Week 2 -

Last week we spent some time becoming familiar with our working environment and getting to know each other through a virtual icebreaker activity. We're going to extend that activity a bit farther this week by using the Wiki as a tool to collaborate with each other on transforming traditional icebreaker activities into icebreakers that will work in virtual educational environments.

Reading

1. No reading from the text this week

Resources
(Click on the link above to view many of the resources available for this entire course.)

I have three main goals in mind for the activities this week...

1. To provide an opportunity for you to participate in a collaborative group project using a Wiki.
2. To gain technical experience in the use of a Wiki.
3. To provide an opportunity for you to practice taking something that we know about effective instruction in traditional environments and develop specific strategies for its use in K-12 virtual environments.

All of these goals will be applicable to the activities you participate in throughout the rest of the class.

Setting the Tone

An essential component of any educational experience begins with setting the tone of the environment in which teaching and learning will take place. This is true whether students are in a more traditional face-to-face setting or in nontraditional settings like those involving distance education. One way this is accomplished is through the use of "icebreakers".

In traditional face-to-face environments, one icebreaker activity (like the one that you participated in last week) consists of a list of questions or attributes printed on a piece of paper. Students are usually asked to list the name of at least one other classmate who matches the attribute or can correctly answer the question. Students get up and circulate in the classroom and try to locate people who match the criteria outlined in the questions. In completing the exercise they introduce themselves to their other classmates. Because all students are participating the exercise creates a non threatening way for students to introduce themselves to others in the class.

What I did was take a traditional activity and transform it for use in a virtual environment. I didn't develop this activity on my own though. I found reference to it in an article while I was conducting a search for "virtual icebreakers" (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/augar.html). However, one of the problems with searching for "virtual icebreakers" or anything distance education related is that the majority of material you find is related to adult distance education - an issue that many of you are keenly aware of and will become ever more evident as we move through the course. So your task for this week is to find face-to-face icebreakers, suitable for K-12 grade levels, and devise ways in which they can be used in K-12 online teaching.

Icebreaker Activity

To complete this task you will use the virtual icebreaker project page in the Virtual Icebreaker Wiki (http://virtualicebreakers.pbwiki.com/?l=S, password=edtech597). This page provides a workspace where you can share ideas and post documents, sources and other information. It is completely editable and adaptable to meet your needs. As far as I'm concerned I don't own it - you do - as a collaborative entity.

Use the list of resources provided above to get you started in locating existing icebreakers.

As a minimum, you should include the following in your final activity descriptions (feel free to include any additional information you deem necessary.):

1. A creative name for the icebreaker.
2. A brief description of the traditional version of the icebreaker.
3. A thorough description of the transformed version.
4. Whether the icebreaker is designed for synchronous or asynchronous interactions (or adaptable to both).

You are free to determine for yourselves the structure of your collaboration as well as the planning and organization of your final product. I am most interested in the collaboration and participation aspect of this activity. As an example though, your final product might be something that you would be willing to include in a brochure that you could publish for teachers in your school or district. There are no restrictions or minimums on the number of activities you compile. However, what you do create should be of a professional quality suitable for publication.

You will have two weeks to complete this project. Obviously, there will be increased difficulty if you wait until the last minute to begin - so it is critical that you begin immediately and establish some organization. If this were a class with elementary or secondary students, I would provide much more structure (i.e. assigning roles, planning a schedule, requiring intermittent draft reports, etc.) but since you are adults working in a graduate level course, I'm making the assumption that you can manage the structure yourselves while establishing for yourselves some necessary guidelines for implementing these types of activities in your own classes. 

Discussion Board

Optional: Use the appropriate discussion forum on the Blackboard course site to reflect on challenges, successes, and other issues surrounding the activities for this week.

Homework Assignments - Due by Friday, September 14

1. Participate in a collaborative project using a Wiki
2. Gain Technical expertise in the use of a Wiki
3. Create virtual icebreaker activities suitable for K-12 online students
4. Optional: Use the appropriate discussion forum on the Blackboard course site to reflect on challenges, successes, and other issues surrounding the activities for this week.