Technological Considerations
Technology Choices
In designing these tasks my website, ease of use for young students was at the forefront when choosing the technology to be used. When creating the website, Wix provided a platform that was simple to edit, and visually pleasing. Students are able to easily navigate to the Wix website, and work through the tasks outlined under the Students tab of the website. When students click on each task, there is an animated robot that audibly reads out the written directions. This technology add-on was intended as scaffolding to help those students who might struggle to read the instructions. This means that their reading abilities won’t hinder their ability to follow the instructions and complete the tasks. The students will be using iPads to complete the tasks, as most students of this age have had experience using an iPad, or tablet, and they allow ease of use for navigating to the internet and around the website with their touch screen capabilities. The tasks will also be completed in a face to face environment, which allows the instructor to be present for any technological troubleshooting that may arise. By keeping the target audience in mind, I believe that I was able to select the best technology choices available to ensure that individual and collaborative learning occurs. Ultimately, the technology should not be a factor in the cognitive completion of the tasks. Daniel Suthers states that “instructional technology is often designed to structure part of the activity, “offloading’’ work onto the technology so that learners can focus their cognitive and social resources on other relevant aspects of the learning activity” (p. 325). The technology chosen should make the collaboration and completion of the tasks easier to accomplish, and the technology chosen for these specific tasks does exactly this.
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Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, and Hangouts
Both websites and their respective CSCL tasks were created using a variety of the Google Apps for Education programs. Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are an online, cloud supported word processor, spreadsheet, and media presentation tool respectively that allow for an unlimited amount of people to simultaneously type on the same page, saving that page in cloud storage infinitely through nothing more than a Google account, making them excellent choices for asynchronous text production. Like other Google products, they are simple to use, following the same pattern as virtually all products which Google currently has available, and are completely compatible with Google Apps for Work and Classroom. We can also generally use these apps alongside Google Hangouts as a type of integrated collaborative approach, the goal being that students use Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides more formally to complete lessons and work and use Google Hangouts more informally, to promote personal collaboration and reduce stress on the students. Google Forms also provides a convenient assessment tool that allows students to complete self and group assessments with ease of use, much like the other Google Apps. By posting a question and having students respond through the form, students can log their own ideas on a platform that makes it easy for either the teacher or the students to retrieve as necessary. This greatly facilitates assessment for teachers by providing a convenient central locale (Google sheets) to help organize and sort student productions through various tracking and sorting tools.
Wordpress and Wix
We went in different directions in choosing a platform for mounting our respective workshops, though really, there are a few different, equally valid options to take in this regard, and we wanted to highlight that many options out there are capable of producing excellent results. Katie’s website was built with a program called Wix. Wix is an online website builder that allows the user to build a website by using templates and selecting from various options bound to those templates. The company advertises that no coding is needed to build a website with them, which makes it an excellent option for people new to web design, or for people who do not have the time to go through the process of building a website from scratch. We rate Wix an overall â…˜ for its ease of use, simple design, and stunning results. There are definitely enough options to choose from to build an exciting website across a range of subject areas from home with ease, but Katie did find the odd limitation where she wanted to build more but was impeded by the website’s tighter structure. Ryan’s website was built using Wordpress, another online website builder that allows the user to build a website completely from scratch by using codes and plug-ins to produce the intended effect. Wordpress advertises that you can build any kind of site you want and it is an excellent option for people from an array of skill levels because it supports literally any option which can be found online. We rate Wordpress at an overall â…˜ as well because while it was true that anything was possible, its lack of structure requires a steeper learning curve than Wix, and it takes time to perfect. It is nonetheless a rugged tool, with plenty of support through youtube and other online channels, and honestly is a worthwhile venture for the learning possibilities that come with this unique challenge.