Reflective Synopsis

“A story based on your learning”

When I started this course, it was my first formal study in a LOT of years and I was feeling quietly confident that I was going to breeze though ICT for Learning Design.  I thought that I had quite a good handle on technology and am an avid user of technology in my work life and home life, but I had never considered the angle of how to use it to support student learning, so although it wasn’t the breeze I had imagined, I found it exciting to get a deeper understanding of what I already knew and how to use it to support and scaffold the learning of students in my charge.

In the class room the learning journey is very complex and extensive and throughout the entire schooling years of each child in each key learning area there will be times when every learning theory in at least some part will be employed.  In brief learning theories include:

• Behaviourism is about using an external influence to generate a ‘desired’ action through repetition. 
• Cognitivism is the growth of knowledge through sequential development of an individual’s cognitive abilities
• Constructivism is the development of knowledge by participating in the learning.  Constructivism learning occurs when learners are involved or engaged in the learning.

And, then there is connectivism, which is not formally considered a learning theory, but is about how the brain draws together knowledge in the 21st century and/or the digital age (Fasso, 2013).  Although Siemens (2005) argues that it is “a learning theory for the digital age”.  He suggests that it supersedes more traditional theories of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism.

 

Regardless of the learning theory practised, in this era of the digital age it is essential to incorporate technology into whatever theory you employ.  And the idea of TPACK (discusses in more detail in my previous blogs) and how it is unpacked to integrate technology into the more traditional areas of teaching (pedagogy and content knowledge).  We looked further into this idea by investigating the ideas of Prensky (2013) (see my previous Blog), and initially I was not in agreement with many of his ideas.  However after the completion of this part of the course, I have softened to some of his ideas and have changed my mind about his underlying thoughts.  I don’t like Prensky’s (2013) terminology of digital natives or digital immigrants, but I do accept that the generations that I will be teaching will be quite savvy with regard to technology, but I think that more importantly they will have some expectation that technology will be incorporated into their education.  I also think that we as teachers will also have an obligation to make our students ‘world-ready’ when they graduate, and the world that they are entering after school is going to be much different to previous generations and they will need these skills.

 

 

Wiki Mobile Phone Activity

The wiki activity to analyse the use of mobile phones in the class room was a great way to facilitate a brainstorming session.  The use of a higher order thinking tool such as de Bono’s hat inside a wiki scaffolded the lessons about learning.  As it turns out the wiki became quite ‘messy’ and I found it a little frustrating and unorganised, but I am a linear and visual learner, as you can see in my self-assessments in Week 1.  But, the point of the task set for us, was to demonstrate how something like a wiki can be used in a learning context, and it was definitely a great way to explore a tool like a wiki. And to see a scaffolded structure for learning (like de Bono’s hats) in action! And, to see how a group task can function in an on-line environment!  

 

A wiki becomes a one-stop-shop for effective eLearning environment for the five key areas outlined by White (2008): Classroom interactive learning; Independent learning; Networked learning; Organisational learning, and; Managed learning.

 

For me, I have learnt a few lessons about how to structure a lesson of this sort.  If, or more likely when, I use a wiki as a tool for learning, I would be sure to:

• Demonstrate the tool for the students so that it doesn’t get messy.  We could do some work in the classroom before they accessed it from home.
• The size of the group using the tool is also important, depending on the task or the project, it will be crucial to have an appropriate number of users.
• Discuss the appropriate use of on-line environments in a legal, safe and ethical way (discussed in depth in my previous blogs).

Group 1 Tools – Wiki | Blog | Website

During my exploration of Group 1 tools I was able to make both a functional wiki and a web site (I invite you to see my examples).  And as you are reading this, you know that I’ve mastered blogging…

 

My pick for this group of tools is the web site.  I think that a web site is a great tool that can be used by both teacher and students to support learning, making it a great tool.  The exciting feature of a web site is its almost unlimited capacity to operate as a support environment for most other media. Items such as videos, pictures, PowerPoints, prezis, wikis, blogs, and so on… can all be embedded, so the web site can become a catalogue of other projects as well as a standalone environment in its own right.  You can see some examples of this in my web page, where I used an example from the Australian Curriculum (http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Science/Rationale) to structure a learning site for a potential science class I could be teaching.

