This course has awakened my lifelong learning approach as I realize that my operational skills and conceptual knowledge of the possibilities of elearning are, at this stage, exceedingly rudimentary. As the twenty-first century becomes more involved with technology, it is a given that today’s students need to be educated in this technology to become successful members of society (Queensland Studies Authority (QSA), 2007). Prensky (2005) labels this technological trend as ‘singularity’, an event in which there is no going back. Education Queensland (2008) defines digital pedagogy as a new, innovative way in which to engage the learners of the twenty-first century through incorporating digital tools and ICT into purposeful planning and scaffolded learning experiences. Prensky (2005) claims that since the introduction of the digital age students have not only become engaged with technology, but actually expect this type of engagement to be prevalent in all aspects of their school life. It is with this mind set that e-learning becomes integral to classroom instruction by providing learning managers with opportunities to incorporate life long learning and utilize technology as a means to support collaboration, engagement and higher order thinking through learning.
E-learning is defined by Holmes and Gardiner (2006) as the process of enabling student learning to consist of more than just face-to-face interaction, through the implementation of technological tools. The QSA (2007) recognizes the inclusion of Information, Communication and Technologies (ICTs) as a cross curricula priority. By incorporating digital pedagogy into their teaching, a learning manager can cater to students individual needs, encourage collaboration and engagement and ensure the transformation, facilitation, support and enhancement of learning.
My current context: Opportunities and limitations for using ICT’s
My current context is a year 6/7 class at a special school. All the learners are intellectually impaired but all are very interested in ICT’s and are keen to know about and interact with new technologies. I am also an early childhood student, so I have looked at the flowing tools with both contexts in mind. The opportunities and limitations in my current context (the special school) are quite similar to those of an early childhood context. The learners all have short attention spans and require constant stimulation to keep them on task. Many of the learners have limited hand-eye coordination, this, coupled with an inability to communicate effectively, frequently leads to anger and frustration. Many of the learners enjoy visual and auditory stimulation; however, there are some noises and visuals that may adversely affect some learners. The fact that many learners in the special education context are unable to communicate and interact effectively using conventional methods means that many of the ICT’s are their only way of effective communication.
It is with these opportunities and limitations in mind and using the productive pedagogies framework, Dimensions of learning and Bloom’s taxonomy that I have analysed all the ICT learning tools presented over the duration of this course. The tools which I have deemed to be most useful in these contexts are blogs, digital videos and animations, digital video and concept maps.
Blogs
Blogs are an excellent way of enhancing learning experiences by promoting creativity, collaboration and reflection. Looking through a constructivist lens, blogs could be used as an aid to support learners to construct their own perspective of prior learning. In a special education or an early childhood context, blogs can be used to ensure inclusivity. As stated in Productive pedagogies (The State of Queensland, Department of Education, 2002 p. 16) ‘Inclusive classroom practices intentionally acknowledge, support and incorporate the diversity of students’ diverse backgrounds, experiences and abilities’. This sense of inclusion promotes positive attitudes and perceptions by enabling learners to feel accepted and experience a sense of comfort and order (Marzano et al., 2006).
My reasons for choosing a blog for special and/or early childhood education include:
• Learners who have underdeveloped skills and/or memory problems have the option of viewing and /or listening to sound files, photo’s, images, videos, podcasts and vodcasts, all of which can be embedded into the blog.
• By reporting and reflecting using their blog, a learner can clearly demonstrate their thinking and knowledge.
• A blog can establish a sense of connectivism and ownership amongst the learners.
• A blog could provide learners with an alternate means of communication and facilitate effective collaborative interaction.
• A blog provides opportunities for learners to access information and work at their own pace and ability level.
• Blogs could be utilized as an alternative to standard reporting and journaling
• A blog is well scaffolded and predictable
Viewing or creating a blog enables learners to share and view a range of perspectives and provides immediate relevance and value, thus linking to the Dimensions of Learning (Marzano et al. 200. It is highly likely that learners engaged in blog creation would be operating in the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy (Frangenheim, 2007) by analysing, evaluating and designing.
Perhaps the greatest concern in the special and early childhood contexts is the safety of the learners. Due to an inability to fully appreciate the repercussions of a lack of anonymity, very young learners and learners with an intellectual impairment can be more vulnerable than those in higher year levels or without intellectual disability (Ashman & Elkins, 2009).
It is for this reason that learning managers must be vigilant in ensuring that nothing is published to the web without first being viewed and edited if required
Power point
The next tool that I have chosen as being particularly useful in my current context is power point. By experimenting with the creation of animated movies and interactive power point, I have come to see this tool in a whole new light. Power point is freely available to students, is easily learned (Keefe and Willett, 2004) via the set-up wizard, and can be used to access, consolidate, transform and present knowledge. In my current context, power point is often used to present new information to the students. Assessment tasks are also frequently completed via power point. This is generally done in a collaborative situation by pairing learners with differing abilities together. This practice enables learners to initially analyse and evaluate information for its usefulness in the acquisition and integration stage. Progressing from this stage, learners use various complex reasoning processes (Marzano et al., 2006) in order to extend and refine their knowledge. This knowledge is then used meaningfully, incorporating higher order thinking skills, to design and create their power point.
Online Concept Map
"A concept map is a two-dimensional diagram representing the conceptual structure of subject matter" (McInerny & McInerny., 2006, p 111). Concept maps are used to acquire and integrate knowledge through the consolidation and refinement of thoughts, concepts, information and ideas (Marzano et al. 2006). An online concept map such as bubbl.us could be used at the beginning of a lesson in order to allow the learners to see the ‘big picture’ or at the conclusion to check for understanding, extend and refine knowledge (Marzano et al., 2006). Ausbel (n.d. as cited in McInerny & McInerny, 2006) advocates the use of advanced organizers to prepare students for the material about to be learned. By using an advanced organiser such as a concept map at the beginning of the learning experience, learners are provided with a stable cognitive structure to which new learning can be anchored" (McInerny & McInerny, 2006, p. 143).
