Project+Statement

Online Classrooms for the Face-to-Face Educator: Creating a Wikispace Created by Kassidy Hetzel

The focus of this workshop is to provide teachers with the resources, materials, and support that they may need while developing their own online wikispace classroom. Participants of the workshop will be creating and developing their own online classroom using Mayer's Principles for Multimedia Learning, and Universal Design for Learning through the creation of a wikispace.

**Participant entry level skills:** knowledge of Web 2.0 tools, proficient use of laptop, and Internet use. If there is a need for pre-training to provide advanced teaching for participants, Mayer suggests that this can help clarify concepts that may confuse learners and “set the stage” for learning. Any pre-training (at the request of participant(s) will take place as an introductory activity prior to the beginning of the course.

**How will you improve learner performance by engaging learners in authentic experiences?** The objective of this project, “creating wikspaces for classroom instruction” allows Teachers and students to work collaboratively using technological tools and resources to create their own class Wiki. This facilitates the use of technology and fosters communication and collaboration among teachers and students. Student engagement will be prompted by opportunities for collaboration by posting assignments, discussion questions and responses to a joint Wikispace. Three classroom teachers will also share a Wiki to post instructional resources, make inquiries, and respond to discussion posts. Students will Synchronous discussion will also take place utilizing Elluminate with students of all three classes to promote student engagement and provide a forum for open communication among peers. The purpose of the workshop is to provide the participants with an experience that will allow them to create their own online classroom wikispace to be used for their individual classroom.

**How will you facilitate learning through constructivist, collaborative learning experiences?** Participants will be engaged in activities that require them to collaborate with their students in discussions, as well as provide students with other chances to view or learn the classroom material. Having teachers create their own online classroom wikispace in our workshop will meet the expectations of Smith and MacGregors’ assumptions for collaborative learning because “In collaborative learning situations, students are not simply taking in new information or ideas. They are creating something new with the information and ideas. These acts of intellectual processing- of constructing meaning or creating something new-are crucial to learning.” The next assumption for collaborative learning is that learning depends on rich contexts. Our workshop would be that rich learning context where participants would become collaborative learners, and they would be creating a wikispace that provides access and activity that immerse students in challenging tasks or questions, and provides them with additional access to classroom materials. Collaborative learning activities frequently begin with problems, for which students must marshal pertinent facts and ideas. Instead of being distant observers students become immediate practitioners. The wikispace aids both instructors and students in the learning process by giving them unconditional access to materials and eachother.

The last assumption that Smith and MacGregor propose for collaborative learning is that learning is inherently social. Collaborative learning produces intellectual synergy of many minds coming to bear on a problem, and the social stimulation of mutual engagement in a common endeavor. This mutual exploration, meaning-making, and feedback often leads to better understanding on the part of students, and to the creation of new understandings for all. Our workshop would be a connected environment where all participants would be able to share, create, and connect. For, wikispaces not only provide a collaborative discussion area it allows all participants the potential to create a social community and a strong social community leads to a strong learning community. Smith and MacGregor continue on to explain that collaborative learning is a learning theory that incorporates the following goals: involvement, cooperation and teamwork and civic responsibility (1992). **Involvement:** Involvement in learning, involvement with other students, and involvement with instructors are factors that make an overwhelming difference in student retention and success in college. And, if something can help in colllege material being retained, then these authors make the assumption that it will make a difference in secondary education transference as well. By its very nature, collaborative learning is both socially and intellectually involving. It invites students to build closer connections to other students, their faculty, their courses and their learning (1992). Our workshop would take this goal one step further and foster involving relationships with other teachers in the field. Through having educators create an online wikispace classroom we are inviting learning to occur at any time of day. Students can be involved in their learning outside of the traditional classroom with both their peers and teachers. The active nature of wikispaces fosters Collaborative Authoring leading to learning from others, developing higher and critical thinking skills, deepening investigative skills, developing skills for negotiating conflict, and facilitating effective teamwork.

**Cooperation and Teamwork:** The cultivation of teamwork, community-building, and leadership skills are legitimate and valuable classroom goals of a collaborative learning. Our workshop would foster cooperation and teamwork through the process of creating an online classroom wikispace for each of the attendees. Attendees could come with partners from their school and/or work with other attendees to create a team environment. Wikispaces also provide students who will ultimatley be accessing the online classroom wikispaces with opportunities to use the classroom wikispace to collaborate with peers on assignments as well as discussions.

