ISTE MODULE 2 – Collaboration & Communication

How can students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others?

My Triggering Event Question: In harmony of students’ participation in physical education, how could blogging about their performance enhance their understanding of health and fitness?

Resource: Participation and common knowledge in a case study of student blogging (Alterman & Larusson, 2013)

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         The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)’s Standard 2 set forth the following learning targets for students: “1) Identify digital tools that can be used to help them interact, collaborate, and publish, 2) Determine which media and/or format options work best to communicate information and ideas effectively to different audiences, 3) Use digital tools to enhance cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures, and 4) Utilize digital tools to contribute to small group projects, produce original works and solve problems” (ISTE, 2007).

         Throughout my physical education classes, students have the opportunity to record information about their health and fitness. For example, students perform pre-semester, mid-semester and post-semester fitness testing on their cardiovascular endurance (pacer), flexibility (sit and reach), muscular endurance (sit-ups), muscular strength (push-ups), and body composition (height, weight, and BMI). With knowledge of this information, I question how blogging about their performances could enhance their understanding of health and fitness. Through blogging, which Lampinen (2013) suggests can be adapted to every subject area, the first learning target of this module, which reads, “Identify digital tools that can be used to help them interact, collaborate, and publish” (ISTE, 2007) is demonstrated. I chose the following resource Alterman et al. (2013) for the exploration of my triggering event question, because it highlights students’ level of participation and common knowledge when blogging. Alterman et al. (2013)’s case study set forth to investigate the influences of student blogging in a semester long class. In this single class, students were assigned to participate in blogging activities in sequence with the course curriculum. Over time, students developed blogging communities by sharing their own thoughts by posting blogs and commenting on classmates’ blogs. In each blogging community, students have the opportunity digest and explore the subject matter through the use of collaboration and communication. Allowing me to conclude that through the use of blogging, my students can explore their recorded information (fitness testing scores) about their performances in order to better understand their personal health and fitness. In doing so, “Common and shared knowledge emerges intermittently and non-uniformly” (Alterman et al., 2013) about course curriculum (i.e. health and fitness)

References

Alterman, R. a., & Larusson, J. j. (2013). Participation and common knowledge in a case study of student blogging. International Journal Of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 8(2), 149-187.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2007). National educational technology standards for students. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-students.

Lampinen, M. (2013, April 08). Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom. Retrieved January 22, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen