's taxonomy-cognitive domain to frame my analysis as I found this approach the most useful for my context.

This process became quite time consuming for me as I took a long time reflecting on how blogs could be most appropriately used and the benefits of them in my teaching context. Blogs are currently used as a response platform as part of Project 600. As Sandy mentioned in her blog, Exploring Blogs, the group blog format used this year has increased the level of student interaction, but the Project 600 team should consider the process we ask students to use when uploading tasks to make it easier for them to respond to teacher feedback. Throughout this process I considered how we could expand the use of the blogging platform to deepen student learning.

Features of the technology	Affordances (activities and practice)	Affordances (examples of pedagogy and designs)
Online log of communication using embedded text, audio, visual materials, links that are presented in chronological order	Supports multimodal learning to share personal learning journey in developmental sequence	Homework tasks are uploaded to their blog Students can use blog as a reflection tool to demonstrate their understanding of new content being learnt Students respond to visual stimulus using prompts provided by teacher Groups of students work collaboratively by uploading separate elements of a group task to provide completed task. Students respond to and edit tasks before submitting final version. Use of student generated multimodal elements encourages creativity Flip the classroom: students watch an embedded educational video as a homework task and respond individually in their blog to facilitate personal understanding. These postings are then used as the basis for group discussion in the classroom. Students then revisit and edit their blog posting to demonstrate their shared knowledge Teachers can support learners individually by providing targeted feedback with prompts for students to reflect
Comments can be posted in response to blog posts and are displayed in chronological order	Supports critical thinking and interaction with anywhere, anytime access. Promotes use of feedback between blog owners and readers
Personalisation of the appearance and structure of the blog either by the use of available templates or advanced features to individualise to a greater degree	Encourages ownership of learning space regardless of technical capability. Those with higher technical knowledge have the capacity to individualise to a greater degree and level of creativity
HTML tab allows for embedding of online elements	Allows for digital artefacts from various online locations to be shared from the one location. Also provides the opportunity for additional features to be added to blog posts
Link to blogs created by the same author within one blog by use of pages links in layout menu	Allows blog owner to provide easy access to several blogs from the one online space
Google+ Hangouts enable groups to have real-time conversations and video chats that can be recorded and uploaded directly to the blog	Supports real-time collaboration amongst peers, students and ‘experts’ from wider community and the benefit of accessing recordings of these conversations at a later date
Various gadgets (also known widgets) are tools/applications that can be added to the blog to enhance the functionality: follow by email, list popular posts, RSS Feed, link list of websites or other blog pages	Followers can receive up-to-date notification of posts. Supports benefit of community by easy access to items that other followers value. Linking to outside artefacts, websites, news articles to expand support ideas
Blog settings allow security settings to be either public or private	Level of access can be determined depending on needs and personal preferences
Permission can be given so that additional authors can add material to the blog	Promotes engagement of learning community and sharing of collective knowledge

N.B. I asked Google how to embed a table in Blogger as I wanted to learn another skill. Mr Google is a wealth of knowledge.
This is the link I used to assist me with this: http://www.ganisphere.com/2013/04/create-table-in-blogger-using-ms-word.html

TPACK Reflections

Content Knowledge
Much of my teaching career has been as a Support Teacher: Literacy and Numeracy. My main role is to support classroom teachers to cater for individual student needs focusing on literacy and numeracy skills. My strengths lie in identifying the necessary literacy and numeracy skills students need to develop to be able to access the class curriculum and to provide appropriate program support for these students. I haven't developed a deep knowledge base all of the Key Learning Areas (KLAs), but instead have developed the ability to identify the literacy or numeracy demands of a KLA in order to provide specific support in these domains. The rollout of the Australian Curriculum and the provision of Achievement Standards that identify the knowledge and understanding that students should demonstrate at particular stages of their education have provided clear starting points for teachers to use when identifying the areas of support for their students. Many teachers benefit from support to be able to select appropriate learning tasks and sequence of activities to assist students to meet the achievement standards as well as cater for students achieving above the year level standards.

Pedagogy
Pedagogical knowledge is an area of relative strength for me. As the focus of my ST:LaN role, I support and work with teachers to provide appropriate classroom tasks to cater for a range of student abilities differentiation of class programs and assisting with whole school data analysis and student assessment. Being able to assist teachers by working with small groups to develop specific skills using a range of teaching methods and approaches is an area I am confident with. Over the last several years, there has developed greater focus on mentoring teachers, so I have strengthened my skills in this area. For the past several years, I have worked very closely with another ST:LaN teacher at 2 schools and this work environment has increased our personal skills as having the opportunity to collaborate on ideas and programs has improved resulted in improved student outcomes. An area of improvement is to develop a larger bank of skills to support high achieving students to ensure student engagement.