**Civic Responsibility:** Collaborative learning encourages students to acquire an active voice in shaping their ideas and values and a sensitive ear in hearing others. It can also help instill the positive cultural values of what is fair and expected of each individual. At our workshop attendees would be the active voice in creating their own projects and would each have their own individual responsibilities and expectations in creating their online classroom wikispace. However, once the wikispace is created at our workshop it is the teachers responsibility to explain that when using wikispaces civic responsibility is demanded by all users for if a student has the ability to edit a document they also have the ability to delete a document or page, and therefore civic responsibility must be explained, and enforced.

According to Vygotsky, social interaction plays a essential role in the process of cognitive development and the connections between people and the sociocultural context in which they act and interact in shared experiences (Crawford, 1996). Vgotsky, on the foundations of constructivism, believed that humans used tools that developed from a culture - such as translating speech to writing, to assist in mediating their social environments. Vgotsky also posits that it was through internalization of these tools, that people would attain higher thinking skills. (Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2010).

In order for students to realize higher level thinking skills, they must have access to, and be engaged with real world applications and challenges…and that one way was for students to collaborate… by social networking or online collaboration, further remove the barriers imposed by the traditional classroom, and allowing for anytime-anywhere learning experiences.

**How will you create sound instructional materials and learning environments that are based on solid research and learning theory?**

Workshop presentation format will model the type of learning and lesson development that we have been exposed to in our classrooms at Walden University. All materials that will be used will either be originals or will be cited appropriately to ensure authenticity and owner credit. No plaigarism will be tolerated.

We will create a learning environment based on the research of Rena M. Paloff and Keith Pratt in Building Online Learning Communities.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (2nd ed.). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">As well as using Mayer's Principles for Multimedia Learning, the guide to online schools, and other resources.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">We will also be using the principles of UDL in creating our workshop.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**How will you most effectively manage this process?**

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">We will effectively manage the process of our workshop through clear expectations, outcomes, goals, and agendas. Our workshop will also be managed effectively through our step-by-step instructional strategies because they will be detailed and specific as to not create confusion within our participants.

** What ethical considerations will you make to ensure sound decisions are made? **

**What processes and resources will you include?**

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The processes and resources that we will be using to conduct our workshop will begin with a presentation of UDL and why using its principles are important not only in just the face-to-face classroom, but also for how and why educators can and should be implementing these principles within their online classroom wikispace. We will then be moving on to a presentation about Mayer’s principles for digital media and then we will look at how using an online classroom wikispace meets the needs of both UDL and Mayer’s principles. Throughout the workshop we will also be referencing the ideas and principles from Palloff and Pratt’s text //Building Online Learning Communities//. Our main resource for this workshop will be the wikispace website itself. This is where all of our participants will be creating their online classrooms. All resources will be available on the Resources page of this wikispace.

** Describe the learning environment and population that will be engaged in your project: **

**Audience:** High School Teachers

** Learner Characteristics ** : 10-12 teachers during each workshop. Each participant will have a different background and content. All participants are college graduates. Each workshop will be comprised of both males and females of varying ages and cultural backgrounds.

** Anticipated entry level skills of audience ** : various levels of technological knowledge and experiences, the least experience would have used some older technologies in class such as VCRs, overhead projectors, calculators, computers for grade books. Some teachers will have more background knowledge and skills with using wikispaces than others, and some will have never seen a wikispace before, but have knowledge of social networking tools.

** Workshop environment: ** Our workshop will be taking place at Arvada High School during the week of August 16th. Throughout the first week back teachers have an opportunity to make any of the five two hour workshop opportunities. It is a clear expectation that EVERY teacher MUST attend one of the five meetings at their convenience.

** Support for project by community, parents, or administrators ** : The administration of Arvada High School has asked for this workshop and therefore, they fully support and back the workshop creators in their endeavors to create and implement the mandatory online classroom wikispace.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**References:** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Leigh Smith, B, & MacGregor, J (1992). What is Collaborative Learning?. Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Eduaction, 3, Retrieved June 28, 2010, from []. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2010, April). Social Development Theory (Vygotsky) at <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; margin: 0.1pt 0in;">Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved August 11, 2010 from [|http://www.learning-] theories.com/vygotskys-social-learning-theory.html.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Mayer, R. (2001). Multimedia learning. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.