A Reflective Synopsis of my Learning E-Journal

Assessment 2

As a requirement of becoming a teacher in the 21st century I am attempting to become technologically savvy. As I have embarked on my Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching (GDLT), I am not only learning new approaches in academics but also new uses of technology through my courseware in Information Communications Technologies (ICT’s). I am hoping that not only will this knowledge enhance my teaching skills but hopefully make me a better teacher as I create more relevant and engaging lessons.

As stated in Dimensions of Learning, Dimension 4. “The purpose of acquiring knowledge is to be able to use it meaningfully.” (Marzano & Pickering. 1999. P 189). I feel that this statement not only applies to school but to anyone furthering their education in general. (Not just in a scholastic sense). Taking into consideration the different learning abilities of students, technology based learning no longer disadvantages those with learning difficulties and in conjunction with being aware of different learning styles and personalities a more student centered learning environment will be produced.

Over the past several weeks I have been introduced to blogs, wikis, an-line journals (Mahara) and a multitude of technical applications to enhance many aspects of teaching and learning. Using these technologies will create a more relevant curriculum and prepare our students for their futures. As stated in Futurework (1999. P 3) “The continued evolution of technology affects both existing and future jobs.” This article stresses the importance of using technology in school, as jobs in our future will not even have been created yet.

Students today have more electronic gadgets than any generation before them and this in itself is reason enough to try and keep them engaged during the learning process. It is no wonder Greg Kearsley and Ben Shneiderman (1999. P 1) are implementing their Engagement Theory to promote “a framework for technology-based teaching and learning”. Teaching students using strategies from last century (1970’s, 80’s and 90’s) will lose their interest as there is no relevance in the class delivery.

Many of the students in my university study group have benefited by being a part of a team. Learning becomes so much easier when you communicate freely with your peers and lecturers via on-line courseware (Moodle) and our personal blogs because it has created “successful collaborative teams”. (Kearsley & Shneiderman. 1999. P1). It is in this way that using ICT’s in class succeed. Computers are a fantastic research tool but we can take that one step further, by incorporating what the students already know (LMQ 1) in their use of email and MSN as a communication tool and get them to use the same principles in school. This produces an “authentic setting for learning” (Kearsley & Shneiderman. 1999. P 5) by using the components Relate-Create-Donate, (Kearsley & Shneiderman. 1999. P1) and should improve the learning skills of individual students by giving them a relevant purpose with their work.

Making use of Wikis promotes the students to actively engage in group work in and out of school and is an indispensable tool for remote or incapacitated students to keep up to date with school projects. Being able to incorporate many other technologies into the Wiki, such as you tube clips, images, videos and Vokis provides an engaging tool to participate in class activities with authentic outcomes.

Students creating Blogs provides a tool for communication, encouraging quality work as it has the possibility of being viewed by many. Blogs can be used by teachers so that students may access lessons, for revision, or information for projects outside of school. Encouraging students to use the new software programs (for example: Photo Shop and Corel Draw, etc) to enhance/ embellish their work keeps them more focussed on the task at hand simply because they are using technology. Teaching with ICT’s promotes good rapport between the teacher and the student as we no longer appear “square or nerdy”.

Vokis and Avatars are a whole lot of fun. They are perfect to introduce new topics or electronic bodies of work by novelty factor alone. A tool that teaches unsuspectedly is priceless. The fun factor is a silent encouragement to play with visual concepts and sound. Literacy skills will be enhanced by the unwary student. I have expanded on these technologies in my previous blog entries: http://gdlts0190268.blogspot.com/2010/04/icts-in-education.html

Powerpoint presentations are a very effective way to cater for all learners. When used to their full capacity they can engage auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners. Used in conjunction with an Interactive Whiteboard this becomes a very strong teaching tool. Having had the opportunity to teach in this way recently, I found that the students are engaged and are willing to participate and contribute to the learning experience.

