When you think of mobile phones being used in a classroom you immediately jump to the conclusion that they will cause too much disruption in a learning environment and can only have a negative affect. This was my solid belief before I read the article by Elizabeth Hartnell Young and Nadja Heym.
I saw an opening for the use of mobile phones with the findings in their studies and by other points made by fellow students in De Bono’s hats. I still however, did not see enough advantages with having them as learning tools to disregard the negatives.
When I finally got around to taking part in De Bono’s hats for the first time. I discovered that the ideas and opinions I had noted, had already been voiced by my fellow students. I felt that I could not add to the table without repeating them or that my opinion wasn’t as well written as others. From this activity I could see who was dominant in the postings and realised that I was not inclined to post as well. A lack of confidence you might say. From this I could see flaws in the wiki activity. After discussing with my fellow student Sarah Findlay, I agreed with her idea of a like/dislike/comment system to avoid the repetition and involve everyone.
The task was constructivist in theory as the activity itself was a scaffold where individual learning was done in a group activity. Though the repetition of ideas meant that collaboration was not achieved to the extent it should have been. I feel the activity had elements of cognitivism as the subject was split into the six thinking areas and could be processed more effectively.
I did enjoy reading the posts from the activity and the initial concept of De Bono’s hats for this wiki would have been ideal if everyone was doing the activity simultaneously. I did manage to open my mind to other view points which I probably would not have looked into if De Bono’s hats was not used for this discussion.
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