Activating Digital Technologies in Learning

… The key idea is that students actively construct their own knowledge: the mind of the student mediates input from the outside world to determine what the student will learn. Learning is active mental work, not passive reception of teaching. Woolfolk (1993, p. 485)

The greatest challenge we face with using ICT’s in the classroom is ensuring that we provide meaningful learning to our students. We have looked at many ICT tools over the last few weeks and there are many more tools that were not even touched on. Teachers can use a different tool every day, spend hours researching hundreds of tools and still have uncreative, unengaged students if the learning theory and correct digital pedagogy is not an underlying component of the teaching provided and the ICT used.

I found the amount of ICT tools that can be used to aid and develop students mind-boggling. It was an interesting and fun exercise to take time to play with, and interact with, the different ICT tools.  Although I played with, and looked at many new tools I have not seen before, such as Prezi and glogster, in the end I analysed the following from each group:

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Blog Wiki Websites	Images Podcasting	PowerPoint	Animations, Online Concept Mapping

The hardest part of the assignment was to choose which tools to include in the assignment, as I believe that every single tool can be utilised in some way, shape or form to achieve constructivist learning.

I looked at both Prezi and PowerPoint and although PowerPoint is my tool of choice, I can still see a place and time to use a Pzesi presentation. A Prezi presentation can be far more fun than a linear PowerPoint presentation (see Appendix E). One of the downfalls of PowerPoint, is that is lends itself to being a dot point tool.

Based on my exploration of the ICT tools and on my areas of teaching, business and maths I decided to further investigate PowerPoint, WIKI, Podcasting and animations. PowerPoint as it is a widely used tool in business.

I selected a wiki because the application of using this tool in business is valuable, yet I have not seen much evidence of its use in business, which would indicate that it is not a widely known tool. It would therefore be beneficial for students to acquire some experience with this tool. (see Appendix G) I did debate whether it would be more beneficial to use a blog (see Appendix H) or to use a wiki and made the decision to analyse a wiki as I saw a wiki as promoting collaborative learning and a blog as a tool for distribution of information and reflections. Collaborative learning fits in well with my e-learning framework.

 I have included animations, as creating a flash file animation has many mathematical connotations. (See Appendix B) 

I would like to discuss images in the context of a way forward for students becoming visual literates – students that understand and can interpret visual communication and not just written communication.

Lastly, but not least, I selected Podcasts, (Appendix D) as I could not stop thinking about the many ways in which they could be used.

Digital Images

Within the context of analysing the ICT tools for groups 1 - 4, I looked at digital images. Please refer to Appendix C. I believe digital images and the interpretation thereof should be explicitly taught in the school environment. Every single ICT tool, with the exception of podcasts, has a visual element to it. To quote (Semali, 2001)

“I believe what is missing, is the ability to evaluate, to analyze or question the motive of the creator of the visual representation, relative to one’s own experience.”

Images can be used to portray emotions, meaning and culture and this concept needs to be taught at school level. There are many facets to understanding visual layouts, images and even colours that are used in our online learning spaces.

I believe that schools have moved away from visual art and the interpretation thereof. This is an essential skill to enable students to navigate and find meaning when using current communication media, which is rich in imagining from colour, layout and design to symbols, icons and pictures.

A one semester subject in grade eight which looks at the following in regard to images: psychology of colour, composition guidelines, layout guidelines for screen viewing, and legibility of images, could give our students an advantage in navigating the 21^st century media.

ICT tools to enhance learning

In appendix A I have presented a table that looks at each of the tools that I choose to analyse further, in terms of potential uses, potential use with students with difficulties, legal and ethical considerations and how the tool relates to e-learning theory.

In order to ensure that learning is transformed into engaging learning by means of the ICT tool used, I believe that the following questions need to be asked by the learning facilitator:

-      Does my use of the tool encourage the student to achieve creative thinking in the subject?