In conclusion the further into my studies I get, the more I realise how important it is to include ICT’s in the curriculum. Providing authentic activities to engage students will provide them with the scaffolding to become life-long learners. Using technology has now become a fact of life and in order for our students to become proficient at it, we, the teacher also need to become proficient.

Blogs I have commented on:

Anne Fletcher

Carolyne Thornton

Jess Havens

References:

Futurework. (1999) Trends and Challenged for work in the 21st century.

Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses EDED20491 ICTs for Learning Design,

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2000/Summer/art04.pdf

Kearsley, G., and Schneiderman, B. (n.d.) Engagement theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning. Retrieved from CQUniversity e-courses EDED20491 ICTs for Learning Design, http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=44470

Marzano. R.J. & Pickering. D.J. (1997) Dimensions of Learning (2nd ed). Alexandria, Virginia USA. McREL.

Another Image

Playing with images

the original:

I have played around with several techniques:

Embedding a You tube clip

I found this funny little clip as I saw the "Minescule" clip just before the ABC news one evening. It has lots of funny little clips and I think that some of them would be really intersting ways to introduce topics in class.

My Introduction Voki for ICT's in Education

ICT's in Education

Reflections on my E- Journey Learning.

I am very much a kinaesthetic learner so trying to successfully set up a Mahara e-journal, a Blog and a Wiki has been a little difficult. To gain support from my partner I decided to create my Wiki about a hobby that we both share, model railroads. We both sat down together and decided what images to add and the things we wish to talk about. This made the experience a little easier on me as it was a shared hesitation about the steps to take and how it works, but after a few hours of self correction and playing around I am starting to familiarise myself with the required steps. The Blog I found a little easier, and despite this being a part of my assessment, I feel that because it is a personal journal I am not being so scrutinised.

My Wiki

I have really enjoyed writing about something that fascinates and interests me, so I can see that this would be a useful tool in education as long as the subject matter held interest for the students. I feel that it would be necessary to encourage the students to write what they feel rather that what they think the teachers want to hear (for assessment purposes). As stated in Costa’s Habits of Mind, number 13, Taking Responsible Risks. “We hope that students will learn how to take intellectual as well as physical risks. Students who are capable of being different, going against the grain of the common, thinking of new ideas and testing them with peers as well as teachers, are more likely to be successful in this age of innovation and uncertainty.”
By Embedding ICT’s into the KLA’s we can only hope that this creates the best possible way to encourage children to learn scholastically and be producing competent users of technology.
I have been discussing my course with family members, who have all been involved with the education system over the last 50 years and all of them are commenting on the difficulty of using ICT’s. This is just reinforcing the need to teach the use of technology in school so that we can give our students the best possible start to their journey into the workforce. This, of course, requires the teachers to continue to learn and modify the use of technologies.
Sharing the “16 Habits of Mind” with them has been fun for me, and illustrating to them how “Remaining Open to Continuous Learning” is a very important step in embracing the speed in which technology is becoming a part of everyday life. (Costa. 1999, P 12)

My Blog

Setting up my Blog was a relatively painless exercise as I found that Google has made navigating the setup very user friendly. I feel at times that I am technologically challenged so keeping an open mind when dealing with the specifics will be necessary. I am still having trouble getting my head around using ICT’s in visual art but thanks to the suggestion of my fellow class mate, Carolyne Thornton, this website is educating me on how to use technology in art. I know that using ICT’s when I teach SOSE will be a valuable tool. Technology is a tool and a tool stills needs a well trained operator for it to function properly. Many of the teachers that did their degrees before ICT’s became a part of the curriculum will need ongoing training, so I think it would be beneficial for the QSA to implement on- going courses in IT for teachers. On the other hand communicating with other teachers via a wiki would be a great way to share recommendations on what works where in using ICT’s in the classroom.

My Mahara

I have saved discussing my Mahara until last because I have found it the biggest challenge. I realise that many hours are needed to navigate my way around the site in order to get it to work successfully for me. I am finding this a challenge in itself as I am torn between wanting to get to know this technology better and completing all the rest of the course ware for the GDLT.

