Reflective Synopsis

The term e-learning can be used to define the acquisition of new knowledge and skills through the engagement in online or digital technology. It facilitates learning in a real world context for the digitally native students of the 21^st century. Learning is a process that involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching. This teaching involves explanation and analysis, breaking down the thing that is to be learned into its analytic parts. It involves attaining some degree of meta-knowledge about the matter. Learning also involves the acquisition of new skills through immersion in these skills.  (Gee, 1991). We are better at skills that we acquire but we know more about what we learn, therefore e-learning is a unique opportunity to combine both of these sources of education to provide the best possible outcomes for students.

Some of the positives of e-learning include a vast array of learning styles, needs and preferences being catered for as well as real life, contextual learning being provided for students that they see as personally useful and meaningful. However, no learning tool is free from problems or limitations and this can be clearly seen when exploring the topic of e-learning. When exploring some of the technologies through the engagement in this course I discovered that one of the main challenges was simply, unreliable technology. Learning managers have to be prepared to face the fact that technology is not always going to work perfectly and therefore it cannot be relied on 100%. Learning managers should also be striving to keep up with their students in maintaining their ICT skills at a high standard to match those of today’s digital natives. Some of the other issues include working in a safe, legal and ethical manner while online which comprises of maintaining a professional online presence. Internet and cyber bullying, inappropriate use of technology, copyright laws should be considered and planned for when engaging in the use of technology. There are some fun images that relate to this topic in my week 2 blog post.  They certainly gave me some food for thought as I explored digital technologies such as mobile phones, Weebly, Wiki's Prezi, PowerPoint and even the use of iCloud.

According to ACARA (2012), “ICT’s are fast and automated, interactive and multimodal, and they support the rapid communication and representation of knowledge to many audiences and its adaptation in different contexts. They transform the ways that students think and learn and give them greater control over how, where and when they learn”. Optimal outcomes can be achieved in the classroom with the use of a combination of frameworks, technologies and teaching and learning styles.

The framework that I will focus on and which best suits digital pedagogy is the TPACK framework. The TPACK framework can be broken down into three parts or knowledge that a good learning manager should have, which are technological knowledge, which is the knowledge of how to use the technology that they will be implementing in their classroom, pedagogical knowledge which is the knowledge of how to teach a concept, and content knowledge, which is the actual knowledge about what they are going to teach. (Mishra & Koehler,2006) You might wish to view a video from my week 2 blog post that demonstrates the TPACK framework unpacked.

The digital age has made it much simpler for teachers to plan and cater for a wide range of differing learning styles because of the multitude of digital tools and resources available although it still requires educators to consider learning styles and theorists in regards to digital technology. Theories that I became familiar with included Behaviourism, Connectivism and Social Constructivism. The one that seemed to connect more with e-learning was the Connectivist theory which states that it is no longer possible for students to know everything, and it is far more valuable to identify how to find information through creating an information pipeline, than to waste time trying to know everything. By having ICT’s in the classroom, a student-centric environment is born which enables students to start creating connections in their information pipelines. (Education QLD, 2012)

In recent years a good learning manager has come to be recognised as having the skills and knowledge about the process of teaching rather than just content knowledge. (Turner-Bisset, 2001) This links back to the TPACK framework as three kinds of knowledge are combined to achieve optimal learning outcomes for every student. As technology is constantly evolving, so must the digital skills of learning managers in order to keep up with the digital natives of the 21^st century as well as the many others to come.

 

 

 

References

ACARA (2012). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Information-and-Communication-Technology-capability/Introduction/Introduction

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development Victoria,. (2013). E-Learning Support  and Services. Retrieved fromhttp://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/principals/curriculum/pages/elearning.aspx

 Gee, J. (1991). What is literacy? In C. Mitchell & D. Weiler (Eds.), Rewriting literacy: Culture and the discourse of the other. New York: Bergin and Garvey.

 Mishra, P., Koehler, M.J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm 

Turner-Bisset, R. (2001) Expert Teaching : knowledge and pedagogy to lead the profession (p 1-19) London: Fulton Publishers

Week 6

This week’s focus was mobile technologies such as the IPad, the mobile phone and the IPod touch. These sorts of technologies are very familiar, widely used and very accessible to the digital natives of today’s youth.

