Over the past two weeks, my class has been discovering what Idit Harel would call “digital sandcastles” through the magic of video. My previous post showcases some of the finest work of our class and this is a vague representation of mine as I still have a few tweaks to work out about editing my movie. I was not in class for those two weeks so considering I started from scratch and am just discovering what programs to use and how to use them, this is just the framework still to be edited with audio of commentary and appropriate background music (but I’m sure you’ll get the jist of it).
Idit compares this process to watching children on a beach building sand castles and calls it ‘constructionism’ where “children learn best when they are in the active roles of designer and constructor” as per my previous post as well. Idit emphasises the reasoning to go digital in order to increase knowledge as well as creativity and as designers, I believe this is very true for students experiencing this.
So without stalling any longer, here is a rough storyboard made in powerpoint of my feature film.
We have recently been learning about “constructionism” through the the metaphorical building of our own “digital sandcastles”. I would like to point out that I was very moved by some of the stories I watched and would also like to share them with you in appreciation of the authors.
Janelle’s story is one in which all should watch as it is profound and blunt in its reality to todays world. Clare Guyatt’s ‘Why I Smile’ is a very touching digital story of her own life and how she wants to pass on her inspirations to her students. I believe that the technical production of her movie is also quite advanced and possibly the best in our class.
Constructionism is a theory by Seymour Papert, who believes that “children learn best when they are in the active roles of designer and constructor”. I believe that these movies and experience is very valuable to me as a teacher and to my students as I will do my best to provide learning opportunities that incorporate this.
‘Blogging’ is a relatively new phenomenon (by being part and parcel with the digital revolution) and many educators with little knowledge of it would question the educational benefits to students. However, Justina’s blog: Why let our students blog? Lists just a few reasons why it may be beneficial such as: communication, ownership, sharing, collaboration, discussion, empowerment, interaction, motivation, participation, engagement, excitement, conversation, creativity, reflection, extend the walls of the classroom, give students a voice, give them an audience, 24/7 access, digital futures, write to learn and blog to learn.
I believe that many of these points can be argued either way depending on the task at hand just as any technological resources used in teaching and learning needs to be considered. As a teaching tool, it would be beneficial to opening the doorway of constant communication within the schooling community in order to discuss about particular topics and provide a voice, ownership and relative freedom to those who would normally hold back in discussion in face-to-face situations. As with anything like this, there needs to be limits or restrictions and some sort of ground rules or ‘netiquette’ basis beforehand.
I have just found an interesting news story about what is called the Microsoft “School of the Future” on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. This story investigates a $65 (US) Million school built in West Philadelphia, USA incorporating a VERY different approach to schooling.
Each of the 170 ‘learners’ (students) has a laptop to take home and smartcards are used for attendance, lockers and even to count the amount of calories students eat for lunch! The principal or ‘chief learner’ agrees that the laptops are the key or “lifeline to learning” as students work at their own pace and are able to check everything online (including most of the ‘library’ resources).
The teachers say the challenge is to “use technology to teach, not just to teach technology” and discuss the changing nature of interaction and relationship with learners. The curriculum is quite similar to the mainstream in terms of content whereas most of the work and assessment is project-based within ‘real world problems’. The biggest maintenance problem so far has been forgotten passwords whereas others claim that the trial is not realistic for the rest of the schools in the district as there are only 170 students with the school having a maximum capacity of 500 and spending a large amount of money for such a small number of students is unrealistic.
With the pressure and expectations to succeed so great and the environment and culture of the school as such, it would be safe to say that failure would not be an option for these students. However, it is true that learner motivation and confidence is boosted due to the fact that they were chosen out of 1500 and a lot of people have spent large amounts of money, time and effort to MAKE the school a success.
I have always been a person who admires the value of a portfolio in showcasing any person’s best quality of work but I have also heard how much work it can be to coordinate such a large project for a class of about 30 students in one year. However, the tradition of technological change brings whole new horizons to this process to ease the way for e-portfolios.
Sarah’s blog researches an article on the Impact of e-portfolios and discusses the various ways in which they benefit students as well as teachers. Sarah points out that the difference or e-portfolios being part of a personal online space and the need for it to be linked to learning to make it meaningful and worthwhile. In addition to this, I believe that any work considered for an e-portfolio would engage students and motivate them to take more ownership of a task than compared to say, the paper version of the same thing. Being online provides students with so many paths of creavity to follow and all they have to do is at the click of a mouse!
I foresee that this type of assessment will become of greater and greater importance in the future of my students and I will encourage and support their development to the best of my ability.
Courtesy of FlickrCC: www.flickr.com/photos/66164549@N00/2508246015
Our class has been using LAMS: Learning Activity Management System for sometime now and I am really amazed at what you can achieve with this learning design authoring system. I have never heard of anything like this before built specifically as a learning portal tool that is collaborative and shared literally anywhere you have a computer with internet access without having to carry around a storge device – at school, home, library, internet cafe, etc.
What’s even better is that fellow bloggers Baxter and Katelyn have discussed a very practical example of its use in the teaching and learning environment at Glenorie Primary. I believe that many teachers in schools are not yet incorporating this into their learning experiences as there is still much to understand about the practicalities of incorporating a LAMs task as addressed in their case study.
