Week 5

ICT Current Trends

The Growth of enterprise Pedagogy: How ICT Policy is infected

By Neo-liberalism Article. Mark Brown.

This article analyses closely the technology debate as there seems to be as many negatives as positives surrounding technology and its benefits in teaching students.

Below are important points from the article and ones that stood out and ones that as upcoming teachers we must take to the classroom:

1. It seems Teachers are still holding on to old ways and beliefs and struggle to use technology in a constructivist way and use computers just like text books which of course is boring and repetitive and not good teaching practices. 
2. It is the teacher’s responsibility to keep up to date with ICT through research and courses.  
3. Teachers must continuously be researching to refresh constantly for new ideas and ways to use Technology as a cognitive tool. 
4. “However, the growth of ICT is far more problematic than is typically acknowledged by the proponents of the so-called Digital Age” Mark Brown. 
5. It seems that in the classroom students are using the computers to keep them pre-occupied. 
6. “At the national level, however, a shared vision exists that in theory complements Rather than competes with the outlook of state systems.” As teachers we must remember we are using the new age technology to enhance teaching and as a tool to accompany and steer their learning in the right direction in an innovative and exciting way. 
7. “… ICT should be used to develop a new kind of digital curriculum where students learn how to be critical thinkers, critical consumers and critical citizens.”

This is the future for our students. This article was important in addressing some issues that as teachers we are and may face more and more in the future when it comes to technology and ICT. Where there are positives there are always negatives but we must support the use of ICT in the form of learning and continuously update our own knowledge of ICT to help our students learn in effective and problem solving ways.

Week5

Rethinking ICT in the classroom.

WEBQUESTS

WebQuests: Tools for information, Literacy, Hots and ICT (Dianne Ruffles)

1. Time not wasted in IT, there is a specific task at hand and it is presented in an exciting and challenging way
2. Safer then surfing the net (Innocent)
3. The students have direction and purpose
4. Self evaluation (Rubric) Students can reflect on their own work
5. Allows for collaboration between students and students and teachers.(Constructivist approach)
6. Previously we have talked about technology as a tool for learning and students learning with computers as opposed to learning off them.
7. Webquests Allow for this kind of learning. 

Higher order thinking skills allows students to be:

Enterprising

Innovative (presentation is the key, sounds, music, pictures and animations)

Adaptable

Socially responsible- participants in the information economy.

“The goal of developing higher order thinking skills is the key outcome of a well constructed WebQuest”.

Children are engaged in:

1. Problem solving
2. Critical thinking
3. Creative design
4. Sophisticated Judgment.

 The Constructivist approach

1. Building on what they know already
2. Use as an assessment in the classroom.
3. Actively learning at their own pace.
4. Provides the scaffold to get to the high order place.
5. Students learn from each other.
6. Not regurgitated information.

 In the Classroom they can be used:

1. To teach outcomes in a meaningful way.
2. Applied to any key learning area.  
3. Use it to help with Less stimulating subject matter. 

Higher order thinking helps:

1. Evaluation techniques and analyzing.
2. Can not copy and paste information from the world wide web.
3. Self directed learning.
4. Each student can have a role in the process and they collaboratively come together to process ideas and results.

Music sound clip

Owl Music-Water drums by Morusque. located at creative commons.

nurykabe_-_020209_water_drums_01

The sound clip was probably the most confusing item to find and upload. You really have to listen to the sound clips all the way through, majority are not what they seem or say. I found this one as I believe it would go with my shark theme and I could use it in a web quest. It could introduce a topic of work in an exciting way and I could get the children to make predictions about what the music is. It would be very useful for auditory learners.

Week 3

Pedagogical beliefs and ICT integration.

                   What is meaningful learning? Jonassen, D. 2008.

In the article this week it came to my attention that ICT should be a tool for learning and not as a means of simply replacing the teacher and regurgitating information. Technology will not enrich the learners unless it is used in a meaningful way.

