Reacting to Andri’s posting
I read a posting from Andri’s blog “getting it right” which reflected upon interactive whiteboards and their relevance within the classroom. First, i’d like to say that Andri raised a great point that the reading didn’t cover. She explained the “importance of not relying on IWb’s to teach the whole lesson- manipulative objects such as counters and scales are essential to help children with the discovery process.” I believe these technologies should be used to support the lesson and not be the lesson itself.
I think that interactive whiteboards are great in classrooms for flexibility, creative lesson planning and an interactive and engaged audience, however these classrooms are extremely lucky to have these resources. To make these technologies really worth it, i believe all schools should be provided with funding and have the right to these resources, so all schools can be schools of the future and gain the benefits.
Image: Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/breathetechnology/2469993624/
Reacting to Matt Kearney’s posting
I just read Mat Kearney’s post on “Learning Designs”. I agree with Matt’s positive attitude towards these learning design websites and think they bring in a unique and fun way for teachers to create tasks for their students.
Matt also talks about the concerns made by others of the ‘practitioner-friendliness’. I had to create a LAMS task recently, and yes it did seem quite daunting at first but then everything is when you first learn it. Teachers, i believe, who oppose these new experiences are somewhat ignorant and could ulitmately be depriving their students to this wave of new technology.
Image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/hangingpixels/733613568/
Reacting to Allanah King’s posting
I have just read Allanah K’s posting on ICT in schools and parent inclusion. In the posting she discusses a meeting which she is holding at a school to inform parents about safe internet exploration for children and “awareness of your digital footprint”.
I believe cyber safety is a factor that should be taken very seriously. The cyberworld is expanding rapidly creating also a rapidly dangerous world for children to get caught up in. I commend Allanah for going to great lengths to inform parents abut these issues and to get them involved because I believe we often forget that parents need scaffolding from us to support learning at home.
Image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/rmarinello/1515496898/
Reacting to Sean’s posting
image: created on Powerpoint, using flickr images
I strongly believe with Sean and his views on ICT and equality. It is extremely important if we are going to include educational technology into the curriculum, the government has to be prepared to keep up to standards with the quality of technology in all schools and go to extents to resource schools who may not be able to resource themselves with their own funding.
I think it is an enormous action the Australian ICT taskforce. As Sean was saying, they have “set up national priorities in order to help such schools who are faced with the difficult of updating to newer technologies. The two most important priorities are: the promotion of pedagogic leadership, and helping to create new learning environments.”
If the government can supply rural and Indigenous schools with these resources, then those children have an equal opportunity and right to learn like every other child in Australia.
Reacting to Caitlin’s posting
In reading Caitlin’s posting on “tomorrows classrooms” I definitely agree with her comment that technology is changing everyday and is as unpredictable as next weeks weather. She explains that the article talks about a hand held math device where students input data, which is then sent to a larger screen in the classroom to be displayed for student discussion. Although this now seems like a possible educational technolgy, I somewhat don’t believe that all these emerging technologies that will appear in the next 10 years could all possibly benefitthe learning of students for example the maths device may not help a child who finds it hard to think in their head and need the aid of paper to find these equations. I persnally think maybe we can get our head too deep in the sand thinking abut all the technologies of the future when we, as teachers, are only just starting to adapt and improve use of the ones we have today.
image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/alecsmall/2573632365/
Evolution of Educational Technologies
The reading “Educational Computing: How Are We Doing?” by Seymour Papert explains this lifecycle with the use of analogies to give us a broad idea of what stage we at in educational technology development.
The stage in which Papert explains we are at, parallel to aviation, is “beyond the stage of the barnstormers and first mail flights in the twenties and are perhaps at a stage comparable to the launching in the mid-thirties of the great DC-3, the first really successful airliner.” I think this shows that e-learning has still got a fair way to come and is a great advantage for teachers and students because we have lot of room to consistently improve and develop our learning and knowledge capabilities.
The reading also uses another great analogy of the evolution of cinema. It states that “theatre + camera illustrates a natural use of a new technology: keep on doing what you did before with minimal change to make use of the new tool. The analogy with School + Computer is quite close. The first uses of computers in schools simply added a new tool to old practices. On the whole, this is still where most schools are today.”
This reflects what e-learning is about. Its not about the technologies themselves that are so important; rather, what is important are the ways that we use the technologies and think about them.
From this
image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonhide/52311620
To this
image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_ledwina/2465450062/
And still evolving!
Our Stories
For a task in class we had to create a digital story “Our Teaching Stories”. Although this task was not graded, people did not cease to put in extraordinary amounts of effort to create stories that were emotional, creating a sense of intimacy between the author and the viewer. When reading “Digital Stories in the Classroom”- the response to and video of Maddie Buras, reinforced my thoughts on digital stories and the benefits of implementing these into the classroom.
In the reading, Gary Van Deurse and Ify Mora explain how “digital storytelling is currently being used in classrooms and in community settings around the country as a vehicle for overlaying one’s personal experience with a larger societal event or social system.” I think this is a key reason to implement digital stories into the classroom. This way it gives children to share a life experience they may have had to their class or even the world in a creative and emotional way. Digital videos are also visually stimulating and a definitely much more expressive way to get the viewer to feel the experience, rather than merely reading it on paper. For students, digital storytelling gives the children a sense of ownership and encourages the children to work harder if the video may be viewed to others.
