“Technology has changed the way that people do things, it has changed
the face of the world around us”. As the progression of technology has rapidly
advanced in the last decade, it is evident that it has become one of the most
significant and well used transformations that attract almost everyone,
everyday. Technology has become easily accessible for almost everyone these
days, in fact; it would be rather odd if you didn’t own a piece of technology.
Ultimately, technology is used for a variety of reasons but one major aspect
that will be explored is the pedagogical use of technology provided within the
classroom environment. After reading Prensky’s article (2005), “Engage me or
Enrage me”, it has become evident that students are becoming so tech-savvy that
teachers need to fundamentally provide successful teaching methods with the use
of technology practices to meet their needs. In addition, it is the duty of
teachers to essentially prepare and provide students with beneficial strategies
that will inevitably interest and facilitate the learning. One way to do that could be to incorperate the TPACK strategy to enhance their skills and learning Therefore, from
undertaking Managing E-Learning course, it was proven to be extremely
beneficial as it enhances my newly found understanding of incorporating ICTs
(Information Communication Technology) into the classroom.
In order for this to occur, teachers and learning managers will analyse
an array of different ICT tools to appropriately suit the intended learning
outcomes. Furthermore, this synopsis will delve into new pedagogical
developments from four ICT tools, which aim to include collaborative and
constructive learning, as well as safe practices and encourage the development
of student’s success.
Therefore, this reflective synopsis will potentially link theories based
on the course materials provided by including four useful resources of digital
pedagogies that provide safe, legal and ethical practices.
To enhance the learning of a student it is highly imperative that you
need to successfully engage them through productive pedagogies; collaborative
and constructive learning. "Technology provides essential tools with which to accomplish goals of a social constructvist's classroom" (Author unknown, 2012). One of these includes wiki spaces. There
are so many opportunities that can arise when incorporating collaborative
learning in the classroom. After working with a wiki space in week two of the
weekly engagement materials, i was able to form my own experience with the six
De Bono Hats. The question posed was ‘Should mobile phones be used in the
classroom? After careful consideration, each of us had different perspectives on
the given topic, but with clever constructive scaffolding tool, developed from
the six thinking hats, everything became a little easier. This allowed for High
Order Thinking to occur and essentially, it enabled us to a set structure to
answer the question accordingly. Collaborative learning then became obvious as
we were able to view different opinions and perspectives as well as working
online. One collaborative online practice quiz that I found potentially helpful was from the content being taught in class and then writing in your own perspective. Not only was I able to express my own opinion I was able to read others which opened my mind to alot of different options. (To view online quiz and opinion click on Quiz Practice Four )
Add a little Technology
Working with technology can become that little bit more engaging and
interesting to students as it allows for either independent work or
collaborative learning. From one of the
readings in week one by Prensky, “Engage me or Enrage me” it is evident that by
including the use of ICT’s
within the classroom, the students will become entitled to learn because it
will be of their own way- something that is more familiar to them. In the
article, Prensky states, “Life for today’s kids may be a lot of things-
including stressful- but it’s certainly not unengaging. Except in schools.” It is
our duty, as upcoming teachers to essentially prepare and provide students with
something that interests them. “If we educators don’t start coming up with some
damned good curricula game play for our students- and soon- they’ll all come to
school wearing the T-shirt I saw in New York City: “It’s Not ADD- I’m Just Not
Listening!”” (Prensky, 2005). In addition to this quote, I can heavily agree
with this idea of developing new ideas that successfully capture curiosity.
However, in saying that it is the responsibility of the teacher to include an
array of different learning tools to appropriately suit the learners.
Time to put the icing on top of wikispaces
Throughout the six weeks, we were exposed to other digital technologies
that demonstrated an insightful understanding and facilitation of High Order
and creative thinking. Based on this, wiki spaces were not only the method to
ensure student success, blogs, bubblus, and weebly were other useful resources
that were founded through e-learning. After being involved and engaged in
Blogger myself, I have thoroughly enjoyed it as it was a little more laid back
when posting new blog entries each week. It allowed me to add my own flavour to
the website, as I am pretty creative and like to be in control at most times.