-      In reference to Bloom's Taxonomy (Clark, 1999) At what level of engagement is the tool being used? As an example when using a mind-mapping tool to learn a definition, this would be on Bloom's level of "remember", but I can also use a mind map to conceptualise how to create new business software that solves a problem area in the business sector. This would then be using mind maps on Bloom's level of "creating".

-      Is the way the tool is presented or used engaging?

For example, if I am teaching the theory of Pythagoras to maths students, I could use a PowerPoint presentation to impart the theory of Pythagoras. Or I could get the students to make their own presentations of the Pythagoras theorem using PowerPoint to present the theorem. In that way they would be actively engaged in using the tool to display their conception of the theorem. They would not just be receiving information but would have to do research into the theorem. They would have to do the presentation, which means they need to think about layout, words, and vocalising their thoughts. Listening to other individuals talk about the theorem, either individually or in groups, would further reinforce the theorem.

There always seems to two approaches to incorporating ICT tools into a lesson, firstly by the teacher using the ICT tool - the teacher could introduce the lesson content by means of a PowerPoint presentation or

By the student,  - the students could be tasked to deliver a presentation. The advantage of the student using the tool to achieve the learning is twofold; firstly the student is engaged in active learning when using an ICT tool to learn. Secondly the student is learning how to use an ICT tool, which he can then use when he enters the workplace.

Where possible when engaging students in learning I would prefer to have the student use the ICT tool and create his own learning.

As stated by  (Parker & Chao, 2007) “Collaborative creativity promises to be a key business skill in upcoming years”, which implies that we as teachers need to be one step ahead and we need to make sure that our students can be collaboratively creative and have experience in being collaboratively creative. The fastest way to ensure that we achieve this is in allowing them to use tools such as a wiki’s.

Legal safe and ethical guidelines

Any facilitator of learning in schools in Australia should ensure that they have read the SmartCopying policy  (Copyright Advisory Group, MCEETYA.)This is the Official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE and can be accessed from the following website; http://www.smartcopying.edu.au.

Not only do we, as facilitators, need to ensure that we conduct ourselves impeccably in a legal and ethical manner when using online spaces, we also need to impart these values to our students. The Queensland government (Queensland Government, 2011) has a list of ethics and issues to which they would like year 10 students to be able to conform.

When working on computers, we must also consider safe working practices for ourselves, as well as the students. The good practice of ergonomic seating, correct posture, right distance from eye to screen, and taking regular breaks needs to be firmly instilled in the pupils so as to become habit.

Conclusion

My greatest insights were gained when I decided to create a flash. The first insight was that, when thinking of using an ICT within eLearning, the teacher should always have a clearly defined target, a definite objective, and anticipated outcome in mind. I would have made a flash years ago if I only had some clear idea of what to make. For example, don’t ask students to create a game. Rather ask them to create a game that displays strategy concepts like those you may use in chess. Or relate the concept to a strategy game that all know – one could even have them play the game before hand, and make notes as they go along.  Then they would be able to incorporate the concepts into their design.  This will give them a starting point and help them to visualise an end product. In summary, objectives need to be clearly defined to engage students meaningfully.

My second insight was that although I may spend hours developing some elaborate ICT, the tool could still be meaningless in terms of pedagogy. When I analysed my flash (Appendix B) it had no more value than if I had written on a blackboard and explained the concept of BODMAS to students verbally. The flash I created can be improved by presenting examples and exercises for the students to do which would then make the exercise an object of learning.

In essence ICT’s and all the tools out there are no different to any other pedagogical tool. The facilitator of the learning still needs to decide which tool to use, when to use it, and how to use it, to make sure that the learning absorbed by the student is meaningful and produces creative, higher order thinking students.

It is up to the educator to reflect on the following while preparing for a lesson:

What ICT should be used when, to suit the target group, lesson content and context?

What benefit will the students derive from the use of a specific ICT?

Is there an ICT more suitable for that particular lesson or content?

Is there a better way of interacting with the ICT, which will engage and promote HOT?

