The Genesis of My Current Research Interests

01 August 2008 By Ben 2 In development journal

Initial Student Blog & Online Collaboration Project in 2004/2005

It was June 2005, the last week of school before the summer holidays, and a heat wave had taken hold of the city. The computer lab on the second floor of the school was registering temperatures in excess of 30 degrees Celsius and packed with my class of adolescent students. Instead of the usual comments, drama, and pre-teen behaviour that accompany many grade 7 activities, the students were each focused on their writing and reading assignment. Students were writing blog posts about their 2 days at a local camp for the year end field trip and posting them to an internet site shared by this classroom in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada and a classroom in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. After writing their posts, students entered the other classroom’s section of the site and read each post. After reading students posted comments that explained how that post connected to other text, their own experiences, or the world. In this hot room with stale air eyes were peering into this virtual looking glass, the rhythmic tapping of keyboards accompanied the hum of ceiling fans, and the ticking of the giant clock signified that over an hour had past. The silence masked the intensely social conversation that was occurring. The conversation was not with the student sitting in the chair beside them, this asynchronous conversation was occurring with students sitting half way across North America. Their conversations were within academic parameters. The reading strategy, making connections, had been taught and was now applied.

I experienced cross-classroom that fully engaged my students and myself as a professional. This experience used technology, but led to student interest beyond using technology and instead focused on the social learning opportunities that arose. Since the beginning of my teaching career, I used several recent technological developments in my classroom. In the summer of 2000 I purchased my first Internet address, mrhazzard.com, to set up a classroom website. This website featured student work that was captured and enabled with digital cameras, digital video recorders, interactive whiteboards, publishing software, web design software, concept mapping tools, and blogging software. Each of these tools showed potential and limitations. However, the turning point came when I began to collaborate with another teacher, teaching 2000 km away, that I had met at a conference about interactive whiteboards. This collaboration began as a professional sharing of ideas, and interactive whiteboard files before including our students. My students were engaged in cross-classroom collaboration projects that included reading groups between classrooms, as well as writing and reading assignments on the joint classroom web log, (blog). Students began to display interest as they used technology in the classroom to collaborate with other students but they did not comment on the technology tool.

Students commented on their relationships with members of the other classroom whom they had never met. Comments began to emerge from the students. “We have made friends before we met them (students from the other classroom),” shared one student in Winnipeg. A student in Sarnia mentioned that, “using the blog is just like what we do at night, only we talk about different things.” Anecdotally, this social connection seemed to engage and motive my students. The value of linking classrooms together for cross-classroom collaboration began to crystallize in my professional practice.

Several questions developed through this experience. Why are more classrooms not participating in such cross-classroom collaborations? How do teachers find a collaboration partner if they do not attend a conference with teachers from many countries and geographic regions? What made the collaboration experiences within my career successful? My research explores these questions.

Samples of discussion pages made during online synchronous concept mapping (click to view larger photos):

Videos of the interaction (motion really helps enhance understanding):

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2 Comments on "The Genesis of My Current Research Interests"

Tim Hardy-Atkins
25/01/2009 at 7:56 pm Permalink

Hi Ben,

Just checking out links from TC Podcast page so here I am.

At Canning College we have just figured out that developing the literacy of our students is not only something that you do in an English or English As A Second Language classroom. This year we have a a Literacy Priority across all our programs. Ofcourse I can see a rich place for the use of technology tools to assist in this. For myself as an educator it is such a rich opportunity to share the Teachers Connecting community with my colleagues.

I love your narrative about your students asynchonous connection when they would otherwises usually be synchonising with each other… facinating!

Would like to have viewed the videos of interaction about but my Apple Macbook doesn’t recognise the format. Are they available on You Tube? I would love to view them.

Cheers

Tim
Home, on Australia Day in Lesmurdie, Western Australia - sunny and expecting 31 degrees celcius…lovely!

Here’s to exciting times a head Ben
Tim Hardy-Atkins
26/01/2009 at 2:07 am Permalink

Hi Ben,

Tim here! I found your videos! They were right there just after after I left the above comment.

Cheers,

Tim from Lesmurdie in Western Australia
on Australia Day!