Students are becoming "Tech Savvy"

“As our students become increasingly tech-savvy and multiple forms of visual media become the norm in their daily lives, it is only natural that instructional pedagogy would embrace this trend in an endeavour to “speak their language””. Not only should we as upcoming teachers talk the language that these students are, we should embrace and embed these technologies into productive pedagogies. A productive pedagogy for this weeks’ topic would be to integrate multimedia resources within the classroom. “As curriculum designers embrace multimedia and technology wholeheartedly, we considered it important to set the record straight, in the interest of the most effective teaching and learning” (Stansbury, n.d).

After reading ‘The Report of the 21^st Century Literacy Summit’, it is evident that we are coming into a world that transfers our previous knowledge through to new knowledge based on technology. Research has stated that learning through the use of technologies is appropriate and beneficial to students within the classroom. “Adding visuals to verbal (textual and/or auditory) instruction result in significant gains in basic or higher-order learning, if applied appropriately” (Stansbury, n.d). In conjunction with this statement, (Global Imperative) also agrees that by allowing digital learning they can improve in a number of learning styles,

“21st century literacy is the set of abilities and skills where aural, visual and digital literacy overlap. These include the ability to understand the power of images and sounds, to recognize and use that power, to manipulate and trans­form digital media, to distribute them perva­sively.”

Not only does it recognise that there are more than one set of abilities when engaging in this new era, it simultaneously works to connect students to retrieve information they have previously learned. “Sensory input combined with new information at the same time, has positive effects on memory retrieval. It creates linked memories, so that the triggering of any aspect of the experience will bring to consciousness the entire memory”. In addition to this statement, in order for this to work successfully, teachers need to make this information highly engaging for students, to easily cast their minds back to retain the information.

I have recently read Steph Rehbeins blog on incorporating multimedia’s within the classroom, and she made a very interesting and valid point about comic books. I could also agree that comic books can be a highly engaging tool to use to adopt within the literacy element in a classroom. You could scaffold the learning by looking at a number of comic books with the text erased and allow them to view the pictures, than write a text to suitably link with the images in the comic strip. In turn, you could also erase the images and having to read the text and reproduce images that  simply match the text. Further on the track they could essentially create their own comic strip and bring it to life by embedding the technology strand into it. This could ultimately use three different KLA’s- English, Art and Technology.

psssttttt.... sorry for the horrible references, ill come back and edit it all when i have unlimited amounts of time.

Reflection- four

Week Four Activities

Britts Voki

Okay, so in week four now, so close to mid-term break! Yahoo! After this week’s tutorial it is getting a lot easier to follow. By looking at the number of ways that technology can be enhanced within the learning environment to engage the students. Although now, I think I have about a million different user names and passwords that I can’t remember to log onto these sources. In saying that, I believe that these are some really effective digital resources that are highly engaging and creative. I’m not going to lie, but Matt and I were playing around with some of them on the computers at Uni and had an absolute ball. We discovered new ways that we can introduce content in a beneficial way to help students of an array of learning styles. We got creative with the image side of things and went crazy with the audio voice on Voki. We got the Voki to say a lot of stuff, which was rather funny, but because we are keeping it PG rated, we decided to take a more serious turn. We tried a few other methods such as the ‘moba photo’ but had trouble installing the software on the computer and couldn’t resolve the problem.

Useful technology resources

Wiki Spaces

The Good (Positive)	The Bad (Minus)	The ugly? (Interesting)
C Owned by students which means they can add and edit anything they wish too. C Multi-author page for  everyone C Wikis are not chronological which means that you can add, erase information whenever need be. CTeachers are able to see how many times one group member has edited or added information to the site. This can be for assessment purposes.	D When adding or editing new information, if there is more than one person trying to add info at the same time it won’t save any data. D Little confusing at the start of setting up a wiki space especially when adding new people to the page. D If you aren’t sure how to set your wiki to private, it can be viewed by strangers all over the world.	A Instead of having to meet up for collaborative sessions, it can be easily done from home via wiki space. A You can view how many times your group members or students have accessed or edited information to the page.