 

For the teacher

• Make a class site for information about topics and assignments that are accessible through a menu without having to scroll through a blog to find information
• Can set up assessment tasks like quizzes or lodging assignments
• Can publish information on content knowledge

For students

• Can have a whole of class site with all the students able to access and edit content.
• Be a site for collaboration – not as free as a wiki but it avoids the ‘messiness’ that comes with the wiki.
• Can be created by students to house all the other ‘creation’ they make or develop for assessment, to showcase for school/parents/community, and to inspire their continued digital development.

Group 2 Tools – Images | Audio | Video

In this group of tools, I feel that all three should be an essential part of the learning within the classroom and of course the learning beyond the classroom.  The potential of using photographs and images to facilitate a see-think-wonder routine is enormous, particularly when used with curriculum centred images is a very powerful tool for learning.

 

This structured learning supports HOTS and recognises the value of experiences and prior knowledge, as well as the variation in perspectives between individuals through personal life experiences. Very important in group work and problem solving with technology (Anderson, 2004).

 

I really value the photographs and was able demonstrate my ability to work with them and also to use them to demonstrate scientific concepts.  My blog also has examples of audio and video that I have made.

 

Group 3 Tools – PowerPoint | Prezi | Glogster

Group 3 tools were all quite ‘fun’ to play with, and in my Blog I got very excited about the use of Prezis, and you can read about my thoughts and opportunities for using Prezis within the classroom in my blog posting.  Upon reflecting on these tools, however, I’ve thought more about the limited time available for teachers as they prepare for their classes and also the limitations in schools for Internet connections and software use and I think that the most used tool of this group is more likely to be the PowerPoint.

 

Since PowerPoint is traditionally a stagnate and liner tool for presentation, I think that it is important to step up the use of PowerPoint to incorporate interactive activities (like my example) to engage the students and give them some control over their learning.  To cater for global learners and both intrapersonal and interpersonal learners.

 

Group 4 tools – Other technologies

This group was very open for us to explore.  In my weekly blog I explored a word bubble generator and Google Earth.  I think that both of these tools will support cognitivism and constructivism learning for a wide range of learners, as discussed in my blog.  Google Earth supports the rational and reasoning as well as the lateral thinking (cognitivism and constructivism) of students as they are able to tour the world and make discoveries.  If these activities are guided and scaffolded towards a learning outcome students will really benefit from using this on-line tool.

 

There are a range of other technologies that I am very proficient with through my ‘day job’ that I am hoping to also bring to the classroom to give students a real life context to the subject material that they learn in school.  Linking school to the outside world is essential.  In the world of science there are many simple and advanced technologies that are used daily and can be used to take content knowledge to a higher level in order to interpret, analyse, assess and contextualise knowledge.  My skills with items such as remote cameras, data loggers, telemetry, sensors (environmental and physiological), along with appropriate and specific advanced scientific software will open the channels of scientific discovery in the classroom and promote HOTS.

 

Final thoughts

To sum up the overall use of technology in the class room I would like to conclude my thoughts by using a constructive thinking routine, in this instance a SWOT analysis…

 

Strengths The variety of tools available is very extensive and most can be applied in classrooms from Prep through to Senior Our students will expect technology in their classrooms that match the technology in their homes and social lives Can strengthen the scaffolded learning to individual needs for both poor and advanced students alike	Weaknesses Internet connection reliability and accessibility is varied throughout the communities and within schools Can be very time consuming to ‘play’ with technology
Opportunities Students and teachers will all be learning and keeping-up with the development of new technologies and digital tools ICT can be used to embed the hidden literacy curriculum Through the modelling of safe, legal and ethical practises by teachers, students will also learn these behaviours and will take these skills into their future lives	Threats Students can get distracted from the learning goals as they focus on the ‘bells and whistles’ of various tools Opportunities for unsavoury online activities of students (or outsiders) to impact students and/or teaching staff

 

Since I am posting this Blog on the birth date of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452), one of the most celebrated minds in history, I finish with one of his quotes:

“Learning never exhausts the mind.  Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.”

- Leonardo da Vinci

(http://www.leonardodavinci.net/quotes.jsp)

 

References

Anderson, T. (Ed.), 2004. Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University, Athabasca, Canada.

Fasso, W., 2013. ICT in Learning Design: Study resources. CQUniversity

Prensky, M. 2013. Marc Prensky. [on-line] http://www.marcprensky.com/

Siemans,G., 2005. Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning.

White, G., 2008. ICT Trends in Education. Australian Council for Educational Research.

