e-learning experiences

Ash made a posting in her blog about some issues raised by Mitchel Resnick in a podcast interview on the value of creative play. Funnily enough, this is the third time I have encountered Resnick in the literature and his metaphor of “computer as paintbrush” seems to be a recurring theme in his work. One of the points Ash made which I absolutely agree with is the fact that engaging in play encourages children to develop confidence and actively participate in society, which are essential skills children should learn. I agree with both Ash and Resnick’s views that technology can enhance childrens’ play, especially since when today’s children reach adulthood they will be living in a world where technology is even more omnipresent than it is now.

Another advantage of playing with technology is that it is also a form of discovery learning for children as they explore technologies in a hands-on and “fun” way, gaining first hand experiences rather than learning how to use technologies by reading a manual. Practical, hands-on play with technology in a safe environment with some guidance or monitoring by a teacher or parent is a great way for children to experience new and exciting things in their play. Incorporating technology into an already useful childhood pasttime can only benefit their futures even more.

Jared makes an interesting point in his blog questioning the safety and suitability of blogging in the classroom. His post What does Microsoft have to say? provided a shocking insight into the realities of children and teenagers who blog. I found this posting really interesting, since I realised that I had not stopped to consider this issue in any depth, instead being caught up in the excitement and challenges of incorporating technology into the classroom. Of course most primary school aged children would lack the presence of mind to eliminate their names, ages, and other personal details from online blogs, discussion boards and the like, so it is the responsibility of teachers and parents to educate children on this new form of “stranger danger”.

This website provides cartoon clips demonstrating internet safety, and is endorsed by the Australian Government for use in primary schools. I actually saw this used in my practicum school last semester, as the school had a heavy emphasis on ICT, and my supervising teacher would play the clips to her 2/3 class while they ate their lunches. I think clips such as these can be used to make students aware of the dangers of revealing personal information over the internet, however I also believe it is the responsibility of teachers to monitor students’ postings if they choose to incorporate this technology into the classroom.

Source: screenshot from video

This video from Kemnal Technology College (scroll to bottom of page) outlines how LAMS has been introduced into lessons and to what effect. Its quite short but the overall impression it gave was that both students and teachers found the software enjoyable and easy to use in the classroom. Soon I will be creating a LAMS task with my partner Maria, so it was good to see this brief example and some positive feedback from staff and students. One particular aspect of LAMS that were highlighted in the video as being beneficial in the classroom was the idea that the whole class was contributing to the task and the teacher was more easily able to evaluate their contributions (for example, on a discussion board) since they were recorded. I think that this aspect of LAMS is excellent since it means that a) students can put more thought into their comments than if they were put on the spot verbally, and b) the teacher can revisit the response to assess it more accurately.

Another point that one of the teachers emphasised several times was that so much could be achieved with LAMS in just a one hour lesson. I think the implications of this for the classroom are huge, since it means that lesson times can be used more constructively than using more traditional methods. Another benefit of LAMS was said to be that it helped to improve students discussion skills, thereby improving learning. If students make use of the LAMS discussion tools such as the discussion board, forum and chat they can work collaboratively in the classroom from their own individual computer, which is also a great help in terms of classroom management.

Wang and Han’s article “Six C’s of motivation” examines an example of the six strategies–choice, challenge, control, collaboration, constructing meaning and consequences–in action. I believe that the six C’s of motivation can be very useful in the classroom, since motivating students can be a difficult task for teachers. I found that three of the strategies stood out for me in relation to using technology to motivate students in the classroom: these were challenge, collaboration and consequences.

Challenge is a strategy that aligns very closely with Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. I think that incorporating technology into lessons can provide students with challenges in many ways, for example using the technology, particularly if a task involves new learning which the teacher must scaffold. I also think the excitement of using technology in the classroom encourages students to tackle challenges in a positive way, since they may feel that they are learning to use technology in a way that is relevant to their everyday life.

Collaboration in particularly relevant to e-learning when we consider the use of discussion boards and forums in the classroom. These tools may be used to foster online collaboration between students by making postings online, sharing information or even working on texts collaboratively in programs such as Google Docs. In terms of consequences, Wang and Han argue that displaying student work increases motivation. There is no more accessible or public forum for students to display their work in than the internet, so publishing student work online whether it be in the form of written texts, podcasts or vodcasts should enable technology in the classroom to provide students with increased motivation.

