Week 7 in Review: Designing for Networked Knowledge Activities (NKAs)

This week in EME6414, we began our journey in actually designing activities using the tools that we have been examining throughout the course. Our readings in class supported our exploration of the tools; for instance, the article "Tweet me, message me, like me: using social media to facilitate pedagogical change within an emerging community of practice" (2014) described how a researcher used Twitter and Facebook over time to support and encourage physical education teachers as they used cooperative learning in their lessons. Although we have not been using Facebook within this course (for good reason, in my opinion) we have been using Twitter extensively and I can now see how it can be used for educational purposes as well as simply for a quick channel of communication between professionals. As I have said before in previous blog posts, I had a negative view of Twitter before remaking a profile for this class and I now much prefer using it as a way to network with those within my field and to keep up on the latest news instead of as another social platform that connects me to my peers. 

It seems as if there are different tools that work well with certain networked knowledge activities, but not all of them. For example, Pinterest is ideal for collecting, constructing, sharing, and curating, but it cannot be used for negotiating nor for brokering. When it comes to designing using the ADDIE model, this is something that needs to be nipped in the bud during the development phase at the absolute latest. It must be frustrating enough for educators to introduce a new tool to their classes, I cannot even imagine how much more so it would be if that tool actually didn't work for the lesson planned! Don't let yourself get caught in a situation like this!

We explored some new tools as well this week, like we always do. I was particularly struck with Edmodo. As someone who works almost exclusively within different learning management systems every day of the work week, it was exciting to come across a new one! If I'm not mistaken though, Edmodo is typically used by K-12 classes (correct me if I'm wrong!) Colleges and universities usually have either Blackboard, Canvas, or Moodle and I can image that adding another LMS for just one course would probably be confusing and overwhelming for students. I was also a bit confused as to why Edmodo chose to resemble Facebook in terms of its user interface. I definitely prefer Edmodo since it's more streamlined and minimal compared to Facebook, but that's one tech company that I would really not try to model my product after.

What was your favorite tool that we looked at this week? How do you see yourself implementing it in your classroom/career/etc.?

"PAR 104" by dwrl_utexas is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Comments

  1. Danielle DavisJune 28, 2020 at 11:18 AM

    Why don't you like FB? I have a personal Pinterest but I guess I don't have much a knack for it because I have a hard time imagining how I would use it in my classroom.

    ReplyDelete

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