 

Week 5 - Other technologies

Well, this is a bit open ended...   I had a tough time deciding...

Word Clouds?

I was unable to access the recommended Wordle, but after a Google search I found many more, I assume equally as good, options for making word clouds.  I must say that I loved playing with Tagexdo.


I have recently completed a report for my work that was about innovation in the central Queensland resource region, it's often hard to find graphics for these sorts of reports, so i put the executive summary into Tagexdo and produced the graphics below...

Both word bubbles were created using Tagexdo.

After having a look through some of the key words I could really see how the application of this could be used by students to explore the main ideas of a piece of work, report or paper to get an overview of the content, particularly for global learners to get the bigger, overall picture before undertaking the reading of the piece.

It could also be used by students to identify the main ideas of their own work, as a way of checking that they are on task with regard to what they ware trying to talk about or to combine with other presentation media to give their written work more visual impact.  One other nice feature of Tagexdo is that you can make it interactive and the words 'pop' out as you run the mouse over and these can be linked.  Students could use this as a menu as such for other works to navigate around a web site, wiki, prezi or even an interactive PowerPoint, to name a few...

But...  I must say that for my "other technologies" category, I did like Google Earth (which is linked with Google Maps)

Google Earth

I personally love Google Earth and did so before I began to explore it for teaching purposes.  And after I looked into it as a teaching tool, I personally found it even more exciting.  I think that if I am going to teach a subject and I can be excited about it, I will be able 'infect' my class with the same enthusiasm that I have.  And Google Earth is great at doing this.

One new aspect that I discovered when I looked into Google Earth was links to lessons and resources designed for teachers, in a variety of subjects area.  Bonus!! One that I explored in detail was for "Teaching Structural Geology".  This site already has the background work done with place marks available to download which show various geological structures from around the globe and comes with a "how to teach" guide that, although being American based, can be applied to the Australian Curriculum units of work in science and geography.  It is great that a resource like this is available to scaffold the learning of a global lesson in a global (literately) context.  Before zooming back to earth to stimulate further learning, for visual/spatial, naturalistic and logical learners (like me).  It can also be used for an individual journey or a group journey catering for the individualisation of learning for both interpersional and intrapersional learners.

How else could you explore "doubly plunging anticline near Chahar Gas, Iran" before zipping off to see "folds in Coahuila, Mexico????

 Doubly plunging anticline near Chahar Gas, Iran (http://serc.carleton.edu/images/NAGTWorkshops/structure/chahar_gas_iran_mapping_1224251829.v2.jpg)

Folds in Coahuila, Mexico (http://serc.carleton.edu/images/NAGTWorkshops/structure/coahuila_mexico_folds.jpg)


I would be amiss if I didn't truly consider this technology in the class room...  Since I have fairly much covered the "P" and the "I" of a PMI, the downsides (minus') should also be discussed.  Hard to think of any actually...  The usual concerns of the availability/accessibility of the downloaded program to school computers might be an issue (but the iPad app, which I also love, would possibly get past this) and then it's only Internet connection and speed that might interfere with the learning journey.

Week 5 - PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster

And I thought that this week would be easy...  I considered myself an accomplished PowerPoint user and I was thinking that this week would be a breeze.  Boy, was I wrong!

My experience with PowerPoint did make the week much easier when dealing with the software, but I was challenged when I needed to think about the application of a PowerPoint presentation in a school situation and not in a typical presentation situation for which I am much more familiar.

I was lucky to have recently been invited to my son's school to talk about life cycles with the Grade 2s during their science lesson.  Knowing my son's interests and my own preference for visual learning, I created a PowerPoint as a way of showing pictures to the students of various life cycles and animals that we were then going to observe under the microscopes (that I also took in...).  It was a simple PowerPoint that I controlled and talked to.  After learning about the power of interactive presentations I feel that I could have done a much better job.  I have added some interactive links the presentation that I did for the Grade 2s and I think that if doing it again I would change my linear approach and invite the students to explore the new and improved interactive presentation, that I invite you to view on my wiki site.

You will also find a presentation that I gave at a recent Australasian Wildlife Conference on my wiki site as an example of a more polished presentation that I have made.

And then...

I started to look at what a Prezi was (having never heard of it before), and I love it! I even downloaded the app onto my iPad and found it just as easy to use, if not easier on the iPad as on the desk top.