Can ICT be used to engage diverse students in the lesson being given?

References

© TED CONFERENCES, LLC. (n.d.). TED Ideas Worth Spreading. Retrieved April 14, 2011 from TED Ideas Worth Spreading: http://www.ted.com

Copyright Advisory Group, MCEETYA. (n.d.). Retrieved April 6, 2011 from Smartcopying: http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go/pid/1

de Bono, E. (n.d.). Six Thinking Hats®. Retrieved March 15, 2011 from de Bono Thinking Systems: http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm

Parker, K. R., & Chao, J. T. (2007). Wiki as a Teaching Tool. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects , 3, 67.

Queensland Government. (2011). Student ICT expectations for year 10. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from Smart Classrooms: http://education.qld.gov.au/smartclassrooms/ictstudents/10.html

Semali, L. M. (2001, November). Defining new literacies in curricular practice. Retrieved April 5, 2011 from Reading Online: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/semali1/

Woolfolk, A. E. (1993). Educational psychology, Bosten: Allyn and Bacon.

 

Appendix

Appendix A

Four E-Learning Tools

Appendix B

My first Flash

Appendix C

Photography and Pedagogy

Appendix D

The Metamorphosis Continues

Appendix E

Power up - PowerPoint

Appendix F

Concept Mapping

Appendix G

Wiki – the learning potential

Appendix H

The Potential of Blogs

Appendix I

Swot Analysis of Websites for teaching

Four E-learning Tools

Wiki, Podcast, PowerPoint and Animation, - potential uses, potential use with students with difficulties, legal and ethical considerations and how the tool relates to e-learning theory.

	Potential use of ICT tools in Mathematics and Business	Usefulness for diverse students	Legal, safe and ethical guidelines for self and students	E-learning Framework
WIKI	Can be used to globally collaborate ideas with other students and specialists in that field.	Students with diverse abilities are able to work on wiki in their own time. A hearing-impaired student should find no problem in being active with this tool.	Permissions to a wiki site can normally be set on three levels, Public, Protected and Private. It is advisable to set the permissions of a wiki to “protected” so that only the intended users (students it is meant for) can change and edit the content. I would review the wiki regularly to ensure that no unethical practices are being used by those students who have been given permissions to edit the wiki.	Understanding – Reading and interacting with the content of the wiki Applying – student editing the wiki Analysing – IT depends on the description of the students' assignment, if using an analytic tool within the wiki, such as De Bono six Thinking hats or SWOT, then the activity is analytical.
Podcasts	By Teachers Allow the pupils to listen to experts' views on interesting concepts (such as TED). This podcast can then be analysed by students and associations made to work that is currently being covered in the class. Record lessons for absent students or students who may wish to review work they did not understand. By Students Students may be actively engaged in compiling podcasts – this can be only one or a whole series of podcasts depending on whether it is used to cover just one topic or a whole unit of work.	Podcasts may be Extremely useful for students with visual disabilities for whom sound is the primary communication medium. Podcasts can be used for revision purposes for students with learning difficulties.	Reference must be made to the school policy on whether students' podcasts may be published on the Internet. Students' privacy must be considered, especially when recording lessons to distribute on the Internet. Intellectual Property rights may need to be considered.	Creating – Involves planning, writing script, and at times even contains simple digital imagery. Donate to internet community. Relate to other students or communities using podcast.
PowerPoint	By Teachers PowerPoint can be used by teachers to facilitate learning in the presentation of course material, to convey concepts and capture the interest and imagination of the pupils By students PowerPoint may be used by students to present assignments, by progressing from speaking in front of an audience to delivering an audio-visual presentation	The work may be presented visually as well as verbally, but can be customised to be more verbal or more visual depending on the abilities of the individual students. PowerPoint can even be exported with voice over already included if a student is unable to talk in front of a class	Plagiarism is a specific ethical issue with this ICT. Copying of text from sources without correct referencing is illegal and Pupils have to be made aware of the implications of plagiarism and taught the correct referencing methods.	Remember – Teacher presenting subject material. The teacher should present the subject matter in such a way that the students will easily remember it. Understand – The use of PowerPoint to explain and create, invites the students to understand and learn, Apply - when students start to use PowerPoint to apply learning, share with other students and collaborate with them. Analyse- The students use of PowerPoint to analyse how PPT will be used to relate to the outside, broader community and donate their learning back to the real world. Create – presenting of what has been created.  The students learn a means of presenting new thoughts and ideas.
Animation	By teachers  Animation may be used to create engaging and enticing explanations of lesson content for business and mathematics. By students Animation may be created by students to create games, which can even be distributed on the internet and used on Ipods. The making of an animation teaches mathematical concepts. The students could use animation in business to create promotional items. or display boards for Key Performance Indicators within a business.	Students with either speech or hearing impediments may find this a fun way to design applications that can be used for a vast range of applications, from advertising to complex interactive games.	Plagiarism needs to be monitored.	Create – The pupils' creativity could be enhanced by planning a story and in so doing also promote their problem solving skills. Understanding - mathematical concepts is an integral component of designing an animation. Donate the animation back into society, maybe in the form of a game, or an application (widget) of use to the business world.

