Wordpress
Wordpress develops reflective thinking by practicing writing in a Blog. Other activities in Wordpress offer a chance to build consensus and write collaboratively.
The learner-centered environment of Wordpress benefits both the learner and the instructor. Learners share knowledge by contributing, reading, and commenting on personal reflections and the instructor gleans feedback about the effectiveness of the “In the Lab” activities.
Learning Objectives connected to the use of Wordpress:
· Given the “In the Lab” assignment of formatting and importing current Web stock quotes to an Excel spreadsheet, learner will appraise challenges faced in completing the assignment and write a reflection over 2-3 days. (Analysis)
· Selecting one peer reflection, learner will pair and share and review the learning steps involved in the assignment by exchanging Blog comments following participation guidelines provided. (Comprehension, Evaluation)
Take a few minutes to view the Wordpress video below:
Analysis of Assessment Tool
Wordpress is an open source blogging platform started in 2003. Wordpress is a completely free downloadable service that can be customized to meet your needs. It is often described as an “elegant, well-architectured, personal publishing system” (Wordpress.org). It offers a track changes system similar to a Wiki which is valuable for collaborative writing projects or for accessing a previous version of a posting.
Why the tool is appropriate for the course (reflection)
Each Microsoft Office Unit contains “In the Lab” assignments which are considered summative assessment activities worth 60 points each. Wordpress serves as a place to post learner reflections on the challenges found in completing the assessment activities. Blogs are effective for assessing writing skills. This activity adds an interactive quality and appeals to different learning styles.
Benefits
Wordpress is a free blogging platform that offers plugins and a theme directory with a choice of 67 themes to download. If you want to design your own theme, you can download the theme and have the code checked and added to the theme directory. A word count is also available when working in the blog. The greatest benefit of Wordpress is that it is designed with the idea of simplicity. “The core of WordPress is designed to be lean, to maximize flexibility and minimize code bloat” (WordPress).
Challenges
Some users have reported difficulty in customizing themes such as organizing side bars. However, the biggest drawback is the duplicate content problem. When searching, you will sometimes receive duplicate copies of postings. These are usually the entire postings and repeated many times over. There is a “Wordpress Duplicate Content Cure”, however which is a simple plugin download that is said to solve the problem.
Application
Wordpress will introduce students to reflective writing and e-journaling. Students will identify strategies to synthesize knowledge and develop critically reflective thinking in an online collaborative environment.
Reference: http://wordpress.org/about/
