Digital Interaction: Unraveling Student Voices through Collaborative Technologies

Digital Interaction: Unraveling Student Voices through Collaborative Technologies by Casey McArdle Ball State University

#socialconstructivism
Vygotsky’s social constructivism needs an involved teacher.
The culture gives the child the cognitive tools needed for development. The type and quality of these tools determines the pattern and rate of development.
Teachers are conduits for the tools of the culture – thus, the tools include cultural history, social context, and language.
Today they also include electronic forms of information access (digital technologies - internet)

#purpose ? #MSUWIDE Report on the different genres students were composing in Facebook and other social spaces.

#research #questions
What’s going on in these spaces?
Is Web 2.0 being explicitly used as a tool for collaboration inside and outside the writing classroom? If so, how?
Is Blackboard being explicitly used as a tool for collaboration inside and outside the writing classroom? If so, how?
Do students interact with one another outside of class in the Web 2.0 social network environments? If so, when did such interaction begin? What part of the discussion is academically centered? What is the nature and frequency of these interactions in Blackboard and Web 2.0?

#interaction #collaboration Negotiable Space : students openly join these spaces for their own purposes, many yet undecided; not required. (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) Non-Negotiable Space : students are forced to sign up for this space and are required to interact with it. (Blackboard)

#participants Basic Writers “ At Risk” Students Ball State ENG 101/102 – two semesters Ball State ENG 103 – one semester part of Ball State ENG 104 – one semester the core

2009-2010 Academic Year : 17 sections of ENG 101/102 (hoping for 12 total participants) 2010-2011 Academic Year : 4 sections of ENG 101/102 (hoping for 12 total participants)

#participants Teachers: 3 total 2 PhD Graduate Students in Rhet/Comp 1 Contract Faculty with an MA in English All 3 use Blackboard in the class None have used Web 2.0 sites for class assignments or purposes

#methodology Begin with “At Risk” Students My own experience teaching Web 2.0 in ENG 103 Examine what is going on in these spaces = difficulty navigating Blackboard while Web 2.0 sites are viewed as less cumbersome key: interactive spaces

#methods
Observed first day of classes
Issued survey via email
From the survey results, 12 were offered a chance to participate
Only 1 replied
Sent out an email asking for participants
Observed the classes again
Only able to get 7 to agree to interviews
Only 6 signed up for the study
mixed methods : surveys, interviews, classroom observations, online observations (Web 2.0 and Blackboard)

#survey #results 34 responses

#interview #results
Students see Blackboard as academic
Students see Web 2.0 (Facebook & Twitter) as social
Not interested in combining the two
Teachers see very little use for Blackboard other than as a file exchange
Teachers (only 2 ) used the discussions - sparingly
Open to anything other than Blackboard

#observations #results front desk 3 1 2 facebook space = classroom space

#results
In the final week of classes, there was a mix of social and academic – and that’s it!
The student then took this down because he did not want anyone to know what he was writing about.

#results One teacher’s Blackboard page

#nextstep

#research #questions
What’s going on in these spaces?
Is Web 2.0 being explicitly used as a tool for collaboration inside and outside the writing classroom? If so, how?
Is Blackboard being explicitly used as a tool for collaboration inside and outside the writing classroom? If so, how?
Do students interact with one another outside of class in the Web 2.0 social network environments? If so, when did such interaction begin? What part of the discussion is academically centered? What is the nature and frequency of these interactions in Blackboard and Web 2.0?

#conclusion (so far) Difference in navigation skills – ENG 101 to ENG 104 Negotiable vs. Non-negotiable Spaces Have students interact with one another as opposed to just interacting with the software. Create a Facebook/Web 2.0 based CMS?

The Chronicle of Higher Education Google and Pearson stole my idea!

#workscited
Grabill, Jeffrey T., et al. “Revisualizing Composition: Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students.”
2010. 28 September 2010. Web.
Vygotsky, Lev. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes . Boston: Harvard UP, 1978. Print.
#figurescited
http://kayl23.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/trichur-pooram-crowd-508657-sw.jpg
http://www.ratracetrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/rocks.jpg
http://www.easysiteguide.com/images/stories/break-free.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_D7FE1zhZQhY/SY94SxFMWdI/AAAAAAAAADs/kOVkZrvS2Uw/s400/smartsync.JPG
http://dealbreaker.com/_old/2009/10/30/raising%20hands.jpg
http://www.visualphotos.com/photo/2x4591194/studio_shot_of_people_raising_their_hands_bld023819.jpg
http://christdominion.com/images/methodology.jpg
http://www.hirepros.com/images/Pages/Methodology.gif

Digital Interaction: Unraveling Student Voices through Collaborative Technologies

by Casey McArdle on May 20, 2011

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Digital Interaction: Unraveling Student Voices through Collaborative Technologies — Presentation Transcript