 

Concept Mapping

I was introduced to mind mapping years (20) ago, and used to do them on flip charts to explore issues or learn something new. I was introduced to MindManager about 10 years ago and just loved the fact that I could do my mind maps in an electronic form and that the paper was endless. The latest wow for me has been the fact that concept maps can be done collaboratively online with people that are not in close proximity to you.

I have done the following mind map on mind mapping, this mind map was made using an free online mind mapping tool which allowed me to save it to a Jpeg. 

The mind map is a mind map on mind mapping (concept mapping). I have used a technique generally refered to as the 5W technique. The analysis looks at Why, What, When, Where, and How.

Please click on image to enlarge.

As a teacher I will introduce mind mapping to all my students as I beleive that mind mapping can enhance learning for students who learn and understand concepts visually.
In the area of business I find using mind maps an advantage when doing stategic planning, therefor in teaching business I will ensure that my students can use and know where to gain access to a mind mapping tool.



 Please click on image to enlarge.

The following article explores the use of mind maps for students when doing assessments:

Mind Maps for Pre and Post Assessment

http://www.thinkbuzan.com/en_au/articles/view/mind-maps-for-pre-and-post-assessment

POWER UP - PowerPoint

Group 3 – Technologies

The three tools grouped together for group 3 were PowerPoint, Glogster and Prezi. I have decided to explore PowerPoint for the following reasons:

Glogster – this not not excite me too much as I am of the opinion that you could produce much better or the same using PowerPoint. Or even beter with Corel Draw combined with a web page. The only added advantage to Glogster is that it is easy publish to the web.

Prezi – I would consider doing a Prezi as an alternative to a PowerPoint presentation but I would not use this all the time as I think that the viewer would become desensitized to the funness of it if used continuously. This would be a great tool for students to create presentations with as you only need an Internet connection to create one.

I will use the PMI tool to analyse PowerPoint as tool for use in education.

Plus	Minus	Interesting
+      Comprehensive tool, the imagination seems to be the only limit to PowerPoint. +      Easy to build  models  in PowerPoint (all the models on this blog were designed in PowerPoint) +      There is no end in templates that can be downloaded to use for presentations. +      Encourages learning of visual design. +      Students can learn to use PowerPoint as they need the functionality. +      PowerPoint is used by most corporations any student going into the workforce with the knowledge of how to use PowerPoint is at an advantage +      Engages students +      Easy to use.	-      Barrier of entry, most people don’t think to use PowerPoint. -      Most users design linear presentations with mostly bullet points. -      Although there is an interface with the Internet is does not feel as seamless as a wiki or a blog. -      Some users are inclined to use too much writing although this can be useful for students which are not visual learners.	3 D shapes in PowerPoint are awesome. You can save a PowerPoint as a movie. You can convert a slide into a picture file such as jpeg.