I believe that students would benefit from a LAMs online task as Baxter and Katelyn have also pointed out through the ability to get in anytime and check the progress of any student in order to ressolve any neccessary issues before they become larger, providing students the opportunity to work at their own pace, the ability to collaborate (also with peers outside school), save paper and consider the environmental impacts of doing the same thing on paper, provide variety to students with different learning styles and the ability to have records of teaching and learning to show to parents (as well as the wider community audience online) hence creating an ownership and encouraging creativity.
I was just watching a fascinating video conference presentation called “Mitra’s Hole in the Wall Project” on Kathy’s blog: Can Children Teach Themselves. This research study was conducted over a period of about 8 years not long ago in India. The experiment situated a computer literally in a hole in the wall among various villages around India and allowed children to explore the technology with no instruction. Mitra suggests that educational technologies are often trialed in good schools with good students and asked the question of why this was the case. His belief was that children would learn by watching as well as doing as “learning is a self-organising system”. He theorised that by 6 months with ONE computer, children would be self taught to be computer literate through interactions of the GROUP. Furthermore, the language barrier (considering that the majority or even all were not taught English) was not an issue as they taught themselves to use the computer by browsing during the initial stages and some often found websites to teach themselves the English alphabet.
Another interesting point to highlight in relation to primary teaching is that he believes that “you cannot replace teachers with a machine” but “a teacher that can be replaced by a machine should”. These comments reflect on his dissatisfaction with the quality of teachers and infrastructure of education within certain parts of the world. I would really recommend this video to all pre-service teachers to watch (although quite lengthy – 20mins) as it will expand your views of teaching and learning pedagogy for the future as it has mine.
As a pre-service teacher I often question my abilities to teach children the necessary skills and knowledge they require. Before I began e-Learning, I considered myself quite computer literate but technologically illiterate as a teacher. Like many other people, I only used the computer to do work, research and send emails but as I have discovered, there is SO much more to offer in terms of technology to support teaching and learning.
Is it okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher? Matthew Kearney’s blog: Reaction to Fisch raises some interesting points in relation to technologically illiterate teachers being symptomatic of a digital revolution but I also believe that it may be just as simple as a fear of change and new things. Teaching is a very personal and dynamic profession and is constantly changing. The simple sociological aspects of education in general reflect the changing nature of society and political structure and policies. Why the sudden emphasis on Australian national literacy some years ago? – The result of a changing composition in Australian identity. Why push literacy and numeracy? – National population employment concerns.
Whatever the agenda here, the characteristics of a “good teacher” these days specify not only an all rounded knowledge of the curriculum but also the ‘how’ (as in the pedagogy) of teaching and learning and on top of this, teachers must keep up with the rapid changes in technology? It all seems too much doesn’t it? But, quite simply, I believe that the key is being able to ADAPT. New technologies are not just new skills and knowledge but support learning and the best way to address any fear of change or new things is to just get into it and EXPLORE, be informed and aware -what a better way to practice what you preach to students! By learning and incorporating appropriate technological literacies into the teaching and learning pedagogy, you will find the ‘how’ part of teaching much more interactive, engaging, collaborative and just simple.
“Students demand interactivity” and SMARTboards should be thought of as visual manipulatives used to aid the teaching and learning process. A key consideration to the process is the teacher and how the teacher uses this technology to its full potential. The best way to learn about it is to try it out and see the effects it can have on teaching and learning in classrooms.
Here I have attached an interactive-whiteboards powerpoint presentation I used to sell Interactive SMARTboards to tertiary institutions (for my class presentation) incorporating education as this technology is going to be a vital tool used in educational initiates for the future. I used the example of how a simple storybook, How the Birds Got Their Colours by Pamela Lofts can be used together with the Interactive SMARTboard to create just the very basic potential lesson with Early Stage 1 students.
The last slide is exactly how it would look on a SMARTboard but students will be able to visually and physically move objects (i.e. birds) around the setting depending on the position (i.e. on the floor, next to a tree, under a branch, above a leaf, etc) in an indigenous literacy and numeracy lesson.
I have just been reading Baxter’s blog about a new term called “visual literacy” by Suzanne Stoke of Troy State University - Visual Teaching and Learning: A Literature Perspective. As a new wave of teaching and learning pedagogy research and philosophy has developed over recent times, the skill of teaching involves not only reading and writing but also students learning about and through using ICTs. The “language of imagery” used in the classroom “results in a greater degree of learning”.
Baxter believes that by using visual enhancements in teaching promotes the development of learners’ visual skills in combination with their development of verbal, reading and mathematical skills. Furthermore, visual elements rely heavily on the teacher and teachers should possess the necessary skills to teach visually.
For example, I have just learnt about a new program called Comic Strip where students can design, develop, create and layout their own English visual literacy that can be used in any number of ways in the classroom to support curriculum content. These are my own views of learning in a metaphorical sense where I believe that a learner is like a sponge and tries to soak up as much knowledge and skills as possible but sometimes there is just too much to take it all in. That is where I believe that technology works its magic to actively engage us in our task.
* Produced in class using Comic Life. Stay tuned…
Learning is not just the regurgitation or reproduction of facts but it is about all the meaningful connections and understandings we make in our minds and it is VERY much a SENSORY EXPERIENCE! Visual literacy is only the beginning!
