Reflective Synopsis

For some time now the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in educational settings has been considered essential for equipping students with the knowledge and competencies needed for everyday life in the 21st century. The European Commission states that ‘Living in a knowledge based society driven by the widespread diffusion of ICT does indeed give rise to the need for acquiring new digital competencies and ICT skills, and identifies “digital competence” as a “key competence” that individuals need to acquire for personal development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment’ (Institute for prospective technological studies, 2005, p. 10). However, while it is vital that students learn how to operate ICT’s, what is paramount is that ICT’s are used as an integral part of the learning process to facilitate higher-order thinking skills and the transformation of knowledge. This synopsis is aimed at distinguishing specific instances and uses of ICTs to advance higher-order thinking, deep knowledge and connectedness amongst students.

A number of contemporary learning theories and learning design frameworks have been considered and key principles and ideas of these frameworks have formed the basis of the reflections that address the effectiveness of a wide range of ICTs for enhancing student learning including;

• Learning theories such as Connectivism, Constructivism, Behaviourism and Cognitivism
• Productive Pedagogies, particularly ‘Intellectual Quality’and‘Connectedness’
• Blooms Taxonomy
• Multiple Intelligences
• Learning Styles

Kearsley & Shneiderman’s Engagement theory, a framework for technology-based teaching and learning, encompasses many ideas from theories and frameworks from the above list. The fundamental notion of Engagement Theory is that ‘students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worthwhile tasks’ (Kearsley & Schneiderman 1999, p.1). Meaningful engagement, interaction with others and worthwhile tasks are three things that will also be considered while evaluating the effectiveness of specific ICT’s.

So what technologies (ICT’s) are available at present and how can they be used to enhance student learning? I am going to answer that question for you by presenting you with a detailed example of contemporary ICTs that assist learners to do each of the following things;
• Access information
• Organize knowledge
• Consolidate and refine knowledge
• Transform knowledge to develop new understandings
• Present knowledge to an audience

Access Information – Websites
Websites allow students to access an abundance of information on any topic via the World Wide Web. According to Blooms Taxonomy, Students viewing information on a website would be working in the ‘cognitive’ or lowermost level of the taxonomy which is concerned with ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Comprehension’ or remembering and understanding (Atherton, 2010). Blooms Taxonomy indicates that in order to be able to demonstrate higher-order thinking and skills students must first achieve these lower order levels of learning. The multimodal nature of websites, as described on the website ‘Websites as Learning Tools’, engages students through a range of textual, visual, audio and video information, and through this engagement allows students to access and understand the information being presented. Websites can also host a number of other ICT’s including Voki’s and interactive learning objects. Kearsley & Shneiderman (1999, p.1) believe that ‘technology can facilitate engagement in ways that are difficult to achieve otherwise’ making websites a great tool for the access and delivery of information.

Organise Knowledge – Concept Maps
Now more than ever, students have access to a plethora of information which can at times be overwhelming and confusing. One way of organising a lot of information is by using a simple concept map. Concept maps are a ‘Cognitivist’ type of learning tool, as their characteristic structure allows information to be organised in ways to reflect brain schema, promoting transfer to long term memory. As mentioned in the post ‘Concept maps for learning’, I personally have found concept maps to be a very effective tool that assists with the organisation of a lot of ideas and information into a visual and textual ‘map’, and in the process recognise key concepts and form associations between other important pieces of information, or see the ‘big picture’. The online concept mapping tools allow concept maps to be made electronically and incorporated into websites, wikis and blogs to illustrate understandings and ideas. Students completing concept maps would still be working in the lower cognitive levels of blooms taxonomy, but such an activity would greatly assist students with their comprehension and understanding of concepts so they will be able to effectively take the next step of applying information.