It does take some practice to make a digital story, from my experiences, and this can take time. The reading explains, “before students even touch a computer they need to have given significant time and thinking to what their story is about. It is very easy to become distracted by all the visual options. It is important that the music, pictures and video serve to enhance a well written personal narrative”. I found that when making my story, it was challenging to work all the tools out but I feel that I created a video that reflected exactly what I wanted the viewer to feel and see and that is what is important.
This is my digital story, however, if you are unable to view it on my blog you can view it on the link to teachertube here
Sandcastles Go Digital
Image: Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/89409044@N00/2755428151/“Sandcastles Go Digital” by I Harel is a reading, which uses the simplistic idea of sandcastles on the beach to portray a theory of constructionist learning using technology and the Internet. Papert’s theory explaining constructionism as “the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context in which the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it’s a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe” in my view on active learning, is completely accurate.
“Sandcastles Go Digital” further explores children learning naturally as they play however, taking a constructionist approach to that learning. Summarising the reading, it explains that unlike the unpredictable life of sandcastles, the internet is “available to offer a wide-open learning environment in which children can explore the world, express themselves, save their creations, revise and refine them over time and exchange ideas in ways that were simply not possible in the past”. But as Harel also says, it is not about what technologies we use, its how we use the technologies to promote beneficial active learning.
As a teacher, I believe it is just as important to have those involuntary, unintentional moments where children learn without realising as much as structured learning from the curriculum. These moments can bring about more rare knowledge to children than some parts of the curriculum, thus giving them opportunities to have the best learning experiences.
A limitation with Internet learning is being unable to monitor what is on there, but under a controlled environment, there is a digital world waiting for children to explore, furthermore, learn.
An example of a great site, which can open children to open-ended play is “yahooligans”. This site run by the search engine “Yahoo”, is designed for kids to explore the Internet providing games, jokes, movies and more. Additionally, it has an educational aspect to it with providing homework help, a “study zone”, a child’s encyclopaedia and information for parents about learning Internet safety. This search engine is great for teachers as our challenge is to think about how we could use technology and the Internet to replicate sand castle play and create more opportunities and contexts for constructionist learning.
Image: “yahooligans” site
This isn’t a game…
My experience with tutoring children with special needs, educational computer games seem to be the number one extension work the teacher gives them. I have seen a lot of progress come out of these educational games, partly because of the reason the children don’t think of it as learning at all. This is where I have to agree with the reading by Papert “Does Easy Do it? Children, Games, and Learning”.
Papert describes it exactly as I see educational computer game learning, “the game: the player gets into situations that require an appropriate action in order to get on to the next situation along the road to the final goal. So far, this sounds like “tainment.” The “edu” part comes from the fact that the actions are schoolish exercises such as those little addition or multiplication sums that schools are so fond of boring kids with.”
‘Edutainment’ stimulates the children’s learning by making the experience entertaining, structured, and draw the kids into challenging and some very hard learning. The games usually work by the curriculum, which makes it relevant, and the games make the students work really hard to master a complex game.
An example of a maths game I am familiar with is Mathletics. This game is extremely effective in the explanation and fundamental practice required for maths. It works with the curriculum to teach the skills of maths but also allows interactivity with students around the world to compete in live maths quizzes. It is easy to use, uses language relevant to the children’s age, uses characters to encourage the kids, and the web design is attractive and fun. The teachers can also make use of this program to set homework n specific skills they have been learning in class r set extension activities for children who struggle with maths or children who complete their work ahead of time.
source: flickr
Virtually with each other
Technologies have advanced in dramatic ways in terms of communicating. All my life telephones were the prime form of communication. They provided an immediate transfer of communication and kept people in touch. These days technology has advanced so much further with the use of the internet and its webware. This creates endless possibilities in a virtual world of social networking.
Image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/thevisionsofkai/2879419084/
Reflecting on the reading “The Horizon Report” by Educause, I agree that webware exposes children in and out of the classroom to many collaborative workspaces where they can publish presentations, have distance education, communicate globally, work as teams on joint projects, and share interests, ideas, information and sources.
I would integrate it into my own classroom to give students independence whilst trying to foster collaboration with students.
Image: flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/kruse/91118309/
The reading has provided detailed examples of various web tools for classroom use but a great web program I have found that would be great for students is Skype. It is a virtual communication program where both parties are able to ‘see’ each other and share information and presentations, along with a personal experience within an immediate situation. This advances on podcasts, although they are practical in some circumstances, however Skype can allow you to communicate instantly with each other.
This can bring many advantages and expose children to another way of using exciting technology. For example, I would use Skype in the classroom as a form of communication between other geographical locations, so students can extend their knowledge to what other students may look like, wear, what their classroom looks like, ect. Furthermore, students will broaden their social contact list and prove to dissipate the constraints once imposed by distance.