I would use PowerPoint to present most of my formal learning work to students. In practice, I would have a PowerPoint presentation going just to assist me with the logical flow of a class and embed other objects that I want to use in the PowerPoint such as a movie at the start for an icebreaker.

PowerPoint will be a part of my student’s assessment tools and I would encourage my students to use PowerPoint and Prezi to present material. PowerPoint is a powerful tool that is used often in the corporate world and students should know how to use it.

Graph PowerPoint

Creating a flash

I was just getting very bored with all the glogster, prezi, google maps, PowerPoint when my course activity mentioned "Animation". I have tried doing flash a few times but as I did not need to make anything I always just started and then left it - its hard! So when I read animation I knew my time had come to create a flash.

My son had been discussing the concept of BODMAS in the car from school so that became my topic. I found the exercise to be challenging nearly to the point of giving up, but my perseverance paid off and my flash is in the previous post to this blog. As a tool for learning this bit of flash would have to be extended somewhat and is only meant to illustrate what can be done. Creating this flash had loads of higher order thinking (Clark, 1999) - mostly creating.

I experienced the following:

• Visual design - this was required to decide whether a element should start from the top, left, right grow shrink, taking a blank space and doing something with it.
• Problem solving - I had finished what I was aiming to do for this exercise and then decided to test the movie, it did not work. I had to go back through everything I had done to find the problem. The next bit of problem solving was to publish the flash to my blog. It was not going to be a quick attach a file. Two hours later and a few e-mails later the flash is published. 
• Mathematical concepts - space and measurement, x y axis, rotation angles.

Students can use animations to create their own games that they can publish on the web (good luck to them, just putting it on a blog was hard enough).  Facilitators can use flash to spice up a boring subject.

Although flash may not be something that everybody would use to do their work, I do feel that this is something that will engage the 21st century student, and me a mere digital immigrant!


References

Clark, D. R. (1999, June 5). Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved March 10, 2011, from Big Dog & Little Dog's Performance Juxtaposit: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html#cognitive

My first flash

The Metamorphosis Continues

Podcast as a method of instruction

My latest acquisition in my learning repertoire is the PODCAST. I went from having a notion that a podcast is downloadable audio files that other people have created to creating my own audio file and publishing it on my wiki – Heleen’s first podcast.

This was a empowering feeling doing something totally new and seeing it though to completion, I am sure more constructivism took place in my learning. I have done a SWOT analysis to deconstruct and decide how applicable this tool is. I have to admit that I keep having new ideas of how this tool can be used in a teaching context, which is an indicator to me that a lot can be done with this tool.

SWOT analysis of podcasts

Podcast to enhance student learning
Podcast have potential use not only as a tool for learning but also as a tool to help students. If a podcast is made as a new concept is taught and this is then made available to students, they can review the new concept in their own time. This could be used in a number of ways;

§  students with disabilities may want to review what was said in class,

§  student who are ill and not able to come to class can review the lessons,

§  students in remote areas can follow a class as long as they have some form of communication,

§  sport students often need to be away from classrooms can keep up to date while they are away participating in their sport,

In Mathematics and business podcasts can be used as an icebreaker, students could be asked to select a person that has revolutionary ideas and as a class we could follow this persons podcasts for a term. These ideas can then be discussed and parallels drawn to the students learning thus making their learning’s real for them.

Podcasts leagal and ethical considerations
Copyright issues need to be considered when using podcast that students have created and when using other persons podcasts.

Once I started giving it some thought the applications for this tool in teaching just seemed to grow. I feel this tool would be a good tool to include in an e-learning strategy.

Photography and Pedagogy

I have always enjoyed doing what I refer to as conceptual photography, this is where you need to depict a theme, topic, controversial subject or anything you may choose in a photograph. I think this could be used in teaching as it really evokes higher order thinking and personal reflection to link a topic to a photograph. The student would have to think about what the topic means to them, then use their imagination to decide what visual picture can be inspired by the thought. Finally some technical skill is required to produce an image that reflects what is in your minds eye.

