conversations by bensonkua
Communication takes so many different forms, but increasingly it is taking place online. The impact of digital dialogue is enormous – just look at the burgeoning networks that are being established on Twitter. At the success of Facebook. If there was any doubt about the potential impact of digital dialogue, we only have to look at the social and political impact of online communication in recent weeks throughout the Middle East. Just look at how our teenagers organise their lives and identify with others through their online communications. The internet has evolved from an information source, an online “encyclopedia”, to a tool for social dialogue, shared game-playing, collaboration. And it’s the dialogue that takes place that seems to be having the impact.
Dialogue? It needs more than one person. It’s using communication to bounce ideas back and forth, to exchange and develop ideas and to refine our own viewpoint.
It’s those social interactions that help us build knowledge. Mercer (The Guided Construction of Knowledge, 1995) says that knowledge is shaped by communication. Alexander (Towards Dialogic Teaching, 2008) talks about how we have moved from an emphasis on written literacy to a curriculum that values speaking and listening skills (oracy) too. He talks about how we need to develop effective learning dialogue in our classrooms to “achieve common understanding through structured, cumulative questioning and discussion” so we guide and prompt our learners with increasing effectiveness.
If you have read any of my previous blog posts, you may have noticed my interest in tools that enable collaboration between the children within my class. We use wikis, forums, voicethread, wallwisher, linoit and a range of other tools to share our ideas, build knowledge together and give each other feedback along the way. We use these tools to collaborate with children from other classes, other countries. I think the feedback they are able to give each other is part of what helps our learners co-construct their knowledge – true social constructivism. But I’m not always convinced we get past the “that’s great” to the “what do you need to do next” – though from what I have noticed in class, we all get better at it with practice.
So is digital learning dialogue the same as face to face, real life learning dialogue? What is the most effective way for us to use digital learning dialogue to impact learning? Are those who are good at face to face dialogue good at digital dialogue too? Does digital dialogue transform grunting teenagers into articulate communicators – like my teenage son giving directions, asking questions, sharing jokes as he talks to his friends through a headset when playing online with his friends on his playstation? Does digital dialogue provide a means for the shyest in the class to contribute to discussions? What is the nature of effective digital learning dialogue? How do we harness the enormous potential of social digital dialogue in a learning context? Is the nature of digital learning dialogue going to be markedly different to social digital dialogue? Prensky (Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning, 2010) suggests that part of a teacher’s role in effective learning dialogue will be to provide those rigorous, probing, guiding questions that ensure quality learning takes place – how do we know we are being rigorous and effective in this?
I may have been quiet on my blog over the last few weeks, but I have been reading and trying to formulate the question that will provide the basis for my Masters research. My problem is that every time I think of a question, I think of a dozen more I need to ask, too! I’m beginning to think I have just opened a can of worms! But I would love to know what you think of this as a starting point:
“What is the impact on learners of feedback as part of a digital learning dialogue?”
images under creative commons share-alike licensecobweb on the bird table by brockvicky
Interesting ideas, thanks for sharing! Perhaps one way to approach it would be to consider how we *measure* the impact of the feedback – and perhaps whether it matters who the feedback is from.
I’ve been experimenting with students collaborating on wikis and one of the interesting things is how they respond to each other’s comments as well as my own. You only need to look at the comments on a blog post (the fascinating conversations that get going on NERS for example) to see how this could be harnessed in – and out of – a classroom.
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Thanks for the comment Ian – wikis are fantastic for collaboration work! Thinking about who the feedback is from is another interesting one to ask questions about – if the quality of the feedback from a teacher is more likely to move the learning forward or with practice do our learners get better at doing this with each other.
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You’ve got me thinking about how we model feedback for students – something I do anyway in the classroom but hadn’t thought to do for electronic work. Perhaps suggest that all comments/feedback they include should include something good about the work, something to improve and something that made them think? Hmm…
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That sounds like a good idea, Ian. We use ‘two stars and a wish’ in our class so that sounds like a food progression for your older students.
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It is a really interesting question as we now use so many methods of “feedback” in classrooms/learning spaces. It would be interesting to see what actually has the greatest impact for example with my formal feedback students seem distracted if I put a grade letter on and they do not read fully what has been written. Where as if I add notes/questions during lessons to their shared work (google docs) or question them directly about their work they react straight away.
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