All the blog posts I have read so far are really good! You wrote about very interesting resources. So now I am going to tell you about a resource that I have fallen for. We all know it since we all used it before, peerwise!
http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/at/?lnu_se
When Satish first introduced this website for us I was actually kind of suspicious. But after a while using it I found my self really fond of it! As you may remember, it works kind of like a game. Every student creates an account on the website. Then they are able to create questions on this website that will be open and available for all the other members. So I can create a question and write several alternatives that the reader can choose as his or her answer. It is really great! So you can not create questions without any alternatives, so everyone has a chance to at least guess right. This is how it looks when you create a question:
After all when more and more students start to create several questions the site grows bigger. All students can log in to the site and answer how many questions they want which were created by their friends on the same course or in the same class. The students can also make comments to each other. And just look at the following question, when you come to your homepage at the site and it looks like this you will not find it as boring as opening a new thick book full with facts;
You get a kick from receiving comments about your questions and also that you can earn badges which I will explain later.
So what is required to make this work? It requires a computer, internet connection and some minutes of your time.
This resource is so useful for both students and teachers. Students will feel much more involved in the teaching and the learning progress. Sometimes it can be hard to engage the students in assignments because the teacher can be so focused on getting the assignment right and fulfilling the goals in the syllabus. But by using this resource the students are involved 100%. As I mentioned, the students can also earn badges on the site. In the following picture you can see some examples of what kind of badges you can get;
That can trigger the motivation among the students. It can create a small "competition" between the students. Who can earn the hard badge first? So to earn more badges they need to answer and comment more questions, and when they answer questions they learn. It is really fun!
At the same time as it is funny for the students it is so helpful for the teacher. She/he can go in and see all the questions and correct if there are any problems or errors.
This is not a recourse that you build all the lessons on or even a few lessons on entirely. I believe that this is a complement. You can use it to fulfill you ordinary lessons. You can on the regular lessons send out a few of your students to sit at Peerwise so create and answer questions. I also like the fact that the students know that all the questions were made by them selves and so they know that they have to read them carefully and critically since you never know if there might be an error in some of the questions. They have to be critical. It is a fun way to vary your lessons and to be able to check how much each student knows about a specific subject.
Although, it can be tricky to use Peerwise aswell. All students are different and they all develop at different speed. So it is not sure that all students are able to use this resource. To be able to make a question, the student need to understand the information and then transform this knowledge to a question and also create several answers that the reader can chose from. Which is much more tricky than it might sound! It can also be a negative affect that the students can see how many badges has been earned by other students if themselves have not earned so many. Also the several answers you get to chose from may be confusing for some students. They might know the answer from the beginning but they can get unsecure when they read the alternatives.
So it is not a problemfree resource, but on the other hand, are there any of those? I beleve that these difficulties can be solved and worked through. As a teacher you just might have to teach some groundwork. If you just put some time into the groundwork and talk alot about those things that might be negative for your specific class with the students then it will be great. Then they will be prepared and they might know how to tackle different difficulties.
I cannot do anything more than recomend this fantastic resource to you, it is absolutly worth a try!
Good luck.
All the best, Charlotte Olsson
Comment on Peer Wise:
ReplyDeleteYou have written a very good description about your ICT resource. I think that you highlighted all the important things with about this resource, both the benefits and disadvantages.
I agree with you that Peer Wise is a fantastic resource. But I also was suspicious when Satish introduced this website. When I first heard about the page I thought that it sounded hard to create questions, answers and explanations, but it was really easy. As you wrote in the blog, it really triggers the motivation to both create and answers questions. When I sat and answered questions I had fun and it did not even feel like I was studying. You wrote that it can be a negative affect that students can see how many badges has been earned by other students, I agree with that. But some part of me disagrees. I say that because when I used Peer Wise that statistic of the other students’ answers was my motivation. I wanted to be at the top. But I can also see why it can be bad for some students.
I also agree when you say it is both for teachers and students. Both will win by using this resource. The students will be motivated and feel more involved in the teaching. They can also create questions, answers and explanations on their own levels. Sometimes when pupils do not understand a questions or information, it may be easier to understand if another student tells how he or she thinks. It will maybe be easier to understand when he or she explains in their own words. As you wrote, the teachers will also benefit by using this. They can look at the badges every student has and so how good the student answers the questions. As soon as the Peer Wise account is created I think this website is a great time-saver for the teacher.
I think that it is good that you wrote that this is not a resource that you can build all the lessons on. As you said, this is a great complement for students. But I really liked the idea you wrote about that students can use it in school, at an ordinary lesson. I think this is great because when we used it in Satish course it was just a thing we did at home to practice the content of the course. But if students can use this in the school also, I think it would be really fun and educational.
I think that the part when you explain why Peer Wise can be tricky is good. I think that it is really important to say that all pupils develop at different speed, so Peer Wise may be excellent to use for some pupils, but for others it maybe do not work at all. That is important for every teacher to have in mind.
The only thing I wondering about Peer wise is at which age it can be used for second language learners that do not have English as their native language. Everything on this page is on English and some of the things on it can be hard for young second language learners to understand without a teacher or another person that can translate it for the pupils. I am going to be a teacher for the early stages in primary school so I do not know if I can use it for those pupils. But this is a really good resource, so I really have to try.
However, this is a really good resource and I will as you did recommend it to a teachers!
Hello Charlotte! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for a good summary about this webpage and I agree with you about a lot of things that you wrote!
First, I think that it is a good complement to the education and to vary the content of the lessons, for example if the teacher usually uses course books. The whole idea that the students get a chance to be critical of their classmates questions and have a chance to be creative with their own, is phenomenal! Maybe the best way to use this page is if the teacher chooses to have a theme or combine two subjects, like English/Swedish and another subject, so they could learn even more!
One thing that you forgot to mention is the fact that they are anonymous, so they cannot be mean to each other if there is a problem with bullying at the school or in the classroom. I agree with the part that they can feel badly about themselves if they do not get a high score on the board but on the other hand, I think that the motivation to do well will make them overcome the bad self-confidence part.
About the equipment that is needed can be a bit of a problem but the technology is moving forward faster than we can imagine and almost everyone have access to the internet and own a computer at home or the school will provide the students with computers. But if this is not the case, I have a solution to this problem if some students do not have this at home. One thing that the teacher can do is to let them work with the questions at school and does the other homework that do not requires any equipment at home or let them stay after school and work with the page. One other suggestions is to let them work with the questions on “student choice time” (elevens val). It can be embarrassing for the students to admit that their parents cannot afford internet or a computer, so I think that it is important that they do not have to answer to the question in front of the whole class. Usually the teacher knows the students and has the possibility to ask each student and its parent-s at a development discussion.
Although problems can appear, I will gladly use this page to motivate students to engage in their work in school and make the lessons more fun. I will absolutely try this at future training practice!:)
- Louise