I am still composing my conclusion for this exercise.

My Voki

Get a Voki now!

My Previous Embedded Learning Experience

Back in 2003 I attempted to do my Graduate Bachelor of Education in Primary School. Frankly the "little ones" fightened the pants off me!!!

If I wasn't dealing with a behavioural management problem, then I was wanting to take students home to give them a good feed and a big hug. However, I did manage to take a class to find out a little about my students and give them a little information about me.

It was a project to find out about what they like. I also contributed to the project (you can see my "what I like" images and a drawing of me at the top of the project).

The children primarily worked by themselves on this project but had a great time searching through magazines to find images of the things that they liked. As they had already been together for quite a few weeks before I joined them, it was great to see that they were offering images to one another, because they knew that that person liked the object they had found an image of. I think I learned more about the students watching them do the project, than I did looking at the finished task.

As my next post will be about creating my Wiki and e-journal, I thought I would reflect a little on this experience and focus on how I may have done this utilising the technologies I am using now.

Amazing

I found this clip looking for something educational but decided to go with this one as I am very slow at keeping up with technology. Some of you will need to close your mouths after viewing this!

Learning Styles and Personalities

Differential learning styles and personalities pose issues and challenges for those of us entering the teaching profession. We need to take many things into consideration:

• different levels of literacy
• different schemas
• diverse abilities

• personality clashes

• personal circumstances

This is not a new challenge for teachers, it is now about becoming aware of these issues and how to deal with them. Because of my personal "Habits of Mind" and "Schema", I need to become aware of, and empathetic towards all different types of students. How do I ensure that my class room space will provide a good learning environment?
One would be to use Mazlows Heirarchy of Needs and Dimension 1 (Attitudes and Perceptions) from Dimensions of Learning. Using principles pertaining to having a good "Classroom Climate" (Marzano J. and Pickering J. 1997 pg.15).
The second would be to consider the Auditory, Visual and Kinesthetic modes of teaching. Combining these would create and environment suitable for 90% of the students to learn effectively, but the real challenge will be to engage the 10% of students that don't respond to these pedagogys.
I am also a firm believer in "Good Vibes". I am an "up", positive person and find that a positive attitude becomes infectious. The greater the amount of positive energy in a confined space can soon change the negativity that some individuals may have. If There is a pessimist in a group of optimists they soon change their tune. It can work in the opposite way too!
The nick name my art students has given me is "Mrs Out of Your Comfort Zone". I am constantly challenging their abilities and creating new and interesting tasks for them to complete. Half the time they don't even realise they are learning something new. Keep it fun and keep it "up".
My theory: relevant content + fun + clear instructions = successful outcomes.

"It is the shared responsibility of the teacher and the students to work to maintain positive attitudes and perceptions or, when possible, to change negative attitudes and perceptions." (Marzano & Pickering. 1997. pg. 13)

Some of My Paintings

This is a mural I painted for Coffee World in Mareeba, Far North Queensland.

Contemporary Learning Design

My Own School Experiences
I am going to break down my classes into Teacher – Centric or Student Centred, but first of all I would like to clarify that the school I went to, has a very good curriculum for slow and/or gifted children. The classes had no more than 24 students and performing and visual art was well encouraged and en extensive physical education was an integral part of our school life.
TEACHER CENTRIC or STUDENT CENTRED

Math Main Class: sit at a desk, watch “talk and chalk”, do examples on the board, submit work. Rote.TEACHER CENTRIC

Math Remedial Class: 6 students, self paced work, group discussion; students decide what they need help with.STUDENT CENTRED

English Main Class: reading out loud, copy exercises from board, writing essays in class, submit work. TEACHER CENTRIC

English Remedial Class: 6 to 10 students, self paced work using SRA English workbooks, group discussion, storey writing, students decide what they need help with. STUDENT CENTRED

