Too Much Digital (In)Dependence?
Click on the link below for a sad tale of the Digital Generation
‘Missing Canadian X-Box Gamer Found Dead’
November 6, 2008
Reaction To Auroraz – Beginning Digital Story Telling
This is all comes back to the text from Green and Hannan – Their Space:Education For A Digital Generation, which asks that ICT practices developed outside the classroom should be incorporated into the syllabus.
The benefit of Digital Story telling is as you write, that the students have to focus more on structure of the narrative – very hard to just be creative and 40 mins later a story is composed. Digital Story telling requires great consideration and plalling.
Good post Jess, thoroughly enjoyed your ideas and decision to write extensive posts (as I have) as opposed to short blogs.
Scott.
Classroom management video
I found this on Mr Boyton’s page and I thought I would post it on mine.
This is an excellent resourse for developing classroom management with in the teaching pedagogue..
Or at the very least, something to make you laugh.
A Method To The Madness…
Their is a common theme running through my posts.
I have deliberately attempted to focus primarily on how Information and Communication Technology have, and will continue to impact upon the classrooms of today and tomorrow – the classrooms I will be teaching in.
My entries have been quite extensive in places, but the idea of planning for a digital future has given this ’self-confessed digital immigrant’ alot to think about in terms of his teaching pedagogue – hence why I have stuck to a common theme within these entries.
Enjoy.
November 5, 2008
Digital Learning for students with special needs
A consistent theme from all courses within the Bachelor Of Secondary Teaching award that has been constantly emphasised is the need for our classes to be ‘Visual at all costs’. Students learn through visual means most effectively, so we are encouraged to use images, graphic organisers, diagrams and visual footage at every opportunity possible.
One of the ways of unpacking a difficult text with students who have a disability or a learning difficulty is to combine a graphic organiser (such as a mindmap) with a teaching strategy, such as Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), where key points are placed in the graphic organiser, and then other aspects of the text shoot off from the key point.
This got me thinking – ‘how would I incorporate a CSR into ICT practice in the classroom?’ Some students (and it is important we emphasise ’some’, as a number of of students with a disability or learning difficulty find that ICT usage ensures their learning experiences are easier for them) with learning difficulties such as Autism can have difficulty focusing on more then one task, which can render ICT practices difficult when attempting to engage the student in a method such as CSR.
David Jonassen in Computers as Mindtools For Engaging Learning in Critical Thinking discusses how Computer programs can be utilised as ‘Semantic networking tools (which) provide Visual tools for providing concept maps’(3). Jonassen continues by articulating that the purpose of ‘Semantic Networks is to represent the structure of knowledge that that someone (i.e the author of the text being studied) has constructed’. (4)
Visual programs/software such as Bubbl.us are excellent resources in which to link a student’s learning outcomes with ICT technology. By utilising such a program that essentially enables a student to use a graphic organiser program, the teacher is able to incorporate ICT into crucial teaching practices which students with learning difficulties or disabilities. This is crucial in my KLA’s – History, and English, whom aren’t as ICT advanced in terms of syllabus requirements of ICT as the PDHPE syllabus. I established this next point in a previous entry and I feel this is a good opportunity to raise it again.
“Outcome 5.10 of the History Syllabus requires the student to select and use appropriate oral, written and other forms, including ICT, to communicate effectively about the past to different audiences (2003:13) while Stage 5, outcome 3 of the English syllabus asks the students to Selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning (2003:34), (which details further how students should learn about ICT technology).
The problem in my KLA’s is that both syllabus’ do not declare how ICT should be utilised as a means of communication for the student to use. We as teachers need to be resourceful enough to do so – to establish how we can use ICT, and in the case of this article, how we can balance ICT with the learning requirements of a student with special needs. Semantic programs allow for this process to occur.