So, I again changed my mind, and I think that given the opportunity again, I would take life cycles to Grade 2's with a Prezi.





I also played around with Glogster (below) and felt it was more for the younger students...  I think that Prezi and Glogster are fairly similar in function and capabilities, both allow students of any school age (Glogster for younger students; and Prezi for older students) to generate their own creations.

Both platforms are a great ways to scaffold the subject material to build on an idea/theory. 

Prezi in particular allows for the global perspective of the subject before diving deeper into the concepts - it then allows for further digging and exploring of ideas.  And students to guide themselves through the material or you can guide them with pre-set pathways, individualising the learning for more students. And as the material zooms in and out it creates a virtual scaffold that supports the learning.

Glogster is not as interactive as Prezi but is more like a digital poster that can incorporate many forms of media.  It can be used as such to make a "poster" for assessment individually or in a group, or used to support other student projects (like class talks, etc.).  It can also be used by the teacher to promote interest and start the learning journey of the student as they explore the subject areas.

Since both Prezi and Glogs are on-line, it is important to remind students about the use of the Internet in a safe, ethical and legal manner.




To sum up what I think about each presentation based tool I have used a PMI to compare the applications, mainly with the thinking that I will (hopefully) be teaching high school science...

	P	M	I
PowerPoint	On almost every computer Very easy to use Can use copy/paste functions and other desk-top editing shortcuts	Not on mobile devices Interactive aspects are possible but ‘fiddly’ to set up	Can be interactive or linear – some concepts and ideas in science just need to be linear to be understood
Prezi	Can be accessed remotely and on mobile devices Very suitable for students of all ages Easy to use Lots of templates available to get you started	Needs Internet access Can't just 'paste' items in	Students to explore the material themselves in their own learning journey Can incorporate other media (video, audio, etc.) more easily than PP
Glogster	Can be accessed remotely Easy to use More like an interactive poster, thus making it great for students to create Saves parents from the poster card and glue panic of a Sunday night...	Need Internet access Glodger (general) is available on mobile devices but the Glogster EDU app is still under development A little “simple” for senior students (compared with PowerPoint and Prezi)	Can incorporate other media (video, audio, etc.) more easily than PP Very easy for students to create their own and can be ‘published’ in many on-line web tools

Week 4 - Digital Images, Podcasts (Audio) and Videos

Our study materials this week directed us to countless sites and lists of examples for using each of these types of digital media. Every site and piece of information included a subtle reminder about relating the media back to the desired learning outcomes and to be careful not to let the technology take over.  Whatever technology you use in the class room, you need to be sure to have strong links with the desired curriculum and learning outcomes.  This is something that I need to continually remind myself of, as I find it very easy to get distracted by the “bells and whistles” of all the tools – I must come back to the underlying concepts of TPACK.

Digital Images

I did not download the suggested image resizing software as I already have many image manipulation programs and apps. I deal with images a lot in my work and home life.  Image size is a very important consideration and it is very important to be aware of image size, quality and use when determining how to take it and what manipulations you wish to perform.  A few additional notes that I’ve learnt by trial and error:

• Red eye reduction works best on original size images (the larger the better)
• Images won’t upload quickly if they are too big and many institutes and companies have a file size limitation on web downloads and e-mail attachments, etc.
• If you want to publish a cover or poster, graphic designers will want as good as quality that you can supply, so always keep the original size if you make an image smaller.
• When imbedding images into documents, PowerPoints and web sites, use as small a file size as needed (most of my image resizing software will give an option of sizing based on the final use, see the screen capture below, Figure 1)
• Many other programs which have the capacity to embed photos will offer a compression function that you can use to resize photos already imbedded, again with the sizing is automatically done based on the final use for the document, presentation, etc. (see screen capture below, Figure 2)

 

Figure 1  Screen capture of Microsoft Office Picture Manager for photo resizing options

Figure 2 Screen capture from PowerPoint where picture compression options are offered based on the final use of the document.

In my teaching field of science the opportunities for using images are countless.  Obviously photographs are the most common and can be used to document student participation and experiments that they do.  They can also show students examples of animals, plants, ecosystems, chemicals (and their reactions), etc. etc. etc. The list is just too extensive…  Photographs are also a key component for the thinking routine of See Think Wonder.
 

A See Think Wonder routine is where students are asked to observe an image, then they describe the image as: “I see…”, “I think…”, “I wonder…”.  This scaffolds the learning of concepts and promotes HOTS (higher order thinking skills). 