Consolidate and Refine Knowledge – Learning Management Systems
As mentioned in the blog posting ‘Learning Management Systems’ LMS provide safe online collaboration spaces such as discussions and forums. The blog posting also describes how student participation in online discussion forums is a highly effective constructivist teaching strategy. As part of the Productive Pedagogies framework pertaining to ‘Intellectual Quality’ the Queensland Government Department of Education and Training (2004) states ‘We want to ensure that students manipulate information and ideas in ways which transform their meaning and implications, understand that knowledge is not a fixed body of information, and can coherently communicate ideas, concepts, arguments and explanations with rich detail’. Participating in online discussions and forums allows all of this to happen as students communicate their ideas in detail, learn about their peers understandings and ideas, pose arguments and explanations all of which contributes to the construction of each learner’s personal understanding. Students learning in this manner are given the opportunity to be scaffolded by peers or learning manager, explain concepts in depth while presenting their ideas, view concepts from the unique perspective of their peers, have their views challenged and be prompted to think about the topic in multiple layers leading to deeper understandings. Participation in this E-Learning course has allowed me the privilege of participating in this type of learning firsthand and I have posted a link in my LMS blog to the discussion forum and my own experience of social online learning. The authenticity and engagement that this learning context has provided me has me sold on LMS as an educational ICT and one which I will definitely be using to enhance learning in my future classroom.

Transform Knowledge to Develop New Understandings - Wikis
Using ICT’s to transform knowledge to develop new understandings involves students working in the ‘synthesising’ stage as identified in Blooms Taxonomy. The transformation from lower-order thinking to higher-order thinking occurs when students ‘synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows students to solve problems and discover new (for them) meanings and understandings’ (Queensland Government Department of Education and Training, 2004). Wikis are an appropriate ICT for allowing students to work collaboratively on learning tasks that require them to create, invent, compose, construct, design or solve problems as explained in my blog post ‘Wikis for Learning’. Such learning tasks recognise all three basic principles of Kearsley & Shneiderman’s ‘Engagement Theory’ and the fundamental notion that students are involved in engaged learning where ‘successful collaborative teams work on ambitious projects that are meaningful to someone outside the classroom’ (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 2004, p. 1). Another great benefit of using wikis for collaborative learning is that is enables students to develop teamwork and relationship building skills like co-operation and negotiation. I consider this to be of great importance as the changing nature of working lives known as postFordism identifies that ‘The old vertical chains of command are replaced by the horizontal relationships of teamwork. A division of labour into its minute, deskilled components is replaced by ‘multi-skilled’, well rounded workers who are flexible enough to be able to do complex and integrated work’ (Cope & Kalantzis, 1995, in A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures, (1996). I believe that using wikis is one great way to foster such skills amongst students.

Present Knowledge to an Audience – Blogs
As discussed in the blog post ‘Blogs for Learning’ there are many great benefits of using blogging as an educational ICT. The blogger has the opportunity to demonstrate personal knowledge and learning for a wider audience. Blogs are commonly used in educational settings for assessment purposes, and before engaging with this e-learning course I have to say that I had no idea of the many benefits of blogs for learning or assessment. I have found blogging as a way of demonstrating knowledge to be one of the MOST engaging and rewarding university assessment tasks I have done. Knowing that you are writing for a purpose and an audience makes it more authentic and therefore appealing. Blogs also allow for readers to comment, which I believe assists on making up the ‘evaluation’ stage of Blooms Taxonomy as peer and self evaluation. Examples of such evaluation of learning can be viewed in the comment section of each of my blog postings, particularly ‘Blogs for Learning’.

A body of research conducted by Hiltz (1994) relating to Engagement Theory has concluded that ‘the virtual classroom environment resulted in better mastery of course materials, greater student satisfaction, and a higher level of student reported learning than traditional classroom experiences’ (Kearsley & Schniederman, 1999, p. 5). Previous to undertaking this e-learning course I would have not fully understood the allegation of the previous statement but after exploring a range of ICT’s and evaluating their effectiveness by relating them to contemporary learning theories and frameworks I have a deep knowledge of how ICT’s engage students and contribute to enhanced learning experiences of a high intellectual quality. In the process I have myself become competent in using a range of Information and Communication Technologies and built my confidence in using them in the classroom thus improving my ability to effectively meet the specific needs of 21st century learners.

References
A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. (1996). Harvard Educational Review, 66(1)

Atherton, J.S. (2010). Learning and Teaching: Blooms taxonomy. Retrieved August 15th, 2010 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/bloomtax.htm

Institute for prospective technological studies. (2005). The future of ICT and learning in the knowledge society. Retrieved August 20th, 2010 from http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/eur22218en.pdf

Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved August 24th , 2010 from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Queensland Government Department of Education and Training. (2004). Productive pedagogies. Retrieved August 20th, 2010 from http://education.qld.gov.au/corporate/newbasics/html/pedagogies/intellect/int.html

Digital Tool 8 - Videos for Learning

There are some absolutely terrific videos available on the World Wide Web that can be used for educational purposes across key learning areas. Their multimodality allows information to be presented to students in an interesting and engaging way. The Draft Australian Curriculum places a focus on the need to incorporate a range of multimodal texts in the curriculum and videos fit this description perfectly. Visual, textual, audio and spatial elements all contribute to the meaning making by the student.

