Reflective synopsis
Managing e-learning is a challenging subject area that has introduced me to a wide range of contemporary Information Communication Technologies. I have explored and utilised these technological resources to create my own Blog, Presentations, generate digitally enhanced photographs, produce talking avatars and many other interesting implements.
In my reflective synopsis I focus on evaluating and providing an objective critique on what I have learned about these Information Communication Technologies. I will also discuss how I plan to integrate my knowledge into pedagogically successful learning tools I can use as a managing e-learning student and as a future e-learning manager.
My experience with technologies has been quite extensive and I was very fortunate as a child to be given access to gaming consoles, computers, compact disk players and other technological devices as they advanced. At my educational institution I was also very fortunate to receive the latest computer programs and software. Although many of the classrooms had your standard sized blackboard that took up 10 per cent of the classroom’s space, the computer rooms were well stocked and resourced. The computer lab teachers were well rehearsed in new technologies and I learned very quickly. This has therefore determined me to be a digital native {Prensky, 2003}. My learning style has enabled me to utilize new technologies as they are handed to me. Although I have identified myself to be a digital native, I have not been introduced before to many of the ICT’s we have now been working with for the past nine weeks. An example of this is the biggest part of our assessment – Pofessional Blog. I have found this Information Communication Technology to be rather useful in journaling and recording important aspects of my learning journey. In my Professional Blog I referred to a Blog that had been set up to create awareness of Cystic Fibrosis. This debilitating condition affected the individual in questions’ education significantly. She was constantly missing classes due to illness and treatment. To be able to set up Blogs and Wiki’s for this student would be the easiest way to teach her the class material on a daily basis. She would be able to interact with her peers and create projects via these effective ICT’s. This would also help her to maintain motivation, provide an opportunity for collaboration and team work, enhance problem solving skills and develop social skills. The above benefits of using the blog and wiki ICT’s correspond with G.Kearsley and B.Shneiderman’s Framework for Technologically-Based Teaching and Learning. The following paragraphs explore the content written on my Blog in detail.
The PowerPoint Presentation was a challenging yet entertaining ICT to create. I experienced difficulty in embedding the completed presentation in my Blog. When I discovered Slide share, this, of course, was made much simpler but Slide share somehow increased the text size on the slides and it has become very confusing to read. I believe that the PowerPoint Presentation learning activity was very time consuming and difficult. The tutorial provided for using PowerPoint was outdated and provided little useful information. I did however; enjoy creating the pictures {changing the structure and colours etc}. I believe PowerPoint Presentations could be a useful tool for students and teachers to use as a basis for introducing, reviewing and presenting subject material that caters for all individual learning styles. It complies with learning engagement’s theory of Relate, Create and Donate very well by being very flexible and student focused – you can create anything. I have also seen many PowerPoint Presentations throughout my learning journey that have captured my interest and imagination. The PowerPoint Presentations created by some of the university staff have enabled me to extend my knowledge by providing questions for further research and some are also very brilliant at summarizing large amounts of information. Next time I create a PowerPoint Presentation it will be a lot easier. I know the basics and it all comes down to keeping the information as simplistic as possible.
The Voki website introduced me to an ICT that is very useful, entertaining and simple to use. The key concepts of this course mention that we will develop qualities of creativity and this has certainly been met using the Voki website. As mentioned by the avatars on our course’s moodle site – Avatars are fun, interactive beings that are versatile and useful for introducing topical information. Used as a guide for assessment requirements, an avatar in my classroom will be employed often. Students may want to also create their own avatars to help them express their oral reports, present information and interact with their peers on a communicatively effective level. Flickr and Picnik are also entertaining and simple Information Communication Technologies. Flickr would be very useful in putting together photos from camping trips, cross country, inter-high sport days and so on and so forth. Using the learning engagement framework it is easy to see how this type of technology helps students collaborate and share their information and resources using the blogs, PowerPoint Presentations, avatars and digital photo generating technologies. Using project oriented learning with an authentic focus helps student collaboration outside of the classroom. It is not always easy for students to meet face to face on a regular basis, so blogs and wiki’s would be perfect for these projects.
YouTube and teacher tube have also presented many contemporary learning opportunities and outcomes. If used in the correct way YouTube and Teacher Tube provide for many different learning styles and provide the opportunity for students to share their work with others all around the world. Although these ICT’s present many positive opportunities, the internet security placed on these websites in schools can sometimes limit the websites usages and limit access to students. I believe that schools need to re-evaluate the restriction placed on students using YouTube to increase learning outcomes. If I were to write a lesson plan on a SOSE activity for primary school students, I would expect the students to use YouTube to research information about other countries climate, wildlife, people and religion/culture etc. This would create collaboration among students from all over the world and contribute significantly to the authenticity of the learning experience.
