Research/Implications for Teaching and Learning:
Richardson extols the virtues of the social conversations that Flickr and other photo sharing sites ignite. I have to agree but would add that this be ideally accomplished in an intentional context of combining textual responses to the photos. The students could also be taught a written response format that could help them in their preparation for their Diploma Exams.
Here is my humanities teacher bias coming through. The Diploma Exams for both English and social studies require students to respond to a variety of graphics, including photos, cartoons, posters, and graphs. The students therefore, must be both visually literate and textually responsive to the visual prompts. The humanities classes could develop a visual library blog from which they could post starter responses in the Diploma Exam writing format.
The application I see for photo sharing extends from the obvious photography CTS class posts where all student’s photos have to be captioned and commented upon, but also to having the students create a blog with their own photo elements they must exhibit, as well as captured exemplars from a photo sharing resource. They also could then post and see each other’s critiques of their works, which we now do verbally as a small group.
A final compelling resaon for considering photo sharing as an ICT strategy for Outreach Education is found in Alberta Education’s Technology’s Influence on High School Completion – A Review of the Literature (2007) which reveals outcomes that are applicable to my Outreach environment. I have selected one that particularly informs a major goal for my at-risk students:
by enhancing teachers’ abilities to support a broad range of student identities and
learning styles; providing students with opportunities to acquire 21st century skills (i.e., enhance their systems, analytical and critical thinking; collaboration skills; teamwork; cross-cultural exchanges; problem solving; and media literacy) (p. 15)
http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/highschool/pdf/techlitreview.pdf
This is indeed the stuff that is on every life test these kids will encounter!
Shirley,
ReplyDeleteOnce again, very thought provoking.
This spring I met two teenage girls--both only 15. Both were living in a shelter. One had a baby but she could only see her baby once each week. She showed me photos on her phone of her baby girl. She carried around the umbilical cord, her baby's hospital bracelet, and a clean, soft, baby blanket. I'm sure that having the opportunity to use photographs and write text (her baby's story) would have greatly motivated her in her journey to complete high school.
Ruth
Shirley, I love that you have gone right to the heart of the matter and that is curriculum. We need to think critically about how to use these tools in the context of curriculum when we are teachers.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the learning objectives that we meet when we use a Web 2.0 tool and how is using the technology going to contribute to their gaining 21st century skills.
When we get to Wikis you will find that Wikis will do so much more than blogs when working with your groups.