4th lesson plan 31th January 2007

This lesson is dedicated to the training of software functionalities e.g. tagging and making notes in del.icio.us and collaborative creation of documents in gocs.google.com. The new content of project management subject is secondary goal. Formulation of project groups and first group tasks are also important topics of this lesson.

Lesson plan:

1. Org – Repeating the functions of del.icio.us.
2. Org – Input of additional data in to students profiles e.g. real names, e-mail addresses.
3. Text – project teams and rolls
4. Teamwork – formulation of project teams – IRL
5. Org – creation or completion of del.icio.us user network – every student must belong to his teams’ network.
6. Teamwork – creation and publication of first document in collaborative way – list of team members and responsibilities – in docs.google.com environment. After publication, students tag this document on there del.icio.us page. I can read the content of this document from Google Docs or from Del.isio.us environment.
7. Teamwork – collaborative creation, publication and tagging of report of projects’ problems.

Software development idea: Learning environment can have a function for collaborative or private document creation (e.g. integration of Google Docs in to del.icio.us). 

The creation on two documents in Google Docs is complicated and work-intensive task. Maybe this will be too complicated for students to use three different environments (del.icio.us, LeMill, Google Docs) on same time? Maybe it would be better to have centralized learning environment? From other side web is not centralized. We use many different tools in same time. Why not to teach this to students.

3th lesson report 24th January 2007

Some students don’t know how to tag. They just copy the content of learning material in to tag field. Because of that some student’s tag cloud is total rubbish. Fortunately the tag cloud of content is OK, because most of the students can tag and only most popular tags are presented in tagcloud (del.icio.us can cut the rubbish). This copy-paste thing is actually my fault. I asked them to copy the questions to the notes area and then answer to them. Now they copy everything to everywhere. I must correct this mistake. I believe that this correction can not be done virtually but in real teaching-learning situation. Luckily the next lesson is not virtual.

I must emphasize, that it’s not good to copy anything to del.icio.us notes or tag fields. They must enter info by typing or clicking on existing tags. If they continue coping, then they will not get grades.

Software development idea: teacher can decide, can the student copy something to tag field or not.

If this act does not effect the quality of tags then I must prepare the intermediate examination – interviews with students, where they must explain the meaning of their tagcloud. Maybe then they understand the meaning of tagging.

The reason of poor tagging can also be the task in itself. Tagging is a method of social software. In social space everything must come from bottom. I can’t force them to use something. Then it’s not social any more. But what can I do in learning process? It’s hard to find balance between freedom and rules in school. In the one hand it’s good to decrease learning barriers. On the other handit’s not good to fall to anarchy.

I asked students to answer the questions in del.icio.us notes area. If the answer is wrong or insufficient then I would like to add comments.

Software development idea: Instead of the notes area it would be nice to have comments field related to bookmark. And other users from network can comment  on the comments. Then this is like hybrid from book marking, tagging and bloging. Somehow it would be interesting to integrate wiki on it (I don’t know yet, how). So it is like social software in cube.

In the future I prefer not to study students’ tags so deeply. It is important in the beginning of course and for scientific reason (to collect information) but later it’s enough to evaluate students’ understanding by oral examination.

Overall rate to lesson 4-

3th lesson plan 24th January 2007

Lesson is virtual because teacher is in TENCompetence doctoral winter school in Innsbruck.

Because the election of project managers went to hell last time, then this is the first task of this lesson. The reason why election did not take place was presentation of wrong URL. That sucks! I hoped that maybe students can do the election as homework, but this did not happen. I even created the home task in e-school, sent e-mail to other teachers to mediate this task to students, but nothing happened. I must investigate why the information did not reach to students. Meanwhile I was hoping that students can complete this task in the beginning of the learning lesson and I will publish the results ASAP. Unfortunately this is impossible because of my study tasks in winter school. That’s why I must change the plans for the next lesson. At first I planned the form three project teams and started work in groups. Now we have to continue with individual tasks. I even must delete a few tags from del.icio.us because they are exercises for groups not for individuals. Fortunately nobody bookmarked them yet. It sucks anyway!

Lesson plan:

1.      Text – e-election of project managers.

2.      Text – Initiation of project (for reading and tagging).

3.      Questions – Initiation of project (for tagging and entering short answers to notes area).

4.      Text – Project stakeholders (for reading and tagging).

5.      Exercise – Project stakeholders (for tagging and entering short answers to notes area).

6.      Text – Project problems (for reading and tagging).

7.      Questions – Project problems (for tagging and entering short answers to notes area).

8.      Exercise – Project problems

Because the solution of last exercise does not fit in to del.icio.us notes area, then this result must be saved in separated file and delivered to teacher via e-mail. Copy of this file must be saved to students’ computer hard disk and in the next lesson it will be published in Internet.

