Sound files

A sound file can have many educational uses. They increasing the scope of learning and connecting students to sources they would not otherwise have access to.
Music can also be a good tool as it adds an audio cue to topics. This can be particularly useful for history and geography, to evoke a sensory idea with a time or place

It is a connectivist approach that works well with the learning theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, Prensky, Gardner.

online games: club penguin

Club Penguin Make friends and play games in wonderland that is Club Penguin.

Play this free game now!!

Games are a great educational tool. They appeal to:

Gardner's multiple intelligences: they are audio/visual, bodily kinesthetic, logical mathematical and can be either interpersonal or intrapersonal.

Piaget and Vygotsy's use of language and culture are essential elements here, as is Prensky's digital natives: today's children naturally inhabit the world of ICT games.

Bruner's scaffolded learning, where mastery of one step naturally leads to the next level.

Spady's specific outcomes learning, as you can chose or design a game with a specific learning goal.

Connectivist: Different types of game tasks can be drawn together to form a complete end goal, or win.

This particular game is quite good for young children, my 7 year old loves it. It teaches children a number of real life concepts: they can chose a character and inhabit their space; they must do specific "jobs" to earn money to buy goods; they must save what they earn to afford the more expensive items in the catelogues; they must feed and care for their pets, or they run away! ; they can meet their friends in specific meeting places.


The kids get together and discuss at school where they are up to and how to achieve tasks.

inspiration mindmap

Mind mapping is a great way to show ideas and engage different learning styles, as it uses pictures, texts, connections and hyperlinks. However the technology has to be compatible - if not then you may not be able to view it adequately. This happened in our pedagogy presentation, we could not see the mind map clearly enough to engage with it

Slide show Harmony Day

Slide shows are a great learning tool as they are visual cues. They can be used for school projects, or outings to remind the students of what they saw and did, or as inspiration for a class topic. They are very engaging and fun, especially if the students see themselves in the pictures!! As with this show of "Harmony Day", you can use them for school celebrations, which is a great way to enhance the positive aspects of your schools culture, in this case, diversity, inclusion, acceptance and harmony - and of course FUN!
A blog is a great way to use this type of technology as it can be viewed by parents as well teachers and students

movies: teacher rap & Gore interview

Movies are a fantastic learning tool. They can be used as fun and engaging art, inspiration in English or Drama, like the teacher rap, or for more serious research on specific topics, like the Gore interview.

They are particularly good as learning tools in view of Prensky's digital natives, who learn best form technological sources, Gardner's multiple intelligences, as it engages audio/visual, interpersonal and intrapersonal learning styles, Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, because it broadens the scope of interaction between the learner and the number of possible teachers. It is a connectivist tool that draws in sources first hand, that would have been impossible without ICT

Reflections on: Glasser, Vygotskt, Piaget, Hattie and Bruner

William Glasser

Glasser categorises five basic human needs: “survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun”. The most important are; love and belonging, as it is through relationships we are able to satisfy all five requirements.

Glasser classifies Seven Caring Habits that foster good classroom relationships and build an effective learning environment in which the teacher;”…engages [students] in encouraging dialogues, constantly checking for understanding and growth” creating “an intellectual relationship or conversation with the teacher.”

Glasser believes that effective education is about “using and improving knowledge” not its acquisition. To foster this kind of learning in “Glasser schools” there is total open learning, no “closed tests”. Information is freely exchanged between teachers and students.

Open communication is essential for learning. I am not good at maths or physics, and in high school, often gained the best insight from my classmate who was good in these subjects, and an excellent teacher. One of the reasons for my poor ability in these areas was that I lack basic maths knowledge. I did not begin formal education until I was 10 and because of this there are large gaps in my knowledge base, gaps that I have never been able to fill. So while I agree that learning to learn is essential for education today, the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic are also essential scaffolding, and often require repetitive practice.

References:

“An Interview with William Glasser”
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3960/is_200207/ai_n9097918

The Glasser Institute
http://www.wglasser.com/whatisct.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Glasser

Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky saw development as an ongoing process that was in and of the child’s personal, social and cultural environment. Vygotsky saw development as a contrast between what is already known, and what a learner has the potential to know through collaboration with peers and instructors. He called this “The Zone of Proximal Development”

Learning levels should be structured at just above the individual level of the students to a group possible, the level of developmental process rather than the stage of development attained, with the teacher there to facilitate learning.