IPad

I have used my IPad both at prac as well as in my earlier career as an early childhood educator. I found it to be a great educational tool because of the man educational apps that are offered which are inexpensive, if not free as well as the fact that it is lightweight and portable as well as very simple to use.

This short clip is an excellent example of a very young digital native interacting with an IPad. 

Some ways that I have used an IPad in the classroom include:

·         Creating learning stories in accordance with the Early Years Learning Framework using apps

·         Taking pictures to record learning

·         Downloading e-books to suit classroom themes at the drop of a hat rather than searching for them

Ways that my students have used IPads in the classroom include:

·         Creating stories using apps such as StripDesign, BookCreator or Keynote

·         Consolidating mathematics knowledge using the LadyBird maths apps

·         Moderating their own noise level using the Too Noisy app

I recently attending the Early Years Catholic Education Conference and one of the workshops I attended was “Working with IPads in the Early Years” with Robin Finch, something new that I took away from this class was the fact that the IPad has a feature that allows the user to be locked into one app which would be incredibly helpful for ensuring that students remained on task as well as not allowing them to stumble across something unrelated on inappropriate.

Here is a simple clip to guide you into using this feature

Mobile Phones

I found it helpful to revisit the mobile phone wiki/DeBonos hats activity that I engaged in earlier this term when thinking about this topic.

·         Ways that I have used my mobile phone in the classroom include:

·         Taking photos of learning and outcomes being achieved

·         Taking videos of student learning

·         Taking audio and recordings of students

·         Using it as a timer

I have my doubts about letting early childhood students use my mobile phone or a mobile phone owned by the school mostly because they are an easily damaged and expensive item.  I think the IPad is much better as they are able to be used on a stable surface and the student wouldn't be able to carry it around and risk dropping and breaking the device.

IPod

I have never used an IPod in the classroom but here is a screenshot I took from the Apple website that shows the features of an IPod touch at a glance. I would think that an IPod touch would have the same capability of being broken by an early childhood student in the classroom but here is a clip of a very brave teacher that shows the benefits of using an IPod touch in the classroom.

ICloud

As an end note I would just like to quickly talk about ICloud. Apple (2013) states that “ICloud is seamlessly integrated into your apps so you can access your content on all your devices.” Watch this clip to learn more about the capabilities of ICloud.

I definitely think that I-devices have their place in the classroom because of the many educational apps offered as well as their ability to integrate through ICloud.

Happy Blogging everyone.

References

Apple (n.d.). IPod touch at a Glance. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/au/ipod-touch/

Week 5

This week we examined a set of tools that could be used to present, collate or share learning or information. These tools are all interactive as well as multimodal which make them ideal for digital natives who are non-linear learners or thinkers and not linear learners or thinkers like students of the past who were taught primarily with books.

PowerPoint

This week I used PowerPoint for one of my assignments. I created an inquiry model for teachers and students to teach year three students how to write a recount. My PowerPoint guided them through the task in ten easy steps. I included hyperlinks in both my text and pictures to take the students and the teacher on a journey while exploring the task of writing a recount.

You can find the PowerPoint here; I converted it onto a PDF file and then converted it into a Prezi. 

Here is a PMI that I created about my PowerPoint

Plus

·         I created a safe environment for students to explore this topic independently because they were directed to specific sites through my hyperlinks.

·         All of the necessary tools for exploring the concept of writing a recount were all on one page

·         The tool is able to be used by students and teachers

Minus

·         The PowerPoint would have to be checked often to make sure that pages that were hyperlinked did not expire.

Interesting

·         This tool could be used independently as well as interdependently with a teacher or a small group of students.

Prezi

The next digital tool that I explored was Prezi. I have watched Prezi’s created by other students before but until now I had never created my own.  It was incredibly easy for me to convert my PowerPoint that I created earlier into a Prezi. I watched some YouTube videos about Prezi that might be helpful to beginners learning to use Prezi.

 I think that Prezi would be incredibly helpful in the classroom as it is a visual representation of learning. Jones (1988) maintains representations can help students select important ideas and details that enable learners to develop new skills they acquire to complete a task. .  Graphic representations are particularly helpful for visual learners and for those who struggle to understand information presented primarily in a linear fashion.

Glogster

While exploring Glogster I created a pin board glog from the many templates available to me. I explored the many learning benefits of Glogster on my pinboard as well as including a picture and a YouTube clip and I was then able to save it and upload it here:

The group 4 technology that I chose to talk about this week is Google Docs. I have used this tool many times when working on group assignments.