In terms of scaffolding for the teacher, wikis and blogs can almost go hand in
hand as they can easily monitor the work being uploaded. Teachers can ensure
that the students are headed in the right direction. In addition, in saying that
they can be similarly compared in that aspect, another different element is
that blogs are for single authors allowing other bloggers to post comments (To see affordances of a blog- PMI- Blogs ) On
the other hand, wiki spaces are useful for multiple authors which have access
and can edit, and add information all the time. To see more ideas as to why
these learning methodologies are great tools in the classroom, a Plus, Minus
and Interesting (PMI) chart was designed based on my own experimentation and
discoveries. ( To see affordances click on PMI- Wikispaces ).
Bubble,
Bubble, Bubblus!
Another useful tool that was evaluated to support the
learning in classroom was bubblus. Even though it is a very basic layout it is
extremely handy in the classroom for preparing activities. The teacher can
break students up into small groups to design their own concept maps on a given
topic by sharing ideas and then later, as a whole class, collate all the
information collected to form a whole class concept map of everyone’s inputs.
Either way, bubblus allows for collaborative learning by producing and
constructing knowledge together online. (To see affordances Bubbl Us Concept Map ) Online concept
mapping supports learning as it enables the arrangement of information to suit
each individual existing ideas, prior learning and schema.
Wicked
web quests on weebly
Last but not least, is the wicked webpage of weebly. After having to create a weebly account and
web quest for a SOSE assignment on a unit of work there are so many possibilities
to get creative! The thing that is most exciting about this site for a student
is that you can access the site and all the information is at your finger tips.
There are photo/pictures, audios, step-by-step guide of instructions,
completing activities at your own pace and more importantly its all through the
use of ICTs! At the other end of the spectrum, the teacher can scaffold the
learning through a step by step guide, ensure that its highly engaging with
pictures, audios, text, videos, activities, links to information to suit
multiple learning styles of all students. In addition, from
participating in E-Learning I have now been exposed to so many other forms of technologies
that can be easily implemented on a weebly web page. These contain, vokis;
audio purposes, getting creative with photo/pictures thanks to Be Funky Fish
(which also is a safe practice for legal reason which will be later discussed)
as well as setting up podcasts. The possibilities are endless, but by using
these appropriately it will ultimately guarantee success in the classroom
environment. ( To see affordances on weebly- PMI- Weebly and to also see an example of a structure of a unit of work- Weebly webquest- SOSE )
Following
Safe Practices
To assure that the digital technologies are safe, legal and
ethical, the teacher must set up safe practices to reinforce the importance of
working online.
The web is a huge source and can be accessed by everyone
around the world. It’s a little daunting to know that whatever you upload to
the internet can be viewed by many different people. By using safe practices we
can eliminate all the negative things that could occur. By linking this safe
process to the four tools being discussed is that you can easily set each of
these to private settings. This means that it can only be viewed by your or the
people you want to share it with. This stops other people from seeing your
information being produced. From this, you must ensure that all the information
being produced is your own to minimise legal issues.
To copy someone else’s work or claiming it as your own is
known as plagiarism and can lead to a serious offence. In saying this, the
information can be used but must be referenced or make attributions to the
author or distributer. One particular website that ensures that plagiarism or
copy right can be dismissed is Be Funky Fish, which allows to you to use the
pictures/photos posted as long as attributions are made to the
photographer/artist. This will eliminate any legal issues from occurring.
Therefore, when working with material resources online, attribution should be
provided appropriately to any resource.
To conclude, it can be said that technology plays an
important role in everyone’s lives and more importantly at school. The reason
being is due to the fact that it’s familiar, new and forever changing. If
technology is one way to effectively engage and ignite the learner’s interest
then why fight it? USE IT to your advantage! From going into Managing
E-Learning course feeling like a technology native, but now after having
explore new ways of using it into classrooms, I will be sure to implement these
in my own to promote High Order Thinking. Most of the time, when posing a
challenge to students in an engaging way, it is thought to be less work and
less challenging. So by using ICTs to my advantage this will definitely become
purposeful. Not only that but allow the students to teach you, this is another
way of getting students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding in
another concept. Like I said earlier, the possibilities of incorporating technology
into the classroom are endless. So as teachers, learn, explore, use, teach and
prepare our students for success for today and tomorrow.
Author Unknown, (2012). Social
Constructivists Theories. Retrieved online http://viking.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/et-it/social.htm
Prensky, M. (2005). Engage
me or Enrage me- What today’s learners demand. Retrieved online