Publishing the materials in LeMill – Maybe I separate materials to unnecessarily small pieces. On the other hand this is important to students. This way they can tag small parts of text, not to large documents. The keywords are exactly related with content. Maybe this kind of cut up is also good for collaborative development of project management materials in LeMill in the future.

Suitable amount of learning materials per lesson is one screen size of del.icio.us (8 bookmarks + 1 lesson plan or 7 +- 2).

2th lesson report 17th January 2007

The lesson was taking place without me (I was in the Stockholm in TLU Department of Educational Technology staff meeting). Luule Vain – the director of Audentes Secondary School – let students to computer lab. She was there 45 minutes. According to her students were working very intensively.To get an overview of who tagged what I clicked on link (next to bookmark) this link is tagged by X users. Then I can see the tagcloud of that resource, list of students who tagged it, their tags and comments. I had to do this with every bookmark. It was a bit painful process.  Software development idea: it would be nice to have functionality, that will create cross-table of bookmarks and taggers. Software can count the number of tags very easily. Although it can’t check the meaningfulness of tags. Software development idea: The tags created by the teacher should be hided (or teacher can decide, which tag can be seen to students and which is hided). The meaningfulness can be checked with comparing students’ and teacher’s tagclouds. Probably this does not fit with the social software ideology.

In the future, the meaningfulness can be evaluated by an interview, but current evaluation was needed to get overview what students did when the teacher was missing.

Students try to copy the content of learning object to notes area. They shoud input all notes and tags by typing or clicking in existing tags. Actually this is my mistake. I asked them to copy the questions to the notes area, and then type the answers. It would be enough to just type the answers. I must correct this mistake in the next lesson.

The election of project managers was not taking place, because I presented wrong URL. That sacs. Software development idea: In learning environment there must be description of user profile (e-mail included). Based on that information it is easy to send corrections and additional tasks (to all network or to one student). This time I could not get contact wit students.

Very difficult was to find connections between del.icio.us usernames and students real names. From other side, it’s flexible and good tool. From other side in the school there are some restrictions. Software development idea: user profiles.

Conclusion: there are 19 students in the group, 9 of them created bookmarks and tags, 4 of them created good tags.

Overall rate to lesson 4

2th lesson plan 17th January 2007

Creation of materials in LeMill and adding them to LeMill collection and to teachers del.icio.us homepage. Only tag, what is added to materials by the teacher is “Project-management”. Students are forced to create their own tags.

 

New content:

1. text – the topics of project management
2. questions – the project management field
3. text – project organizations
4. questions – project organizations
5. text – characteristics of project manager
6. task – election of project managers.

The election is e-election and the form is on address http://www.eformular.com/eformular_eelvaade.php3?vorm=projektijuhid 

 

On the top of teachers del.icio.us page there is a short lesson plan. It is created on Google docs because:

1. It’s not wise to publish it in the LeMill, because this lesson plan will be change in the future very often.
2. It’s not a good idea to create lesson plans as simple HTML document and to publish them in teacher homepage. The key term of all processes and systems is openness. So each teacher can use the same tools and try them by themselves.
3. Lesson plan is needed only for virtual lessons. If a teacher is presented physically he can explain lesson goals, methods and materials orally.

E.g. of lesson plan unfortunately in Estonian.

1th lesson report 10th January 2007

0. It’s complicated to create a bigger collection in LeMill. When a user forgot to add content to collection immediately after creation, and does it later, then it’s almost impossible to reorder pieces of content in collection.
0. The creation of del.icio.us was easy. I decided to create a new username to separate my personal bookmarks from project management course stuff. Software development idea: It would be nice to have network management tool in del.icio.us or in new learning environment. User can group tags and build networks separately for every group. In learning environment, the groups of tags can be based on courses.
1. Presentation of first material in LeMill was OK.
2. Creation of cel.icio.us accounts by students was OK. Yes, it was impossible to install the del.icio.us toolbar.
3. The tagging in del.icio.us went OK.
4. Solving the first exercise in del.icio.us interface was NOT so OK. The notes area is to narrow. All answers did not fit to it. Software development idea: It would be nice to have a large area for adding notes or comments.
5. The creation of network was OK. Surprisingly students loved this functionality. Without giving them any orders, they started to build there own personal networks. They added their class mates to network.
6. The barrowing of bookmarks from my page and adding additional tags went OK.

Conclusion – lesson went very well. All, that was planed, was done. Students seem to like tagging.

Overall rate to lesson 5+

Remarks for the future – open space or tool is needed for collaborative creation of students homework. Students can’t use LeMill for creating project plan. Maybe Google doc is good tool.