The cognitive skills of application and analysis are the underpinnings of this tool as learners connect prior knowledge to a new situation. In my current context, and also in an early childhood setting, I would use an online concept map as a collaborative, whole class tool as it may be too complex for some intellectually impaired learners to complete independently. Used in this manner, an application such as bubbl.us could provide the productive pedagogy intellectual qualities of substantive conversation, metalanguage and knowledge as problematic (The State of Queensland, Department of Education, 2002).
Digital Movies
Digital video is a useful and effective tool for observation, analysis and reflection. Schuck and Kearney (2004) found that by using digital video in classrooms learners developed movie-making skills, spoken and written literacies and media literacy skills. Other benefits observed by Schuck and Kearney (2004) include the improvement of presentation skills, a greater understanding of the subject content or topic, an increase in autonomous behaviour and increased engagement and motivation. These findings support the dimensions of learning (Marzano et al., 2006) by helping students to perceive tasks as valuable and interesting and therefore develop positive attitudes and perceptions about classroom tasks. Digital Videos can be created simply by using programs such as movie maker, imovie, photo story 3, voki and xtranormal and are able to be embedded into bogs, wiki’s and websites. Even though some learners in my context may require assistance such as a list of simple steps to create a digital video, I believe the benefits far outweigh the limitations. Some ways that I could use digital videos in my current context include:
• The design and creation of a movie outlining the learning throughout a unit or the findings of an investigation
• The use of YouTube movies as a stimulus or to encourage analysis and evaluation
• A communication tool for learners to present their ideas and information
• An assessment task requiring the presentation to an audience
• A reflective tool used to remember and analyse prior learning
• A digital video tutorial for learners unable to attend school
By providing interesting and relevant tasks, the learners can share their thoughts, ideas, information, knowledge, creativity and ideas with an audience. According to Schuck and Kearny (2004), when students create digital videos, they are communicating, observing, analysing and reflecting. The higher order thinking skills of creativity, evaluation and analysis are all required in the creation, composition, planning and designing of digital video. This leads to the intellectual qualities of substantive conversation and deep knowledge and understanding and the transformation of ideas on the subject or topic (The State of Queensland, Department of Education, 2002).
Conclusion
Elearning is the way of the future for all learners and I now have no excuse not to embrace the possibilities of technology and use the multitude of tools to transform, support, facilitate and enhance my learning and the learning of my students. As new technologies and possibilities are developed and created, it is feasible that my learners may very well know more than I do on this topic. The beauty of ICT’s is that they can be used collaboratively to allow individuals to learn with and through each other, regardless of what is being learnt, how each individual learns and when and where each individual is situated. It is this capacity for ICT’s to be used to expand and enhance learning, regardless of the context that makes it so receptive to creativity and innovation. Of greatest concern to me is the factor of legal, safe and ethical behaviour with ICT. Up until now, this has been one of the main reasons that I have avoided utilizing many of the available ICT’s. In this day and age, with an abundance of identity theft, stalking and law suits relating to the unethical and illegal use of ICT’s, it is paramount that safety, legality and ethicality is in the forefront of our minds when using and teaching ICT’s. It is my responsibility, as a learning manager to model and ensure that my students are aware of the legal, safe and ethical practices and behaviours when using ICT’s.
Collaborative online learning conversations
Click here to view a post on karen's blog about Powerpoint
Click here to view a comment on Karen's blog about the use of digital movies
Click here to view a conversation with Gary about digital movies
Click here to view a discussion with Tasha about digital video
Click here to view another conversation with Gary about digital video and animation
Click here to view a conversation with Emma about Power point
Click here to view a conversation with Karen about ethics and safety
Ashman, A., & Elkins, J. (2009). Education for inclusion and diversity. Frenchs
Education Queensland (2008). Smart Classrooms Bytes: advice for school on the latest ICT research for education. Brisbane: Queensland Government.
Frangenheim, E. (2007). Reflections on classroom thinking strategies. Loganholme, Qld: Rodin Educational Publishing.
Holmes, B., & Gardner, J. (2006). E-learning: Concepts and practice. Retrieved August, 22, 2010, From http://books.google.com.au/books?id=XbbM9mj22KQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=E-
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Keefe, D., & Willett, J. (2004). A case for power point as a faculty authoring system. Retrieved August 22, 2010, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC520839/
Marzano, R., Pickering, D., Arredondo, D., Blackburn, G., Brandt, R., Moffet, C., Paynter, D., Pollack, J., & Whisler, J. (2006). Dimensions of learning: teacher’s manual (2nd ed.). Heatherton, Victoria, Australia: Hawker Brownlow Education.
McInerny, D., & McInerny, V. (2006). Educational Psychology: constructing learning (4th edn). Frenchs Forest, New South Wales: Pearson Education Australia.
Prensky, M. (2005). Engage me or enrage me: what today's learners demand. Retrieved from CQUniversity moodle, FAHE 11001 Managing E-learning,
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0553.pdf
Schuck, S., & Kearney, M. (2004). Students in the director’s seat: Teaching and learning across the school curriculum with student-generated video. Retrieved August, 22, 2010 from, http://www.ed-dev.uts.edu.au/teachered/research/dvproject/pdfs/ReportWeb.pdf
The State of Queensland, Department of Education and Training. (2002). Productive pedagogies: Classroom reflection manual. Brisbane, Qld: Author.