Science: Yuck and boring!!!! Sit down, shut up, take notes, and dissect this rat!!! TEACHER CENTRIC

History: research topic from text book, discuss it with the class, work in groups, assignments were presented with an illustrated story that we got up in front of the class to discuss.STUDENT CENTRED


Latin: ROTE TEACHER CENTRIC

Geography: much the same as history but involved many excursions to many places including the Rocks area in Sydney, Warrumbungle Ranges in N.S.W., Canberra and several other places around Sydney. STUDENT CENTRED

Visual Art was broken into four categories: Art History, graphic, free form and craft. STUDENT CENTRED

Physical Education: Swimming, netball, softball, tennis, gymnastics, archery, golf, fencing, track and field.STUDENT CENTRED



The school I attended used a system called “The Dalton Plan” Ascham School , where the curriculum included a lot of free study periods in which the students decided what subject and where they would like to study. I feel that this plan made us responsible for our own learning within the guidelines of the school.

I feel that my education adopted many of the strategies from Lynch’s 8 Learning Management Questions. My education in the 1970’s was rather more forward thinking than that of most schools at that time but was still primarily Teacher – Centric. As time went on the school was placing more emphasis on all of the 8 LMQ’s but was still very focused on Academic Achievement.
In my opinion some of the pitfalls with the 8 LMQ”s would be that some children would still get left behind in an academic sense, regarding literacy and numeracy skills and that to an extent ROTE learning has some positives. Spelling Bees and times table were such things that contributed to my literacy and numeracy skills in adult life.
Where and how will the 8 LMQ’s fit into present day curricula? If all students need to arrive at the same point at the end of their schooling and we take into consideration the different levels of academia and schemas, would it necessitate more students to repeat? I am sure that as my studies progress this question will be answered.

Learning Engagement Theory
What learning activities would I design to fulfill this approach?
Constructivism Constructivism (learning theory) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Constructivism is a theory of knowledge (epistemology) [1] which argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from their experiences. Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy, although it is often confused with constructionism, an educational theory developed by Seymour Papert. Piaget's theory of constructivist learning has had wide ranging impact on learning theories and teaching methods in education and is an underlying theme of many education reform movements. Research support for constructivist teaching techniques has been mixed, with some research supporting these techniques and other research contradicting those results. Social constructivism has been criticized for being a kind of behaviorism, which reduces the individual to his social environment.
As I completed my “Indicators of Engaged Learning” quiz, I approached the task with a combination of experiences as a teacher of Visual Art and a student doing my Graduate Bachelor in Learning and Teaching and I don’t find that this test was completely relevant to my chosen field of teaching, Art.
I feel that using technology in researching art is not a key component in using ones’ imagination when creating Visual Art. Technology may be useful as a research tool for art theory of for referencing creative styles and mediums (painting, drawing, print-making etc.), but as a whole “making art” is a very tactile and emotional process and my teaching style gives the students the tangible tools and knowhow to use a variety of mediums to create something that is produced with a great deal of emotion. In saying that, my learning activities include a lot of discussion, demonstration, contemplation and reflection. All the students work individually but are one big group sharing the experience. Some of the activities that I do incorporate tactile exercises like physically playing with paints and painting mediums (with fingers) as it is just as important for my students to know what the products feel like in order to manipulate them on a surface. Excursions are crucial to broaden the Art Vocabulary and experimentation is crucial to allow the students to achieve relaying their emotions and feelings in a 2 or 3 dimensional way.
Learning Art in a technological age brings me to question the specific technology we are referring to. Computers are a great research tool and mobile phones are capable of capturing and sending visual reference, as are cameras but I would also like to point out that there has been fantastic advances in the past ten years in the production of art materials.
Hope fully the overview of the 2 classes I am currently teaching will demonstrate my understanding of the Learning Engagement Theory.
Class 1: Emotional Mark Making
Listen to a selected piece of music.
Discuss with the group the emotions and feeling this evokes in each individual.
Make marks or images on paper to convey your emotions using the materials provided. (There are no rules to what the student can reproduce)
We share our thoughts and feelings discussing the images at the end of the class.
This lesson pushes the student into the Higher Order of Thinking and tells us a little about each individual person.
At all times during my classes I go from person to person asking questions to push their minds out of the “Safe Box” and demonstrating techniques with their materials.
I give them the tools to enable them to express themselves artistically. Art is not only about aesthetics it is about self expression.