In the late 1970’s I went to Annandale Public (primary). They had 3 experimental classes that were k-6 inclusive. In these 3 classes there were circular styled desks and any group project would have children from all the different age groups. This was to encourage an exchange of learning between the children. The younger ones where guided, while the older learned to teach as well as learn, with the teacher overseeing the whole. It was effective as a learning environment, and allowed for greater socialisation between the age groups in the playground as well as the class room. The teacher was also able to structure learning on different levels, rather than on pre-set ideas on developmental stages.

With the continual development of ICT the range of collaboration is now so much greater: “…collaboration and peer instruction was once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships can now be formed from distances through cyberspace…”

References:

Elizabeth M. Riddle, Nada Dabbagh, Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory 3/8/99 https://portal.nd.edu.au/http:/ps.nd.edu.au/portal/dt?JSPTabContainer.setSelected=NDmyUnitsTabPanelContainer&last=false

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vygotsky

Jean Piaget

Piaget observed that children and adults thought and reacted differently to stimuli. He developed the idea that knowledge is constructed sequentially from base motor skill, to abstract thought, through the interaction between heredity and environment. He classified these stages as four distinct developmental progressions, the first three of which, are egocentric:

The Sensorimotor Period (birth to 2 years): A child build on base motor reflexes, to grasp “...more sophisticated procedures,” through physical interaction with the immediate environment.

Preoperational Thought (2 to 6/7 years): A child “can consider more than one perspective simultaneously.” Can understand concrete thought, but not abstract.

Concrete Operations (6/7 to 11/12 years): “... can use these representational skills only to view the world from their own perspective.”

Formal Operations (11/12 to adult): “… are capable of thinking logically and abstractly. They can also reason theoretically. Piaget considered this the ultimate stage of development,”

However more recent research show that the brain continues to develop through teenage years, at which time it also begins to gain emotional intelligence. Although these four stages are useful tool in recognising that there is no point in trying to make a learner over reach their developmental capability, it is a limited. Multiple intelligence and Digital Native theories suggests that different types of learning will affect the levels of cognitive maturity in different learners, and could make these cognitive periods less defined, and possibly eventually in need of redefining.

References:

Pam Silverthorn, “Jean Piaget’s Theory of Development”, EDIT 704, Summer 1999
https://portal.nd.edu.au/http:/ps.nd.edu.au/portal/dt?JSPTabContainer.setSelected=NDmyUnitsTabPanelContainer&last=false

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

BBC UK TV: Science and Nature: Human Body and Mind http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/emotions/teenagers/rebellion.shtml

Gardner, H. A Multiplicity of Intelligences: A Tribute to Professor Luigi Vognolo, 1998/2004. https://portal.nd.edu.au/http:/blackboard.nd.edu.au/courses/1/S-ED4236/content/_66601_1/Gardner_MI.pdf

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

John Hattie

According to Hattie, teachers are able to exert a 30% influence on their student’s ability learning (students themselves = 50%). In this light, a teacher’s ability to teach effectively is extremely important for a student’s progressive development. Hattie found expert teachers showed “…16 prototypic attributes of expertise.”

These 16 attributes distilled into “Three dimensions”: Expert teachers set challenges. By setting challenges for my students I can engage them in the learning experience. This allows students to bring their own unique perspective to the challenge, and shows respect for the student’s ability to learn. I would foster an environment of communication so that opportunities and flexibility can be developed as instruments of deeper learning skills, rather than detailed information regurgitation.

Expert teachers continually contextualise their lessons for deep representation. According to Fabio’s research web based mapping techniques facilitate interactions and exchange of student/teacher experiences to make information relevant to the syllabus and the student’s deeper understanding.

Expert teachers focus on problem solving, both in the immediate situation and in the future. Through monitoring outcomes and giving/gaining [feedback] they are able to recognise current and potential areas of difficulty in learning and behaviour, in classes and individuals. As a teacher I need to continually ask what I can do so they achieve the desired educational outcome.