Technology
When it comes to technological knowledge, I am confident using a range of software and online tools to substitute, augment and modify learning tasks in terms of the SAMR model. My goal is to develop the ability to redefine learning tasks using technology. My biggest challenge is that I get really inspired by some of the ideas that are being shared, but then feel disheartened when seemingly being blocked by the lack of capable infrastructure and tools that can be accessed in my teaching context. In my current role with Project 600, a significant amount of time is having to be devoted to supporting schools and teachers who are struggling with poor bandwidth and trouble shooting technical issues with the online platform that has recently been upgraded. Trouble shooting solutions with new/unfamiliar tools is an area of strength as I like to always challenge myself to work out how to solve issues and work out solutions for myself, but also find it very beneficial to trouble shoot as part of a team. Unfortunately, too much time and energy is being devoted to this aspect which then reduces the time available to develop programs using digital pedagogy.

Personal Pedagogy Revisited

My personal pedagogy updated

Upon reflection of my pedagogical beliefs in terms of 21st Century pedagogy, I was able to refine my personal pedagogy to link more closely with the social constructivist theory and to acknowledge that the learner can take more control over the learning journey and take advantage of being able to collaborate outside the 4 walls of the classroom.
In principal, the pedagogy needed for learners of any age should focus on contextualised learning experiences that harness the collaborative benefits of ICTs to develop deeper understanding and thinking skills that enable them to apply this understanding and problem solving abilities across various disciplines.
In practice, in order for this to occur within my current teaching context, the infrastructure and professional development capacities have an extremely long way to go. We need to identify what can change now and what needs to change in the future so that we prepare our students for the change that is yet to come.
The critical elements of 21st Century pedagogy (collaboration, flexibility, student centred and driven, networking as some) on face value align somewhat with my pedagogical beliefs as shared in my previous post. When I drill down into my beliefs I am able to make links with collaboration and providing personally relevant learning experiences but within the school/classroom environment. After revisiting my pedagogy incorporating 21st Century skills, I am able to include the pedagogical practices of collaboration to develop socially constructed understanding across a range of learning environments and student control of learning paths as essential components.

Personal Pedagogy in Times of Change

Being discussed across all education frontiers is the notion that we are experiencing a rapid change in the nature of teaching and learning due to the rapidly evolving way 'knowledge' is acquired and that it is necessary to create an educational environment to foster 'knowledge producers' rather than just 'knowledge consumers'. The demands of 21st Century learners are evolving to focus on developing lifelong learners who are capable of adapting to change and knowing 'how to learn' to best take advantage of the technology that is so readily available.

Having started my teaching career in Special Education, working with intellectually disabled students, my goal as a teacher was to assist my students to develop 'life skills' so that they could become as independent as possible and contribute to caring for themselves but also to 'contribute to society'. Even though my teaching journey has found me working in various education sectors, my underlying belief is that I want to empower students to become independent learners and be capable of being productive members of society to their best of their ability. My pedagogical beliefs have evolved throughout my teaching career but at the core of my pedagogy is 'the learner'.

The Dimensions of teaching and learning (DETE, 2013) framework was used to assist me in framing my personal pedagogy, as this approach reflects my personal philosophy that students should be at the centre of our thinking when considering the 'best teaching strategies to support learning' (DoTL, 2013).

As my understanding of the use of ICTs for learning deepens, I find that I need to reflect more on the use of digital pedagogy. There is a need for all teachers to develop teaching practices that will empower students to thrive in the educational environment that is changing rapidly by utilising the power and benefits of technology to change the way students learn, rather than just using technology to do the same things faster.

Sandy Shannon, in her post about personal pedagogy, also referred to a couple of pedagogical frameworks, IMPACT and Symphony of Teaching and Learning, that could assist with making decisions about the use of ICT to support student learning. The IMPACT model goes a long way towards framing digital pedagogy.

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has started a project to address this issue within the changing education landscape. Learning Frontiers is bringing together various education sectors and other interested organisations with the aim of the 'development of new practices that increase engagement in learning' (AITSL, 2014). 

Anticipating the future: professional practices to support a new education paradigm, poses some important questions that need to be considered when discussing how to teach in the 21st Century.

What is the new pedagogy?
11. What is the relationship between teacher subject knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and a focus on higher order skills?

12. What does it mean to pedagogy and school practice to shift student capacity from consumption to production roles?Is there a definable good pedagogy? Can we crystallise what we mean by good practice? Would that practice apply in all learning areas, settings, contexts and classrooms?
14. What is the appropriate balance between form (or process) and substance (content broadly conceived) in relation to both teacher and student learning?
15. How can we assist a greater focus on depth rather than breadth in learning?
16. How effective are specific pedagogical approaches such as project-based learning and learning by design?
17. How much is deeper engagement with a group of students a part of the change we require?

References
Department of Education, Training and Employment. (2013). Dimensions of teaching and learning. Retrieved March 23, 2014 from https://learningplace.eq.edu.au/cx/resources/file/f093f249-05ce-0bde-465a-dbc537683e7a/1/index.html

Australian Institute and School Leadership. (2014). Learning frontiers. Retrieved August 30, 2013 from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/learning-frontiers.html

Australian Institute and School Leadership. (2014). Anticipating the future: professional practices to support a new education paradigm. Retrieved August 30, 2013 from http://www.aitsl.edu.au/learning-frontiers.html