Open source Learning Management Systems such as moodle provide the students with every piece of material they will be using throughout the course. I am exceptionally pleased with the way Managing e-learning has set up its online moodle course. It is easy to navigate, is structured well and is easy to follow week by week. It is important for Learning Management Systems to be structured in this way because I have become extremely frustrated in the past by Learning Management Systems that are slow, contain irrelevant information and consistently need to be re-constructed because they are not designed to be used by large quantities of students at a time. I would not agree with using unreliable technology in a classroom full of technologically savvy students.
Interactive White Boards are and amazing Information Communication Technology. Many schools have already received an interactive whiteboard for each classroom or have plans to fund them. As an employee of a private school I know that I will be consistently using this new technology as a future Learning Manager. Many of the classrooms in my school now have these Interactive White Boards. The students are now generally actively engaged with every subject using this technology. The students have become re-motivated to learn about topics they do not enjoy and some of the teachers have evaluated their performance levels as – improved significantly.
Google Earth, as mentioned in my Blog, is something that I am extremely familiar with. My personal “igoogle” Earth subscription is very extensive. When I moved to Queensland five years ago, I started a ‘travelling journal’. This has stories linked to markers on my igoogle earth journaling my experiences as a Queenslander so far. I have tagged markers on the Gold Coast, Cairns, Bundaberg, Sydney, Tasmania and other places I have visited. My igoogle Earth also has photographs that I have taken in these areas. Google Earth would be significantly useful in the classroom in all subject areas and is diverse enough to cater for all individual learning styles as mentioned previously in my Blog.
Digital story telling is something that I use on a regular basis as an early childhood educator. My students enjoy listening to the audio as they turn the pages of a “Published” story book. They also enjoy looking at an extensive range of e-books in our Early Learning Centre’s Library. Story telling is an important part of our every day lives and students benefit from a wide range of reading materials of many different genres.
Wikipedia is another Information communication technology that I use on a regular basis and has spent a long time on the top of my list of favourite websites. Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopedia in the world with a number of studies it to be as reliable as other commercially based products {Aldred, 2010}. During my exploration of Wikipedia in my subject area I learned that there are many pages exploring the uses of Information Communication Technologies. The wiki has been edited by scholars and most are 99% credible.
In conclusion of my exploration of the World Wide Web’s Information Communication Technologies I have successfully been introduced and educated in the advantages/disadvantages of using such tools. It has been confirmed that society is moving from a structured, dictative curriculum to a flexible diplomatic learning system. Every student now needs to be well equipped with the knowledge to operate highly sophisticated and changing technological systems. When students are subjected to unreliability of this technology and inequalities placed on some groups in society can significantly decrease a student’s successful learning journey. When students have easily-accessible Web-based materials it enhances their learning significantly.
Blog comments list
Unfortunately I have failed to make any comments on my peer’s Blog’s. Due to the complexity of the course I failed to realize that comments needed to be made on blogs as well as replies to emails {which I have made lots of replies to}. If I was able to complete my blog again I would collaborate with my peers much more often and I would have added more people to my friends list.
References
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon. MCB University Press,Vol. 9
No.5,October 2001.
Aldred, S. (2010). Active learning and learning diversity. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses, FAHE11001 Managing E-Learning, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=44149
Aldred, S. (2010). Introduction to digital pedagogies. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses, FAHE11001 Managing E-Learning, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=53474
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Renee's power point presentation
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Renee's power point presentation
View more presentations from Renee.
Google Earth
Google Earth is an application which I first downloaded when I bought my first Laptop 3 years ago. In the past 3 years it has changed significantly and is now more user friendly and has many more applicatioins and users to interact with.
I use Google Earth quite ofter because I find it interesting to travel without leaving the house. Many of the things on Google earth that I have found lately are landmarks under the sea.
I have never really thought about the benifits of using Google Earth in the classroom until now. The students can benfit greatly from using this application in all subject areas particulalry geography and biology.
In grade 10 - I remember having to research all of the different countries where tennis is played in SOSE. The task was to provide a map of the country and some critical statistics about how many tournaments where played there and so on and so forth. Another important of the assessment was to incoroporate statistical data about the countries population, mortality and morbidity rates, government stastics and overall health of the country. Google Earth would have been a brilliant application to use with this assessmant task.
I look forward to writing a lesson Plan for an assessment task that is similar to the one that I undertook, using Google Earth as the main way to present the researched information.
I use Google Earth quite ofter because I find it interesting to travel without leaving the house. Many of the things on Google earth that I have found lately are landmarks under the sea.