Source: flickr

Salter’s article “Making use of online discussion groups” (pages 5-10) outlines some advantages and disadvantages of discussion-board type technologies, as well as some strategies for implementing this technology in the classroom. One of the advantages that stood out to me is the idea that online discussions can provoke deeper thinking by giving students more time to reflect and compose their response. In terms of improving writing skills I believe online discussions could be very useful in the classroom, since publishing or posting messages online gives students practice in writing for a wide audience in a variety of ways. Maria makes a similar point about how technology can enhance writing skills in her post on wikis.

Another important point Salter raised was the need for clear instructions, guidelines for use and marking criteria that must be spelt out to students in the beginning. If students do not know how to use discussion boards or are unsure what is expected of them chaos could ensue, so I think establishing what is expected early on is essential if this is to be used in the classroom. One of Salter’s suggestions that I would hesitate to implement, though, is the idea of anonymous posts, since I think this could create tension if criticisms were made anonymously of students’ work, for example.

If I had the opportunity to use discussion boards in my classroom, I would probably do so with an older primary class, ie stage 3. Before doing so I would definitely discuss the idea with my students to make sure everyone was comfortable with the technology and that it was relevant to the curriculum.

From url: http://www.nofanalone.com/blog/archives/2007_03.html

Prensky’s (2005) article ‘Listen to the natives‘ argues the point that it is becoming increasingly difficult for teachers to engage students in the 21st century classroom. I agree with this point, and also agree that using technology and media that students are interested in is a great way to engage them, provided it is done in a relevant and meaningful way that supports the curriculum. However, I think some of his suggestions could be problematic, such as always letting students choose their own groups or partners for assignments, as well as an emphasis on mobile phone technologies in the classroom. I think that computer technology is more accessible and acceptable in the classroom than mobiles, not to mention the fact that not every student in the average Australian classroom has a mobile phone, but I believe most have access to a pc, at least at school.

Overall, I agree that students should be taught how to use new and emerging technologies at school and that this knowledge would benefit them greatly in their futures. However while peer tutoring and student-lead lessons may be used effectively in classrooms, I tend to think this is best done occasionally, and that it is up to the teacher to learn the requisite skills to teach new technologies to his or her class.

Funbrain vodcast

Here is my vodcast evaluation of kid’s website funbrain.com… enjoy!

In his article ‘Computer as paintbrush: technology, play and the creative society’ (Resnick, 2006) Resnick argues that most children’s interactions with computers are passive, but that this needn’t be the case. I agree that instead of just interacting with computer technology, students should use media such as garageband, etc, to create and design projects, giving them a greater understanding of how technology works and how they can manipulate it to different ends.

From google images URL here

Resnick’s article cites several examples of how this has been done, for example a marble machine that uses small computers (Crickets) to manipulate the marble’s path through the maze. The experimentation this child undertook to determine where she should place her crickets, how she could time the crickets movements, etc, involved a lot of creative thinking, and was also something she highly enjoyed. I think that technologies like this that can be integrated into the curriculum are great tools that can foster creative thinking in students, and can perhaps engage them in ways that traditional methods cannot.

Podcasting is something I had never attempted until last week’s e-learning seminar. It was an interesting experience and recording a podcast was much easier to do than I had previously imagined, so much so that I can see this being integrated into the primary classroom in a variety of ways. This extract from Will Richardson’s ‘Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms’ gives examples of some ways podcasts have been used, particularly in the United States. I thought the idea of using podcasting to record lessons was a great idea, since students who missed the lesson could catch up on their own time, or those seeking revision or clarification could review the lesson time and time again. I also thought students using podcasts to record information, practice foreign languages, and even to practice speeches or presentations was a fantastic opportunity for them to really gauge their progress in these areas, and be able to see how they could improve their technique.

Overall, I think podcasting has the potential to be used in an extremely relevant and meaningful way in the classroom across a number of KLAs. I intend to do some more research on podcasting to find more examples of its use in classrooms, and to what effect.

McKenzies’ article, Stuffing technology into the curriculum, argues that technology is being used in the classroom in ways which are redundant and counterproductive. He believes that technology should be used meaningfully as a tool to assist learning, not as a series of exercises that must be done to fulfil departmental criteria. I tend to agree with his view, having seen on practicum last semester a few examples of how ICT (Information and Computer technology) is used in an everyday classroom.

One particular example that was not particularly well integrated was a lesson where students copied and pasted data from the ABS into an excel spreadsheet to create a chart. Of course I think its a great idea that students are taught how to do this! The issue I had with the lesson, though, was that the data the students were using was not related to anything else they were learning about at the time. I think it would have been better if the students could have made a graph relating to their COGS topic of machines, after perhaps collecting some data themselves. This lesson was basically done to tick a box, and I think the students would have found it more useful, relevant and perhaps remembered what they had learnt better if it had been incorporated into their current unit of work.