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