Profile Wiki Task

Admittedly, I didn’t use the wikis to their full potential. The value of this activity to me was significant in answering the questions. Some of them I had not asked myself so self-discovery to an extent was the value that I obtained out of the profile wikis. In a classroom this activity, I believe, would be more effective offline as a handout based activity and would work in a group setting or in an overall classroom situation.

This would be a great task to build the relate segment of the engagement theory. It would be an ideal activity when forming groups or, with a new class, having students get to know people in their group or class. It would reveal diversity in friendship groups. It would also be an interesting way to gather prior knowledge of a topic, assess learning, or to introduce a new topic.

Students constructed their own learning in this activity because it was dependant upon them to complete the activity, that is, answer the questions and read the other students’ responses. Thus not only learning about other people, learning from others’ experiences and knowledge base but also learning about themselves to an extent.

Through discovering different aspects about their fellow classmates students can evaluate who will be beneficial to their learning in the future.

The main point of this activity was connecting students with others in order to share knowledge and to provide a source of information and support for future learning. Knowledge is not only available in academic ICTs or resources but also in other people, their viewpoints and their experiences. For example, when I was finding it difficult to grasp terms in this course I sought other students’ understanding and through their simple explanations I found understanding for myself.   

This activity supports a diverse range of students; in fact, it would work better with a range of diversity within the classroom because this activity is based on developing connections among students due to their similarities and differences. Learning is more effective between people when there is diversity because different people see differently, learn differently and learn at a different pace.

If monitored closely and assessed appropriately it would support group activities through online engagement. Through technology this could work as an initial task to develop connection within students in the same group or class. This would also be effective in subject introduction or assessment. Students would need to be encouraged through different forms of assessment to use this activity to its full potential. For example, to ensure students have looked at other students, and not just their friends, activities for informal assessment could be devised requiring students to compare the participants under certain criteria.