Videos can be used to enhance websites, blogs and LMS. Students can also film and edit their own videos to present knowledge and learning to a wider audience. Videos are easy to locate on the internet, but safety precautions would have to be set in place for students viewing them as it is likely that some video files may contain inappropriate content.

Here is an example of an educational video that could be used to enhance student knowledge of clouds.

Resizing Images with MobaPhoto

This is a photo of a learning tool I made for year 1 Number. I used MobaPhoto to edit it ready for uploading to my blog. This is an example of how images as learning tools can be used in educational contexts. Students can photograph their work, edit images and post to their wiki, website or blog to share with family, friends or peers.

Digital Tool 7 - Images for Learning

The Water Cycle

Images can assist students, especially the visual learners, to engage with and make sense of information. The abundance of visual images available on the internet allows learning managers and students to access images that support and enhance the learning process.

Some KLAs are more incorporating of visual dimensions and images than others. Pictures/images are generally more useful when illustrating scientific concepts than they would be for algebra. Some concepts require images for students to make sense of the ‘big picture’. Take the water cycle for example, can you imagine how difficult it would be for a student to construct a comprehensive understanding of the water cycle without the use of any images?

As mentioned previously, the internet offers an abundance of images which benefit learning managers and students alike, but students must be explicitly taught how to critically analyse images for appropriate uses as well as have an understanding of copyright limitations for the incorporation of images into ICT’s and learning experiences to be successful.

Using your own images with ICT’s can be made easy by programs such as mobaPhoto which allows you to crop, edit and resize your own images for uploading to the internet. This program has limited editing capabilities but is lightweight and very easy to use for beginners. In an educational context students could take photos to demonstrate their learning and then upload them to their blogs, wikis and websites.

Water Cycle image retrieved from http://www.commwater.com/water_cycle.htm

Digital Tool 6 - Podcasts for Learning

A podcast is an audio or video file archived on the Internet in such a way that it can be automatically accessed by a personal computer, downloaded and transferred to a portable mp3 player (Department of Education, 2010). Students can download podcasts to their iPods and access the information at a time that best suits them, whether it be on the bus/train/car, waiting for sports practice to start or even in T.V. commercial breaks etc. (today’s digital natives are increasingly good at multitasking). Prensky (2005) identifies the need to engage students and I feel that using podcasts is one way of engaging students, for example, if they had a choice of accessing the exact information out of a text book or out of a video podcast on their iPod I’m pretty sure that they would choose the latter. Also the multimodality of podcasts means that they will appeal to a wider range of learning styles.

NASA and CSIRO website have a great archive of scientific podcasts that could be used in classrooms. The ABC website also podcasts Dr Karl from Triple J which I’m sure would be very engaging to older primary and secondary students as they address a wide range of interesting phenomena as well as simple and everyday applications for science (although these would have to be scrutinised by the learning manager for inappropriate language and content). I believe that using these in the classroom would be very motivating for the students as it would take them past the common and decontextualised ‘text book’ style of learning science and reconnect them back with science that is ‘real world’ and fascinating.

Students can also make their own podcasts to share or demonstrate their learning and this activity would be a very authentic form of summative assessment.

Department of Education. (2010). Resourcing the curriculum: Podcasts in the classroom. Retrieved 20th August 2010 from http://www.det.wa.edu.au/education/cmis/eval/curriculum/ict/podcasts

Prensky, M. (2005). Engage me or enrage me: What today’s learners demand. Educause review. September/October

Digital Tool 5 - Wikis for Learning

Collaborative Learning - Photo courtesy of flikr

Wikis are so versatile! I would like to post a link back to 50 Ways to use a Wiki for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom, it was posted in Moodle but for any of you who missed it there - here it is for you again!

I have not created my own wiki as yet, I'm saving that pleasure for the next assignment, but I have had a look at some wikis including our class one mackayelearninggroup which has got me to thinking about their use in educational contexts.