Advantages of this tool include:

·         Ability for all group members to access the document

·         Negates the need for the group to constantly meet

·         Group members can build on each other’s ideas

Disadvantages of this tool can include:

·         While digital natives are quite comfortable with this sort of technology, I can’t imagine my Mum as a digital immigrant using something like this.

·         Other group members can accidentally delete information that was added.

Until next time bloggers.

References:

Jones, B. (1988). Teaching Students to Construct Graphic Representations. Educational Leadership, 46(4), 20.

Week 4

This weeks blog post will be about exploring images, audio and video tools.

Using Images as a Learning Manager:

In my job before Uni I was a Kindy Educator and had to resize images every day when updating our class blog, Facebook page and daily reflection of our learning every day to ensure that we did not waste time waiting for very large images to upload. This is a practice that I would like to continue when I finish my degree and move on to teaching in a school as I liked how involved the parents could get with the sharing of pictures of their child’s learning.

Using Images as a Learner

Gee (1991) states that we are better at what we acquire but that we know more about what we learn. By providing visual and written representations of procedural knowledge learning managers are combining the best of both ways of gaining knowledge and skills. Students should be provided with visual representations of their learning in order to consolidate what they have learned.

Here  is an image that I took on the weekend and re-sized. 

Exploring Audio tools

I was introduced to the Voki tool previously in this course and I created one for my blog last week. This week I created another and added my own voice to it using the microphone on my headphones that I use for distance courses. I recorded my voice with a reference to the Early Years Learning Framework (2009) that states that, “Children are effective communicators and engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts when they view and listen to printed, visual and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments and/or questions.”

IMovie

When thinking about using video in an Early Childhood classroom I have brainstormed some ideas of how I think my students would be able to use video to:

Create – Creating Claymation or similar movies to produce their own short films

Present – Creating a short movie clip to present information learned in an integrated unit in a new and different way.

Communicate – Communicating with other schools and classes with recorded videos about shared learning or projects.

Summarise – Students could create a movie or series of still images in a slide show to summarise their learning in a term or a school year to present to parents.

Evaluate – Students could compare video clips or create two videos for comparison on a topic.

This is a movie that I created for a numeracy course to demonstrate real life use of numeracy in Early Childhood students, I created it using IMovie. I documented the learning journey through a series of still pictures and quotes about what the students said and then added them together, added text and a sound track and uploaded it to a shared Facebook page for a group assessment task.

Until next week.

References

Australia, & Council of Australian Governments. (2009). Belonging, being & becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Canberra, A.C.T: Dept. of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for the Council of Australian Governments.

Gee, J. (1991). What is literacy? In C. Mitchell & D. Weiler (Eds.), Rewriting literacy: Culture and the discourse of the other. New York: Bergin and Garvey.

Week 3

This weeks engagement focused on creating and evaluating three basic read-write tools. I learnt how to make and embed a Voki as well as finding a useful SWOT analysis tool.

Building My Blog

I have enjoyed engaging with a new resource and building new skills that I will use in my teaching career by creating this blog. Below is a short PMI activity on how my blog could be useful in a teaching context.

Plus

Learner-centred rather than teacher centred.

Can be accessed from home or from school

Teacher has access anytime as long as there is internet access  - able to constantly update

Minus

If students are using it from home they may not always engage fully/get distracted

Interesting

Teacher is able to step back slightly into the role of administrator

I was unable to find a PMI generator tool on the internet so I just typed mine out. I would be interested to see if anyone else found a generator online for their PMI to know for next time.

I really enjoy using my blog as a teaching and learning resource because:

I am able to add any kind of content from the internet

I can easily source clips straight from YouTube

It is simple to add links and import pictures

My peers can look and and comment on my blog and I can do the same to theirs.

I will definitely be using a blog when I finish my degree and start teaching, I think that I will find it particularly useful in an Early Years context to share learning with parents as well as providing follow up activities for children to complete online or with their parents at home to build on learning done at school.