 

There are also a lot of other images that are also important and can be very powerful for student learning in the field of science.  Charts, diagrams, graphs, figures, and drawings, to name a few, are also essential to facilitate deeper understandings of most scientific concepts.  You can tell students that the warmer the pond water the less capacity it has to hold dissolved oxygen, but if you back that up with a graph or a diagram (Figure 3) students get a true understanding of the relationship.  You can then move into HOTS as students investigate the relationship between dissolved oxygen and the percent of oxygen saturation (Figure 4).
 

Figure 3 The relationship between dissolved oxygen and temperature (Image from

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/waterq3/WQassess3f.html)
 

Figure 4 Determining oxygen saturation based on temperature and dissolved oxygen (Image from www.waterwatch.org.au)

There are also very powerful lesson that students can get from taking photographs of themselves, classmates and their activities.  For visual learners (and I really relate to this) a photograph can really aid students to get to the ‘pointy end’ of Blooms Taxonomy.  As learning starts with creativity (taking photographs), evaluating, and analysing it then moves to an understanding and a panicle of remembering.  Photographs will aid student (particularly learners with that are sensory learners) to remember what they were doing and learning.

Audio tools

Podcasts…   Voki…   Recordings…   Radio…   mp3’s…   and so on and so on…

There is an immense amount of audio material stored and being up loaded daily.  Every kid I know has music on some sort on a digital device and I think that this is the most common form of auditory digital media.  And there is no reason why learning can’t tap into this popular culture – how annoying is it when kids have their ears plugged with earphones all day?  Why not use that to our advantage??

 

I enjoyed ‘playing’ with the voki’s and I also downloaded a few voice recorder apps onto my iPad.  I found one that I really like called Voice Plus.

 

Voice Plus records voice as you would expect (as can be heard in my example voki below), but then you can also make the voice different as an alien character, a mouse, an exterminator, a choir and many more, along with this you can add locations so it sounds like you are in a canyon, have an echo, and many more and also add background sounds from the jungle, traffic, scary and helicopters to name a few (an example is below in my podcast example, using the same voice as in the voki with the added embellishments).  The kids and I had a lot of fun playing this this app!!

 

 

The Voki I made using audo recorded in Voice Plus app

 

 

The PodOmatic podcast I made using the Voice Plus app (the same audo recording as the Voki above but with an alien voice, echo and jungle noises)

 

But want are the pros and cons of this?  Since I have mainly focused on PMI’s so far, I thought I would consider a SWOT analysis to further investigate this form of product for learning…

Strengths It’s just soooooooo easy to do!! Can be published on line Can be about anything, anywhere, anytime Can be done by the teacher and the students

Weaknesses Some people, like me, really don’t like recording their voices (I just don’t like the sound of it – weird I know, but I can’t be alone) The recording can be compromised if it is recorded in a noisy environment – and it’s difficult to fix after the fact

Opportunities You can subscribe to any of a million (personal opinion, no reference for this figure) different podcasts that are available on the internet. You can use these podcasts to enhance learning and spark an interest with students The podomatic site I tested has a link with iTunes that you or your students (depending who is the audience) can link to and new podcasts will automatically download!!

Threats As with all technological tools you need to be very careful to keep the focus of the task on the learning outcome – you can get very distracted with playing and having fun (which is GREAT!!), but might not do the job Be sure to use the technology responsibly in a safe, legal and ethical!!

Videos

My husband got a Sony Action Cam for Christmas!!  As you can imagine, we have hours and hours of video footage from the view of our helmets, our bikes, the canoe, the jet ski, the surf ski, and the trampoline, and… and… and… 

 

What a great tool for learning!!!
 

With the video technology of today there are no boundaries to what you can bring to the class room in a video form.  And then there are countless sites where you can download and/or watch videos from the internet – the most infamous of course is YouTube (which even features in our course material…).

I have experience with editing video footage and have included a condensed clip of a much longer piece I made with a work colleague (thanks Adam Rose!!), as an example of the kind of production you can make with an action camera and a summers afternoon.

 

I also assisted my 7 year old to make a video as an experiment to see just how user friendly common movie making software is for our emerging ‘digital natives’.  The project (below) demonstrates how a simple combination of photographs and audio (coincendently the two other tools featured in the blog) can be ‘upgraded’ to make a more powerful product.