References:

Hattie, J. “Teaches Make a Difference: What is the research evidence?” Australian Council for Education research Annual Conference on: Building Teacher Quality, Distinguishing Expert Teachers from Novices and Experienced Teachers University of Auckland, October 2003.
www.acer.edu.au/workshops/documents/HattieSlides.pdf

Fabio, J. Facilitating Deep Learning in the Adult Online Learner, 2005.
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EDU05072B.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback

Jerome Bruner

Individuals construct meaning through their personal experience. These experiences are physical, linguistic and culturally based, so that the individual’s development moves from primarily egocentric modes “Enactive representation”, to socially interactive ones like simple “Iconic representation” through to the more sophisticated “Symbolic representation”. These stages were “…dominant during each developmental phase, but present and accessible throughout”.

Bruner saw educators primarily as facilitators in the process of learning through personal discovery: “…the student participates in making many of the decisions about what, how, and when something is to be learned…” then classifies the experience into personal meaning through iconic representation and cultural expectation.

Where teaching was exclusively one-on-one, this type of system would work, but in the current school system I do not believe this is practical. Teaching programs that included elements of his approach would be useful, for example; it is important to know the student’s developmental levels before trying to teach them so that you do not go too far above their capability. Making learning relevant to the student may be difficult if the curriculum is set on data memorisation, but this could be compensated for by teaching that it is not the information that is important, but that the process of learning that particular information is, and that the process is measurably successful when the data has been manipulated by the student to fit the school’s requirements. This could be achieved by the teachers and students developing and experiencing different educational tools and scaffolding techniques together.

References:
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/construct.htmlthem
Hollyman, D. Jerome Bruner: A Web Overview, Massey University. http://au.geocities.com/vanunoo/Humannature/bruner.html

Epstein, M. (Tricia Ryan Instructor) “Maureen Epstein’s Online research Portfolio: Constructionism: Bruner,” Fall 2002. http://tiger.towson.edu/users/mepste1/researchpaper.htm

reflection on Rowe

ON: Personal Computing: A Source of Powerful Cognitive Tools Helga A.H. Rowe

Computers are tools that can be tailored to individual requirements. Just like a “pencil”, a computer can be used to communicate ideas, create art, or design and invent. The difference is in the ease, complexity and multi-sensorial way these tasks can be accomplished on a computer.

Computers allow people to free their thought processes from basic functions, like memory storage and retrieval and allow us to move onto the complex tasks of sifting, integrating, analysing available information so that we can develop and inventing new, more complex ideas, strategies and solutions.

An added bonus of this is that those who have less efficient memory storage are not hindered in the development of “metacognitive strategies”: “They enable individuals to engage in higher order thinking that helps them to muster cognitive processes that would normally not be available to them without that cognitive tool (Rowe, 1993).”

reflection on Prensky

ON: DIGITAL NATIVES, DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS

MARC PRENSKY
If children’s brains have indeed changed, old teaching methods are not only boring, but useless.
How to learn what is relevant takes over from what to learn. Analysis, logic and filtering become the learning essentials as information bombards the student from multiple sources. “Legacy content” is as essential to this kind of learning experience as it has been to older methods of teaching. What is required is new ways to experience this type of content, and for this we need to develop teacher understanding and usability of “Future content” learning methods.

This is fundamentally uncomfortable for the “Digital immigrant”, but essential if they are to remain relevant in today’s teaching environment. Knowing how today’s students learn is an essential part of today’s teaching. Being a “Digital Native” may seem chaotic to the “Digital Immigrant”, but adapting is essential if teaching is going to be relevant in today’s society. If games are today’s learning, then teacher’s need to learn to have fun with it.

reflectin on Elliott

ON: CULTURAL CHANGE NEEDED TO EXPLOIT ICT IN SCHOOLS
DR ALISON ELLIOTT, INFORMATION AGE

Old “sage on the stage” models of teacher are no longer relevant to today’s students. They are accustomed to gaining information for themselves, and from many different sources. Teachers are no longer the knowledge source, but rather the knowledge filter. How to sift, verify, and analyse the incredible amount of knowledge at their fingertips, becomes essential for today’s student. Teacher’s need to understand how these sources work so that they can teach students how to verify what is relevant to their subject. This means an entire new learning experience for teachers.

Teacher’s need to be in at the planning and development stages of all ICT implementation, so that they thoroughly know what they are teaching and how to adapt these teaching models as new ICT develops. Set information must give way to fluid learning for both teacher and student.
Like any new learning, there is fear. Teachers need to know that they will be given the time, not only for training, but also for exploring the world of ICT as an ongoing experience. It has to be a regular, integrated part of teacher work scheduling, they cannot just be expected to take a personal interest, or do it all in their own time.