This ties in with last weeks readings and expands on the fact that computers must be used in a constructivist fashion where by they are a tool that the students are learning with in an engaging and experimental way otherwise they are really just pointless and time is wasted.

Fixed by Don Falano

Image recieved Flickr creative commons.

In the Jonassen article there are 5 points which characterize meaningful learning:

• Active (Manipulative/Observant)
•  
• Constructive (Articulative/Reflective)
•  
• Cooperative (Collaborative/ Conversational)
•  
• Authentic (Complex/Contextualised)
•  
• Intentional (Goal Directed/Regulatory)

 The item i included this week was a video from creative commons under Blip.tv. 

The shark video strongly supports visual and auditory learners. I have contined with the shark theme as I feel as it is a current issue in the news I could create a webquest outlining a project on sharks and using videos such as this one to engage the students imagination and creativity.

Week 2

ICT as a Cognitive Tool.

 This video was showed in the lecture this week and is appropriate to this generation of teachers. If explains perfectly why we should be using ICT as a cognitive tool and how.

 In the lecture this week it was also noted that there is a lack of useful and valuable digital material out there that integrates ICT into the classroom and therefore is not used constructively and as a cognitive tool.

 The learning federation which was established in 2001 however is a really fun, easy to use and informative website that does support ICT as a cognitive tool.

 It holds digital resources which can be:

1. A section of moving image footage

2. A cartoon

3. Speech

4. Song

5. Photograph

6. Set of items based around a theme, and some accompanying information.

•  Enable students to work with complex content and ideas in new and dynamic ways for example manipulation and experimentation.

 Learning Objects allow students to question, manipulate and solve problems as individuals and collaboratively in small groups or a as a class guided by the teacher. They support the constructivist approach of teaching and ICT is used in the classroom as a learning tool rather than a machine for random research and a way to pass the time. Researching information in Google and typing it into word is not using ICT effectively and will not help students learn their subject content any better than copying out of a text book.

 Learning objective: Human Impact (Years 3 and 4) From the learning Federation.

 Click the link above or use this :

This learning objective is suitable because it relates to a topic I did last year with a year 3 class at a school while on prac. It’s relevant and I was thinking of maybe doing my web quest on something similar.

 There is just about any learning objective to suit every subject matter and students can complete them alone, as a group or as a class. Using an interactive whiteboard the students could really engage in an interactive lesson which would support linguistic auditory and visual learning needs.

This type of learning object could empower students to think about their local environment and want to help, students could brainstorm ideas about writing to local newspapers and councils, a field trip could be oraganised to investigate a local pond and its condition. There are many creative inspirations from learning objects and I think students can really relate to the visual imagery.

Week 2

Social Constructivism

 In this week’s reading constructivism in mathematics was the topic. This was a large component in last years Numeracy unit and so I had prior knowledge of the topic and how important it is in math’s but in all subjects especially in ICT. In the observations so far in schools I have seen examples of where the teachers seem to think the computer replaces the teacher and that by leaving them free to use the programs and the internet they are making good use of ICT. This really is not the case and it is even more important to use constructivist learning in ICT so time is not wasted and technology is used in a safe and appropriate way.

 “However believeing in a  constructivist theory does not necessrily mean that the teachers are employing constructivist practices in their classrooms”

 This statement from the article outlines that although most teachers can explain what constructivism is and how it works many are still not employing the elements into the classroom.

Key elements of the constructivist theory found from the article’s results:

• Learning is an active constructive process
• New knowledge is built on prior knowledge
• Autonomy is promoted (more than one way to make judgments and find answers)
• Social interaction is necessary for knowledge construction and active learning.

The article was really positive and displayed exceptional results for the 8 teachers that took part in the study into constructivism in mathematics. It was refreshing to see positive outcomes and that by working as a team fostering the same philosophies they were able to create a solid mathematics program which combined all of the four elements above.