To reflect on this project, I felt a KWL analysis to be fitting:

What I know:

• Making videos are fun and relatively easy
• But can also be very (VERY) time-consuming
• Videos are very engaging for students

 What I wanted to know:

• Just how to link the wealth of material available on the internet to the curriculum objectives

What I learnt:

• YouTube is not allowed in state schools – will have to investigate what is allowed in my school (when I get one…)
• Students will need to exhibit HOTS to produce videos
• Equipment could be outside the reach of school budgets

Note: All photographs, recordings and video of children in this blog have been used with the consent of their parent or guardian (aka myself).

Safe, Legal and Ethical

This is a very big issue and so i thought is warranted a 'special' posting...

Quite ironically, just as we were coving this in the course material, my own children came home from school with forms to sign regarding this year’s ITC Consent/Agreement.  I think that this is a very good model employed by the school, as the students had to sign a form to say how they were going to be responsible and how they were going to treat the electronic equipment and use it ethically and safely. It was also outlined what the consequences would be if they didn't.  And my child in prep, her form was illustrated with pictures of the do’s and don’ts so there is no chance that any child would not get the message. 

There was also a space for parents to sign, to consent to photos being taken and explicitly what the guidelines and boundaries for how these would be used, stored and accessed by teachers, other students and the school for the future. 
Open discussions with students about these issues and very important and there is no point sugar coating it.  It is important that children realise that these things are real and can impact their safety. They also need to understand that the internet can be a vessel for bulling, harassment, and an invasion of personal boundaries.  These lessons (along with constant reminders for the students entire school life) will go well beyond the classroom/school and right into their future lives in the digital world.

Another important aspect of any production, digital or not, is to acknowledge the source of the information or idea or item (photograph, tune, etc.).  You CAN NOT use other peoples “stuff” without a) asking first, or b) if they have published it for the greater community, you must reference where you found it.

I don’t think anyone is too young to learn this – we teach our very small children to ask if they want something, getting permission to use someone else’s work is no different…

Some useful sites that I will refer to once I’m teaching include:

• The Australian Government’s Cybersmart site
• The Cybersafety Help Button on the Department of Broadboard, Communication and the Digital Economy
• The American FBI Site – Safety Tips
• Smartcopying (the official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE (note: I found this site through Susan McCowan’s Blog) 

AND, there is always a flip side, as much as we need to protect our students from predators, bullies and inappropriate material on the web, we also need to protect ourselves (as teachers) from the same thing, and often at the doing of students and/or parents.

During course tutorials we were privy to some insights from recent Education Queensland discussions and some information from Rob Priddley discussed in a presentation titled “Elluminate Live! - Cybersafety: managing inappropriate online behaviours” on the 22/08/2012.  From this the take home information for me was:

• teachers, but more likely school principals are becoming investigative detectives in charge of managing the behaviours of students, and increasingly parents, in the Web 2.0 environment
• social media is making it imperative to manage your “reputation” and the gossip channels that are dominating today’s communication throughout the school and general community (unflattering comments on Facebook being the most prevalent)
• students can be calculating and cunning and can really compromise teachers, some examples include: sign teachers up to internet sites (i.e. dating, pornography); make allegations in e-mails or social media, and; download inappropriate material (possibly bypassing school systems with hotspotting, etc.)

"Teachers are generally guilty until proven innocent"

Gary Holmes, pers comm., 2013

Week 3 - Blogs | Wikis | Web Sites

To look further into the possibilities of each medium for use in learning a short look at the various elements to each is necessary…

In the beginning we created a Blog…

Plus	Minus	Interesting
Very easy to create and make posts – can be done from anywhere with internet (it’s even free at Maccas)   Teachers and/or students can create one and comment on any   It’s fun – you can be writing towards an assignment and not really know it ;)   Can be formal or conversational   Free!!	Opens the students and teachers to potential harassment   Creates a digital footprint – invites spam   Can just be another thing that teachers have to do in their day…  (need to make sure that it’s not just for interest and that there is some assessment or learning outcomes	Opens the class room to an international audience – which includes parents and extended families   Can follow other peoples blogs (e.g. those of scientists, explorers, etc) to put science into perspective for real world applications   A great tool for the hidden literacy curriculum in all schools   Students write for a global audience so there is a hidden pressure to write, reference and include accurate content responsibly

As for the Wiki and Web sites we were asked to play with, I was feeling OK with the “how to”, but wasn’t sure where to go with the “what to”…  So, I’ve cheated a little and looked into a possible topic I could be teaching at some stage.  I’ve taken this from the AustralianCurriculum - Grade 8 Science:

Cells are the basic units of living things and have specialised structures and functions.