I personally believe that wiki spaces aren’t as successfully as initially thought out to be. They can become quite time consuming if you have to add information all over again if it was erased. However, I do believe there is an upside towards wiki spaces because it allows for collaborative learning not just together but at home as well.

CLASSROOM TIP: Wiki spaces can be a vital tool when working on group assignments. Teachers can assess the students in terms of cooperating effectively to group work.

CLASSROOM TIP:  Wikis are more suited to a higher age group as it's a little more complex then other digital learning tools.

Oh hey, Productive Pedagogies

Reflection Two:

Okay so after missing the first tutorial of Managing e-Learning I will say how difficult it was to stay focused and on task because I had no real idea of what was going on. However, in saying this, I was able to pull certain parts out of the lesson which I had a bit of background knowledge of- Productive Pedagogies. In addition, I am still not as confident as I would like to be about this topic, but, today’s lesson helped me shape a better understanding. For instance, productive pedagogies are basically made up of four aspects:

®     Complex

®     Connectedness

®     Supportive

®     Cultural knowledge

Complex is part of considered a productive pedagogy as it includes students to think at higher levels. This aspect helps with facilitating a deep knowledge through Blooms Taxonomy which allows for high order thinking. Also planning learning that can be considered problem based to enable the students to think outside the box.

Connectedness is where the information given is relevant or interesting and connects to their background knowledge. It can help the students make links between content and prior experiences in a real life context.

Supported learning can be achieved by facilitating collaborative learning which conversations are important. It should also fundamentally support learning that is owned, controlled or managed by the students. In this case, students can be given options or choice to support their own learning style in order for them to achieve a better outcome. However it is also a necessity that teachers are supportive through their teaching pedagogies to scaffold the learning.

Finally, the last productive pedagogy is cultural knowledge. This is where students should be proud of their own heritage or culture and embrace the different aspects they can bring to the learning environment. In order to achieve this, they must be supported socially and value their cultural knowledge.

That is my understanding of productive pedagogies within the classroom environment.

 Introducing TPACK

Other than that another thing I understood from the tute was the TPACK framework.  So far I am aware that it stands for Technological, Pedagogical and Content knowledge. After reasearching and finding a few different reasons i have developed a better understanding of the framework. Basically from my understanding is that you can combine your content knowledge from one Key Learning Area and effectively combine it with a technology aspect. In addition, you can also combine your content knowledge to teaching (Pedgogical knowledge) the content or specific Key Learning Area. Also using your pegagogical knoweledge to teach technology within the classroom. Anyway, the point is that they all overlap and has opened my eyes to a new framework to incorperate in the classroom.

One thing that was really didn’t work today was the different hats on the wiki space. Every time we wrote something in the space provided and saved it deleted anything that anyone else had previously written in there. The content on the page was engaging and interesting, yet it was the editing stage where it went wrong. This is a fine example of how technology can have a downfall within the classroom! Technology is not always successful, so ensure that you have a back up plan

;-) That is all. Goodbye and Goodnight fellow bloggers.

Learning Styles

Reflection 1:

After finally setting up my blog and looking at the activities involved online, I have come to the conclusion that I hate being introduced with new technology, yet, would prefer working on a computer over writing. Perhaps my learning style is considered more hands on; kinaesthetic learner rather than a visual or auditory learner. Which leads me on to answering the first question of the engagement activity: What is your learning style? What sorts of learning experiences would suit you best with you learning style?

I guess I have already answered this question but to extend it a little more, (which I’m sure you are all so intrigued to know) my preferred learning style is where I learn more effectively when given a task but shown first then do it myself. The information is taken in a lot more as opposed to given instructions and sent away to fend for myself. Therefore, the point I am making is that for me, something that is more visually appealing or require hands on activity appear most effective within a learning environment. In addition to this, I agree that ICT’s should be implemented into classrooms these days to ensure that those learners that find it difficult to learn by listening to teachers talk for a whole hour. In fact, ICT’s engage learning styles of more than just the visual learner; it captures many aspects of different learning styles. For example, by using a smart board or interactive white board within the classroom, you can include pictures, graphs, videos, audio, step by step instructions which can facilitate the needs of all learners by using one teaching method.

After reading Prensky’s article ‘Engage me or Enrage me’, it has become 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).