TEXAS my state!

Today has been an exciting day, as over 22% of visitors to this blog and
my Share More! wiki went to read my article on Diigo, the social
bookmarking and annotation tool. So, it was some excitement that I
picked up a copy of a Journal of Research on Technology in Education
(Fall, 2004) and found some research (John Lee and Brendan Calandra)
that asked a related question:

Can embedded annotations help high school students perform
problem-solving tasks using a web-based historical document?

Obviously, writing notes in a book can be powerful for us individually.
But add social annotation of a web-based document, and we go to a
different level of conversation and understanding.

Here are my take-aways from this particular study:

1. The instructional use of emerging technologies such as the Web
   represents a unique opportuity to alter dramatically the character of
   social studies instruction.
2. The use of online resources in social studies and history classrooms
   has to date been limited.
3. Content that is unfamiliar or organized in an unfamiliar fashion will
   be learned poorly unless the individual is provided with or develops
   concepts or organizing principles that aid the acquisition process
   [Aside: Show everyone how to use Diigo and you have a great tool to
   get that job done!]
4. Help devices such as scaffolding resources must initially assist
   students with their learning activity (i.e. student-content
   interaction).
5. Types of scaffolding that can be included in open learning
   environments include:
   a) conceptual scaffolding that guides
   a learner in what content to consider;
   b) metacognitive
   scaffolding that guides a learner in how to think during
   learning;
   c) procedural scaffolding that guides a
   learner in how to utilize available features of an environment;
   and
   d) strategic scaffolding that guides a learner in how
   to analyze and approach given learning task or problem.
6. Designers need to ground the design of digital learning environments
   in theory and practice…if not, teachers can end up having to develop
   over-structured activities that may limit students’ interaction with
   those digital resources.
7. Conceptual scaffolding devices in the form of textual annotations were
   developed for each concept to asist users by providing context and
   schema related to the material at hand.
8. Students’ responses–result of the findings–supported the contention
   that the annotations would make a difference in the depth of student
   responses. Students who had access to annotations would respond to the
   prompts in the scenario with more depth.
9. The complexity of interactions that resulted from students’ uses of
   the annotations should prompt instructional Web designers to consider
   carefully how they present annotational content. Pedagogical design
   intentions need to be transparent.
10. Teachers need to be provided information on how Web-based annotational
    content might function when uses in instructional settings. If the
    annotations need additional contextualization, teachers need to
    provide that context.
11. Teachers need to consider how ancillary content raised in annotations
    will function in their classrooms. Annotations can aid teachers in
    their efforts to help students understand related content, but only
    after careful consideration of the ways in which these annotations
    actually function.

News z: mguhlin@gmail.com (Miguel Guhlin - www.mguhlin.net)