Resources
David Jonassen
Computers as Mindtools For Engaging Learning in Critical Thinking
School of Information, Science and Learning, University of Missouri
http://www.esev.ipv.pt/3siie/actas/actas/doc01.pdf
Bubbl.us
New South Wales Board Of Studies
April 2003
New South Wales Board of Studies
English Year 7-10 Syllabus
April 2003
Obama-rama and Year 10 History.
Want to listen to this as a podcast? Sure. Click onto
Obama podcast
On a morning where radio, television and internet chatrooms are buzzing with newstories and conversations regarding Barack Obama’s Presidential victory, it is only fitting that I use one of my last blogs to discuss how www.barackobama.com/ and selected web pages were utilised within the campaign, and how this was incorporated into conducting an ICT lesson with Year 10 History.
In one lesson I was asked “Mr Gallen, do you think Barack will beat George W Bush?” This question raised two issues immediately for me to consider : A) That I was going to have to explain why Barack Obama was not campaigning against George W Bush, and B) These students have no idea who Sen. John McCain.
The lesson I decided to run had the following outcome : To gain an understanding how Barack Obama and his team were effective using the internet as part of their campaign, and also the immediacy of the internet as an information tool. The students witnessed the latter take place, when while examining Obama’s campaign web page, new video footage of a speech he had made earlier that day suddenly appeared, along with two policy announcements.
The students, when asked how effectively Obama and his team were using the internet, made the following remarks:
1 – The website actively encouraged enrolments and people could gain immediate online assistance from the Barack Obama IT support team to find options where they could enrol - which proved to be crucial given that this election had “the largest electoral turn out since 1908″ (ABC Radio National News Report, ‘AM’ Bulletin, 6/11/2008)
2 – The Obama team had a advertising strategy that cleverly targeting popular websites, with many ‘Obama/Biden’ Banners appearing on sporting team webpages, chatsites and social networking that younger people frequent. Often these advertising banners encouraged people to enrol to vote, and linked directly the Barack Obama webpage.
3 – The students identified that while the McCain campaign site – www.johnmccain.com/ had a similar service and was updated as regularly with Video and reports, they did not observe the same level of banner advertising on web pages. Among many reasons, the students reasoned that the John McCain team were not utilising the internet as an advertising tool in the same way the Obama team.
In this lesson, the successful outcomes came through the students understanding that history isn’t just ‘about the past’, and that the ICT can enable history to be understood ‘as it happens’, and can learn through the immediacy of news and information delivery that the internet provides.
Response to ‘Their Space: Education For A Digital Generation
A number of the themes covered in the text Their Space: Education For A Digital Generation (Green and Hannan, 2007) regarding adapting ICT into the students learning experience I have been discussing in my own entries.
However, one particular argument raised in the text caught my eye.
The authors state that schools need to orientate “lessons around their out of school practices” (56). The authors support this statement with articulating to enable this, “(schools) need to create spaces for students to reflect on their learning and articulate their thoughts about it, which will enable them to transfer their skills”.
Some may dismiss such a practice as being merely curtailing to a students desire to play more video games, but this is incorrect. The US Army, in response to the ‘digital native’ generation, pioneered creating simulation experiences for their recruits to learn the practices of battle as a productive training method.
Such practices (although obviously devoid of the physical activity) could be interpreted into learning, especially within my key learning area, History. Virtual tours of battle fields, museums, and even simulated war activity, will potentially work effectively as learning tools. The student can travel through time, access stories from the battle front and experience simulations.
The act of experiencing I discovered on my prac enables students to recall the information at hand. Using technology practices the students are familiar with will enhance the classroom learning experience – it combines the game playing aspect of technology with the knowledge they must gain to participate in the subject.
Resource
Green, C and Hannan, C (2007)
Their Space: Education For A Digital Generation.
Demos UK
Response to ‘Computers Are Fun…Okay’ by Dominic Williams
Link to Computers Are Fun..Okay
You’re such a cynic Dominic.
