Review of Biggs' LearningInnovationLab.com website
I had the opportunity to review a Touro capstone website of a colleague of mine at New Tech High, Andrew Biggs. Andres has stood out for me as someone who I can work easily with, has his head fully in the education game, and has a strong grasp of both technology and pedagogy. It was wonderful to see how he laid out his capstone webpage.
Who was the audience for Mr. Biggs?
Based on what I saw from his logo and his content, his audience was clearly other teachers in the field of Project Based Learning, other New Tech Network teachers across the country. Andrew was highly effective at communicating to his target audience through:
- Clarity due to great organization
- Explanations of what could be found on each page,
- Use of a variety of visuals, videos and links
- Clear and straightforward titles on each page
- Redundant buttons to get to content in various ways, both page content and persistent navigation
Who is my audience?
Given that my questions is: "How can Students Effectively Participate In and Contribute to a Learning Community through Blogging?" my overall target is any teacher or educational system, at any level, that is interested in integrating blogging into their school culture, as a means of documentation, teaching, and networking with the adult world outside of school. Realistically, the audience that would be most interested in this would be high school teachers and administrators in the New Tech Network or any school exploring PBL as a means for instruction.
The trend in education right now is towards personalized learning, a process that can seem daunting and overwhelming. I believe that using a school portfolio that includes blogging can address some of the issues that arise when grappling with the idea of personalized learning. Questions can include:
So, although my main audience is those teachers already in the New Tech Network, I believe that any teacher or administrator exploring the concept of personalized learning, should also be included in my target audience.
The trend in education right now is towards personalized learning, a process that can seem daunting and overwhelming. I believe that using a school portfolio that includes blogging can address some of the issues that arise when grappling with the idea of personalized learning. Questions can include:
- How does the educator promote more chances for student voice and choice?
- How can the process be documented and assessed well when each student is learning something different?
- What structures best support the concept of personalized learning? Badging? Blogging? Something we have not invented yet?
- How does the educator monitor learning in a personalized environment?
So, although my main audience is those teachers already in the New Tech Network, I believe that any teacher or administrator exploring the concept of personalized learning, should also be included in my target audience.
Some New Resources for My Website
- Interesting websites: https://www.edsurge.com, http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/
- Blogs I follow: sethgodin.com, stellaorange.com
- Research: TBA (since I switched topics)
- Books etc.: Learning on the Blog: Collected Posts for Educators and Parents, Blogging for Educators: Writing for Professional Learning
- Twitter hashtags: #personalizedlearning, #blogchat, #edtech, #edchat, #blendedlearning, #plsummit