1th lesson plan 10th January 2007

1. Before lesson – creation of learning materials in LeMill.

1. Before lesson – bookmarks of materials to my del.icio.us page.
2. Presentation of first material in class – the course syllabus. Students view it in LeMill environment. The goal is to understand how to navigate in tagcloud.
3. Students create the user accounts in del.icio.us. It’s not sure, can they install the del.icio.us toolbox to Browser interface. Usually the installation in computer class is permitted. If they can’t, no problem. They can copy and save URLs to del.icio.us webpage.
4. Students tag the first material in del.icio.us. Teacher presents them how to create bookmark, tags and notes.
5. Presentation of second material (introduction to project management) in LeMill, short lection (5 min), additional questions and tagging in del.icio.us.
6. Presentation of exercise in leMill and adding the answers in to del.icio.us notes area. Oral feedback from students.
7. Creation of network (network of teachers and students) in del.icio.us. Teacher presents his username (martinzillaotz) to students and they add teacher to there personal network. Teacher sees them as fans and can add them to his network. There is no need to collect del.icio.us usernames on paper.
8. Now students can see the teachers homepage (list of bookmarks). Students can copy links from there to their own webpage. They add additional tags. In the future there will be very small amount of tags created by teacher. Students are forced to define their own tags.

Overall description of process

The school is Audentes Secondary School in Estonia.

The grade is 10 (ages from 16 to 18)

Lessons take place in computer lab (one computer per student).

Some of those lessons are virtual – teacher is missing because of the tasks in other projects

Duration of lesson 90 min

Start 10^th January 2007, end 23^th May 2007

Totally 19 lessons (19 * 90 min)

The subject is Project management.

 

With in this subject students must plan and execute in teams small project in the school. The projects are school final ceremony, summer party and ceremony of 1th September.

 

Learning materials are published in LeMill – the tool for collaborative creation of materials. LeMill was selected, because it’s very easy to use and also because to test its functionalities in Calibrate project (to provide feedback to LeMill developers). Because LeMill is not learning environment for students but authoring tool for teachers, teacher creates starting page for course in del.icio.us.

 

In first lesson students create there del.icio.us user accounts, join with teachers network and barrow his bookmarks. Teacher provide as les as possible tags for bookmark. Students must read through the content of material and define meaningful tags. If teacher will provide too many tags to describe the content of material, students do not have anything to do (they don’t even have to think, only copy).

Later students must create project plan document, publish this in some open space (e.g. Google docs) and bookmark this in there del.icio.us page.

 

The meaningfulness of tags created by students will be measured on final examination. This examination will be like interview. Students will present there personal tagcloud and they must explain what is the meaning of that. Teacher will ask additional questions to guide them and to collect additional information. Examination will be recorded to videotape and analyzed afterwards. The qualitative analyze method will be used.

 

The concept mapping method will be used when there is already sufficient amount of tags. Then based on tagcloud information the concept map of project management will be designed. Before that – to practice the concept mapping method and the tool cMap will be used for creation of project plan subdocuments e.g. organization chart and problem tree.

Intro

The goal of this blog is to reflect ideas, plans and open questions related with using the knowledge creation tools in learning process. Hopefully this blog will be place for collecting ideas from other experts interested in same topic. You are warmly welcome to add comments.

The topic (Tools for knowledge creation and visualization) is related with my PhD plan Explorative knowledge construction environments. The hypothesis of this paper is – the learning process will be more effective (the learning process is shorter and the understanding is deeper) if we let students to explore (focus, select, browse, order, change, create) learning objects and their relations, as they want. The aim is to develop or redesign existing learning environments so the students can use knowledge creation tools.

The first part of research was getting overview of methods and tools for knowledge management and visualization. The research results are presented in article IT vahendid teadmiste konstrueerimiseks ja visualiseerimiseks (Est: The IT tools for knowledge construction and visualization. A&A 2006 #6) and in presentation The tools for knowledge construction and visualization.

The second part is the testing of few knowledge construction tools in learning process to prove the hypothesis and to collect important information for learning software development. From number of method and tools have chosen only two:

1. Tagcloud method and del.icio.us tool. Del.icio.us is good web service that allows users to bookmark and tag (define keywords) to internet pages. The tags cab presented in tagcloud.
2. Concept map method and cMap tool. cMap is freeware for mind or concept map creation. Based on authors personal opinion the functionality of cMap is best compared to alternative concept map reators.

The tagcloud method was selected because it is very easy to use and the result is easy to present and understand. The concept map was selected because it is very good method for creating and understanding the relations among pieces of information. The del.icio.us and cMap software was chosen because they are open environments or freeware.