Elaborations

1.       examining a variety of cells using a light microscope, by digital technology or by viewing a simulation

2.       distinguishing plant cells from animal or fungal cells

3.       identifying structures within cells and describing their function

4.       recognising that some organisms consist of a single cell

5.       recognising that cells reproduce via cell division

6.       describing mitosis as cell division for growth and repair

This is one unit of work that is covered in Grade 8 so I have begun to make an example Wiki and a Web Site to allow students to discover this topic…

My thoughts about my Wiki follow in a PMI analysis and my example Wiki is titled Mrs Tuckers Grade 8 Science

Plus	Minus	Interesting
Great for collaborations or group work   Great for brainstorming   Good for encouraging participation   Can imbed many forms of media   Teachers don’t control the content which invites creativity   Small costs involved	Need to have many rules to make it work and keep it ‘safe’   Only edited by one at a time – makes it an at home (outside the classroom) only tool   Not as easy to use as a blog and has limited editing controls – google docs might be better for editing options   Anyone can edit anything – unwanted changes to the inputs of others (including deleting content)	Opens the class room to an international audience   Can be a tool to demonstrate on-line etiquettes   Can include and link to any media – pictures, diagrams, documents, videos, etc…  only limited by imagination

 A contrasting PMI for the use of a web site in the classroom has also been completed.  I thought a lot about the application of a web site while making one and have the following thoughts…

Plus	Minus	Interesting
Authors control content, and there can be many authors – possibilities for group creations   Many more editing and formatting options than available with a wiki   Global   Free to very expensive (you get what you pay for…)   Student works can be ‘published’	Not a many opportunities for feedback   Can be time consuming to have all the ‘bells and whistles’	Again with the hidden literacy in the curriculum…   Great for needing to know content and context at the time of creation   Can incorporate any other forms of media/technology   Lots of opportunities for using polls or surveys to get feedback or test students   Can bring parents and the community into the classroom

I’m not sure if I’m getting too ahead of myself (in respect of school capacities or curriculum), but I see a real niche for on-line tools in student homework and assessments, that hasn’t seemed to come up in other discussions.  I analyse a lot of data for my current job and many of the massive data sets that I deal with are gained through online surveys.  If you used a survey tool or something simular to create a homework sheet, quiz, test or exam, then you have the benefits of:

• No more ‘I forgot my homework sheet’
• Ease of marking – can be treated as a data set and automatically mark multiple choice questions and one word/number answers
• Reduces the amount to paper used
• Reduced pressure created by physically sitting in a formal test/exam environment
• Can use any of the tools we’ve looked at to do this (blog, wiki, web site, etc)

But to truly explore this option, you also must consider some of the downsides:

• Opportunities for cheating
• Students who don’t have internet access
• Students who have limited typing or computer skills maybe disadvantaged

I also found many examples on the web and one stand out was created by a science class where group work produced an encyclopaedic like web site with links and information about their project on planets – something to put into the back of my mind for my own classes of the future…

My example web site can be viewed at: mrstuckersgrade8scienceclass.weebly.com

These tools all focus on information transfer, and another massive advantage of all forms of communication is that it can be accessed by students and/or parents/guardians (who are pivotal in the education of students) anywhere, anytime, anyhow…  The little details that students can sometimes get hung-up on can be made available in black and white (or red or yellow, or blue, etc. etc etc.), assessment dates and requirements, upcoming school or class room events, and any other information and notes for families (many of which I find littering my kitchen bench and fridge can all be digital…).  It can also work in reverse, if the parent needs to contact the teacher about anything…  (Particularly since schools are big on documenting attendance and parents providing a ‘note’ for absentees.)

We also keep hearing that the ICT’s we will be exposed to at our school will depend on the individual school and the security limitations imposed by Education Queensland (e.g. YouTube not allowed in state schools), or Catholic Education, etc..  I think that this needs to be explored further and once we are ‘real’ teachers, we will have another steep learning curve to master the tools, software and facilities that our school has available. And, as next generation teachers, I also think that it is our job to keep on top of technology and encourage its use and its possibilities.