LEARNING ACTIVITY SCORE FROM 1 - 10
University
10
Health and Safety Induction Training @ Spotlight
3
Monthly Management Meetings and Training Seminars – Retail
8

Formal learning experiences I have had in the last 2 years:
Categorise each of these learning experiences (between 1 and 10) according to Dale's Cone and the Learning Pyramid (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)




After adding the above table of scores together and dividing by 3 to get my learning experience, I conclude that it is where it should be.
University: incorporates all of the experiences and methods on Dale’s Cone and the Learning Pyramid. It is engaging and interesting and despite the huge amount of work expected (after not studying for several years) it is a lot of fun!!!
Induction: (A one hour lecture and 15min audio tape) sooooooooo boring!!! 1980’s safety video with no relevance to the store I was to work in. Lecture that didn’t take into consideration any previous training that each of the participants may have had. This experience was in the top 3 rungs of the Learning Pyramid and a few of the top section of Dale’s Cone.
Management Meeting: very engaging and pro-active activity!! All of both cone thingies.
Question: How will your students rate the learning experiences you design and develop for them?
My current mature age students rate my L. E. in the higher range so I hope I can achieve this in a high school setting.

My Education in the 1970's

I was lucky enough to attend a very progressive school called "Ascham" in Sydney N.S.W. It was and still is very much based around the skills required for the 21st century. It utilises an educational concept called The Dalton Plan.
It is designed to accomodate the individuals needs. I was not good at english and maths so was given "remedial" tuition in groups of approximatly 6 students and was assessed at the end of a 12 month period. At the end of Fourth Form (year 10) all students sat a state exam from the N.S.W. Board of Education and I was graded in the top 10% of the state for maths and top 20% for english.
I wouldn't have achieved these grades without the extra tuition. http://www.ascham.nsw.edu.au/

My Thoughts on Education Today

I am just going to jot down some of my thoughts on the following topics:
Social Capital
The "Y" generation as it has been labelled, I feel lacks family values. There seems to be a lack of consequences in many situations in today's society. Teachers have had their authority removed and thus are unable to teach effectively due to the trouble makers and a lack of authority. I feel it comes down to a lack of respect from the student. I feel that modern technology is producing anti-social individuals with no active imagination and no communication skills. I find that many of them have delayed cognitive skills and surely the development of their peripheral vision would be delayed.

After reading "Future Work" i feel that the technological age has contributed to this conundrum. With the cost of living rising and the need to acquire these technological gadgets it is necessitiating the need for families to have both parents working to live in what our society deems as comfortably. The flow on from this: fast food
child care
out sourcing domestic duties and skills
less interaction with children
so on and so forth

With the access to all of these new fantastic technologies the world is shrinking. Globalisation is contributing to the need for competition in all aspects of daily life. (goods, services, marketing, micro and macro economics etc) therefor the is great emphasis on getting "Value". As I have worked in hospitality and retail for most of my life I have experienced first hand that the retail companies are training their workers to be the best in customer service as that will give them the edge. All of the training is based around being better that your competitor, having good communication skills, being a team player, pro active, accountable and above all sell sell sell. Mystery shoppers are becoming popular in the retail sector. Customer Service is becoming the all important focus across all industries.

"Flexible organisations reduce waste and increase the productivity of both labour and capital by integrating "thinking" and "doing" at all levels of their operations" (pg. 10. A Primer on the Knowledge Economy)

So in my opinion the technology age requires workers to be all of the above but is producing the most ant-social, self absorbed, rude individuals of any generation yet. (with acceptions)