I have never really thought about the benifits of using Google Earth in the classroom until now. The students can benfit greatly from using this application in all subject areas particulalry geography and biology.
In grade 10 - I remember having to research all of the different countries where tennis is played in SOSE. The task was to provide a map of the country and some critical statistics about how many tournaments where played there and so on and so forth. Another important of the assessment was to incoroporate statistical data about the countries population, mortality and morbidity rates, government stastics and overall health of the country. Google Earth would have been a brilliant application to use with this assessmant task.
I look forward to writing a lesson Plan for an assessment task that is similar to the one that I undertook, using Google Earth as the main way to present the researched information.
Incompetech
The Royalty free music I lisened to had a soft calming sound made up of a slow drum beat and quiet violins.
I rememeber when I was in grade 11 - my sociology teacher used to play us similiar music to this because he believed it would help us focus on our studies. I have also taken on this approach and believe it is beneficial for students to be introduced to all types of music. It would also beninfit the develop of their multi-tasking skills; listening to the music as you brainstorm ideas for a geographical task. Certain musical instruments and sounds may also prompt memory and increase memory recall of previous learning experiences.
In my sociology class, my teacher also mentioned that if you can remember the music we listened to in certain lessons, it may help with recalling what the lesson was about.
I rememeber when I was in grade 11 - my sociology teacher used to play us similiar music to this because he believed it would help us focus on our studies. I have also taken on this approach and believe it is beneficial for students to be introduced to all types of music. It would also beninfit the develop of their multi-tasking skills; listening to the music as you brainstorm ideas for a geographical task. Certain musical instruments and sounds may also prompt memory and increase memory recall of previous learning experiences.
In my sociology class, my teacher also mentioned that if you can remember the music we listened to in certain lessons, it may help with recalling what the lesson was about.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Teacher Tube
When I first discovered youtube I was logged on to it for 2 - 3 hours a day. Now that you have presented me with teachertube, I am happy to say that I will use constantly as a scholarly teaching resource as a future Learning Manager.
I watched a video called Mrs McNamara's 2nd Grade Endangered Species. Together the students and teacher researched information on one endagered species each. Then they made a video showing the pictures of the animals and the students voice explaining some information about the endangered animal. Then the class sat down to watch tghe video together when it was completed. Using constructivism - these children learned about not only their own endangered species, but that of the whole class.
A very useful resource
Thank you
I watched a video called Mrs McNamara's 2nd Grade Endangered Species. Together the students and teacher researched information on one endagered species each. Then they made a video showing the pictures of the animals and the students voice explaining some information about the endangered animal. Then the class sat down to watch tghe video together when it was completed. Using constructivism - these children learned about not only their own endangered species, but that of the whole class.
A very useful resource
Thank you
IWB's
Interactive whiteboards are very exciting and I can see how the students mentioned in the video on Moodle protect their classrooms Interactive White Boards intently.
The School that I am currently undertaking my Learning Management 1 work experience practical task at have an Interactive White Board in every classrooom. The teachers use it for every subject topic and the students add their ideas and answers to it as the lessons progress. The students take ownership of their classrooms IWB and therefore ownership of their learning experiences.
IWB's allow the students to upload information and share many databasis within and around other classrooms within the school. It allows for easily accessible information and multitasking skills.
Many of the children have gained confidence and self esteem by using the Interactive White Boards. They sit on the edge of their little chairs waiting for it to be their turn to stand up and use it.
As a future Learning Manager, I look forward to having one of these brilliant tools in my classroom. I look forward to seeing my students thrive in a technologically updated learning environment.
Thank you
The School that I am currently undertaking my Learning Management 1 work experience practical task at have an Interactive White Board in every classrooom. The teachers use it for every subject topic and the students add their ideas and answers to it as the lessons progress. The students take ownership of their classrooms IWB and therefore ownership of their learning experiences.
IWB's allow the students to upload information and share many databasis within and around other classrooms within the school. It allows for easily accessible information and multitasking skills.
Many of the children have gained confidence and self esteem by using the Interactive White Boards. They sit on the edge of their little chairs waiting for it to be their turn to stand up and use it.
As a future Learning Manager, I look forward to having one of these brilliant tools in my classroom. I look forward to seeing my students thrive in a technologically updated learning environment.
Thank you
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Blog uses for students Part Two
In another browsing session through blogspot.com I came across alot of blogs based on teacher networking and collaboration where different teachers posted thier experiences in their classrooms and used it as a collaborative tool for connectivism and constructivism. The teachers linked to this blog sahred thier resources, knowledge, professional development and general day to day life at thier school.
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