I have split it into named paragraphs and have underlined the links that are important to view.
This reflective synopsis will firstly address the E-learning and the theories, then Wikis and the de Bono hats activity, four tools will be described in detail. A paragraph on TPACK and Bloom's Taxonomy and a short paragraph on working legally online, followed by conclusion.
1) Managing E-learning and the theories.
E- Learning is the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. (Wikipedia, 2012). E-learning just like any other learning is approached by investigating, analysing and applying the teaching, learning theories and knowing the cognitivism model found here. Classification of learning styles by Felder and Solomon is important because to teach someone you need to know how they best learn. And it is proven that technology targets different learning styles. For kinaesthetic learners, tools such as interactive whiteboard can act as a catalyst in enhancing these students' motivation.( Snowman, Dobozy, Scevak, Bryer, Barlett & Biehler, 2009, p. 123). I have done the activity about the learning styles and posted the reflection here. The profiling of the learners should always be the first part undertaken when commencing the teaching. (Marzano & Pickering, 1997). ICT is making it easier for teachers to get to know the students. I have used powerpoints and interactive activities in my previous placements and it has helped me to get to know the students quicker and get their attention, which made me feel like I am heading the right way. Today we are faced with a digital age and the students that will be taught will most likely be digital natives, Prensky has a strong belief that teachers should learn the language of the digital natives, my reflection on Prensky's ideas can be found here. ICT is capable to cater for all sorts of learners. The combination of individual and collaborative work opportunities with ICT are just the few of the possibilities. With ICT students can work individually and then share the ideas with others. As a practising teacher, in one of my placements I have presented a powerpoint with powerful images, where students had to brainstorm words and then try and create the poem. This was successful, as the students seemed motivated to view the pictures and start creating the poems. Social networking enhances the theory of social constructivism where Vygotsky states that social interaction has a large influence on learning. Class discussions, debates and interactive activities are a few of the things that do work and I have seen it work at schools, where students are willing to express their opinion. Blogs, wikis and other tools are making the expression more personal. ( Fasso, 2012). According to Waterhouse (2003), E-learning involves improving teaching and learning using instructional strategies enhanced by technology, especially computer technology. At a very basic level E-learning is using information communication technologies (ICTs) to engage, enhance and extend learning in pedagogically sound, flexible and innovative ways. ( Fasso, 2012). Digital pedagogies should become important in the classrooms and not just be barely integrated, ICT should be a tool which is used consistently and not rarely to achieve the optimum learning result. There are many teachers that don't know enough about the technologies, which they should and it needs to change.The learning theory for the digital age is that of the connectivism. George Siemens believes that the location of the contents, the speed and the means of finding the information is becoming a focus point rather than the actual resources. Technology has made it possible to access the information quickly, accurately and learn anywhere, with Wi-fi's, 3G models, people can access information at the fingertips. The students are finding it appealing because it is quick and easy. No need to carry all the heavy material in the bags, when you can have an i pad that fits so much.
E- Learning is the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. (Wikipedia, 2012). E-learning just like any other learning is approached by investigating, analysing and applying the teaching, learning theories and knowing the cognitivism model found here. Classification of learning styles by Felder and Solomon is important because to teach someone you need to know how they best learn. And it is proven that technology targets different learning styles. For kinaesthetic learners, tools such as interactive whiteboard can act as a catalyst in enhancing these students' motivation.( Snowman, Dobozy, Scevak, Bryer, Barlett & Biehler, 2009, p. 123). I have done the activity about the learning styles and posted the reflection here. The profiling of the learners should always be the first part undertaken when commencing the teaching. (Marzano & Pickering, 1997). ICT is making it easier for teachers to get to know the students. I have used powerpoints and interactive activities in my previous placements and it has helped me to get to know the students quicker and get their attention, which made me feel like I am heading the right way. Today we are faced with a digital age and the students that will be taught will most likely be digital natives, Prensky has a strong belief that teachers should learn the language of the digital natives, my reflection on Prensky's ideas can be found here. ICT is capable to cater for all sorts of learners. The combination of individual and collaborative work opportunities with ICT are just the few of the possibilities. With ICT students can work individually and then share the ideas with others. As a practising teacher, in one of my placements I have presented a powerpoint with powerful images, where students had to brainstorm words and then try and create the poem. This was successful, as the students seemed motivated to view the pictures and start creating the poems. Social networking enhances the theory of social constructivism where Vygotsky states that social interaction has a large influence on learning. Class discussions, debates and interactive activities are a few of the things that do work and I have seen it work at schools, where students are willing to express their opinion. Blogs, wikis and other tools are making the expression more personal. ( Fasso, 2012). According to Waterhouse (2003), E-learning involves improving teaching and learning using instructional strategies enhanced by technology, especially computer technology. At a very basic level E-learning is using information communication technologies (ICTs) to engage, enhance and extend learning in pedagogically sound, flexible and innovative ways. ( Fasso, 2012). Digital pedagogies should become important in the classrooms and not just be barely integrated, ICT should be a tool which is used consistently and not rarely to achieve the optimum learning result. There are many teachers that don't know enough about the technologies, which they should and it needs to change.The learning theory for the digital age is that of the connectivism. George Siemens believes that the location of the contents, the speed and the means of finding the information is becoming a focus point rather than the actual resources. Technology has made it possible to access the information quickly, accurately and learn anywhere, with Wi-fi's, 3G models, people can access information at the fingertips. The students are finding it appealing because it is quick and easy. No need to carry all the heavy material in the bags, when you can have an i pad that fits so much.
