The question on my mind as I awoke this morning was "How is developing a wiki page going to help the students in their learning, understanding and future teaching of Society and Environment?"
I have plunged on into the unknown, starting up an exploratory wiki, learning by doing. Having started the process, now the questions start to arise.
One thing I'm noticing about my own learning is that I wake up with questions on my mind. I can now fully see the purpose of this blog is unfolding. It is to be my mindspace, where I can ask any question, note down any learnings, discoveries or observations I make, develop theories, and copy in any useful links. Basically it is my own whiteboard, chart and notebook of learning. WOW! What a gift!
And I can write anything in it - no matter how stupid. Like this. That's pretty pointless, but here's the thing. It doesn't need to have a point. I can take my thinking in any direction - logical, fanciful, ridiculous, emotional, beautiful, spiritual. I need no-one's permission. All I need is courage. The courage to allow what is arising within me to come forth, the clarity to then enable the words to form, the commitment and work ethic then to make the effort to get the words down.
These questions that arise mainly (but not only) in the morning for me I believe are the sorts of questions that lead me to higher level thinking. They are (to quote Reynolds) the 'fatter' questions of why and how (as opposed to the skinnier questions of what, where, when).
My realisation/s about my own learning patterns make me wonder whether the students ever give thought to their own learning patterns. When do questions arise for them.
And another thing... Last night with starting the wiki. I worked (though it felt like play!) on it solidly for about 90 minutes, from 6pm until 7.30pm. I read introduction to wiki pages on wikiversity, viewed an embedded tutorial on youtube and a couple of other related youtube tutorials that were then promoted at the end of that first tutorial. Those resources provided sufficient scaffolding, combined with my willingness to have a go even though I might "stuff it up" were sufficient to get my first wiki up and running. The platforms of youtube and wiki seem to be scaffolding in nature - recommending other links after you've viewed or read the first; in the case of wiki, providing references at the end to get further intel on a specific aspect of the topic you're learning. I worked on it until I got stuck (on working out how to format references). I looked for some help in youtube and searched wiki, but the info I found was too technical for me. I stopped enjoying. It started to feel like work. So rather than let myself get too frustrated with it, I decided to end that session with the acknowledgement of how much I had achieved already and the confidence that when I return to it, I'll be able to make further inroads into references and a whole lot of other areas. Stopping at the point prior to frustration is a good idea for me (although I also have another theory about continuing to work after you've reached a blockage, just by moving on to a different task or topic, but I'll save that for another entry).
I'm interested to find out about the academic viewpoint on using wikipedia both as an academic resource in undertaking coursework AND on developing wiki pages as an academic tool in undertaking coursework. How would I frame a rich question on this?
Another learning just happened right then....
Sometimes questioning arises in me but I don't know how to frame a suitable question.
What process could I use to work out how to do this.
First strategy that comes to mind is - look in the S and E text book about inquiry and the inquiry process.
I have a feeling that what I've done at the start of this paragraph is to recognise a tension.
I notice that tension is a terminology used in S and E (in Robbie's lectures and possibly in the text). I would like to get a definition of the word but I'll use it at this stage because I want to continue exploring my thinking on this and don't want to get distracted now.
So - let's see what the text offers on tensions/inquiry/the inquiry process/framing questions. The Learning how to learn workshop on questioning could be useful too.
Initial thought after reading Reynolds Chapter on Inquiry Learning - not enough attention is given to the framing of quality questions.
I believe that quality questioning is required for quality inquiry. However the chapter focuses more on ways of addressing and answering the question, with the development of the question itself largely unaddressed.
I want to frame my question in such a way that it is sufficiently open - to allow raising and exploration of issues; but also sufficiently targetted so that it has a clarity of purpose.
I have plunged on into the unknown, starting up an exploratory wiki, learning by doing. Having started the process, now the questions start to arise.
One thing I'm noticing about my own learning is that I wake up with questions on my mind. I can now fully see the purpose of this blog is unfolding. It is to be my mindspace, where I can ask any question, note down any learnings, discoveries or observations I make, develop theories, and copy in any useful links. Basically it is my own whiteboard, chart and notebook of learning. WOW! What a gift!
And I can write anything in it - no matter how stupid. Like this. That's pretty pointless, but here's the thing. It doesn't need to have a point. I can take my thinking in any direction - logical, fanciful, ridiculous, emotional, beautiful, spiritual. I need no-one's permission. All I need is courage. The courage to allow what is arising within me to come forth, the clarity to then enable the words to form, the commitment and work ethic then to make the effort to get the words down.
These questions that arise mainly (but not only) in the morning for me I believe are the sorts of questions that lead me to higher level thinking. They are (to quote Reynolds) the 'fatter' questions of why and how (as opposed to the skinnier questions of what, where, when).
My realisation/s about my own learning patterns make me wonder whether the students ever give thought to their own learning patterns. When do questions arise for them.
And another thing... Last night with starting the wiki. I worked (though it felt like play!) on it solidly for about 90 minutes, from 6pm until 7.30pm. I read introduction to wiki pages on wikiversity, viewed an embedded tutorial on youtube and a couple of other related youtube tutorials that were then promoted at the end of that first tutorial. Those resources provided sufficient scaffolding, combined with my willingness to have a go even though I might "stuff it up" were sufficient to get my first wiki up and running. The platforms of youtube and wiki seem to be scaffolding in nature - recommending other links after you've viewed or read the first; in the case of wiki, providing references at the end to get further intel on a specific aspect of the topic you're learning. I worked on it until I got stuck (on working out how to format references). I looked for some help in youtube and searched wiki, but the info I found was too technical for me. I stopped enjoying. It started to feel like work. So rather than let myself get too frustrated with it, I decided to end that session with the acknowledgement of how much I had achieved already and the confidence that when I return to it, I'll be able to make further inroads into references and a whole lot of other areas. Stopping at the point prior to frustration is a good idea for me (although I also have another theory about continuing to work after you've reached a blockage, just by moving on to a different task or topic, but I'll save that for another entry).
I'm interested to find out about the academic viewpoint on using wikipedia both as an academic resource in undertaking coursework AND on developing wiki pages as an academic tool in undertaking coursework. How would I frame a rich question on this?
Another learning just happened right then....
Sometimes questioning arises in me but I don't know how to frame a suitable question.
What process could I use to work out how to do this.
First strategy that comes to mind is - look in the S and E text book about inquiry and the inquiry process.
I have a feeling that what I've done at the start of this paragraph is to recognise a tension.
I notice that tension is a terminology used in S and E (in Robbie's lectures and possibly in the text). I would like to get a definition of the word but I'll use it at this stage because I want to continue exploring my thinking on this and don't want to get distracted now.
So - let's see what the text offers on tensions/inquiry/the inquiry process/framing questions. The Learning how to learn workshop on questioning could be useful too.
Initial thought after reading Reynolds Chapter on Inquiry Learning - not enough attention is given to the framing of quality questions.
I believe that quality questioning is required for quality inquiry. However the chapter focuses more on ways of addressing and answering the question, with the development of the question itself largely unaddressed.
I want to frame my question in such a way that it is sufficiently open - to allow raising and exploration of issues; but also sufficiently targetted so that it has a clarity of purpose.
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