 This photograph was taken with the view to shock the viewer.  The following techniques were used to achieve this; the background of the photograph was dramatised by making it red, the association with red is, pain, danger, beware and it is the colour that the eye is most drawn to after yellow. The second shock tactic was to position the subject in the middle of the photograph. Normally good composition is having the subject on a line of thirds, having the subject in the middle causes the viewer to feel uncomfortable. Words were added that state the obvious leaving nothing to the imagination of the viewer.

 Photography is a tool that can be used to teach visual thinking. Visual literacy is fast becoming a very important literacy in the 21st century.

Painting with Pedagogy

“One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”

Henry Miller 

The above quote from Henry Miller is a perfect axiom of what I have learnt so far in ICT. The knowledge that I gained was not all new; I knew what a Wiki was, I had read blogs before, I had read about Pavlov and behaviourism previously.  The way in which Wiki’s, blogs and mobile phones could be applied to teaching, and the thought that I, as a teacher, could impart with more than mere knowledge, that I could and will teach my students to think, is a new way of looking at teaching - a liberating thought.

The learning theories that we internalised played a very important role in the reflections in our blogs and thus I would like to spend some time summarising what I concluded on the learning theories from doing all the activities.

When analyzing the activities in the context of the learning theories of behaviorism, constructivism, cognitivism and connectivism it is clear that there are elements of each within all the wiki and blog activities that we did.

Behaviourism, as per Mergel (1998) is “based on observable changes in behavior”. In our activities such observable changes in our behaviour is evident. We created a blog and we participated in wiki activities.

 Cognitive learning took place in the way that the course gave us practise in posting our reflections to our blog and participating in various discussions in the Wiki.

 The largest part of the learning was in the learning theories of constructivism and connectivism. 

The constructivism part of the activities was set in the structured analytical part of the activities where we looked at different readings though a structured analytical tool such as (de Bono) 6 Thinking Hats, PMI and SWOT analysis. The learning was a dynamic process of contracting knowledge within a certain context instead of reading or learning off by heart.

 In the social part of the activities, learning was acquired from many different opinions on a particular subject; the wiki space being a dynamic place to apply this type of learning in a very short space of time.

The connectivism lies in the fact that 62 student were using digital means to connect to each other and to the wiki on Learning Theories and mobile phone wiki.  When considering  some of (Siemens, 2004) Principals of Connectivism:

• ·     Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.

• ·     Learning may reside in non-human appliances.

• ·     Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known

• ·     Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.

It is clear that we have had elements of connectivism in each of our activities.

When constructing any e-learning activity attention should be paid to the learning theories to ensure that the activity has the elements of the learning theory that will create the results with the students that is intended.

All the learning theories, and the fact that everybody has a different learning style, is brought together by the design of an E-learning framework.  The idea of combining Blooms Taxonomy (Clark, 1999) with the Theory of Engagement (Shneiderman & Kearsley, 1999) is pure brilliance. The idea of creating students who are higher order thinkers who are actively, and socially engaged at the same time, is innovative.

Graphic representation of my E-learning Design Framework. 

In my practice I shall take these two theories and add to that collaboration on a global level. I would like my students to relate not just to his or her own communities, but also with the world at large. I shall involve specialists in the areas of learning, and particular areas that we are investigating, and have them work with the students in Wiki’s collaborating work. I would also like to see a classroom where we connect with students worldwide; we have so much to learn from each other, starting with our neighbour and reaching out nationally and globally to the other nations and cultures. In this way learning transcends time and space.