2) Mobile phones Wiki Activity and the de Bono hats. My contribution can be found here.
My reflection can be found on the de Bono hats can be found here
My reflection can be found on the de Bono hats can be found here
A wiki is an online space where users and guests can edit, modify, add, remove information. One important thing to know is that one student is able to remove, overwrite or edit the work of another. ( Fasso, 2012). This activity provides 6 perspectives on the mobile phones, this gives a chance for people to develop and respond on the same topic in a constructivist way by responding on different perspectives. It is useful for teaching process and it encourages the students to search and discover new things to say about the topic, instead of repeating what somebody else has said, even if it was the starter idea for that student. This activity really encourages the deeper analysis of the topic. This activity is a part of scaffolding and it provides some hints to the students by allowing the students to view what other students are thinking. (Snowman et al., 2009, p. 47). I would also classify this activity as guided learning for our E-learning course, where Wendy Fasso has encouraged the discussion and has led us to participate in this activity. This systematic presentation of the information and activities allows the students to be guided to the meaningful leaning. ( Snowman et al., 2009, p. 396). This activity was not isolated and it was collaborative, therefore it encouraging social constructivism. It was used to combine the individual talents of all students in order to investigate the problem and the point of view on mobile phones. ( Snowman et al., 2009, p. 413). I could use this activity in the class, where any topic could be named with varied perspectives.
3) Blogs
I have chosen a blog because I have been working quite alot with it and in it for the last few weeks and I got quite familiar with it. So, a blog is a website, maintained by an individual, where regular information, content is added for own or for sharing. I think that blogs are quick and easy to set up and the information can be added quickly and updated also fast. This is a space where the teachers and the students can work together to achieve more in the classroom. In my blog, I have provided more information about the blogs and have used the scaffolding such as PMI and SWOT analysis to further explore the digital tool-blog. By allowing the students to create own blogs, the teachers can learn about the students and explore the intelligences that each student has. Each person in the class is bound to have a completely unique blog, just like we all do in our E-learning class. These blogs could become like diaries and could be used daily if applicable because lets face it one of the critical changes in schools in the twenty-first century is the focus on technology and the way in which students access and use technology. (Hyde, Carpenter & Conway, 2010, p. 30)
The scaffolded information about the blog can be found here, on my blog.
4) Images.
" Literacy" usually means the ability to read and write, but it can also mean the reading of the signs, visual cues, images, gestures. ( Thibault & Walbert, n.d) We are sure living in the visual culture, where magazines are presented with powerful images, that seem to be speaking more than the words. I have chosen to investigate images further because I believe that images make students think critically and create the meaning for themselves, brainstorm the words that could describe the image, use imagination. Find out about the image, the time that it has been taken, created, the reasons, what is the picture trying to say? Reading images is more complicated and it requires analytical thinking. The teacher can engage the students with the image just as effectively as with written text. Provide images that are authentic and relate to students' interests. (Marzano & Pickering, 1997, p. 32).The images can be used to construct the meaning by having a class debate or creating a concept map. Students also will get to experience the content through a variety of senses. ( Marzano & Pickering, 1997, p. 52). Students can present own images and provide the background story to the image, which would be great in English classes, the image can also be used to write poems from brainstormed words. To my wiki, I have added some additional information about the blogs and i have also added A PowerPoint presentation, which I have used at school and it is based on images and creating a poem from the images, this can be found here. Also the extended information on the images can be found on my blog here.
5) Powerpoints.
I have chosen to analyse the PowerPoint further because I find it quite useful for using when presenting the information to the group of people. PowerPoint is regarded as a presentation tool and it used to support oral presentations. More can be found here. Declarative knowledge needs to be presented to the class and i think that PowerPoint is a good tool for that because it will capture the classe's attention through the slides, which could be displayed quite effectively by using appropriate timing, embedding videos, audio and attaching powerful images. A PowerPoint is perfect for aiding the teacher and it can further convey the meaning of the scaffolded information in a visual kind of way. PowerPoints could also help the students to develop complex reasoning process, where the PowerPoint slides could be used to compare, classify and abstract the presented information. ( Marzano & Pickering, 1997, p. 114). But the PowerPoints can also be created by students and creating a PowerPoint will require the students to research the information, put in a chronological order and make the meaning, so that the audience could understand more clearly. The PowerPoint's are used as presentation tools for teachers and they have to be incorporated to a consistent social learning theory, where the teacher demonstrates the material pictorially and graphically and the students reflect and ask additional questions. ( Snowman et al., 2009, p. 383). More information and PowerPoint presentations can be found here.
