Digital Natives & Immigrants (Marc Prensky) & PMI - Week 1 Wiki Activity Reflection

Yesterday, Shannon and I had to collaborate together on a Wiki activity, which required us to read an article written by Marc Prensky, 'Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants' (for those of you who don't yet know, a digital native is someone born into our digital frenzy world with the operation of mobiles, laptops etc. second nature and a digital immigrant is someone who is foreign or immigrant to technology). From this article we were asked to further examine under the PMI approach; positive, minus and interesting.

On a side note, I found the below YouTube video to be a nice introduction to what is a wiki?

This week's wiki exercise could be seen as similar to the Jigsaw approach (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(teaching_technique) for further information & see diagram below; http://www.maryborougheducationcentre.vic.edu.au/successforboys/resources/pdf/planning_core/planning_activity5.pdf)

Jigsaw Approach

The differences however, were that Shannon and I were given a segment (in this case 'Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants'), we were to dissect the information, and to report back to the class online by adding our information to the Learning Theories Wiki. So instead of having both home groups and expert groups, we only had a home group.

This strategy could be useful in our own teaching context, if utilised correctly, as it relies on the student's ability to be an active constructivist in their learning. Of course a student's ability to be a constructive learner is influenced by the teacher's enabling of the student. Teachers can equip their student's with the right scaffolding tools and mediums in which to use them, to support collaborative social understanding and interaction with others.

The act of reading and presenting back information online can be better than in a classroom if the activity is designed properly and the task given to them is clear. That way students are able to utilise scaffolding tools combined with social interaction to collaborate with each other and share ideas, to eventually interalise the new knowledge.

A constructivist approach does support individuals with different learning needs, as the students are learning together in a collaborative approach. The knowledge can be documented collaboratively online in forums, wikis, blogs etc. so that each student can build upon the other's learning. Each student is also given the chance to contribute, opportunities that are sometimes lost in a classroom context.

As mentioned earlier, knowledge from this task was scaffolded using the PMI Analysis tool. It was used to dissect the article and seperate it into the following categories; plus, minus & interesting. This technique supports greater analysis as it asks the reader to think about/analyse the text on a deeper level, by triggering the reader to examine all options before making any decisions.  You can also use the PMI tool to grade a text. For example, if every plus was graded +5, every minus -5, at the end of analysis, the text would have a grade that could support or reject a decision. This technique could be a useful strategy with my own learners as it encourages students to analyse on a deeper level as well as being a useful scaffolding tool for collaborative learning. A PMI tool could also be particularly effective in a Wiki as it allows each student to contribute to the list.


References:

Commonwealth of Australia. (2006). Planning guide: Activity sheet 5: Expert jigsaw. Retrieved from http://www.maryborougheducationcentre.vic.edu.au/successforboys/resources/pdf/planning_core/planning_activity5.pdf


ramitsethi. (2007, Mar 2). Pb wiki - What is a wiki? [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmByB0sIPog&feature=player_embedded


Wikipedia. (2011). Jigsaw: Teaching technique. Retrieved July 7, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(teaching_technique)