Wikis are simply the best web 2.0 tool for supporting online collaborative learning. Collaborative learning is underpinned by Vygotsky’s Constructivist learning theory and the ‘inherent nature of social learning which is shown through his theory of Zone of Proximal Development’ (Wikipedia, 2010), where students each bring their own knowledge, experiences and areas of expertise to a task and effectively scaffold other students to construct their own understandings as they work together to complete a task. Considering Howard Gardener's Multiple Intelligences and how that applies to the learners in your cohort would be a great starting point to allow you to create groups of learners of mixed strengths and abilities for creative collaborative tasks.

By using a wiki, students can contribute directly to their groups set learning tasks from any computer with internet access. Viewing and contributing to the wiki and watching it evolve enables the authors active participation in the learning process and promotes responsibility for their own learning. Wikis allow the recent activity to be monitored so the learning manager would be able to identify who has contributed what and made sure that all group members have contributed equally and are all participating in the learning, something I feel very strongly about in collaborative work situations.

I also love how wikis can connect people who share a passion for the same interests. In a classroom situation the learning manager could set up four or five different wikis each with a slightly different viewpoint on a particular topic and students could choose to contribute to the wiki they best felt suited their interests and strengths. There are just so many ways you could use a wiki with your students.

I am looking forward to participating in my first collaborative wiki task for Managing E-Learning Assessment Task 3.

Wikipedia. (2010). Collaborative learning. Retrieved August 20th, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_learning

Digital Tool 4 - Websites for Learning

Please view my reflection for this learning tool on my 'Websites as Learning Tools' webpage here. I created it through Weebly which uses a drag and drop interface so it is super easy for you and your students!

Digital Tool 3 - Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Learning Management Systems, such as Blackboard and Moodle, are an excellent learning tool in educational settings as they can be used for many purposes and accessed by students from both school and at home. Some of the main uses of LMS are providing content information, managing assessment and homework tasks and providing password-protected, safe and monitored online collaboration spaces such as discussions and forums.

Student participation in discussions and forums is a highly effective constructivist learning strategy. Students are scaffolded to construct their understandings of the content by viewing other student’s knowledge and opinions and posting replies in which they can contribute their own thoughts as well as constructively challenge others ideas, all of which assists students to reflect deeply on the content in ways they would not have been able to attain through individual learning. An example of this social learning through LMS can be seen in the Managing E-learning ‘Learning Theory and Active Learning’ forum where a student states that she was able to understand a particular concept at a deeper level as a result of viewing another student’s reflection. Click here to view this discussion.

I have observed LMS used in primary classrooms with great success. One of the things I find most appealing about them is that students can log in from home to complete homework, view information at their own pace and connect with their learning manager and peers in one safe location.

Digital Tool 2 - Concept Maps for Learning

This post will explore the usefulness of concept maps (or mind maps) and their use in an educational setting.

Tony Buzan (2007) defines a mind map as a ‘thinking tool that reflects externally what goes on inside your head’. By creating mind maps students have the opportunity to organise and chunk information in a ways that reflect the brain schema and thus promote information transfer to long term memory. When explaining how the structure of mind maps assist cognition, Tony Buzan (2007) states ‘The reason why traditional note taking in lists and lines doesn’t work is because it doesn’t have the associations. If you don’t have the associations you don’t have connection, and if you don’t have connection, you don’t have memory and you don’t have thinking’. I certainly find this to ring true as I am personally a BIG ‘mind mapper’. For every assignment I start I go through what I call the ‘culminating stage’ where I do all the suggested readings and I pick out relevant points and appropriate information and place them on a big mind map poster that I stick to the wall behind my computer. Then when I have all the information organised I am able to start the writing process. So based on my own experiences as well as what contemporary Cognitivist learning theory suggests I believe that mind maps hold a very important place in the educational ICT toolbox and will definitely use them with students to help them to organise and make sense of information.

The concept map I previously posted to this blog was created by the online tool Bubbl.us which I found was quite easy to use. Another similar tool is Text2mindmap. Both of these online concept mapping tools would be suitable for independent use by middle primary aged students and up or used with assistance from the learning manager for the early primary students.

Buzan, T. (2007). Maximise the power of your brain. Retrieved July 9th, 2010 from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=91792