6) Concept Mapping
A popular method of organising and spatially representing the relationships among a set of ideas is concept mapping. ( Snowman et al., 2009, p. 389). I have chosen concept mapping because i think that it is an effective tool in emphasising the organisation and the meaningfulness. I have used Bubbl.us which can be found here. Bublu.us allows you to create a concept map online and then extract it and save it on your computer, or online. One of the Bubbl.us that I have created for one the courses has broken down the information about numeracy and literacy and described IT in meaningful links, as to what constitutes literacy and what constitutes numeracy. This encourages higher order thinking, where it requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain or arrive at conclusion. Presenting the concept maps and then requiring the students to create some themselves, will engage the students in constructing the meaning. The students need to think and reflect on the concepts. ( Mclnerney & Mclnerney, 2006).
7) TPACK and Bloom's taxonomy.
When working with ICT in the classroom, it is important to know how to do it properly and effectively, TPACK framework, which can be found here is a famework of Shulman and it acknowledges that subject area experts know their content, and teachers of this content have specific pedagogies that they use to support its learning. Technology (ICT) is designed and used for specific purposes and subjects in the classroom, some tools will be better for certain teaching areas. For example English and German subjects will benefit highly with tools such as wikis, powerpoints, voki, where language could be analysed, presented, heard. Technologies such as I pads at schools, make many things possible for students, students can access dictionaries for German, thesaurus. Podcasts could be used to view and listen to poetry. Endless opportunities, but the teacher must know the content in order to present it, that is what TPACK is stating. Bloom's taxonomy states that there are three types of learning: knowledge, affective and psychomotor. The link can be found here. Bloom's taxonomy displays the steps of moving from lower order thinking to higher order thinking. For this to happen, the information which is being presented should be accurate, meaningful and challenging, it should leave room for expansion and room for students to explore, create and add own opinions and content in order to reach the higher order thinking stage. The teacher should not just provide chunks of information, it must be systematic and closely relate to the steps needed in order for learning to take place, Bloom's Taxonomy explains that.
8) Working legally, safely and ethically online:
All the materials used should be referenced properly unless they belong to you. it is important to use attribution, as a teacher it is important to know the guidelines of what material can and can't be submitted online. The teacher should be aware of stranger danger and cyber bullying, things that are quite common today.
9) Conclusion
To some it all up, the blogs, images, PowerPoints and concept maps are all great tools to use in the classroom. The ICT has made it possible to present the content in various ways and make it easily accessible. This E-learning course has taught me alot. Some of the tools I have never heard of and now I feel better because I know all the various ways of how I could present the information using ICT. I can't wait to be able to incorporate all these tools into my teaching practise. The systematic organisation of the activities and tools has been great because I was able to easily follow the content and learn step by step. The significance of technology is imeasurable, it is not a maybe anymore but a must, the world has changed. As a teacher we must learn with the worls and pass it on to the students, we must know the current changes in order to relate, that is the profession. It is not less important than being a doctor, where one must know the new invented medicine because that's what is being prescribed. This E-learning course has opnede some doors for me, I did underestimate the technology before but now I believe that it is a powerful tool of today and the future.
References:
http://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/
Ambrutyte, H. (2012). ICT Tools -Group 1: Wikis, Blog & Website. Retrieved from
http://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/digital-tools-group-1-blogs-wikis.html
Ambrutyte, H. (2012). ICT Tools-Group 2: Images, Podcasts & Digital video. Retrieved from
http://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/ict-tools-group-2-images-podcasts.html
Ambrutyte, H. ( 2012). ICT Tools- Group 3: Powerpoint, Prezi & Glgster. Retrieved from http://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/ict-tools-group-3-powerpoint-prezi-and.html
Ambrutyte, H. ( 2012). ICT Tools- Group 4: Google earth, google maps, online concept maps, google docs & museumbox. Retrieved from
http://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/ict-tools-group-3-powerpoint-preziand.htmhttp://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/ict-tools-group-3-powerpoint-prezi-and.htm
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Ambrutyte, H. ( 2012). ICT Tools- Group 3: Powerpoint, Prezi & Glgster. Retrieved from http://henrika87.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/ict-tools-group-3-powerpoint-prezi-and.html
Ambrutyte, H. ( 2012). ICT Tools- Group 4: Google earth, google maps, online concept maps, google docs & museumbox. Retrieved from
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Retrieved August 12, 2012 from
http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/learning/diversity/teaching/pp/index.html
Fasso, W. ( 2012. May 14). Learning theory and e-learning. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-
http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?name=FAHE11001_2122
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