Image1 Incredibly bright display by a simple man (Flickr creative commons)

Image 2 Children’s Computers by huntleyareapl

Image 3 My Computer Genius by beyondthesparkle

The pictures obtained in from Flickr.com are in relation to students using ICT in the classroom. Flickr is home to thousands if images on every topic and subject matter you could think of. It literally has everything. This type of tool could be used in many subjects to support visual learners, for example in an English lesson an image could be used to support a reading exercise or a creative writing lesson, in a HSIE lesson an image of a polluted pond could be used to help with a topic on the environment. In math’s if you were explaining length in measurement you could find a picture of a 4 metre shark to show 4 meters and then get the students to come out the front and show 4 metres using their bodies to lay across the classroom counting out the metres. Most of the time a visual image can create excitement and get the imagination working, this works better than being read something from a sheet of paper or reading a worksheet.

“Sitting in a 3.8-metre sea kayak and watching a four-metre Great White approach is a pretty tense experience” by Saltation (Flickr creative commons)

Olaimutiai Primary School (Maasai Land, Kenya) by teachandlearn (Flickr at creative commons)

“Digital Natives Debate”

Week One

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.

• There is a new generational of learners entering the education system and they have grown up with ICT.
• They are being named the ‘digital natives’ and it is believed change is in order within the education system to meet the needs and demands of this generation.

Mark Prensky article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants (2001) argues that there is a new generation of learners and that they were born between 1980 and 1994. He calls these learners ‘Digital natives’ and believes that they have new learning styles, skills and abilities that not even their teachers can compete with. He calls anyone before this time frame ‘Digital immigrants’.

“Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.”

This is the reoccurring theme in the article and he believes these new age learners are fast tracking and teachers cannot keep up as they are still teaching in an old fashion and outdated style. Prensky is very opinionated in his writing and the statistics to back up his findings are weak to a certain extent. However he does have the student’s intentions at the centre of his article, claiming that his own idea would be to make video games to teach students difficult material. This is the future if we are to keep our students interested and teachers must be prepared for this and adapt to it willingly. I saw a snapshot of this in my teaching practicum last year, when interactive whiteboards were introduced into the class and teachers were using games on the internet to accompany their teaching with particular subjects, the children through it was amazing.

In Bennett, Maton & Kervin’s article (2008), The Digital Native’s debate: A critical review of the evidence, there was a larger scale of evidence and statistics to confirm or deny whether Prenskys argument is relevant.  The debate is that although claims for educational change are being made there is negativity surrounding the claims which are ‘under theorised and have been subject to little critical scrutiny’.

In one survey in the article it found that technologies such as blogs, social networking technologies and pod casts are still not ‘commonly used’.

 These examples stood out for me in Prensky’s article

·       “In math, for example, the debate must no longer be about whether to use calculators and computers – they are a part of the Digital Natives‟ world – but rather how to use them to instill the things that are useful to have internalized, from key skills and concepts to the multiplication tables. We should be focusing on “future math” – approximation, statistics, binary thinking.

·       In geography – which is all but ignored these days – there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokémon characters with all their characteristics, history and evolution can’t learn the names, populations, capitals and relationships of all the 101 nations in the world. It just depends on how it is presented.”

 concept map

The Inspiration Document was used last year and is such a simple and effective way of displaying a summary or any type of document to be presented or published. It is like a technological mind map or better known as a graphic organiser. And it does just that, organized images and text in a clear and consist manner.

 The use of pictures and text in an easy to use program can make such a huge difference to the way information is presented and makes a difference to the way you read and interpret the information displayed.

The pictures and images can be used to create meaning and the text adds extra information. Inspiration and Inspiration for kids is a great tool for learning and I would use it with my students instead of Microsoft word purely because of the simple fact that information is presented in a more clear fashion and students can cater it to their learning abilities. (Visual learners will appreciate this!)