Working Out Wiki

When constructing my Wiki I was surprised to see how easy it was, I just followed the link and did not have to consult the technical manual provided for us. For a digital native it might be useful to view a YouTube clip to guide them through a step by step process of creating a Wiki. I completed a SWOT analysis on my thoughts about the Wiki

I also found a step by step video that digital immigrants might find it useful to refer to on YouTube

Working Out Weebly

Having already constructed a Weebly website in a course last term I know how useful this tool could be for student learning as well as a teachers resource.
I searched online for a SWOT analysis tool and found one at http://i-swot.com/tool/, I had a little trouble saving the picture because it had to be exported to be converted into a Jpeg file. I was able to quickly rectify my mistake but I think that a digital immigrant may have had some trouble with this procedure.

     Listen to my Voki to hear my reflection on how Weebly could be useful in the classroom

   Here is a video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFjxAsDq0Sg that touches on the basics of Weebly for further reflection.

     

I am enjoying adding new skills and IT knowledge to my repertoire each week and I am finding these skills useful across the board, both in my other courses this term as well as finding them personally useful.

Lets see what skills next week brings

Week 2

Teaching in Digital Environments

When thinking about teaching in digital environments I thought about ways that I have used digital tools to enhance learning, all of my working and prac experience has been with Early Childhood Students.

Some of the main ways that I have used digital tools are:

·         Using the IWB

·         Computer as a maths rotation activity

·         YouTube claymation series

·         Using iPads and apps for learning

I think that using digital tools enhances learning outcomes by providing a wider range of interactive resources for the classroom.

Sourced from: http://www.digitalteachingtools.com/portals/2/images/home_shot.png

 

What is Pedagogy – Digital Pedagogy

 

Sourced from: http://gabriellalct.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/productivepedagogies2.jpg

 

Earlier this week we touched on the Productive Pedagogies in our Learning Management 4 class. So I was able to consolidate my learning further and revise some of the knowledge. I would say that my own personal pedagogical approach is similar to the productive pedagogies model or at least that is what I am aiming for as a Pre-Service teacher on prac. I feel that I particularly connect with the concept of real life learning and equipping students with real life skills because these are the skills that students will be using forever, long after they have forgotten what they learnt in primary school.

Sourced from: http://www.jantoo.com/cartoons/lowres/332/33234434_low.jpg

After reading about Digital Pedagogies and consolidating my knowledge about Productive Pedagogies I think that digital influences, resources and tools can be added to any pedagogical approach to ensure optimal student outcomes and student and teacher success. This mind map summarises how digital pedagogies can do this. 

 Sourced from: http://edorigami.edublogs.org/files/2011/10/Digital-learning-1hcdw2n.jpg

TPACK

To explain the TPACK framework it is helpful to draw on a Venn diagram. This diagram shows that quality learning takes place in the section where technological knowledge, content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge interconnect. Therefore teachers need to have sound knowledge and skills in these three areas to ensure optimal student and learning outcomes.

 

Sourced from: http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://maine.edc.org/file.php/1

I found a short 2 minute video that summarises the TPACK framework which I found helpful to consolidate the information that I read in the learning materials.

 

Hats Off To Wiki Spaces

After participating in the wiki spaces de Bono’s hats mobile phone activity I have come up with my own hats activity reflecting and summarising my experience within the context of the Social Constructivist and Connectivism theories. I can clearly see how higher order thinking was achieved and scaffolded by this activity and Blooms Taxonomy rather than just evoking a positive or negative reaction. This template summarises my experience.

 

 Template sourced from: http://img.docstoccdn.com/thumb/orig/121625348.png

While thinking about how Blooms Taxonomy scaffolded this activity to promote higher order thinking I visited http://www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html which shows Kathy Schrock’s revised Blooms Taxonomy model which shows the interlocking of cognitive processes. I thought her approach was particularly relevant to IT as shown in the model below and I enjoyed exploring her Bloomin’ Apps iPad Edition resources.  By looking at this model of the cogs in a system focused on creating it becomes apparent that Blooms Taxonomy is not a linear model, just as IT and e-Learning may not always follow a linear path.

 

Sourced from: http://www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html

Finally I am adding some visual references to remind everyone about safety on the internet. 

Sourced from: http://blog.k12.com/sites/default/files/internetsafety-wordle.gif

Sourced from: http://joevans.pbworks.com/f/1161157080/061013_internet_citing1.gif

 

Sourced from: http://indonetworksecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Internet-Safety-Code-FINAL-FINAL.png

Until next week...

References

Schrock, K. (2012). Kathy Schrock's Guide To Everything. Retrieved July 10, 2013, from http://www.schrockguide.net/bloomin-apps.html