Funny that I have the same opinion. Today’s teens have been afforded the opportunity to become what Marc Prensky has titled ‘Digital Natives’ simply due to the widespread availibility of technological devices, which ten years ago would have cost the equivalent of my kidney in a Middle Eastern blackmarket (I remember someone offered me a DVD player in 1997 for the ’steal price’ of $600…I think I my new DVD player cost me $40 in 2007)
As has been the theme in many of my blogs, the technology is simply utilised as another research tool, until we the teacher find different modes to utilise the new technology, to utilise it as a means of ‘constructivist teaching’, which is one of the outcomes this course is attempting to equip us with. Whether it has been successful or not will no doubt be the common debate, but, we the new teacher are going to be spending a great deal of teaching time educating the visually literate, digitally plugged in student, so we better prepare for this no matter what our current belief is in relation to the material covered in this course (and without labouring the point, if anyone believes that this is course is the only time we the new teacher will be engaged with digital learning, think again)
Further, Dominic argues ‘much of the literature is to quick to presume that enthusiastic participation amounts to constructive motivation’. From my practicum observations, it is not necessarily enthusiasm, but the fact that the student is atuned to utilising the new technology. Why do we scratch a part of the body? we’re itchy and that is what we do. We don’t think to question why. Why does the modern student use a computer to compose? Because they’ve grown up plugged into some form of ICT.
However, the ‘constructive motivation’ arises when the student has the technology taken away from them. Suddenly, presentations that may have been driven by PowerPoint are now ‘hell on earth’ sessions in front of a classroom, when the task is a 5 minute speech using no visuals and having only access to palm cards.
As I argue in relation to my ‘collaborative learning’ blog, technology is the means which students live by. It is we the teacher that will need to mould such learning practice to fulfill the ‘lifeskills’ our syllabus’ require us to try and educate our students upon.
Response to Dr Bruce’s ‘Comment On Time Article’.
(Comment on Bruce Stewart’s blog posting from Drowning Not Surfing)
The other major issue which you start to touch upon Brucey, regarding technology in the classroom, (and we as new teachers are going to be the crop that put the Rudd technology revolution into practice) is most teacher’s havn’t developed their teaching pedagogue to ensure they can keep control of the students pc usage.
In classes of more then 4 children when the teacher is unable to give the individual attention they’d like to, it so easy for students to become off task with their files of photos from the weekend, or any other program loaded onto that computer. This is remarkable different to the practice of “open your books and start working on a new page”, that will change the nature of classroom behaviour maintenance.
When faced with this, I discovered the following methods were successful:
* Design the classroom so the tables are in three rows corresponding with the 2 side walls and back. This way, the teacher can move around the classroom without having to turn their back, and has a better vision of the class.
* Be specific with instructions – “No, leave your laptop lids down”.
* Also, behaviour monitoring will become easy – 12-18 year olds can’t hide their facial expression when they are doing something they enjoy, as opposed to classwork.
We’re not the old dogs who need the new tricks…we can arrive with all the tricks pre-loaded into our own pedagogue.
Collaborative Learning: The future requirement of the syllabus?
‘The renewed emphasis upon collaborative learning is pushing the educational community to develop news forms of interaction and assessment.’
‘The way we work, collaborate and communicate is evolving as boundares become more fluid and globalization increases.’ - 2008 Horizon Report.
Are we fast approaching a time where the traditional form of individual assessment is replaced by the collaboration? Lawyers represent in teams. People go into business ‘with a partner’. These are examples of the modern workplace.
Why wouldn’t a Collaborative Learning task that contributes to the overall markthis be a real possibility for the next round of syllabus? The syllabus emphasise the development of ‘life skills’.
Technology enables the fluid transfer of learning and sharing of ideas and files. The Horizon Report indicates that ‘Collaborative experiences are easy to find today’, due to ongoing flooding of the market of tools which make collaboration and sharing easier.
If we, the next generation of teacher, is to prepare our student for life beyond school, then collaborative ICT learning practices should be encouraged.
Resources
2008 Horizon Report
A Collaboration between New Media Consortium and Educause