I would like each student to understand their strengths and weaknesses in terms of their unique learning profiles.  Each student would complete several learning profile questionnaires during the year, which they will share with each other. I believe it assists understanding if a student and the facilitator are aware of what type of learning profile the student is. As an example if you know a student has a strong preference for visual learning I would rather give the student a diagram of the learning as opposed to many words.  Profiles are a guide only, students’ profiles do change with different environments, subject of learning, moods and even just over time so care should be taken not to label a student as a certain type of learner, it should be used as an awareness only.

The students will leave school having gained experience and not just the basic 3 R’s but also a broader all-encompassing knowledge.  They must be able to prove that they have this experience by presenting a portfolio of projects in which they have donated back to the community and world. In doing so they will have acquired leadership skills, project management skills, problem solving techniques and of course, the ability to procure knowledge that they need at the time that it is required. These skills will be taken with them to the workplace and immediately an employer has an employee that he can deploy into the workforce.

An interesting conclusion that I come to whilst doing these activities, is how suited blogs, wiki’s, and ICTs in general, are to diverse students. The one form of diversity that especially crossed my mind is that of ADHD children. If blogs were used by teachers to post the day’s work and to post a list of homework tasks these children would always have access to it.  I am sure, not even the most ADHD child can manage to lose the World Wide Web!

In summary, all that we learnt needs to be connected together like a huge multi facetted Rubik’s cube and then used to effectively fill the empty spaces with wiki’s and blogs to create higher order thinking students. A blog, wiki or any ICT is just an empty space. You, as the facilitator of learning, need to decide how this empty space should be filled and which tools should be used to facilitate learning in which space of ICT. As an example, in our activity we used the PMI tool with a partner to analyse the learning theory articles using the empty space of a wiki and filled it with articles and the learnings from all the students in the course. Just reading the articles without actively participating in the activity of a PMI, would have got us to read the articles and forget what we read a day later. Without proper pedagogy the spaces will remain empty, they may be full of visual clutter but if they don’t somehow challenge and change a student, create more synapses in the students’ brain or give them a skill they can use, there is no point to the space, still nothing meaningful occupying that space.

Graphic representation of filling empty space of ICT with effective and efficient pedagogy

In conclusion, the above observations, learnings and thoughts inspires me to pose the following questions to myself:

How will I ensure that I use a range of ICT together with effective and efficient digital pedagogies to enhance student learning?

How will I ensure that I always do engage my students?

How do I make sure that I am not the one making students leave their interactive mobiles at home?

What methods are there for me to use to assess my proficiency as a facilitator of learning?

References:

Clark, D. R. (1999, June 5). Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains. Retrieved March 10, 2011 from Big Dog & Little Dog's Performance Juxtaposit: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html#cognitive

Duffy, P. (2008). Engaging the YouTube Google-Eyed Generation: Strategies for Using Web 2.0 in Teaching and Learning. Electronic Journal e-Learning Volume 6 Issue 2 2008 , (119 - 130).

de Bono, E. (n.d.). Six Thinking Hats®. Retrieved March 15, 2011 from de Bono Thinking Systems: http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm

Henry Miller. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved March 16, 2011, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrymille133854.html

Mergel, B. (2008, May). Instructional Design & Learning Theory. Retrieved March 12, 2011 from http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm#The%20Basics%20of%20Behaviorism

Shneiderman, B., & Kearsley, G. (1999, May 4). Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved March 9, 2011 from Sprynet.com: http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

Siemens, G. (2004, December 12). Connectivism. Retrieved March 12, 2011 from Elearnspace everything elearning: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Comments

An excellent reflective blog Heleen. Your reflections clearly indicate your participation in the activities. You have explored links between connectivism, multiple intelligences and learning styles, which provide you with a richer and stronger background knowledge of e-Learning design.  In your conclusion you drew together the core ideas of scaffolding, and identified how appropriate scaffolds are designed to support higher order thinking as a “thinking routine” that is recognisable by students and transferrable to other situations. Your blog reflections were academically referenced, and your conclusion was well structured, paragraphed and referenced in consistent academic style.

Tutor: Robyn Petersen                                                         Date: 28 March 2011.